CHAPTER XXII.
The Baptists multiplied after the Revolution, and continued—what they had been before—often obscure, but always staunch supporters of independence and voluntaryism. In this respect they differed from Presbyterians, and often went beyond Independents. The representatives of more than one hundred churches met in London in the year 1689, and continued in conference a few days. They republished a Calvinistic confession of faith, adopted in the year 1677, but their business in the main was with practical matters and the religious improvement of their denomination. One doctrinal question which they discussed was whether believers were actually reconciled, justified, and adopted when Christ died; this they resolved by affirming that reconciliation and justification have been infallibly secured by the grace of God and the merit of Christ; but that their actual possession comes as the result of individual faith. They took a gloomy view of spiritual affairs, and, although looking at them from a very different point of view, reached conclusions resembling those of the Nonjurors. And this is noteworthy: they referred to the Jews, and entreated their brethren to “put up earnest cries and supplications to the Lord for the lineal seed of Abraham.” In furtherance of their objects they appointed a general fast, and directed that the causes and reasons of it should be explained. With respect to government and discipline, they disclaimed authority, nor did they attempt to settle differences even in respect to communion. They projected a sustentation fund, in aid of churches, ministers, and students; at the same time they pronounced it expedient for small churches, in the same neighbourhood, to unite together for the support of the ministry. They ventured to commence an attack on the long periwigs of men, especially ministers, and the bravery, haughtiness, and pride of women, who walked “with stretched-out necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they went.” They deplored worldly conformity, and though they did not deny that ornaments were allowable, they said every ornament which opens the mouths of the ungodly ought to be cast off. Baptists had been reproached as Trimmers under James II. for the sake of their own liberty; but the representatives on this occasion declared that, to their knowledge, not one congregation had ever countenanced a power in the King to dispense with penal tests, and that William III. was a Divine instrument for the deliverance of England.[536]
1688–1702.
A second assembly of the same nature met in London upon the 2nd of June, 1691, and another on the 3rd of May, 1692. They proposed to divide their annual assembly into two—one for the east in London, and the other for the west in Bristol, and they enjoined the making of quarterly collections for objects specified, at the same time expressly repudiating all idea of exercising synodical control.
NONCONFORMISTS.
Musical harmony had been a cause of discord; some of the Baptist celebrities, including Kiffin and Keach, had plunged into disputes on the subject, and it was alleged that facts had been misrepresented and unwarrantable reflections published to the world. The matter came under the notice of a committee, which appears to have given an impartial decision. They declared that both parties were in the wrong; that, granting some statements might be true, they had laid open one another’s errors in an unbecoming spirit; that they ought to remember how Ham, for discovering the nakedness of Noah, was accursed of God, and how failings were forbidden to be told in Gath and Gilgal. They recommended that all the publications produced by the dispute should be called in and disposed of by the Assembly; and they finished their award by entreating, as upon their knees, that the brethren would keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.[537]
Kiffin and Keach were amongst the Baptist magnates at the end of the Revolution, and were far more influential than Bunyan. Of Kiffin I have had occasion to speak. It only remains to add, that he continued his ministry to old age, and that his latter days were adorned by an act of beneficence. After the French Protestants had been driven from their own land, he took under his protection and entirely supported a family of rank, nor would he when these refugees recovered a portion of their fortune, accept any return for past services. He died in 1701, leaving a reputation for piety, consistency, and theological knowledge, and also for moderation, together with firmness in the maintenance of Calvinistic and strict communion views.
1688–1702.
