Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/136

 ‘His doctrines,’ echoes Baxter, ‘were so cloudily formed and expressed that few could understand them, and therefore he had but few true disciples. This obscurity by some was attributed to his not understanding himself, by others to design, because he could speak plainly when he listed’ (Reliq. Baxterianæ, p. 75). Burnet suggests that ‘he hid somewhat that was a necessary key to the rest,’ adding, ‘He set up a form of religion of his own, yet it consisted rather in a withdrawing from all other forms than in any new or particular opinions or forms; from which he and his party were called “Seekers,” and seemed to wait for some new and clearer manifestation’ (Own Time, ed. Airy, i. 285; cf., iv. 71). ‘He ever refused to fix his foot or take up his in any form,’ says his biographer, because ‘the main bulk of professors’ fell short of what he held to be the truth, and bade his children quit all false churches (, pp. 9, 157). Baxter regarded hostility to a settled ministry as one of the two practical principles which could be clearly deduced from his teaching, and Vane confessed himself ‘a back friend to the black coats’ (, p. 75;, Letters and Papers addressed to O. Cromwell, p. 84). The other principle was the principle of universal toleration based on the refusal to the civil magistrate of any authority in spiritual matters. ‘Magistracy,’ wrote Vane, ‘is not to intrude itself into the office and proper concerns of Christ's inward government and rule in the conscience, but it is to content itself with the outward man, and to intermeddle with the concerns thereof in reference to the converse which man ought to have with man, upon the grounds of natural, just, and right in things appertaining to this life’ (Retired Man's Meditations, p. 388).

As to civil government, Vane's creed is set forth with great clearness in ‘The People's Case Stated’ (printed in Trial of Sir H. Vane, 1662, p. 97). ‘Sovereign power comes from God as its proper root, but the restraint or enlargement of it, in its execution over such or such a body, is founded in the common consent of that body.’ ‘All just executive power,’ therefore, arose ‘from the free will and gift of the people,’ who might ‘either keep the power in themselves or give up their subjection into the hands and will of another, if they shall judge that thereby they shall better answer the end of government, to wit, the welfare and safety of the whole.’ Like Algernon Sidney and Locke, he regarded the state as based upon a compact. Both people and king were bound by ‘the fundamental constitution or compact, upon which the government was first built, containing the conditions upon which the king accepted of the royal office, and on which the people granted him the tribute of their obedience and due allegiance.’ If the king failed to observe the compact, the people might resume ‘their original right and freedom.’

Democratic though Vane's doctrine was, his republicanism has been much exaggerated. ‘It is not so much the form of the administration,’ said he, ‘as the thing administered, wherein the good or evil of government doth consist.’ This distinguishes him from writers such as Milton and Harrington, who held a republic the best possible form of government. It helps to explain his attitude in 1648 and 1659, and his assertion that in all the great changes of government he was ‘never a first mover, but always a follower’ (Trial, p. 44).

According to Clarendon, Vane ‘had an unusual aspect which, though it might naturally proceed both from his father and mother, neither of which were beautiful persons, yet made men think there was somewhat in him of extraordinary; and his whole life made good that imagination’ (Rebellion, iii. 34). A portrait of Vane, by William Dobson, which was presented to the British Museum by Thomas Holles, is now in the National Portrait Gallery. A second portrait, by Vandyck, in the possession of Sir H. R. Vane, bart., was No. 655 in the National Portrait Exhibition of 1866. At Raby Castle there are several portraits of him attributed to Lely. An engraved portrait, by Faithorne, is prefixed to the ‘Life of Sir Henry Vane,’ by Sikes (1662, 4to) (, Cat. of Faithorne's Works, p. 64). An engraving from Lely's portrait of Vane is contained in Houbraken's ‘Heads of Illustrious Persons’ (1743–52).

Vane was the author of:  ‘A Brief Answer to a certain Declaration.’ This was an answer to John Winthrop's ‘Defence of an Order of the Court made in the Year 1637 … that none should be allowed to inhabit within the Jurisdiction but such as should be allowed by some Magistrate,’ referring to the Wheelwright controversy in Massachusetts. Winthrop also wrote in response to Vane ‘A Reply to an Answer,’ &c. All three are printed in the ‘Hutchinson Papers’ (i. 79), published by the Prince Society in 1865.  ‘The Retired Man's Meditations, or the Mystery and Power of Godliness … in which the Old Light is restored and New Light justified,’ 1655, 4to. This was answered by Martin Finch in ‘Animadversions on Sir H. Vane's Book entitled “The Retired Man's Meditations,”’ 