Certain parties under the Commonwealth had the habit—and the fashion still exists—of exaggerating the number of religious denominations. Ephraim Pagitt—in his "Heresiography," published in 1654—gives a list of between forty and fifty sects: the historical worth of which enumeration we may estimate, when we observe that he distinguishes between Anabaptists and plunged Anabaptists—between Separatists and semi-Separatists—between Brownists and Barrowists—and then proceeds to specify three orders of Familists. Edwards, in his "Gangræna," with the strongest wish to make the most of his subject, cannot advance beyond the enumeration of sixteen kinds of schismatics: but immediately impeaches his own distinctions, by informing us that one and the same society of persons were Anabaptistical, Antinomian, Manifestarian, Libertine, Socinian, Millenary, Independent, and enthusiastical.[390] Our distrust is increased by a subjoined catalogue of one hundred and seventy-six errors, swollen by statements of substantially the same thing in varied forms of words, and by the inclusion of all sorts of trivial opinions and absurd vagaries. Edwards also gives another catalogue of "particular practices," twenty-eight in number; besides an array of "blasphemies" culled from sectarian prayers. Adopting such methods, there is no religious denomination which we might not subdivide at pleasure. A dozen different names may, with a little ingenuity, be given to almost every Church upon earth; and thus twelve different Churches may be made out of one.
Baxter mentions only five, in addition to the larger religious parties. He describes the minor sects as Vanists, Seekers, Ranters, Quakers, and Behmenists. With all his power of analysis, however, he very unsatisfactorily performs his task; for it is idle to represent Vane as the founder of a sect, and the chief reason why the Kidderminster polemic placed him in this category seems to be, that he honestly disliked the man, and that he had been "a means to lessen his reputation."[391] The account of the Seekers, many of whom, according to his statement, were "Papists and Infidels," runs into that of the Ranters. The Quakers he describes as Ranters, turned from profaneness and blasphemy to asceticism. With the writings of Jacob Behmen it appears that Baxter had little acquaintance. But he mentions, as chief of the English Behmenists, one Pordage, who had "sensible communion with angels," who was acquainted with spirits "by sights and smells," who fought fiery dragons, and who saw an impression upon the wall of his house representing a coach drawn by lions and tigers, which could not be removed without pickaxes.[392] The record of such idle rumours, whilst it does not raise our opinion of Baxter as a historian of religious sects—for the man he describes seems to have been a lunatic—gives some little insight into the psychological curiosities of the times, and brings us into acquaintance with "spiritualists" of the seventeenth century.
Number of Sects.
Besides Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and Quakers, there were no sects, properly so called—no groups of professing Christians distinctly organized. Socinianism, however, existed. John Biddle—who has been already noticed in connection with the proceedings of Cromwell's first Parliament—contended, at a public disputation in St. Paul's with Griffin, a Baptist minister, that Christ was not the Most High God, and this man never lost an opportunity of avowing Unitarian sentiments.[393] But he founded no party, nor are there traces of any separate congregations under the Commonwealth maintaining similar views. There was also much floating mysticism. The theology of Jacob Behmen, through an "Account of his Life and Writings," written in English, produced some effect in this country. The spiritualism of that extraordinary person—akin to the "Theologia Germanica"—anticipated in "Tauler's Sermons"—and possessing some affinity to certain Lutheran principles, fed the devotion of English transcendentalists. Notwithstanding its errors and visionary fancies, on its better side it nourished a spirit of self-abnegation, protested against formality, exposed the dangers of dogmatical dispute, opposed High Calvinism, and pronounced millenarian speculations as of little profit. And, independently of all foreign culture, mysticism, deeply rooted in humanity, grew freely on Anglo-Saxon soil; not always with quiet grace, as in the Cambridge school under the husbandry of learning, but with twisted roots, gnarled trunks, and oddly-forked branches, bent and torn by those political and theological storms which swept so wildly over the whole country. But mysticism of this description did not settle down into any sectarian type. It has been common to pass strong and indiscriminate votes of censure upon all the Commonwealth theology which was leavened by an element of this kind; but now that such theology is better understood, because more carefully studied, the universal application of such censure is seen to be exceedingly unfair.
Floating Mysticism.
Mysticism, in German and English books of the better class, is opposed to Antinomianism; but, no doubt, mysticism existed in the middle of the seventeenth century in close alliance with high predestinarian opinions, and with very loose views of moral obligation and responsibility. Dr. Tobias Crisp, a Puritan clergyman, who died in 1643, was the most distinguished Divine of the Antinomian class; yet, although unguarded and violent in his theoretical statements to the very last degree, he is described as having been a man of undeniable Christian virtue. Habits of thinking like his—not marking the boundaries of a sect—pervaded, in all probability, many minds which, by an inconsistency happily for mankind very common, were preserved, through the force of better impulses, from carrying their principles into practice. But Antinomianism did, in some cases, become practical, if heed be given to contemporary reports. Monstrous excesses were committed by individuals;[394] and communities arose, called Families of Love, amidst which, according to contemporary pamphlets, a shameless immorality prevailed.[395] These monstrous outgrowths of fanaticism, however, as we might expect from their very nature, were but short-lived; and they mostly belonged to the soldiery during the continuance of the Civil Wars. In short, things of this sort formed the filthy surf thrown up by lashed waters, and disappeared when the storm had subsided.
We may name, in addition, four eccentric, if not crazy, individuals, called founders of sects, who in their strangeness really represented only themselves. The first was John Robins, who pretended to work miracles, to ride on the winds, and to exhibit angels and other supernatural sights—proclaiming himself to be an incarnation of the Deity; the second was John Tawney, the high priest of this Robins, and who joined with him in a commission to lead a company of followers to Jerusalem; and the third and fourth, men equally hare-brained, were named Reeve and Muggleton, who called themselves the witnesses predicted in Revelation, and who said they were able by fire to devour their adversaries. These fanatics cursed everybody who did not agree with them. It is useless to pursue the subject further. Enough has been said to prove that the number of sects under the Commonwealth has been enormously exaggerated; that various opinions were held then, as now, without forming distinct ecclesiastical communions; and that the greatest absurdities were little more than the hallucinations of individual minds.[396]
