CHAPTER III.
Two ideas of Church reform evolved themselves: one already indicated,—that of separating from simple primitive Episcopacy all prelatical assumptions,—and another, which amounted to a decided revolution in the Church, including the extinction of Episcopacy altogether. While the former rose out of reverence for the Reformation under Elizabeth, combined with disgust at the history of prelatical rule,—the latter had a deeper and wider cause.
When Episcopacy strove to maintain itself in England, after the shock given to ecclesiastical power in the days of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., Presbyterianism made good its position at Geneva under Calvin, and at Edinburgh under Knox. The connexion between the two cities and the two Reformers, and between them both and our own country, everybody knows. The exiles who had found a home, not only on the shores of the beautiful Lake Leman, but also on the scarcely less beautiful banks of the Lake of Zurich, brought with them, when they returned home after the Marian persecution, strong Presbyterian predilections. Calvin, also, exercised a direct influence on some of the English Reformers; and the system of John Knox, in such close neighbourhood as the north of the Tweed, could not fail to affect those who were studying the question, "what ought to be the Church of the future?"
1567.
Indications of Presbyterian sentiments in the England of Elizabeth are very numerous.[124] They wrought within the Episcopal establishment without producing a severance. Cartwright was a Presbyterian. He contended for the abolition of archbishops, and archdeacons, and would retain only bishops or presbyters to preach the word and pray, and deacons to take care of the poor. Every Church, by which he meant a "certain flock," was to be governed by its own ministers and presbyters, and these were not to be created by civil authority, but chosen by popular election. The directory of government, found in the study of that eminent Puritan after his death, said to be composed by Travers, is in perfect harmony with this Presbyterian scheme. Certain clerical meetings, under the auspices of Cartwright and Travers, took a decided synodical shape.[125] This element continued in the Church under the Stuarts, notwithstanding the efforts of bishops to extinguish it.[126]
Presbyterianism.
Certain Puritans of a Presbyterian turn, formally separated themselves from the Establishment so early as 1567, and met together for Nonconformist worship in Plumber's Hall.[127] An organized Presbytery appears at Wandsworth in 1572,—in the Channel Islands, where the Government of England could not reach it, the system was fully established in 1577; and Presbyterian classes may be traced in Cheshire and Lancashire, Warwick and Northampton, during the last few years of the Tudor dynasty. Organized Presbyterianism is seen but faintly in the early part of the seventeenth century, but Presbyterianism, as a sentiment within the Established Church, is distinctly visible. Nonconformity of another kind was also on the increase at this period. Churches of the Independent and Baptist order may be discovered in Tudor times, but they became more apparent and numerous in the days of the Stuarts. Their rise and progress will be afterwards described.
1640.
How Puritanism glided into a state of separation, and the nonconformist in the Church became a dissenter outside its pale, is curiously illustrated in the Records of the Church assembling in Broadmead, Bristol. In those records is a story of a certain zealous lady of that city named Kelly.[128] "She kept a grocer's shop in High Street, between the Builders' Inn and the High Cross," and that she might bear a testimony against superstitious observances, "she would keep open her shop on Christmas Day, and sit sewing in the face of the sun, and in the sight of all men." Afterwards, when she heard a clergyman she did not like at the parish church, "away she went forth before them all, and said she would hear no more, and never did." Puritan emigrants to New England embarked at Bristol, and would abide with Mrs. Hazzard "if they waited for a wind." Women actually sought to be confined in the parish of a Puritan clergyman, to avoid the ceremonies of "churching and crossing." "The consciences of the good people began to be very weary." Then "it pleased the Lord to stir up some few of the professors of this city to lead the way out of Babylon." "Five persons began to go further, and scrupled to hear common prayer, even four men and one woman." So that in the year 1640, those five persons met together at Mrs. Hazzard's house, "at the upper end of Broad Street, in Bristol, and came to a holy resolution to separate from the worship of the world and times they lived in, and that they would go no more to it."[129] In this case, we see how dissatisfaction with the Established Church gradually led to positive separation, and how extremely feeble, in some instances, was the commencement of organized dissent. But the spirit working in the way just indicated, slowly, and without much notice, came suddenly and boldly on the surface, soon after the Long Parliament had opened.