Of Benjamin Keach I have also spoken. Although a good man, and of an ingenious turn, he must have been rather pugnacious, for his works are of a controversial stamp, relating to the seventh-day Sabbath and the question of psalmody. He was one of those who have not the smallest doubt of being themselves right, and of everybody else being wrong. Adult Baptism he described as Gold Refined; the Athenian Society he attacked for what it had said respecting Pædobaptism; he rectified a Rector by proving Infant Baptism unlawful in his Axe Laid to the Root, or one blow more aimed at that practice, which one blow would beat down for ever the arguments of Mr. Flavel, Mr. Rothwell, and Mr. Exell; finally, by A Counter Antidote, he strove to resist the assaults upon what his antagonists would call Anabaptism. His congregation is spoken of as the first to sing in public worship. So cautious were they, because of the prejudices of their brethren, that they went on step by step, for a long time restricting the practice to the close of the Lord’s Supper, then venturing upon a hymn amidst the exultation of a thanksgiving-day, and at last, after a struggle of fourteen years, becoming so bold and yet so temperate, as to sing every Sunday, after objectors to the practice had been allowed to retire.[538]
The distinction between Particular and General Baptists assumed sharper form and greater prominence after the Revolution. The General Baptists of the county of Somerset, in the year 1691, published an original manifesto of doctrine. These articles, upon the Will of Man, the Work of the Spirit, God’s Decrees, and the Saints’ Perseverance, are decidedly anti-Calvinistic, and the final chapter bears a millenarian impress; but, to avoid being charged with the excesses of the old fifth monarchists, the brethren declared that the “kingdom ought not to be set up by the material sword,” that being “contrary to the very nature of Christianity.”[539]
NONCONFORMISTS.
Matthew Caffin was a celebrated man amongst the General Baptists. Five times he suffered imprisonment for his Nonconformity, besides which he was repeatedly fined under the Conventicle Act. Opposed to the doctrine of Calvinism, like the rest of his brethren, he also distinguished himself by opposition to the Athanasian Creed. He objected to its definition and to its damnatory clauses, although he did not adopt either Socinian or Arian tenets.
Caffin appears to have been one of those one-sided people who, with a repugnance to all assumption on the part of the Church, and with a dislike of what are called dogmas, do not sufficiently consider the importance of principles as resting-places for faith and as sources of religious inspirations. In his horror of ultra-Calvinism, he forgot that dangers may arise from other points of the horizon. Not foreseeing the consequences of his course, not intending to open the door of heresy, he, through lack of sufficient positiveness, became the forerunner of those lax opinions which afterwards injured the churches of the General Baptist order. Orthodoxy is not identical with scholastic definitions; neither is it a foe or a stranger to charity. Caffin’s forgetfulness of this involved him in disputes with his own and with other denominations, and brought upon him suspicions which he did not deserve. Of his pugnacity, evidence exists in the account of his debates; and as a specimen of his wit, the following incident is related: A Quaker called on Caffin, saying he had a message from the Lord. “Come in then and do thy message,” replied Caffin. The Quaker rejoined: “I am come to reprove thee for paying tithes to the priests, and to forbid thy doing so any more.” “I think I can fully convince thee,” said the Baptist, “that thou art deceived, and that the Lord hath not sent thee; for I assure thee I never did pay any tithes, nor am ever like to be charged with any.” The land he rented was tithe-free.[540]
1688–1702.
Turning to the Quakers, we find them placidly thankful for toleration, yet vexed by demands for tithes and church-rates—sufferings, of which records were drawn up and sometimes printed and circulated. When they approached the Throne, both the King and the Lord-Keeper treated them with respect, and gave them assurances of friendship. Parliament listened to their expostulations, but of course the laws of the country rendered it impossible that they should be exempted from the payments in question any more than other people. Justified by the substitution of affirmations for oaths, the members of their community did not shrink from an anti-Socinian test; but the continued requirement of oaths in various relations exposed them to much hardship, for as they would not swear in legal exigencies, they were often defrauded of their rights. The policy of the Revolution opposed this condition of things, and in 1695 the complaints of Quakers and the efforts of their friends secured a beneficial change: affirmations were substituted for oaths in civil as well as ecclesiastical concerns.
Fox and Barclay remained leaders, visiting societies and promoting the spread of their principles. Identifying their own cause with the cause of humanity, regarding themselves as charged with a pacific mission to the world, they continued to serve their generation in the spirit of the angels’ song: “On earth peace, goodwill toward men.”
NONCONFORMISTS.
Barclay died in 1690, signifying, as it is quaintly said, with a good understanding, that it was well with him as to his soul. “God,” he remarked to a friend, “is good still, and though I am under a great weight of weakness and sickness, yet my peace flows: and this I know, whatever exercises maybe permitted to come upon me, they shall tend to God’s glory and my salvation; and in that I rest.”
Fox died in 1691, saying to those around him: “All is well; the Seed of God reigns over all, and over death itself. And though I am weak in body, yet the power of God is over all, and the Seed reigns over all disorderly spirits.” By “the Seed,” we are informed that he meant the Divine Saviour. A few hours before his departure he exclaimed: “Do not heed: the power of the Lord is above all sickness and death; the Seed reigns, blessed be the Lord.”
