Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 5—The Church of the Revolution

by John Stoughton

The support of Dissenting pastors depended mainly upon their flocks. Sometimes, as we have seen, money was raised for the erection of meeting-houses by the sale of pews, which became the property of the purchasers; but in such cases, as well as others, the salary of the minister principally arose from the subscriptions of the people. Endowments in certain cases increased the revenues, but sometimes, where churches had no such resources and needed sustentation, grants were made from the Fund Board. Trotman’s Trust availed in a small degree for ministerial support, as well as education, so long as any of the ejected survived, and the money bequeathed to them lasted; for by his will he left £500 to poor ministers, who had been removed from “their employment” in the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity.

We have noticed the public worship of Nonconformists. It is worth while to advert to Sundays at home. In many a farmhouse and city dwelling, the master called his household round him in the evening, to read a chapter and to ask religious questions; all being catechised, from the old servant by the door to the child who sat beside the cosy hearth, within the folds of mamma’s ornamented apron. Perhaps a discourse was read, a psalm sung, and a prayer offered. The young folks might have looked sleepy before all was over, and some of the older ones might with difficulty have kept their eyes open; but there were men and women who could say at the end of these Puritan Sabbaths, with the Henry family at Broad Oak: “If this be not heaven, it is the way to it.”

The relation of the pastor to his flock was intimate. He was their guide and counsellor. Families grew up calling him their own friend and their father’s friend; for the pastoral bond was rarely broken in those days, except by death or some very remarkable circumstance.

NONCONFORMISTS.

Of the character of the early Nonconformists, testimony is borne by Dr. Watts, who loved to cherish memories of the old Dissent, as he had seen it in his young days. No doubt we sometimes deceive ourselves in looking down the vista of the past. A transparent haze mellows the whole; perhaps fancy takes liberties with the details, and lays on tints of her own. How more than halcyon were the times of the Confessor from the distance of the reign of Rufus; yet there was truth in the Saxon’s estimate, under a Norman dynasty, of a former generation. Unquestionably, there is truth in Watts’ review. He refers mainly to a period rather earlier than that embraced within this chapter, yet the light of Puritanism’s autumn day did not expire so long as Baxter and Howe survived; Watts mentions the reverence of Dissenters for the name of God, of their strict observance of the Sabbath, of their habits of religious conversation, of their regular discharge of religious duties, of their nonconformity to the world, and of their economical expenditure.

But all was not sunshine in the old Dissent. Indeed, Watts lamented the changes he witnessed. So did Howe; his lamentations being deepened by the loss of early friends—“so many great lights withdrawn, both such as were within the National Church Constitution, and such as were without it.” And, no doubt, in connection with altered circumstances and the advance of free ecclesiastical opinion, there came a considerable decline of spiritual fervour. The strain and tension of earlier religious life almost ceased. As in the Church of England there was more calmness and moderation in Tillotson, Tenison, and Burnet, for example, than in Cosin and Ward—so it was with Dissenters, as appears when we compare such a man as Matthew Henry with such a man as Richard Baxter, or when we place Edmund Calamy by the side of his grandfather.

CHAPTER XXI.

One by one in the reign of our third William the fathers of the old Dissent passed away. They just saw the morning of religious liberty, they just touched the border of the land of promise, they dwelt under its vines and fig-trees for a very little while, and then died in peace.

Philip Henry expired in the summer of 1696. A few candidates for the ministry, who had in private academies gone through what they termed a University course, were permitted to reside at Broad Oak, and to listen to the instructions of its master. “You come to me,” he would say, “as Naaman did to Elisha, expecting that I should do this and the other thing for you, and, alas! I can but say as he did: ‘Go wash in Jordan.’ Go study the Scriptures. I profess to teach no other learning but Scripture learning.”

Philip Henry reminds us of John Bunyan’s pilgrims in the land of Beulah, as we read the following passage, written not long before his death: “Methinks it is strange that it should be your lot and mine to abide so long on earth by the stuff, when so many of our friends are dividing the spoil above, but God will have it so; and to be willing to live in obedience to His holy will is as true an act of grace, as to be willing to die when He calls, especially when life is labour and sorrow. But when it is labour and joy, service to His name, and some measure of success and comfort in serving Him, when it is to stop a gap and stem a tide, it is to be rejoiced in—it is heaven upon earth.”