Presbyterianism.
Though the incumbents of the metropolis were almost all High Churchmen, there were many Puritan lecturers in the city with strong Presbyterian sympathies, supported by wealthy citizens, and in high repute with the multitude. Amongst them, Dr. Cornelius Burgess is a very noticeable man—already mentioned as the fast-day preacher—who, in connection with a lectureship at St. Paul's, held other Church preferment. To him and his brother lecturers may be ascribed the inspiration of much intense public feeling against prelatical assumptions, and against Episcopacy itself,[130] out of which arose an extraordinary memorial, which has attained no small notoriety under the name of the Root and Branch petition.
This petition complained that the offices and jurisdictions of archbishops were the same as in the papal community, "little change thereof being made, except only the head from whence it was derived;" that there was great conformity of the English Church to the Church of Rome in vestures, postures, ceremonies, and administrations; that the liturgy, for the most part, is framed out of the Romish Breviary, Ritual, and the Mass Book; and that the forms of ordination and consecration were drawn from the Romish pontifical.[131] Whoever prepared this document, it was soon submitted to Mr. Bagshawe, of the Inner Temple, member for Southwark, who had obtained great popularity by his lectures against the temporalities of bishops—lectures which brought on him the displeasure of Laud. But Bagshawe, though zealous for the reform of Episcopacy, did not desire to see it abolished. He therefore declined to take charge of the petition, when Mr. John White, his fellow-burgess for Southwark—afterwards the famous chairman of the committee for scandalous ministers—arranged its delivery to the Commons, not however by his own hands, but through Alderman Pennington, a citizen well known for his extreme dislike to the Episcopal Bench.[132]
1633.
A still more effective agency on the Presbyterian side appeared in London at the same time.
Presbyterianism.
Scotland had silently fostered the Presbyterianism of England for many years. Head quarters for that polity had been there established. In the neighbourhood of the Highlands, synods found even a kindlier soil and a more congenial climate than under the shadow of the Alps. True to its old French sympathies, Scotland did not follow the example of reformation set in England or in Germany; it eschewed Saxon examples, and adopted that form of Protestantism which had been embraced by such of the Gallic nation as had seceded from Rome, and which bore the impress of the piety and genius of one of the most illustrious sons of France. Edinburgh, during the ministry of Knox, saw as complete a work accomplished as Geneva had witnessed during the ministry of Calvin. Episcopacy was thoroughly rooted out, and the attempts under Charles I. to replant it only exasperated the husbandmen of the vineyard, and made them love the more what they counted "trees of the Lord's right hand planting." Presbyterianism became doubly dear to Scotchmen when the grandson of Mary sought to destroy that, which, in the days of his grandmother, their forefathers had cultivated with toil and tears. To make the matter worse, when Charles went to Scotland in 1633, and took with him Laud, then Bishop of London, everything seemed to be done which was likely to arouse Scotch prejudices against episcopal order and the English liturgy. Instead of reducing the Anglican ceremonies to as simple a form as possible, the most elaborate pomp of worship appeared in Holyrood Chapel. The Dreadnought, a good ship, well victualled, "appointed to guard the narrow seas," was engaged to transport from Tilbury Hope to the Firth of Forth, twenty-six musical gentlemen of the Royal Chapel at Whitehall, with their goods and paraphernalia to perform the cathedral service, so as to impress the Presbyterians of Edinburgh.[133] A more thorough mistake could not have been made in a city where even the sight of a surplice and the reading of the common prayer, a few years afterwards, occasioned the world-known episode of "Jenny Geddes and her wonderful Folding Stool."
