The Lord’s Supper, Dr. Goodwin exhibits, in opposition to the Catholic view, not as a commemorative sacrifice to God, but as a remembrance of His sacrifice to men; and he says that by it the intention on God’s part is to represent the whole work of Christ; and the intention on our part is to show it forth, and to signify our personal interest in the benefits of His death.[556] Neither in Owen nor in Howe, so far as I can find, is there anything indicative of their opinions on the nature of the Lord’s Supper; but Baxter writes copiously upon this theme. According to him, the consecration of the sacrament respects God the Father, and makes it the representative body and blood of Christ, whilst, in such consecration, the Church offers the elements to be accepted of God for this sacred use; the commemoration of the sacrament respects God the Son, and He is in it, “in effigy,” still crucified before the Church’s eyes, and by it the faithful show the Father that sacrifice in which they trust; and the communication of the sacrament respects God the Holy Ghost, as being that Spirit given in the flesh and blood for the quickening of the soul.[557] The same author, in his Dying Thoughts, remarks, with reference to the Real Presence, “When we dispute against them that hold transubstantiation and the ubiquity of Christ’s body, we do assuredly conclude that sense is judge, whether there be real bread and wine present or not; but it is no judge, whether Christ’s spiritual body be present or not, no more than whether an angel be present. And we conclude that Christ’s body is not infinite or immense, as is His Godhead; but, what are its dimensions, limits or extent, and where it is absent, far be it from us to determine, when we cannot tell how far the sun extendeth, its secondary substance, or emanant beams; nor well what locality is as to Christ’s soul, or any spirit, if to a spiritual body.”[558] It is strange indeed to hear a Puritan speaking thus; his language has almost a patristic and Anglican sound. Some mysterious presence of the body of Christ in the material elements on the altar was believed by the orthodox Fathers; and Origen regarded that body as being ethereal and ubiquitous, and capable of assuming different forms: even the judicious Hooker supposed that the human substance of Christ is universally present “after a sort, by being nowhere severed from that which everywhere is present.” It is easier to employ definite expressions on this subject, and others of a similar kind, than to form definite notions corresponding with the expressions; and it appears to me very hard to say exactly what either Origen or Hooker meant by the language which they employed on this subject. Certainly Baxter expresses no decided opinion as to the presence of Christ’s body in the sacrament; but he admits such a presence to be not impossible, and thus opens the door for such unsatisfactory speculations as those in which Origen and Hooker indulged. Baxter, from his scholastic habits of thought, and from his familiarity with Catholic as well as Protestant theologians, was led, on the subject of baptism and the Lord’s Supper—especially the latter—to adopt a much more mystical form of belief than his Puritan brethren were wont to entertain.[559]
PURITAN CONTROVERSY WITH POPERY.
In connection with the subject of sacraments, it is pertinent to inquire what were the opinions of these Divines in reference to the ministry and ordination. Baxter, as might be expected, discusses the question in his usual scholastic manner. His views on baptism, as just stated, indicate that he attached much importance to clerical order; and he alludes to the power conveyed from Christ to the individual minister, of which power he says neither the electors nor the ordainers are the donors; they are only the instruments of designing an apt recipient, and of delivering the possession of office. This position involves a denial of the High Church doctrine of orders, and this doctrine Baxter still farther denies, when he concludes that imposition of hands is not essential to ordination, but is simply a decent, apt, and significant sign. Ordination, however, he holds to be needful; for, without this key, the office of the ministry and the doors of the Church would be thrown open to heretics and self-conceited persons. The power of ordination he believes to be vested in the senior pastors of the Church, and the people’s call, or consent, he does not regard as necessary to the minister’s reception of office in general, but only to his pastoral relation. He admits that laymen may preach, as did Origen and Constantine, but he cautiously restricts their preaching to their families, or within “proper bounds.” What he had witnessed in the army had given the good man a great horror of the license claimed by lay orators on religious subjects; and, no doubt, recollections of some of his military antagonists came before his mind when he laid down the law, that lay teachers must not presume to go beyond their abilities, especially in matters dark and difficult. He also forbids them to thrust themselves into public meetings, and proudly and schismatically to set themselves up against their lawful pastors.[560] Baxter’s Presbyterianism appears throughout his treatment of these subjects—subjects respecting which Goodwin, Owen, and Howe are silent. But it is not to be inferred from this circumstance that they were indifferent to order in the ministry and the Church. What the Independents determined respecting these matters, in the Savoy Declaration, we have seen in a previous chapter.
Next to the Puritan treatment of the sacraments and the ministry comes the Puritan share in the anti-Popish controversy. Although none of the Divines now under consideration took so prominent a part in it as did Cosin, Bramhall, and Barrow,—although none of them, on this subject, published books which have become so famous as some written by their brethren,—yet of their intense opposition to Romanism there is not the shadow of a doubt. They might not have the same reasons for wielding anti-Papal weapons which their Anglican contemporaries had, who, by the charges of Romanizing tendencies brought against them, were compelled to stand up in self-defence.[561] Still, expressions of horror at the very thought of Rome are numerous enough in the works of the Puritans, and some of them couched their thoughts on the subject in the strongest phraseology. Nor were there wanting treatises expressly upon the errors of Romanism from Puritan hands. Owen, at the suggestion of Lord Clarendon, it is said, wrote his Animadversions on Fiat Lux; a work which so pleased His Lordship that he declared the writer had more merit than any English Protestant of that period, and offered him preferment if he would conform. Baxter went beyond Owen in the laborious defence of the Reformed against the Tridentine Church; for he published altogether nearly twenty books and pamphlets in this department of polemical literature, leaving “no one point in the extensive field untouched,” and supplying “a complete library on Popery.”[562]
PURITAN ECCLESIASTICAL CONTROVERSY.