William Penn, although adhering to Quaker principles, was too much occupied with other things to allow of his being in later life very prominent as an apostle of the Quaker faith.
Friends continued to maintain their self-government. The poor were taken care of; widows and orphans were provided for; local meetings were held by each congregation for the supervision of affairs every week, fortnight, or month, according to numbers; quarterly meetings were held in every county; and a general yearly meeting was held in London in Whitsun-week, “not,” it is cautiously said, “for any superstitious observation the Quakers have for that more than any other time, but because that season of the year best suits the general accommodation.”[541] In the genial spring, therefore, the Friends met in the days of King William; and with the men attired in their drab garments, might be seen matrons and maidens clothed in the finest raiment, like troops “of the shining ones.” Nonconformity to the world in point of dress was an important article of practice, and sorely were the spirits of the Elders vexed by the tendency of younger members. The question was discussed: Friends were warned against the fashions of the world, and were forbidden not only to wear but to sell any garments of vanity. Earnest exhortations were delivered touching religious education and simplicity of speech.[542]
1688–1702.
Mysticism, at the close of the seventeenth century, found a home almost exclusively amongst Quakers. It had won wide sympathies at one time; Davenant had predicted that in a hundred years religions would come to a settlement in a kind of “ingeniose Quakerism;” and Hales, as he studied writings of the mystical Familists’ school, used to say that some time or other these fine notions would take in the world. But, instead of a widening flow, these “fine notions” came to be contracted within a single channel. Instead of an “ingeniose Quakerism” leavening the world, the world left this leaven to ferment all but entirely amongst the people called Friends. Norris was the principal person outside that circle who, in the reign of William III., cultivated a mystical spirit; and he did so in a limited degree. But few of the many pieces written by him indicate any marked quietest sentiments. In a paper entitled An Idea of Happiness, he speaks mystically of the fruition of God and of seraphic love, but in the same paper he speaks of the mystical doctrine of infused virtue as being a paradox in Divinity, like the doctrine of occult qualities in philosophy.[543] Norris’s mysticism did not go beyond that of a Platonistic divine. The Quakers had almost all the English mysticism of the age to themselves.
NONCONFORMISTS.
1688–1702.
Amongst them, too, there was more of religious enthusiasm than amongst any other body of Nonconformists as a whole. Then occurred what is a curious but not uncommon fact, that as a rationalistic spirit was creeping over theology, sobering the spirit of most denominations, the fires of excitement were kept burning in two extreme divisions of the Christian camp. The Quakers and the Nonjurors were the two most fervent religious bodies at the end of the seventeenth century.
Here for the present I lay down my pen. I have endeavoured in preceding volumes to tell the story of ecclesiastical change, theological development, and religious life, amidst political scenes and incidents, of which that story was partly the cause and partly the effect. It is impossible to understand such an inner circle of thought, experience, and conduct, without an examination of national events occurring outside, nor can the state of one religious section be fully understood apart from its bearing on other communities: therefore I have interwoven the threads of their respective destinies, and of their mutual relations and antagonisms. The series of struggles portrayed present something of an Epic interest; for during the Civil Wars there was strife for Ascendency, which ended in the triumph of Puritanism, and in the treatment of Anglicans, somewhat after a wretched fashion which had been set in former days. After the Restoration, the resentment of Anglicans came once more into play, and severe persecutions followed; yet efforts at Comprehension were made by healing spirits on both sides without effect. At the Revolution, as I have largely shown, experiments with a view to reunion were attempted with no better result, but a great and most beneficial change was accomplished by the legalising of freedom in religious thought and ecclesiastical action. The shield of the constitution was extended over previously persecuted Englishmen, and the age of Toleration, as it is termed, then began. Local interferences with the liberty of worship continued to occur, but they were contrary to law. The steps by which this consummation was accomplished I have somewhat minutely traced, and the earlier causes of the Revolution I have endeavoured to explore. The reign of William III. was the beginning of a new era in English History, and its ecclesiastical consequences can be ascertained only through a careful study of the great religious movements of the eighteenth century.
Whether I shall ever be able to pursue my investigations into that interesting subject depends on circumstances, which I must leave in the hands of Him whom in all the labours of my life I desire to serve.