The attempt to impose Episcopacy and its associations on Presbyterian Scotland provoked a Covenant war, and roused a determination in the hearts of her sons to carry Presbyterianism over the border, and to make the two countries one pure Kirk. How the strong Presbyterianism on the other side the Tweed re-inforced what was comparatively weak at first on this side the border,—how the Scotch made the system amongst Englishmen what it became,—how, like a loadstone, it attracted and brought together the scattered particles of Presbyterian sentiments throughout England,—how the Church of the North greatly augmented the mass of Puritanism in the South, and welded it for a while into form somewhat like its own, will appear as this narrative proceeds.
Meanwhile some passing notice must be taken of the enthusiasm of the Scotch army in support of Presbyterianism, and it cannot better be done than in the words of a worthy minister who visited the camp, and whose naïve and graphic notes on other subjects, we shall have frequent occasion to use.
1639.
"It would have done you good," the writer says, "to have cast your eyes athwart our brave and rich hill as oft as I did, with great contentment and joy; for I (quoth the wren) was there among the rest, being chosen preacher by the gentlemen of our Shyre, who came late with my Lord of Eglintoun. I furnished to half-a-dozen of good fellows muskets and picks, and to my boy a broadsword. I carried myself, as the fashion was, a sword, and a couple of Dutch pistols at my saddle; but I promise, for the offence of no man, except a robber in the way; for it was our part alone to pray and preach for the encouragement of our countrymen, which I did to my power most cheerfully." The troops were commanded by noblemen; the captains, for the most part, were landed proprietors; and the lieutenants, experienced soldiers, who had been employed in the wars of Gustavus Adolphus. The colours flying at the entrance of each captain's tent bore the Scottish arms, with the motto, 'For Christ's Crown and Covenant,' in golden letters. There were some companies of Highlanders, "souple fellows, with their playds, targes, and dorlachs." But the soldiers were mostly stout young ploughmen, who increased in courage and experience daily; "the sight of the nobles and their beloved pastors daily raised their hearts; the good sermons and prayers, morning and evening, under the roof of heaven, to which their drums did call them for bells; the remonstrances very frequent of the goodness of their cause; of their conduct hitherto, by a hand clearly divine; also Leslie's skill and fortune made them all so resolute for battle as could be wished. We were feared that emulation among our nobles might have done harm, when they should be met in the fields, but such was the wisdom and authority of that old, little, crooked soldier, that all, with one incredible submission, from the beginning to the end, gave over themselves to be guided by him, as if he had been great Solyman. Certainly the obedience of our nobles to that man's advices was as great as their forbears wont to be to their King's commands." He further adds: "Had you lent your ear in the morning, or especially at even, and heard in the tents the sound of some singing psalms, some praying, and some reading scripture, ye would have been refreshed. For myself, I never found my mind in better temper than it was all that time frae I came from home, till my head was again homeward; for I was as a man who had taken my leave from the world, and was resolved to die in that service without return."[134]
Presbyterianism.
The writer of this description was Robert Baillie, and he, in company with two other distinguished clergymen, Alexander Henderson and Robert Blair, visited London just as the "Root and Branch" petition was being prepared. They came with a commission from Scotland, under the broad seal of the Northern Parliament, to settle the quarrel which had led to the encampment of the covenant army—a quarrel in which the Puritans and the Long Parliament took part with the Scotch against the King and his Bishops. Three noblemen, three barons and three burgesses were commissioned for the same purpose. With the treaty of peace there was to be the payment of the Scotch troops by the English nation. The clerical commissioners hoped that there would follow the inauguration of goodly presbyteries throughout the fair land of the South, an object which was dearer to them than any political alliance, or than any amount of money.
1640, November.
