CHAPTER X.
Besides the Presbyterians and Independents, there were ministers of another persuasion, who accepted preferment in the Church of England under the Commonwealth.
Baptists.
The existence of the Baptists may be traced back to an early period. One of this denomination, a yeoman of the guard at Windsor, suffered martyrdom under Queen Mary.[221] In the time of Elizabeth, the Antipædobaptists were complained of by Bishop Jewel "as a large and inauspicious crop." A Church of that order appears to have existed at Ely, in the year 1573. Flemish Baptists took refuge in this country about the same time; and another English congregation, apparently of Antipædobaptist principles, was discovered in 1586; a third, in 1588, is described as meeting in the fields for prayer and exposition of Scripture. It is said that they dined together, and collected money to pay for their refreshments, giving the surplus to their brethren in bonds. No forms were used. A liturgy seemed to them stinted prayer—a mere babbling in the Lord's sight. They denied the authority of the Queen in ecclesiastical matters, and counted it unlawful to attend the parish church. They owned no necessity to wait for reform by the magistrates, saying, wherever stones were ready, they ought to build with them at once, as the apostles did. It is distinctly stated that these people held it unlawful to baptize children.[222] In the year 1589, it was affirmed that there were several Anabaptistical conventicles in London and other places.[223] A prisoner named Maydstone, holding Baptist opinions, is mentioned in 1597 as under sentence of death in Norwich gaol. The Baptists were foremost in the advocacy of religious freedom, and perhaps to one of them, Leonard Busher, citizen of London, belongs the honour of presenting in this country the first distinct and broad plea for liberty of conscience. It is dated 1614, and is prefaced by an epistle to the Presbyterian reader; and a very remarkable epistle it is, deserving a renown which it has never acquired. The writer says, he is sure that the country will be distracted with oppression and persecution until liberty of conscience be allowed. His plea is no new doctrine, but as old as the Word of God. It is the birthright of peaceful people, denied by the subjects of popes, bishops, and selfish priests, a blessing for the want of which the Christian part of the universe hath suffered "a continual agony and earthquake." Appealing to King James, Busher says, "that Jews, Christians, and monks are tolerated in Constantinople," and asks, "If this be so, how much more ought Christians to tolerate Christians?" "It is not only unmerciful, but unnatural and abominable; yea, monstrous, for one Christian to vex and destroy another for difference and questions of religion." "Wherefore," he goes on to say, "in all humility and Christian modesty, I do affirm, that through the unlawful weed-hook of persecution which your predecessors have used, and by your Majesty and Parliament is still continued, there is such a quantity of wheat plucked up, and such a multitude of tares left behind, that the wheat which remains cannot yet appear in any right visible congregation." Boldly, and in the broadest way, this early apostle of liberty condemns all persecution whatsoever, not excepting even persecutions carried on against Papists; and he contends that by persecuting them we Protestants encourage them to persecute us. People tainted with treason are to be denied the liberty of congregating together, but no others. And further, this writer demands, "That it be lawful for every person or persons, yea, Jews and Papists, to write, dispute, confer and reason, print and publish any matter touching religion, either for or against whomsoever."[224]
Other publications of the same character were written by members of the same communion, and in 1620 the Baptists issued a humble supplication, abounding in references to the Fathers and to ecclesiastical history.
Baptists.
In the Yarmouth Corporation Records there is a letter to the Lord Chief Justice of England, written by the Bailiffs in the year 1624, respecting the Baptists in that town: "Right honourable, our duties in all humble wise remembered. We received certain letters, signed by your lordship, but without either date or place, from whence, reproving our predecessors, as having no care in the execution of a warrant made to them by your lordship and Justice Dodridge (upon a certificate from the Lord Bishop of Norwich at the last assizes in Norfolk, touching the conventicles and meetings of Separatists and Anabaptists within this town, and of a list of their names surprised at such conventicles) for the apprehending of them, and sending them to the Lord Bishop of Norwich, to be examined and further ordered, and for the re-committing of Cayne, and apprehending of Uryn, the one dwelling and conversing amongst us, the other frequenting this town as a merchant, so as by such negligence your honour might conceive that some among us do secretly connive, if not favour those ways (except that by a speedy execution of your lordship's warrant directed unto us, the contrary may appear) advising us to be so careful thereof, as we may give a good account at the next assizes of our service therein. May it please your honour, upon the receipt of your letters, we conferred with the bailiffs of the town, for that time being, and required of them to have the said warrant, with purpose to put the same in execution; who answered us that they never had, nor before now heard of, any such warrant. Now, so it is, saving your honour's favour and reformation, not so much for want of date of your lordship's letter, or place from whence it was directed, as for want of such warrant from your lordship unto us, or our said predecessors, we presumed to forbear to execute such business, humbly beseeching your lordship to grant us such your warrant to the former effect, and to pardon us herein; and for our parts, not knowing any of us to connive, or favour those ways, we will be willing and ready, in all we can, to execute the same, and whatever else your lordship shall give us in charge. And so, praying to the Almighty to increase and prosper your days in all honour and happiness, we rest, your honour's at command,
| "J. Trindle, "Thomas Johnson, | Bailiffs."[225] |
The portion of the "Yarmouth Records" relating to this period are defective, and consequently the information is imperfect; but it is certain, that not long after the date specified, several persons denominated Anabaptists were imprisoned in Yarmouth, and continued in confinement until the year 1626, when it was resolved by "the Town" (as the Corporation is usually designated), to apply to the Lord Archbishop in Parliament and the Lord Treasurer, to have them removed. What became of them is not known, but most likely they were discharged, as Abbot, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, was a man distinguished by his leniency towards Nonconformists.
