CHAPTER XIX.
NONCONFORMISTS.
During the Civil Wars, heartburnings existed between Presbyterians and Independents. They continued under the Protectorate, they diminished after the Restoration, and it might have been hoped would then have died out for ever; but unhappily they revived when the Revolution had set both parties at liberty. When old persecutions ended in England, it could not be said, as it was when Saul of Tarsus ceased to breathe out threatenings and slaughter, “then had the Church rest.” Whatever might be the dispositions of some—and certainly Howe and others were lovers of peace—ancient animosities exploded afresh. What happened at the Rathmel ordination indicated this; other proofs will appear.
NONCONFORMISTS.
An effort at union was, however, made in 1690, under the form of articles agreed to by the Dissenting ministers. They were published, under the title of “Heads of Agreement, assented to by the united ministers in and about London, formerly called Presbyterian and Congregational.” This document is worth attention, not only as an experiment to bring together different parties, but also as indicating modifications of opinion on both sides. The Presbyterians and Independents, who after the Revolution adopted these Articles, could not have held exactly the same views as did Presbyterians and Independents before the Restoration. The former must now have abandoned all notions of parish presbyteries and provincial synods, and must have approximated to the Congregational idea of what used to be called “gathered churches,” or limited communities, resting on a principle of mutual choice. Reference is made to parochial bounds as not being of divine right; yet for common edification, the members of a particular church, it is said, ought, as far as convenient, to live near each other. A great deal was conceded by Presbyterians, when they allowed that each church has a right to choose its own officers, and that no officers of any one church shall exercise any power over any other church.[509] The Independents also must have passed through a change, inasmuch as they now ceased to insist upon the duty of church members entering into formal covenants, and allowed that, in the administration of church power, it belongs to the pastor and elders to rule and govern, and to the brotherhood to consent, according to the rule of the Gospel. They also tacitly admitted that a man might be ordained to the work of the ministry without having a specific pastoral charge, and that the pastors or bishops of neighbouring churches should concur in the ordination of a new pastor or bishop over a particular congregation.
1688–1702.
In the chapter relative to the communion of churches, the Independents of the Revolution showed more disposition towards unity than their predecessors had done, and the chapter indicates an approach to Presbyterian government.[510] Seeds of concord between the two denominations bore some fruit in the provinces. An association combining them grew up in Devon and Cornwall, and Flavel preached and presided at its first meeting. In Hampshire and Norfolk the plan met with favour. So it did in Nottinghamshire, and in the neighbourhood of Manchester, where, however, Independents were few. It was warmly taken up in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and at Wakefield a united meeting was held, when Heywood preached from Zech. xiv. 9: “In that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one.” It seems that the townspeople at Wakefield were alarmed at the influx of ministers walking through their streets—the fashionably-dressed people of the reign of William III., in their jaunty costume, looking with curiosity and suspicion upon the Puritan garb and the staid demeanour of their visitors. Yet these reverend gentlemen did not amount in number to more than twenty-four, and “when the service at Mrs. Kirby’s” was over, “they thought it prudent to go apart, and by several ways, to the house at which they dined.”[511]
A violent controversy—which, before its close, ran through both Calvinistic and Socinian questions, and gathered up personal entanglements—started into life soon after the Act of Toleration had been passed. The doctrines of Justification, the Atonement, and Christ’s Divinity came successively within its range. Combatant after combatant entered the field, and although the antagonists, for the most part, were Nonconformists, they managed, before they had done, to involve one or two distinguished Churchmen within the coils of their dispute.
NONCONFORMISTS.
The scene of the first stage was the little town of Rowell, in Northamptonshire, where a devoted Puritan, named John Beverley, had created a considerable sensation in the days of the Commonwealth, and out of this a church had sprung. After the Revolution, Richard Davis, from the Principality, became minister; and as an indication of his narrow and jealous independence, it is mentioned that he was “installed in the office of pastor or bishop” by the church itself, and by that church alone, some pastors of other congregations, who had come “to behold their faith and order,” withdrawing from the assembly, because there was nothing for them to do. Brooking no restraint, he made the whole county of Northampton his diocese, and went from place to place preaching and gathering converts into his fold. He enflamed others with ardour like his own, and became the centre of a wide circle of lay agency. People living at a great distance were brought into fellowship with the band at Rowell, and they would, lantern in hand, trudge twenty miles along dirty roads on winter mornings to hear him preach, and in the same way go back at night. Offshoots from this vigorous community became in time distinct societies. These proceedings soon excited jealousy, and the jealous were not slow to accuse the lay agents of ignorance, and their superintendent of great imprudence.[512] A noisy revival broke out in February, 1692, and the press was soon employed in giving what is called A Plain and Just Account of a most Horrid and Dismal Plague at Rowell, in which tract the “visions and revelations” of Richard Davis and his “emissaries, the shoemakers, joiners, dyers, tailors, weavers, farmers, &c.,” are odiously exhibited. Tidings of this reached London, and attracted the attention of respectable Presbyterian ministers, who were as much shocked as it was possible for any Episcopalians to be. What was worse, heresy, as reported, mingled with wildfire, and Davis stood charged with maintaining that believers always appear before God without sin; that if they do wrong they are still without spot; that prayers are offered more for the sake of discovering guilt to their own consciences, than for securing forgiveness from God; and that Christ fulfilled the covenant of grace, “and believed for us as our representative.” Oddly enough, this Antinomian preacher is said to have entertained an idea that baptism in the parish church is invalid, for this, amongst other reasons, that the administrators are not of Christ’s sending. Davis defended himself as best he could, and the church of which he was pastor vindicated his character, denying some ridiculous stories, yet speaking of his ministry in terms corroborative of its high Calvinistic type.