On Monday morning, November 16th, long before dawn, after spending their Sabbath in the little town of Ware, the three clergymen started for London. They had travelled from Edinburgh on horseback, surprised at the inns, seeming to them "like palaces," which they thought accounted for exorbitant charges for coarse meals. In the dark they trotted forth from Ware, all well, "horse and men, with divers merchants, and their servants on little nags," the road "extremely foul and deep;" and by sunrise that cold morning,—as the light woke up the slumbering city, as the smoke rose through the quaint chimneys from ten thousand hearths,—the three presbyters entered the metropolis.[135] They lodged in the city close to London Stone,[136] in a house which was wont to be inhabited by the Lord Mayor, or by one of the Sheriffs. St. Antholin's (or St. Anthony's) Church, connected with the mansion by a gallery, became their place of worship. There they soon had throngs as great as at their own communions, and daily the crowds increased to hear Mr. Henderson, so that "from the first appearance of day to the shutting in the light, the church was never empty." The lodgings by London Stone became the scene of many an earnest conference, and there Baillie wrote the letters and journals which afford us such an insight into public proceedings and religious life in London during that eventful winter.
The Scotch Commissioners soon saw the famous petition, from "the town of London, and a world of men, for the abolition of bishops and deans and all their appurtenances," and were consulted about the time of its presentation.[137] They seem to have recommended delay, till Parliament should pull down "Canterbury and some prime bishops;" and Convocation should be visited with a præmunire for its illegal canons; and preachers have further opportunity of preparing the people to root out Episcopacy. "Huge things," Baillie told his friends, were working in England. God's mighty hand was raising a joyful harvest from long sown tears, but the fruit was scarcely ripe.
Presbyterianism.
The tide of excitement could not be stayed. The London petitioners had not more desire, but they had less patience than the prudent ministers. On the 11th of December, as Baillie tells us, the honest citizens, in their best apparel and in a very modest way, went to the House of Commons, and sent in two aldermen with the document, bearing 15,000 signatures. It was well received. They who brought it were desired to go in peace, and Alderman Pennington laid the huge scroll upon the table.
1641, January.
Another petition, prepared at the same time,[138] came under Baillie's notice, who speaks of it as drawn up by the well-affected clergy for the overthrow of the bishops, and posted through the land for signatures, and as likely to be returned in a fortnight, with "a large remonstrance." "At that time," he exultingly adds, "the root of Episcopacy will be assaulted with the strongest blast it ever felt in England. Let your hearty prayers be joined with mine, and of many millions, that the breath of the Lord's nostrils may join with the endeavours of weak men to blow up that old gourd[139] wicked oak." Whether the Presbyterian Commissioner had been misinformed respecting the Petition and Remonstrance, or whether the paper had undergone alterations after its first issue, this is certain, that when presented to the House on the 23rd January, it differed materially from that of "the Root and Branch," inasmuch as it prayed not for the subversion, but only for the reform of Episcopacy. It contained the names of seven hundred beneficed clergymen. Other petitions had been brought to the House. On the 12th of January several arrived, and that from Kent may be taken as a sample, in which the government of the Church of England by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons, was deplored as dangerous to the Commonwealth, and it was earnestly prayed that this hierarchial power might be totally abrogated, if the wisdom of the House should find it could not be maintained by God's word, and to His glory.[140]
Petitions afterwards flowed in on the other side from Wales, Lancashire, Staffordshire, and other counties.[141] High Churchmen talked about the way in which the Puritans and Presbyterians got up these documents. The signatures were fictitious. People were cajoled into writing their names—intended for one purpose, they were perverted for another. Such things might not be altogether without truth. But we are safe in believing, if tricks were played by one party they were played by the other also; and as at present, so then, whatever was done by either faction came in for an unmerciful, and often unrighteous, share of criticism from exasperated opponents.[142]
Petitions.
