Montrose has contrived a wicked band and oath, against all who have taken the covenant, for the assistance of England, as traitors, which, we hear, Kinnoul, Traquair, and others, have refused, with disdain. However, ye would look to yourselves, and know well whom you trust. Yet we hope in our God that our army in England shall break the neck of all these wicked designs. The good party here were neither very able nor willing to move much till our state-commissioners came. At their first coming, they drew the form of an ordinance, whereby seven Lords and fourteen Commons, should join with our four commissioners, whereof five should make a quorum, viz. one Lord, two Commons, two Scots, for giving of counsel, for ordering and directing the armies in the three kingdoms for the ends expressed in the covenant. When we had agreed with Sir Harry Vane and the Solicitor, upon the draught, it was gotten through the House of Lords with little difficulty, where most was expected; my Lord Sey, upon new occurrences, being somewhat of the general; my Lord Northumberland joining effectually with all our desires, our army being now masters of his lands; also Stapleton being put on the committee, and desirous to be sent to salute our army. Hollis, Clotworthy, and others, were put off it; so a great business was made on it: yet it was carried over the belly of the opposers. But they tuned themselves about another way, and wrought on the facility of the General, deaving him with demonstrations of his limitation and degradation by this committee; that it made void the close committee of safety; it took the power to manage the war, to do all; which was to infringe his commission, subjecting him only to the two Houses, and no committee from them. Hereupon the House of Lords alters, and puts other six Lords, and twelve Commons to the former, limits the committee’s power to advising and consulting, makes the English quorum to consist of three Lords and six Commons. Upon this demur we gave a short and sharp enough paper to both Houses, to be at a point, if they thought to make any use of our committee, which so oft and so earnestly they had sought for. It was so guided, that the Commons unanimously agreed to the former ordinance, and required the Lords to stand in their own hazard. This day the Lords have well near agreed to the former ordinance. If this were past, we look for a new life and vigour in all affairs, especially if it please God to send a sweet north wind, carrying the certain news of the taking of Newcastle, which we daily expect. By all this you see what great need we have all of your effectual prayers. How great things are presently in hand! the highest affairs both of church and state being now in agitation, the diligence and power both of devils, and all kind of human enemies, being in their extreme bent-sail of opposition, either now or never to overthrow us, so much the more should your courage be to pray; as I persuade you the former supplications are all turned in sensible blessings on us; all here, as in body and mind, praise to his name, being supported to this day, as you do wish; which we truly ascribe in a good part to your intercession, which we intreat may continue and increase, especially for assistance to me in preaching the last Wednesday of this month before the House of Commons in the fast-day. This is all, but yet a great recompense, which I require of you for my long letters in a time not of much leisure. The Lord give an happy and quick end to all these confusions, and settle again these poor churches and kingdoms in truth and justice.
Since the closing of my last, the hard and great business of the joint committee is happily concluded, fully according to our mind, praised be God; for once we were in great fear of its miscarriage, and of the dividing of the one House from the other upon it. They began to sit yesterday: and are appointed to sit every day at three o’clock, and oftener on occasion: henceforth we expect expedition.
* * * *
It is said, these of Oxford are so far fallen, as to acknowledge the parliament at Westminster, and to put down Episcopacy, and to disclaim the cessation of Ireland. If our march to Newcastle has produced this much, I hope our taking of it shall obtain the rest. I hope our synod-affairs shall have a more speedy dispatch. A course will be shortly taken with all sectaries, and is begun already. The misorders which are at this time in New England, will make the Independents more willing to accommodate and comply with us. Praise to God we all are well, chearful, and hopeful, by your prayers, to see the advancement of a glorious work here.
* * * *
To Mr William Spang.