In addition to what has been said on the subject in other portions of this History, a passing notice must be taken of the ecclesiastical controversies carried on by the Puritans against the High Church party. During the Civil Wars, and under the Protectorate, unsparing attacks were made upon Prelacy, modified schemes of Episcopacy were proposed, Presbyterianism was upheld in books and pamphlets almost innumerable, and between that system of Church government and Congregationalism the warfare continued fierce and incessant. The Presbyterian contended against the Prelatist for the original identity of Bishops and elders, and for the scriptural authority of their own scheme of rule and discipline. He contended against the Congregationalist for the right and the duty of reducing England to a state of ecclesiastical uniformity, based upon the decisions of the Westminster Assembly, and defended by the employment of magisterial power. The Congregationalist contended against the Presbyterian for the liberty of gathering Independent Churches, and of maintaining Independent discipline—and for the toleration, within certain limits, of all Christian sects. Of course, after the Restoration, although the main differences continued as before, and ecclesiastical disputes, essentially the same, were carried on—differences in the treatment of these questions necessarily arose, and changes in polemics on all sides became inevitable. When the garrison within the castle walls are mastered and turned out by the besiegers—when those who were besiegers become the garrison, and those who formed the garrison become besiegers, the tactics of each party will undergo alteration. Whilst Presbyterians or Independents, or both, were in the ascendant, Episcopalians had to assume an offensive attitude. They were, in fact, for the time being, Dissenters from the Established religion of the country, and had, as such, to make good their position as best they might. But when Prelacy had been reestablished, its friends no longer needed the kind of battering-rams which they had used very uncomfortably for about twenty years, they would simply buckle on their defensive armour, and fence with their weapons as in days of old. The other party had now to attack those who were in power, and to draw their lines of circumvallation around the fortress of intolerance, whilst they steadily defended themselves against the charge of schism, and earnestly contended for liberty and the rights of conscience. Baxter, in his Plea for Peace, argued against Conformity on the ground of its unjust impositions,—such as the expression of “assent and consent” to all things contained in the Prayer Book, canonical subscription, re-ordination in the case of Presbyterians, and the oath against seeking any change in Church or State.
The right of imposing things indifferent was a point which met with much consideration in books as well as in the Savoy discussions. Respecting this subject, the reader cannot do better than ponder an extract from Sanderson, in favour of imposing such things, and another from Baxter, against all impositions of the kind.
“The liberty of a Christian,” says the Anglican, “to all indifferent things, is in the mind and conscience, and is then infringed, when the conscience is bound and straightened, by imposing upon it an opinion of doctrinal necessity. But it is no wrong to the liberty of a Christian man’s conscience, to bind him to outward observance for order’s sake, and to impose upon him a necessity of obedience. Which one distinction of doctrinal and obediential necessity well weighed, and rightly applied, is of itself sufficient to clear all doubts on this point. For, to make all restraint of the outward man in matters indifferent, an impeachment of Christian liberty, what were it else, but even to bring flat Anabaptism and anarchy into the Church; and to overthrow all bond of subjection and obedience to lawful authority? I beseech you consider, wherein can the immediate power and authority of fathers, masters, and other rulers over their inferiors consist; or the due obedience of inferiors be shown towards them, if not in these indifferent and arbitrary things. For, things absolutely necessary, as commanded by God, we are bound to do, whether human authority require them or no; and things absolutely unlawful, as prohibited by God, we are bound not to do, whether human authority forbid them or no. There are none other things left then, wherein to express properly the obedience due to superior authority than these indifferent things.”[563]
PURITAN ECCLESIASTICAL CONTROVERSY.
Turn from the Anglican to the Puritan:—“I confess,” he says, “it is lawful for me to wear a helmet on my head in preaching; but it were not well if you would institute the wearing of a helmet, to signify our spiritual militia, and then resolve that all shall be silenced and imprisoned during life that will not wear it. It is lawful for me to use spectacles, or to go on crutches; but will you therefore ordain that all men shall read with spectacles, to signify our want of spiritual sight, and that no man shall go to church but on crutches, to signify our disability to come to God of ourselves. So, in circumstantials, it is lawful for me to wear a feather in my hat, and a hay-rope for a girdle, and a hair-cloth for a cloak: but if you should ordain that if any man serve God in any other habit, he shall be banished, or perpetually imprisoned, or hanged; in my opinion, you did not well: especially, if you add that he that disobeyeth you must also incur everlasting damnation. It is in itself lawful to kneel when we hear the Scriptures read, or when we sing psalms; but yet it is not lawful to drive all from hearing and singing, and lay them in prison that do it not kneeling. And why men should have no communion in the Lord’s Supper that receive it not kneeling, or in any one commanded posture, and why men should be forbidden to preach the Gospel that wear not a linen surplice, I cannot imagine any such reason as will hold weight at the bar of God.”[564]