Baptists.
The "Records of the Church at Broadmead, Bristol," furnish an account of the formation of a Baptist community in that place. The steps by which it reached its ultimate ecclesiastical character are minutely traced. Mr. Canne, a well-known Baptist minister, came to Bristol, and debated the matter of baptism before "an abundance of people on a green." He led the people to "step further in separation," so that they would not so much as hear any minister who "did read the Common Prayer." Thus, in language characteristic of such documents, it is said, that the Lord led them by degrees, and brought them out of popish darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel. Baptism by immersion afterwards became the practice of the Church, but still Baptists and Pædobaptists remained with each other in fellowship at Bristol, as they did in some other places.[226] Having been joined by some persecuted Welsh brethren, the Church met in "the great room" at the Dolphin, and "sometimes at a baker's house," until the city fell into the King's hands, when most of the professors were fain to journey to London under the conduct of Royalist soldiers. But the guard proved treacherous, and actually stripped and robbed the prisoners after they reached the metropolis. They commonly met at Great Hallows, but those of their number who had been baptized as adults, communed at the Lord's Table with the Baptist Church under the pastoral care of William Kiffin. When Bristol surrendered to the Parliament, the greater part of the Church returned, but soon became "a chaos of confusion." We may add that Mr. Kiffin, with whom these Bristol Nonconformists united in London, describes, in a MS. History, the formation of a distinct Baptist Church, in 1633, gathered out of the Independent community then under the pastoral care of Henry Jacob.
Some Arminian Baptists published a Confession of Faith in 1611.[227] Another confession, issued by the Calvinistic Baptists, containing fifty-two articles, appeared in 1644. The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination is distinctly affirmed, but in article xxv. the preaching of the Gospel for the conversion of sinners is declared to be absolutely free; and in article xxix. believers are defined as "a holy and sanctified people." The Congregational order of Church Government is propounded in article xxxvi. and baptism, on a profession of faith, in article xxxix. A note to article xlviii. on civil government, declares "it is the magistrate's duty to tender the liberty of men's consciences, Ecc. viii. 8, (which is the tenderest thing unto all conscientious men, and most dear unto them, and without which all other liberties will not be worth the naming, much less enjoying), and to protect all under them from all wrong, injury, oppression, and molestation."[228]
By the Parliamentary ordinance of April, 1645, forbidding any person to preach who was not an ordained minister, in the Presbyterian, or in some other Reformed Church—all Baptist ministers became exposed to molestation, they being accounted a sect, and not a Church.[229] A few months after the date of this law, the Baptists being pledged to a public controversy in London with Edmund Calamy, the Lord Mayor interfered to prevent the disputation—a circumstance which seems to shew that on the one hand the Baptists were becoming a formidable body in London, and, on the other hand, that their fellow-citizens were highly exasperated against them.[230]
Baptists.
Before we close this brief notice of the rise and early progress of the Baptist denomination, it may be remarked in connection with their conspicuous advocacy of the fullest religious toleration, that they furnish a striking example of the union of such advocacy with the maintenance of dogmatic Christianity in that which may be termed its most evangelical form. And, indeed, the same remark is applicable to many of the Independents. Nor can there be any question respecting the originality of the doctrines of religious liberty as held by the Baptists, for it is manifest that they derived them neither from the teaching of antiquity, nor from the writings of learned and gifted contemporaries. Their sentiments on the subject can by no means be considered as the expression of the genius and spirit of the age in which they lived: for intolerance was at the time all but universal in England and throughout the continent of Europe. So far as they were indebted to history for their principles of freedom, the debt was due to the sufferings of their fathers—for as Bayle says, the sect "boasts of a great number of martyrs: its martyrology is a large volume in folio."[231] And no doubt the discipline of pain in their own experience had a share in both their intellectual and moral culture, and that much of the grand lesson which they were enabled to teach had been learned in the school of affliction. The love of liberty and the endurance of oppression constituted the inheritance which they had derived from their spiritual ancestry.
