(baptized May 26, 1613–June 14, 1662), was the Governor of Massachusetts in 1636. An English colonial administrator and statesman, he served as joint treasurer of the English Navy, elected to Long and Short Parliaments and in 1640 was knighted by King Charles I. Sir Henry Vane is noted for having helped Roger Williams secure the Charter for Rhode Island in 1644, which bore Vane’s signature as one of the commissioners for the plantation.
In April 1663, Roger Williams wrote of Sir Henry Vane:
Under God, the great anchor of our ship is Sir Henry.264
Following Oliver Cromwell’s “Protectorate” government, 1653–59, Charles II took the throne and executed Cromwell’s loyal followers, one of whom was Sir Henry Vane, who wrote:
They that press so earnestly to carry on my trial do little know what the presence of God may be afforded me in it, and issue out of it to the magnifying of Christ in my body, by life or by death. Nor can they, I am sure, imagine how much I desire to be dissolved and be with Christ, which of all things which can befall me I account the best.265
As the present storm we now lie under, the dark clouds that yet hang over the Reformed Churches of Christ, which are coming thicker and faster, so the coming of Jesus Christ in these clouds in order to a speedy and sudden revival of His cause, and spread of His kingdom over the face of the whole earth, is most clear to the eye of faith, even the faith in which I die, whereby the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, Amen! Even so come, Lord Jesus!266
Baxter, Richard (November 12, 1615–December 8, 1691), was an English nonconformist chaplain and scholar. In his work, Poetical Fragments—Love Breathing Thanks and Praise, 1681, Richard Baxter wrote:
I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men.267