While petitioners were busy, and the House of Commons had enough to do to hear their grievances, and debates were earnest, and two potent principles were embodied in the strife, the King watched it all with alarm for Episcopacy rather than with any apprehensions for his own personal safety. For his subjects were loyal and dutiful, and, according to Baillie, "feared his frown." He summoned both Houses of Parliament to Whitehall, on the 25th January, 1641, and, after professing willingness to concur in the reformation of the Church, added the following characteristic sentences: "I will show you some rubs, and must needs take notice of some very strange (I know not what term to give them) petitions given in the names of divers counties, against the present established Government, and of the great threatenings against the bishops, that they will make them to be but cyphers, or, at least, their voices to be taken away. Now I must tell you, that I make a great difference between reformation and alteration of Government, though I am for the former, I cannot give way to the latter. If some of them have overstretched their power, I shall not be unwilling these things should be redressed and reformed—nay, further, if upon serious debate you shall show me that bishops have some temporal authority inconvenient to the State, I shall not be unwilling to desire them to lay it down. But this must not be understood, that I shall in any way consent that their voices in Parliament should be taken away; for in all the times of my predecessors since the Conquest, and before, they have enjoyed it, and I am bound to maintain them in it as one of the fundamental constitutions of this kingdom."[143]
1641, February.
After petitions from the people, consultations with the Scotch, cautions from the Crown, and preparatory proceedings in the House, the grand debate came on respecting the "Root and Branch" Petition. The debate lasted throughout the 8th and 9th of February, 1641. In the course of it, the mercurial royalist, Lord Digby, observed, he had reason to believe that some aimed at a total extirpation of Episcopacy, yet, whilst opposing such extreme views, he was for clipping the wings of the prelates; and, though condemning the Petition, he thought no people had ever been more provoked than England of late years, by the insolence and exorbitance of the bishops. "For my part," declared he, "I profess I am inflamed with the sense of them, so that I find myself ready to cry out with the loudest of the 15,000, "down with them, down with them, even to the ground!" Let us not, however," he added, "destroy bishops, but make bishops such as they were in primitive times." The independent Nathaniel Fiennes opposed Episcopal rule, maintaining that until the Church Government of the country could "be framed of another twist," and more assimilated to that of the commonwealth, the ecclesiastical would be no good neighbour to the civil: for as with children afflicted with the rickets, all nourishment goes to the upper parts, so in the rickety condition of the Church, while the hierarchy became monstrously enlarged, the lower clergy pined away. Bishoprics, deaneries, and chapels, he compared to wasters in a wood. The official Sir Benjamin Rudyard condemned bishops unsparingly, yet advocated episcopal superintendence: and afterwards the learned Mr. Bagshawe pedantically distinguished between Episcopacy primitive in statu puro, and Episcopacy in statu corrupto, pleading, at the same time, for a thorough reformation of abuses, and an alteration of Ecclesiastical government into a Presbyterian form. Sir Harbottle Grimstone also asked for a diminution of prelatical power.
Petitions.
The speakers who carried the greatest weight in this debate were Pym and Falkland. We have only a faint echo of the words delivered by the former. They were to the effect that he thought it was not the intention of the House to abolish either Episcopacy or the Book of Common Prayer, but rather to reform both, so far as they gave offence; and if that improvement could be effected with the concurrence of the King, Parliament would accomplish a very acceptable work, such as had never been done since the Reformation.[144] Falkland's speech is fully reported. Very severe upon the conduct of the bishops generally, he made exceptions, and expressed himself content to take away what he said begot the mischief, such as judging wills and marriages, and having votes in Parliament. He denied the divine right, but would allow the human expediency of Episcopal rank. His opinion was, "that we should not root up this ancient tree, as dead as it appears, till we have tried whether by this, or the like lopping of the branches, the sap which was unable to feed the whole may not serve to make what is left both grow and flourish. And, certainly, if we may at once take away both the inconveniences of bishops and the inconveniences of no bishops, this course can only be opposed by those who love mutation for mutation's sake."
1641, Feb.
