Note 116 — Chapter V

I have gathered this account entirely from Delaune’s pamphlets on the subject, which were collected and published in a volume in the year 1704. The controversy had been mixed up with a reference to Calamy’s invitation to private Christians, to consult their pastors in their religious difficulties; and to Nonconformists also to hear both sides; which—by a wide stretch of interpretation—Delaune construed into a public challenge to an answer in print. It had been further complicated with reproaches, because Calamy did not intercede for the sufferer, or visit him in prison. Defoe says, “It was very hard such a man, such a Christian, and such a scholar, and on such an occasion should starve in a dungeon; and the whole body of Dissenters in England, whose cause he died for defending, should not raise him £66 13s. 4d. to save his life.” A modern Baptist historian justly says, “We would not mitigate this crime an atom; but it is right to suggest that Mr. Delaune may have interdicted the payment of the fine.”—Evans’ English Baptists, ii. 337. Delaune, I suspect, was one of those men who, in the judgment of an opposite class, are said to court martyrdom.