What has been said of the polity and discipline of Independents will apply generally to the polity and discipline of the Baptists. These two religious denominations substantially agreed with each other; the main and almost the only difference between them, having relation to the mode of Baptism, and to the recipients of the rite. When Baptist ministers held livings they stood in the same relation to the national establishment as did their fellow Congregationalists, admitting members, exercising discipline, and conducting their business quite independently of the political powers.
Tombes—Jessy.
John Tombes, an Oxford Bachelor of Divinity of superior ability and learning, and standing high in the estimation of all parties, had felt difficulties respecting infant baptism long before the commencement of the wars. Not receiving answers to certain questions which he proposed on the subject to the Westminster Assembly, he renounced his former practice, and avowed Antipædobaptist opinions. This brought him into collision with some of his parishioners, whilst minister of Fenchurch.[232] Though forfeiting that incumbency for not baptizing infants, he was deemed eligible for the preachership of the Temple, and obtained that honourable post. But he soon lost this preferment also, in consequence of his publishing a treatise on the subject which so much occupied his thoughts. The people of Bewdley, in Worcestershire—his native town—were however allowed to choose him for their minister, and there it was that he held the public dispute with Richard Baxter, already described. Seeing no prospect of any alteration in the Establishment with regard to baptism, he "gathered a separate Church of those of his own persuasion, continuing at the same time minister of the parish." The perpetual curacy of Bewdley having become impoverished by the sale of ecclesiastical property, Tombes received the parsonage of Ross, which he subsequently relinquished for the Hospital at Ledbury. Retaining the Hospital, and removing from Bewdley, he became once more minister of the parish of Leominster, in Herefordshire, the place in which he had held his first preferment. His name appears amongst Cromwell's Triers; a circumstance involving this important consequence, that "the Commissioners agreed to own the Baptists as their brethren, and that if such applied to them for probation, and appeared in other respects to be duly qualified, they should not be rejected for holding this opinion. And hence it came to pass, that at the Restoration several parishes were found to have Baptist ministers fixed in them."[233] Yet throughout this good man's life, after he had embraced Antipædobaptist views, his peculiarities in that respect exposed him to much trouble and sorrow.
Henry Jessy, a Cambridge Master of Arts, after holding the living of Aughton, in Yorkshire, accepted the pastorship of an Independent congregation in the borough of Southwark; but in consequence of several of the members embracing Baptist opinions, he examined the controversy for himself, and this ended in his submitting to be immersed, and in his becoming a zealous advocate of the practice. Yet he continued to admit Pædobaptists to the Lord's Supper, and lived in charity with his Independent brethren. During the Commonwealth, he spent every Lord's Day in the afternoon "among his own people," giving instruction and sustaining discipline; but "in the morning he usually preached at St. George's parish church, in Southwark," of which he had become Rector. Besides being renowned for ministerial diligence, catholicity of temper, and liberality to the poor, he took great interest in revising the authorized version of the Scriptures, carrying about with him constantly a copy of the Hebrew and of the Greek Testaments, quaintly calling one "his sword and dagger," and the other his "shield and buckler." He sought the aid of learned friends in the revision of his work, and would often exclaim, "Oh, that I might see this done before I die."[234] He further made large collections for the Jews at Jerusalem, and together with the money which he obtained he sent them letters with the view of converting them to the Christian faith.
Ewins—Bunyan.
There lived at Bristol a remarkable man, one of those born orators in whom genius makes up for defect of culture, and who in all ages have distinguished themselves by their rude unfettered eloquence. Thomas Ewins was a mechanic, with little or no education; but becoming a preacher he speedily rose to eminent popularity. Elected pastor of the Baptist church in the city just mentioned, and objecting to tithes and all compulsory payments, accepting only free gifts, he nevertheless ordinarily preached at Christ Church before the Mayor and Aldermen, and conducted lectures at St. Nicholas' and other churches—thus sustaining a sort of semi-relation to the Establishment. "The Broadmead Records" contain specimens of his preaching, and also a curious diagram which he drew of certain blazing stars observed in the heavens, portending, as he thought, the approach of Divine judgments.