The only person who boldly defended Episcopacy, and spoke in an Anglican tone, was Mr. Pleydell, member for Wootton Bassett. "Sir," said he, addressing Mr. Speaker, "there is as much beyond truth as on this side it, and would we steer a right course we must be sure to keep the channel, lest we fall from one extreme to another, from the dotage of superstition to the frenzy of profaneness, from bowing to idols to worship the calves of our own imagination." This honest gentleman lamented libellous pamphlets, Puritan sermons, irreverence in churches, and the like; called himself a dutiful son of his distressed mother, the Church of England; pleaded for referring matters of doctrine to learned divines; and declared that to venture on any alteration was to run a risk, the consequences of which no man could foresee.[145]
Petitions.
A scene unnoticed by our historians, but brought to light by the careful examination of Sir Symonds D'Ewes' journal, occurred during the debate.[146] Alderman Pennington, Member for London, vindicated the character of the anti-Episcopal petitioners, and maintained that in obtaining signatures there "was no course used to rake up hands, for if that had been done, 15,000 might have mounted to fifteen times 15,000." Then Sir John Strangways, Member for Weymouth, offered a few words in favour of Episcopacy, observing that "if we made parity in the Church, we must at last come to a parity in the Commonwealth, and that the bishops were one of the three estates of the kingdom, and had a voice in Parliament." Upon this Cromwell rose, and declared that "he knew no reason of those suppositions and inferences which the gentleman had made that last spoke." At this point some interruption occurred, and divers members "called him to the bar." After which Pym and Holles referred to the orders of the House, that if a gentleman said anything objectionable, he might explain himself in his place. D'Ewes followed this up by saying, "to call a member to the bar is the highest and most supreme censure we can exercise within these walls, for it is rending away a part from our body, because if once a member amongst us is placed at yonder bar, he ceaseth to be a member." He then moved, that if this offence of calling to the bar should be repeated, the offender should be well fined. Cromwell, who thus appears to have already become obnoxious to the Church party, must have still more annoyed his interrupter, when he proceeded to observe, "He did not understand why the gentleman that last spake (before the interruption) should make an inference of parity from the Church to the Commonwealth, nor that there was any necessity of the great revenues of bishops. He was more convinced, touching the irregularity of bishops, than even before; because, like the Roman hierarchy, they would not endure to have their condition come to a trial."[147] This debate resulted in the petition being referred to a Committee which had been appointed to prepare subjects to be submitted to the House—the House reserving to itself the main point of Episcopacy, which was to be afterwards taken into consideration. The speeches had shewn a remarkable coincidence of opinion as to the necessity of abridging prelatical power and Church influence; but they had also brought out discordant views in relation to Episcopacy itself, though few at present advocated its total abolition. As yet, it did not seem wise to the Commons to decide one way or the other on this important point, or to entrust the consideration of the question to a Committee; but as we look at the general complexion of the debate, together with the terms of the resolution, the exceptive clause would appear simply to mean that Parliament was not yet prepared to abolish Episcopacy.[148]
1641, Feb.
Petitions.
The Committee divided the grievances complained of into nineteen heads, of which the principal were the inequality of benefices, the claim of the hierarchy to be a divine institution, the assumption of an exclusive power to ordain, the temporal power of the bishops, the holding of pluralities, and the scandalous lives of the Clergy.[149] The challenge of the divine right of Episcopacy, though it seems to have come very near to the subject excepted in the resolution, was pronounced to be a proper point for enquiry; and a long and minute discussion followed, in which texts of Scripture and passages from the Fathers were cited and canvassed. It was voted at length that the "challenge of the divine right of Episcopacy is a question fit to be presented;"—the Committee in this respect indicating a desire that the House would proceed to discuss the point reserved, and also shewing by the tenor of their private conference, the strong Presbyterian element then at work amongst them. All the nineteen particulars were examined, and evidence collected respecting each—especially that which bore upon the conduct of scandalous bishops, whose speeches and quotations of Scripture are given at length, some in an incredible strain of impious levity. The Committee sat from the 10th to the 19th February. No formal discussion of the abstract question about the divine right of Episcopacy immediately followed the report of the Committee; but the influence of the report probably told upon the House, and prepared for an attack upon the bishops, which was made in the month of May.
