Publications composed in defence of Presbyterian government underwent large discussion, and are copied at length in the minutes. A question was raised in the year 1653, whether anything touching the Anabaptismal controversy should be referred to the Province for discussion or not; and in the year 1654, (July the 10th), Dr. Hammond's book received consideration.[171] Seven days afterwards the committee were of opinion "that it is not fit it should be answered by the Province, and that Mr. Calamy be requested to answer it."[172]
But the Puritan ministers did not possess capacity to do what they desired. Every page of their recorded proceedings indicates want of power. They met, and met again. They debated. They resolved. They prepared exhortations and books. They appointed preachers, and they thanked them for their sermons. But in the old folio there are no signs of decided synodical action. Cognizance indeed is taken of vacancies in the ministry, and in elderships, and of motions made for the "repairing" thereof. Triers are appointed for Elders; rules are laid down for ordination; and notice is taken of irregularities. But it seems scarcely anything in the way of government was really affected. One day, Mr. Pool states the incapacity of the fifth classis to ordain at present. Another day, there are many reports of Elderships left incomplete. Now we read of "Mary's, Aldermanbury," that "the minister acts not;" and then of "Matthew, Friday Street,"[173] that "the minister hath endeavoured to get elders chosen, but cannot move his parishioners to it." And, yet once more, it is said of "Peter's, Paul's wharf," that the people cannot be induced to choose elders, nor to have a minister that may act in the government. A brighter day than usual seems to have dawned in the month of April, 1656, when special notice is taken of the goodness of God in "the willing coming into government," of the people of George's-in-the-Fields, by the godly assistance of Alderman Bigg, one of the elders; and when some one rose in the assembly and spoke of the same thing being done at Bride's. But the minutes generally contain only complaints and exhortations, or entries of mere form. The ministers of Lancashire carried out discipline to some degree of perfection, but the ministers of London never got beyond "perfected rules."[174] The Minute Book in Sion College bears ample witness to the Christian spirit, the indefatigable diligence, and the fervent zeal of the Divines for church order, for family religion, and for personal piety; but it also bears witness as ample, to the failure of all attempts to establish a complete Presbyterian polity in London.[175]
Presbyterianism in London.
No one can deny that the ultimate object of the endeavour was good. The Divines were seeking—and that very earnestly—the promotion of Christian morality and virtue. They wished to reform the manners of the people, to make Christians of the large population of London, and to do as much as possible towards realizing the theory of a Christian state. But they mistook the means. So far as preaching the Gospel, promoting education, exercising social influence, and exhibiting a pious example went, they acted wisely and well. By such methods alone can irreligious men be converted. The City clergy, however, proceeded beyond this, and sought to bring under church discipline the whole body of their parishioners, whether those parishioners had voluntarily embraced their communion or not. Yet nothing can be more plain from Scripture, reason, and experience, than that such discipline can be effectually exercised only amongst people who have by their own free will entered into fellowship with a religious society. True Christian discipline can only touch persons who have submitted themselves to the laws, and acknowledged the sanctions of Christianity. When the help of the magistrate is solicited, and any kind of temporal punishment is esteemed a proper method of religious correction, the exercise of purely ecclesiastical government is virtually given up; the case is transferred from the spiritual kingdom of Christ to the empire of physical force. Of course everybody can feel the weight of the magistrate's sword, but everybody cannot and will not feel that there is power also, but of another and still more serious kind, in a pastor's crook. This difficulty was felt in the middle ages. In Archbishop Winchelsey's Constitutions at Merton, in the year 1305, mention is made of heretics who relinquished the Articles of the Faith, opposed ecclesiastical liberties, and refused to pay tithes and other dues. It was commanded that the people should be effectually persuaded to submit, and that those who did not voluntarily obey should be compelled by suspension, excommunication, and interdict. But heretics did not care for spiritual censures any more than they did for persuasion; and nothing further at that time could be brought to bear upon such offenders. The evil increased.[176] At length the civil power was called in to counteract it, and at last came the Act de Hæretico Comburendo.
Discipline.