You have a large report from me, how all went here to the 18th of February. My leisure since has been but small; and as yet I have no time. Only know, that your letters to us were exceeding welcome; and for your good service to God, and us, in due time, you shall receive thanks. My nephew is gone home, with his most loving remembrance of your great kindness. The other day some of the Dutch church came to the assembly-door, and delivered a letter to us, from the classes of Wallachren. It was publickly read, and taken with a great deal of respect. It came wonderful opportunely, and will do a great deal of good. The long and sharp censure of the apologetick narration was very well received by all, but the parties, who yet were altogether silent, and durst not oppose one word. A committee was presently appointed for translating it into English, and transmitting it, to be read, to both houses of parliament, both in Latin and English. What there it may work, you shall hear in time. It spoke so near to the mind and words of the Scots, that some said it savoured of them; but when some such muttering was brought to the face of the assembly, all did deny they knew any author of such a speech; so, no man avowing it, the Scots let such a calumny pass, without any apology. I believe they wished, and thought it just, that all the Reformed churches should do all which the divines of Wallachren hath, in the defence of the cause of God, and all the Reformed churches, against common and very dangerous adversaries. But I heard them say, in private, that they had no correspondence at all with any foreign churches; it might be that some of them had sometimes letters from the minister of the Scots staple at Campvere, but that none of them had sent him either the apologetical narration, or so much as our answer to it; that they had never motioned any censure of that book by the foreign divines. However, in the good providence of God, that letter came. It is expected the synod of Zealand will not only avow what their brethren have written, but will give their brotherly advice to this synod, anent all the things in hand; which I assure you will be very well taken, and do much good; especially, if with their serious dissuasive from Independency, and cordial exhortation to erect presbyteries and synods, they join their counsels for abolishing the relicks of Romish superstition, in their festival days and liturgy, &c., and, above all, to beware of any toleration of sects, wherein you are an evil and dangerous example. If you assist us at this time, God may make us helpful to you another day. Farewell. March 10th.
April 2, 1644.—Since the 18th of February, till now, I have so little leisure, especially by my preparing and preaching my parliament-sermon, wherein, praised be God, I was graciously assisted, that I could not attend the writing of any long letter; but now, that task being off my hand, I may better wait on my friends. I shewed, in my last, how we were brought, in our assembly, to our chief question, That many particular congregations were under the government of one presbytery. The Independents pressed they might first be heard in the negative. Here they spent to us many of twenty long sessions. Goodwin took most of the speech upon him; yet they divided their arguments among them, and gave the managing of them by turns, to Bridges, Burroughs, Nye, Simpson, and Caryl. Truly, if the cause were good, the men have plenty of learning, wit, eloquence, and, above all, boldness and stiffness, to make it out; but when they had wearied themselves, and overwearied us all, we found the most they had to say against the presbytery, was but curious idle niceties; yea, that all they could bring was no ways concluding. Every one of their arguments, when it had been pressed to the full, in one whole session, and sometimes in two or three, were voiced, and found to be light, unanimously by all but themselves. By this means their credit did much fall in the city, who understood daily all we did, and found these men had got much more than fair play, a more free liberty than any innovators ever in any assembly, to reason their cause to the bottom; but farther in the country, who knew not the manner of our proceedings, their emissaries filled the ears of the people, that the assembly did cry down the truth with votes, and was but an Anti-christian meeting, which would erect a presbytery worse than bishops.
For to remeid these evils, and to satisfy the minds of all, we thought meet to essay how far we could draw them in a private friendly way of accommodation; but Satan, the father of discord, had well near crushed that motion in the very beginning. After our first meeting, with some three of the assembly, Marshall, Palmer, Vines, and three of them, Goodwin, Burroughs, Bridges, with my Lord Wharton, Sir Harry Vane, and the Solicitor, in our house, and very fair appearances of pretty agreement, Mr Nye was like to spoil all our play. When it came to his turn in the assembly to opugn the presbytery, he had, from Matth. xviii. drawn in a crooked unformal way, which he never could get in a syllogism, the inconsistence of a presbytery with a civil state. In this he was cried down as impertinent. The day following, when he saw the assembly full of the prime nobles and chief members of both Houses, he did fall on that argument again, and very boldly offered to demonstrate, that our way of drawing a whole kingdom under one national assembly, is formidable; yea, thrice over pernicious to civil states and kingdoms. All cried him down, and some would have had him expelled the assembly as seditious. Mr Henderson showed, he spoke against the government of ours, and all the Reformed churches, as Lucian and the Pagans wont to stir up princes and states against the Christian religion. We were all highly offended with him. The assembly voted him to have spoken against the order; this is the highest of their censures. Maitland was absent; but enraged when he heard of it. We had many consultations what to do; at last, we resolved to pursue it no further, only we would not meet with him, except he acknowledged his fault. The Independents were resolute not to meet without him, and he resolute to recal nothing of the substance of that he had said. At last, we were intreated by our friends, to shuffle it over the best way might be, and to go on in our business. God, that brings good out of evil, made that miscarriage of Nye a mean to do him some good; for, ever since, we find him, in all things, the most accommodating man in the company.