Another example of a Baptist preacher in a parish church is taken from the "Life and Death of Mr. John Bunyan:"—
"Being to preach in a church in a country village (before the restoration of King Charles) in Cambridgeshire, and the people being gathered together in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, and none of the soberest of 'em neither, enquired what the meaning of that concourse of people was, it being upon the weekday, and being told that one Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there, he gave a boy twopence to hold his horse, saying, 'He was resolved to hear the tinker prate;' and so went into the church to hear him. But God met with him there by his ministry, so that He came out much changed, and would, by his goodwill, hear none but the tinker for a long time after, he himself becoming a very eminent preacher in that county afterwards. This story," the writer adds, "I know to be true, having many a time discoursed with the man, and therefore I could not but set it down as a singular instance of the power of God that accompanied his ministry."
Baptists.
The Baptists became numerous under the Commonwealth.[235] Numbers of members were admitted to their Churches, and these Churches formed themselves into associations. At the meetings which were consequently held, questions relating to order, worship, and discipline came under discussion. Disputes arose respecting what is termed "open" and "strict" membership—in other words, respecting the question, whether individuals not adopting Baptist views were proper persons for membership in Baptist Churches.[236] A controversy also sprung up as to the propriety of hearing the Gospel as it was preached by ministers who had not been baptized, according to the Baptist idea, and also with respect to the practice of joining in psalmody with those who were unbaptized.[237]
Nonconformists in Wales previous to the outbreak of the civil wars, and for some years afterwards, are said to have been Congregational Pædobaptists. The formation of the first Antipædobaptist Church in the principality is ascribed to the year 1649. Vavasour Powell—who has appeared in these pages in connection with the Fifth Monarchy men—and who had been from about the year 1640 an indefatigable preacher of the Gospel amongst his fellow-countrymen—for he was a Welshman—adopted Antipædobaptist views in the midst of his missionary career; and after that change he may be presumed to have advocated his newly-adopted opinion. But he does not appear to have been at all a bigoted man, or to have sought the establishment of Churches upon the strict communion principle.[238] After the year 1649, a few more Baptist congregations were gathered, and a small association of four of these met in the town of Carmarthen in the year 1651, when questions were mooted touching the practice of singing psalms, and the laying on of hands in the office of ordination.[239]
In Ireland, Baptist opinions spread, and Churches were planted in several cities and towns within that island. Cromwell's soldiers, including some who were Baptists, preached in Scotland,[240] and a chaplain of Fairfax's publicly disputed with a Scotch minister upon the question whether infant baptism was grounded on the Word of God.[241] The famous Colonel Lilburne was a Baptist, and in the north he zealously propagated his own distinctive principles. The Scotch Presbytery soon declared against "the new dippers."[242]
There has been occasion to notice more than once the existence of two classes of Independents—the one entertaining broader views of toleration than did the other, and, at the same time, more closely approximating to modern voluntaries than did some of their brethren. There must have been a similar difference amongst Baptists. The distinction comes before us again. Owen and Goodwin did not object to State support, nor do we discover in the writings of any of the chief Independents of the Commonwealth an exposition and defence of the voluntary principle. We have seen that several Independents and Baptists were parochial incumbents. Ministers, however, of both denominations, especially of the latter, at that time held no benefices. This might not arise always from conscientious scruples respecting an establishment, but it is probable that in many cases it did so.
Baptists.
The larger section of the Baptist ministers and Churches stood outside the pale of Cromwell's establishment, and probably, in general, they preferred that position. The well-known Hanserd Knollys, a Cambridge graduate, after resigning a living, and gathering a Baptist Church, would only accept the free contributions of his hearers, eking out his subsistence by school-keeping. The Fifth Monarchy Anabaptists distinctly and boldly opposed tithes, and protested against all State endowments. John Canne, in his "Second Voice from the Temple, to the Higher Powers," 1653, violently inveighs against a national ministry, as "essentially derived from the Pope," and after pointing to Presbyterians and Independents, as those who "do appear most for tithe;" archly adds, "yet the truth is, neither of them, by the law of the land, have any title to it; for they are not such incumbents or ecclesiastical persons as the law allows."[243]
The most united and consistent opponents of both State alliance and State allowance were the people called Quakers, and other mystic sects who took up their position altogether outside of Cromwell's Broad Church.
To them we shall pay attention in a subsequent chapter, but, in the meanwhile, it is necessary that we should supply some account of the state of the Universities, and also point out the position of Episcopalians in reference to the Establishment.