1688–1702.
The second stage of this controversy appears in London. The Calvinism of the Commonwealth had by no means perished. Old books bearing its impress, old preachers repeating its echoes, remained, and wherever sympathies with it continued to thrive, of course the Northamptonshire pastor found advocates. Just at this moment an insignificant incident fanned the flame. A son of the noted Dr. Tobias Crisp reprinted his father’s works, with additions from unpublished papers; and very artfully, the editor procured the names of some well-known Divines, simply, as he said, to attest the genuineness of the MSS.—a thing perfectly superfluous—really, as he must have meant, to promote the sale of the new edition. Crisp was a Predestinarian of the first water, and maintained the doctrine of Election and the limitation of the Atonement in the narrowest and most repulsive form.
NONCONFORMISTS.
The excitement produced by this book, in connection with the disturbance created by Davis, was wonderful. The advocates of High Calvinism hailed it as the commencement of a millennium; they talked and preached and wrote with renewed vigour, and those who opposed them were denounced as legalists. On both sides bitterness increased. The more Crisp’s book was condemned, the more it was read. Its circulation was greatest amongst the uneducated, who praised the author up to the skies. The editor informs us that, in so unlikely a place as Guildhall, at one of the livery meetings, he was accosted by a citizen, who wrung him by the hand, and, with tears in his eyes, thanked him for reprinting his father’s sermons.
Daniel Williams, a Presbyterian minister, formerly of Dublin, and at the time of the Revolution presiding over a numerous congregation at Hand Alley, in Bishopsgate Street, was then rising into eminence; and being a moderate Calvinist, he determined to oppose the circulation of Crisp’s work. Consequently, in 1692, he published his Gospel Truth Vindicated, in which Crisp’s dogmas are arranged, errors are separated from truths, and confutations supplied, not only from Scripture, but also from other writings of that very Divine. Prefixed to Williams’ book is a list of approving theologians, including Bates, Howe, Alsop, and Lorimer.
1688–1702.
This publication led to unpleasant complications, and to understand them we must refer to the celebrated lectures delivered in Pinners’ Hall. Lectures in the heart of the Metropolis had been popular when Puritanism was at its zenith. Merchants turned from their walk in the Exchange and their seats in the counting-house, to listen to a favourite preacher as he meted out his message by the hour-glass. When Indulgence came, Pinners’ Hall happened to be vacant, and being conveniently situated in Broad Street, it was hired for a Wednesday morning exercise. Four Presbyterians and two Independents undertook to officiate in succession. Dr. Bates, Dr. Manton, Mr. Baxter, and Mr. Jenkyn, had as their associates Dr. Owen and Mr. Collins. From the beginning, however, unfortunate bickerings appeared, and at the Revolution dogmatic differences became increasingly manifest—the Independents were more Calvinistic than their Presbyterian brethren. The circumstances of this Lecture perhaps had something to do with the way in which the Northamptonshire quarrel was taken up, certainly it added fuel to the fire kindled by the republication of Crisp’s works. In 1692, of the old Pinners’ Hall lecturers only Bates remained, his new colleagues being Williams and Alsop. The other new lecturers were Mead and Cole, decidedly Independent, and John Howe, who, although previously reckoned amongst Independents, seems by this time to have associated chiefly with Presbyterians, and to have had more sympathy in their temper than in that manifested by some of his active Independent brethren. Attempts at union entirely failed. Storms of feeling could not be allayed by verbal incantation, and a contemporary, who narrowly watched the proceedings, deplored the absence of a healing spirit.[513] Williams, by his book against Crisp, offended some of the supporters of the Lecture—a circumstance which led to discussion amongst the lecturers; and in 1694, Williams was voted out, and three of the number—Bates, Howe, and Alsop—withdrew from Pinners’ to Salters’ Hall, and commenced a distinct lecture there. Cole and Mead, the two Independents, remained in the old place, and associated with themselves four other Independents—Mather, Cruso, Lobb, and Gouge.
NONCONFORMISTS.
But I must hasten to the third stage of this intricate dispute, when, in 1695, Stephen Lobb, “the Jacobite Independent,” charged Williams with implicitly denying the commutation of persons between Christ and believers, because he had denied such a relation as Crisp maintained, who went so far as to declare Christ to be by imputation as sinful as man, and the believer to become through faith as righteous as Christ. This led to explanations too wearisome for notice. If anyone will take the trouble to look into what Williams wrote, he will be astonished to find a man, who went so far in his notions of the union between the Mediator and His people, suspected of not believing in the Atonement; and he will discover a signal instance of the intolerable demands which some will make upon others, in order to enlist from them a full amount of prescribed orthodoxy.
The battle raged hotter and hotter. Williams was even accused of Socinianism, and not content with robbing him of all claim to orthodoxy, his exasperated opponents tried to filch from him his virtuous reputation. But he kept them at bay, and at last completely overcame them.[514]
Towards the end, two distinguished Churchmen came upon the stage—Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and Bishop Stillingfleet—both of whom were appealed to by the disputants as to the doctrine of Commutation, and the charge of Socinianism brought against Williams. The Bishop, of course, contradicted Crisp’s absurd notion, and pronounced Williams innocent of heterodoxy.
It is said that the number of Antinomians amongst Nonconformists diminished after the close of the controversy.