impostor Mr. William Lilly" in an express publication.[2]--Is it in a
spirit of mischief that Baxter names THE VANISTS, or disciples of Sir
Henry Vane the younger, as one of the recognised sects of this time?
That great Republican leader, it was known, with all his deep
practical astuteness and the perfect clearness and shrewdness of his
speeches and business-letters, carried in his head a mystic
Metaphysics of his own which he found it hard to express. It was a
something unique, including ideas from the Antinomians, the
Anabaptists, and the Seekers, he had been so much among, with
something also of the Fifth-Monarchy notion, and with the theory of
absolute Voluntaryism in Religion, but all these amalgamated with new
ingredients. Burnet tells us that, though he had taken pains to find
out Vane's meaning in his own books, he could never reach it, and
that, as many others had the same experience, it might be reasonable
to conclude that Vane had purposely kept back the key to his system.
Friends of Vane had told Burnet, however, that "he leaned to Origen's
notion of a universal salvation of all, both of devils and the
damned, and to the doctrine of pre-existence." Even when Cromwell
and Vane had been close friends, calling each other "Fountain" and
"Heron" in their private letters. Vane had been in possession of
such peculiar lights, or of others, beyond Cromwell's apprehension.
"Brother Fountain can guess at his brother's meaning," he had written
to Cromwell in Scotland August 2, 1651, with reference to some
troublesome on-goings in the Council of State during Cromwell's
absence, begging him not to believe ill-natured reports about
"Brother Heron" in connexion with them, and adding, "Be assured he
answers your heart's desire in all things, except he be esteemed even
by you in principles too high to fathom; which one day, I am
persuaded, will not be so thought by you, when, by increasing with
the increasings of God, you shall be brought to that sight and
enjoyment of God in Christ which passes knowledge." If this to
Cromwell, what to others? Three years had passed, and Vane was now in
compulsory retirement. His _Retired Man's Meditations_ had not
yet been published. Such Vanists, therefore, as there were in 1654
must have imbibed their knowledge of them from Sir Henry's
conversation or indirectly. Among these Baxter mentions Peter Sterry,
one of Cromwell's favourite preachers, and afterwards known as a
mystic on his own