What is effective in a voluntary Church is utterly ineffective in one not voluntary; and when the ministers of an establishment aim at extending ecclesiastical discipline over the ungodly by means of civil penalties, they raise at once the cry of despotism, tyranny, oppression, and the like. The threatened delinquents appeal to the State in defence of their personal rights, imperilled, as they say, by the inroads of clerical ambition and the menaces of spiritual pride. This sort of appeal in modern times is always successful; and the secular power, jealous of the ecclesiastical, puts a check on its activity. Consequently, discipline becomes an impossibility. English history proves, so far as a State Church is concerned, that there is no alternative but some sort of High Commission Court, with all the odium it inspires, and all the ruin which it ultimately brings—or the relaxation of discipline altogether. It should, however, be recollected that the London Elders, clerical and lay, in their zeal for discipline only strove to effect what many Episcopalians before and since have declared to be most desirable.[177] And, moreover, the ineffective activity, the fruitless discussions, the inoperative resolutions, and the complimentary votes of the Synod at Sion House, find a strict parallel in the proceedings of like assemblies in many places. Even Convocation cannot be excepted. Indeed that body, in comparison with its pretensions, is signally powerless. No one who maintains the importance and usefulness of the last-mentioned assembly can consistently ridicule or despise the efforts of their Genevan predecessors under the Commonwealth. It will be well if all Englishmen learn from these facts a lesson of moderation and charity; and while pointing out what they conceive to be flaws in systems, and foibles in characters, take care to honour all really good men, whatever their communion or opinions, and not forget to concede purity of motive in all cases where the opposite is not perfectly plain.
But if the system of Presbyterianism did not flourish in London, many of the Presbyterian ministers who laboured there, distinguished themselves alike by their ability, their learning, and their virtues; and, although failing to bring their fellow-citizens generally within their own ecclesiastical penfolds, they gathered a large number of wandering souls into the flock of the Good Shepherd. Edmund Calamy continued, throughout the period of the Commonwealth, his diligent, instructive, and eloquent ministry, in the parish church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury—that beautiful edifice—then recently repaired and adorned—with its ancient and goodly monuments in memory of famous citizens and their families, and with its adjoining churchyard and cloisters—all the buildings swept away so soon afterwards by the terrible fire.[178] Thither multitudes were accustomed to flock to hear the Gospel, and the narrow streets leading to the place of worship were blocked up service after service, with "three-score coaches"—the minimum number of vehicles which, according to the preacher's grandson, conveyed the wealthy Presbyterians to the old church door.[179] The well-known portrait of the Divine—exhibiting his large eyes, aquiline nose, and well-formed mouth, surrounded by a thin moustache and beard, and with his close-cut hair peeping from beneath his black skull cap—enables us to imagine him, standing in his pulpit, proclaiming with fervour the great doctrines and duties of Christianity; whilst, at the same time, as we are told—in contrast with the earlier habits of his brethren—he cautiously avoided any references to political affairs. Yet he did not prove false to his ecclesiastical principles, for he took a large share in composing an elaborate Vindication of them, published under that title,[180] and in preparing another book bearing the Latin name of "Jus Divinum Ministerii Evangelici et Anglicani."
Jenkyn.
William Jenkyn—already noticed as a sufferer in connection with the alleged plot which brought Love to the scaffold—had been deprived of his preferment at Christ Church, Newgate-street, because of his having condemned the execution of Charles I., and also for having refused to observe certain thanksgiving days appointed by Parliament. Feake, the notorious Fifth Monarchist, succeeded him in his living, and though Jenkyn was relieved from the sequestration, he was for a time either unable or unwilling to eject his successor. But the parishioners, anxious to enjoy the services of their former incumbent, established a lectureship, and appointed him to conduct it, with which office he combined a similar one at St. Anne's, Blackfriars. When Feake became obnoxious to the Government, and was displaced from Christ Church, Jenkyn recovered the benefice. The more regular features, the less masculine expression of countenance, and the amply-flowing locks of this eminent preacher, were familiar to a congregation perhaps as large as that which witnessed, from week to week, the personal appearance of his friend and neighbour, Edmund Calamy. With like zeal, and with like caution, Jenkyn "wholly applied himself to preach Christ, and him crucified;"—he delivered a long course of sermons upon the names given in Scripture to the Redeemer of mankind, and expounded the Epistle of Jude at great length in a series of Discourses which are well known to the admirers of Puritan theology. A convert to Puritanism in his youth, when a student at Cambridge, and suffering persecution on that account from his father, he became afterwards, we might almost say, an heir to Protestantism in its most unequivocal form, through his marriage with a granddaughter of John Rogers. Memories of that martyr who was imprisoned in the Compter and in Newgate, and was afterwards burnt in Smithfield, would surely often cross the mind of the Presbyterian minister, as he entered the gates of Christ Church, situated in the very midst of the spots hallowed by such associations.
Bates—Clarke.