The ecclesiastical constitution of England is nearly Erastian in theory, and almost wholly so in practice. Every sentence of the spiritual judge is liable to be reversed by a civil tribunal, the court of delegates, by virtue of the king's supremacy over all causes. And, practically, what is called church discipline, or the censures of ecclesiastical governors for offences, has gone so much into disuse, and what remains is so contemptible, that I believe no one, except those who derive a little profit from it, would regret its abolition.
"The most part of the House of Commons," says Baillie, ii. 149, "especially the lawyers, whereof there are many, and divers of them very able men, are either half or whole Erastians, believing no church government to be of divine right, but all to be a human constitution depending on the will of the magistrate." "The pope and king," he says in another place (196), "were never more earnest for the headship of the church than the plurality of this parliament." See also p. 183; and Whitelock, 169.
[334] Parl. Hist. 459 et alibi; Rushw. Abr. v. 578 et alibi; Whitelock, 165, 169, 173, 176 et post; Baillie's Letters, passim; Neal, 23, etc., 191 et post; Collier, 841. The assembly attempted to sustain their own cause by counter votes; and, the minority of independents and Erastians having withdrawn, it was carried with a single dissent of Lightfoot, that Christ had established a government in his church independent of the civil magistrate. Neal, 223.
[335] Neal, 228. Warburton says, in his note on this passage, that "the presbyterian was to all intents and purposes the established religion during the time of the commonwealth." But, as coercive discipline and synodical government are no small intents and purposes of that religion, this assertion requires to be modified, as it has been in my text. Besides which, there were many ministers of the independent sect in benefices, some of whom probably had never received ordination. "Both baptists and independents," says a very well informed writer of the latter denomination, "were in the practice of accepting the livings, that is, the temporalities of the church. They did not, however, view themselves as parish ministers, and bound to administer all the ordinances of religion to the parish population. They occupied the parochial edifices, and received a portion of the tithes for their maintenance; but in all other respects acted according to their own principles." Orme's Life of Owen, 136. This he thinks would have produced very serious evils, if not happily checked by the Restoration. "During the commonwealth," he observes afterwards (245), "no system of church government can be considered as having been properly or fully established. The presbyterians, if any, enjoyed this distinction."
[336] The city began to petition for the establishment of presbytery, and against toleration of sectaries, early in 1646; and not long after came to assume what seemed to the Commons too dictatorial a tone. This gave much offence, and contributed to drive some members into the opposite faction. Neal, 193, 221, 241; Whitelock, 207, 240.
[337] Vol. ii. 268. See also 207, and other places. This is a remark that requires attention; many are apt to misunderstand the question. "For this point (toleration) both they and we contend," says Baillie, "tanquam pro aris et focis."—ii. 175. "Not only they praise your magistrate" (writing to a Mr. Spang in Holland), "who for policy gives some secret tolerance to divers religions, wherein, as I conceive, your divines preach against them as great sinners, but avow that by God's command the magistrate is discharged to put the least discourtesy on any man, Jew, Turk, Papist, Socinian, or whatever, for his religion."—18. See also 61, and many other passages. "The army" (says Hugh Peters in a tract, entitled "A Word for the Army, and Two Words to the People," 1647) "never hindered the state from a state religion, having only wished to enjoy now what the puritans begged under the prelates; when we desire more, blame us, and shame us." In another, entitled "Vox Militaris," the author says: "We did never engage against this platform, nor for that platform, nor ever will, except better informed; and therefore, if the state establisheth presbytery, we shall never oppose it."
The question of toleration, in its most important shape, was brought at this time before parliament, on occasion of one Paul Best who had written against the doctrine of the trinity. According to the common law, heretics, on being adjudged by the spiritual court, were delivered over to be burned under the writ de hæretico comburendo. This punishment had been inflicted five times under Elizabeth; on Wielmacker and Ter Wort, two Dutch anabaptists, who, like many of that sect, entertained Arian tenets, and were burned in Smithfield in 1575; on Matthew Hammond in 1579, Thomas Lewis in 1583, and Francis Ket in 1588; all burned by Scambler, Bishop of Norwich. It was also inflicted on Bartholomew Legat and Edward Wightman, under James, in 1614; the first burned by King, Bishop of London, the second by Neile of Litchfield. A third, by birth a Spaniard, incurred the same penalty; but the compassion of the people showed itself so strongly at Legat's execution that James thought it expedient not to carry the sentence into effect. Such is the venomous and demoralising spirit of bigotry, that Fuller, a writer remarkable for good nature and gentleness, expresses his indignation at the pity which was manifested by the spectators of Legat's sufferings. Church Hist. part ii. p. 62. In the present case of Paul Best, the old sentence of fire was not suggested by any one; but an ordinance was brought in, Jan. 1646, to punish him with death. Whitelock, 190. Best made, at length, such an explanation as was accepted (Neal, 214); but an ordinance to suppress blasphemies and heresies as capital offences was brought in. Commons' Journals, April 1646. The independents gaining strength, this was long delayed; but the ordinance passed both houses, May 2, 1648. Id. 303. Neal (338) justly observes, that it shows the governing presbyterians would have made a terrible use of their power, had they been supported by the sword of the civil magistrate. The denial of the trinity, incarnation, atonement, or inspiration of any book of the Old or New Testament, was made felony. Lesser offences, such as anabaptism, or denying the lawfulness of presbyterian government, were punishable by imprisonment till the party should recant. It was much opposed, especially by Whitelock. The writ de hæretico comburendo, as is well known, was taken away by act of parliament in 1677.
[338] "In all New England, no liberty of living for a presbyterian. Whoever there, were they angels for life and doctrine, will essay to set up a different way from them [the independents], shall be sure of present banishment." Baillie, ii. 4, also 17. I am surprised to find a late writer of that country (Dwight's Travels in New England) attempt to extenuate at least the intolerance of the independents towards the quakers, who came to settle there; and which, we see, extended also to the presbyterians. But Mr. Orme, with more judgment, observes that the New England congregations did not sufficiently adhere to the principle of independency, and acted too much as a body; to which he ascribes their persecution of the quakers and others. Life of Owen, 335. It is certain that the congregational scheme leads to toleration, as the national church scheme is adverse to it, for manifold reasons which the reader will discover.
[339] Though the writings of Chillingworth and Hales are not directly in behalf of toleration, no one could relish them without imbibing its spirit in the fullest measure. The great work of Jeremy Taylor, on the Liberty of Prophesying, was published in 1647; and, if we except a few concessions to the temper of the times, which are not reconcilable to its general principles, has left little for those who followed him. Mr. Orme admits that the remonstrants of Holland maintained the principles of toleration very early (p. 50); but refers to a tract by Leonard Busher, an independent, in 1614, as "containing the most enlightened and scriptural views of religious liberty."—P. 99. He quotes other writings of the same sect under Charles I.
[340] Several proofs of this occur in the Clarendon State Papers. A letter, in particular, from Colepepper to Digby, in Sept. 1645, is so extravagantly sanguine, considering the posture of the king's affairs at that time, that, if it was perfectly sincere, Colepepper must have been a man of less ability than has generally been supposed. Vol. ii. p. 188. Neal has some sensible remarks on the king's mistake in supposing that any party which he did not join must in the end be ruined. P. 268. He had not lost this strange confidence after his very life had become desperate; and told Sir John Bowring, when he advised him not to spin out the time at the treaty of Newport, that "any interests would be glad to come in with him." See Bowring's Memoirs in Halifax's Miscellanies, 132.