.111IMMM 486 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. Ile might, indeed, be sentenced to the pillory, as one per- secuted for righteousness sake. This was no uncommon thing in those days. And that his majesty might reverse the cruel sentence, being founded neither in justice nor sound policy, is not for a moment disputed. But to prove that Mr. Sedgwick was guilty of simony, sacrilege, and adultery, as here alleged, requires better, evidence than our author has produced. The heavy charge wholly rests on the testimony of " Mercurius Aulicus," a scurrilous and abusive weekly paper, published during the civil wars, and designed, by malice and falsehood, to blacken the memory of all who espoused the cause of the parliament. But our author adds concerningMr. Sedgwick, that " after all his actings to carry on the blessed cause, he very unroll- - lingly gave up the ghost," in the month of October, 1643, aged forty-two years. His remains were interred in the chancel of St. Aiphage church, when Mr. Thomas Case preached his funeral sermon, of which Wood, upon the above authority, gives the following account : " John Sedgwick (one of the three brothers with four fingers on a hand) bath spent his lungs, and caused Mr. Thomas Case to exercise his which he did very mournfully inhis funeral sermon lately preached, felling the audience, that his departed brother was now free from plunder; and that when he was ready to expire, he would often ask, How does the army ? How does his excellency ? (meaning the Earl of Essex ;) with many such sweet expressions, as moved a certain citizen to send Mr. Case a fair new gown, lest he chance to recur to his oldway of borrowing.". Thedesign of this representation is obvious to every reader. His Wonxs.-1. Fury fired, or, Crueltie scourged, a Sermon on Amos i. 12., 1625.-2. The Bearing and Burden of the Spirit, in two Sermons on Frov. xviii. 14., 1639.-3. TheEye of Faith open to God, 1640.-4. The Wonder-working God ; or, the Lord doing Wonders, 1641.-5. England's Troubles, 1641.-6. Antinomianisme Anat.. mized ; or, a Glass for the Lawless, who denie the Moral Law unto Christians under the Gospel, 1643. RI C IIA RD SEDGWICK.-This eminent minister was born at East Dereharn in Norfolk, in the year 1574, and educated in Peter-house, Cambridge. It does not appear whether he was any relation to Mr. John Sedgwick, a memoir of Wood's Athena, vol. ii. p. 16, 17.
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