This, and sundry occurrences, have made the sails of that party fall lower. My Lord Sey’s credit and reputation is none at all, which wont to be all in all. Sir Harry Vane, whatever be his judgement, yet less or more does not own them, and gives them no encouragement. No man I know, in either of the Houses, of any note, is for them. Sundry officers and soldiers in the army are fallen from their way to Antinomianism and Anabaptism, which burdens them with envy. Not any one in the assembly, when they have been heard to the full in any one thing, is persuaded by them; but all profess themselves to be more averse from their ways than before. The brethren of New England incline more to synods and presbyteries, driven thereto by the manifold late heresies, schisms, and factions, broken out among them; also the many pens that have fallen more sharply than we on their Apologetick Narration. These, and divers other accidents, have cooled somewhat of these mens fervour; above all, the letter from Holland has given them a great wound. Our good friend in Zealand gave to his neighbour so good information of all heard from us here, that so soon as the classes of Wallachren did meet to consult about the letter which this synod sent to them, as to all the Reformed churches, they were very bent presently to write an answer, in the which they fell flat and expressly upon the Independents, and their Apologetick Narration, shewing how far their way was contrary to the word of God, to the Reformed churches, and to all sound reason. This was read openly in the face of the assembly, and in the ears of the Independents, who durst not mute against it. It was appointed to be translated into English, and sent to be read in both Houses of parliament, which was done accordingly. This has much vexed the minds of these men, and yet we expect from the synod of Zealand, now sitting, more water to be put in their wine. It seems they are justly crossed by God; for beside all the error and great evil which is in their way, they have been the only men who have kept this poor church in an anarchy so long a time, who have preferred the advancement of their private new fancies to the kingdom of Christ, who have lost many thousand souls through the long confusion occasioned by their wilfulness only, and the settling of the land, which their way hitherto has kept loose and open, to the evident hazard of its ruin. Their ways, private and publick, have taken away from the most of beholders, the opinion which was of their more than ordinary piety and ingenuity: that now is gone. All this contributes to the peace of this church. While we came to prove the affirmative of our tenet anent the presbytery, they jangled many days with us; but at last it was carried, and sundry scriptures were voiced also for that proposition, to our great joy. In the debate, they let fall so much of their mind, that it was hoped they might come up, if not fully to our grounds, yet to most of our practical conclusions. For this end the assembly appointed a committee of four of them, and four of the assembly, to meet with us four, to see how far we could agree. We were glad that what we were doing in private should be thus authorised. We have met some three or four times already, and have agreed on five or six propositions, hoping, by God’s grace, to agree in more. They yield, that a presbytery, even as we take it, is an ordinance of God, which hath power and authority from Christ, to call the ministers and elders, or any in their bounds, before them, to account for any offence in life or doctrine, to try and examine the cause, to admonish and rebuke, and if they be obstinate, to declare them as Ethnicks and publicans, and give them over to the punishment of the magistrates, also doctrinally to declare the mind of God in all questions of religion, with such authority as obliges to receive their just sentences; that they will be members of such fixed presbyteries, keep the meeting, preach as it comes to their turn, join in the discipline after doctrine. Thus far we have gone on without prejudice to the proceeding of the assembly. When we were going to the rest of the propositions concerning the presbytery, my Lord Manchester wrote to us from Cambridge, what he had done in the university, how he had ejected for gross scandals, the heads of five colleges, Dr Coosings, Beel, Sterne, Ramborne, and another; that he had made choice of five of our number, to be masters in their places, Mr Palmer, Vines, Seaman, Arrowsmith, and our countryman Young, requiring the assembly’s approbation of his choice; which was unanimously given; for they are all very good and able divines. Also, because of the multitude of scandalous ministers, he behoved to remove, he renewed to the assembly his former motion, anent the expediting of ordination. This has cast us on that head. We have voted sundry propositions of it. The last four sessions were spent upon an unexpected debate: Good Mr Calamy, and some of our best friends, fearing the Separatists objections, anent the ministry of England, as if they had no calling, for this reason, among others, That they were ordained without the people’s election, yea, without any flock; for the fellows of their colleges are ordained ministers sine titulo, long before they are presented to any people: when we came therefore to the proposition, That no man should be ordained a minister without a designation to a certain church, they stifly maintained their own practice: yet we carried it this afternoon.