From the terms in which the above entry is couched, it seems that Mr. Fleming was the first clergyman in Beccles who had cordially embraced and advocated the doctrines of the Reformation. [75] He had carried out its great principle to an extent which marks him as the father of the protestant dissenting ministry in that place. What were the precise objections made by him to the archbishop’s Articles, is unknown. But the nonconformity of Beccles will appear to have been justifiable in its origin, if it be shown that those Articles embraced any point to which, as an upright man, he could not unhesitatingly assent.
It will be recollected that by them he was required solemnly to acknowledge the queen’s ecclesiastical supremacy; and to declare that the authorized ritual contained NOTHING contrary to the word of God; that he would use it and none other in the public service; and that he believed ALL the Thirty-nine Articles to be agreeable to the word of God. There was no room for evasion, no saving or qualifying clause. However trivial or indifferent the ceremony respecting which conscience paused, still, as nothing is trivial when truth and conscience are concerned, he could not with propriety subscribe. His apparent worldly interest and his desire for usefulness would naturally give him a bias towards conformity, and he would lament that matters so unimportant should be imposed as essential terms of preferment; but to have yielded, would have been to have climbed into the fold of Christ over the barrier of truth, to have held his living by the tenure of a solemn and deliberate falsehood.
It is probable that he did not altogether deny the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the queen; though cruelty was already leading many to the conviction that human authority had no proper place in the administration of the kingdom of Christ. But, like the puritans in general, he was, no doubt, deeply impressed with the unscriptural character of popery, and with the mischievous tendency of cherishing any remnant of its idolatrous abominations. The arguments employed against the ceremonies which had been abolished, applied, with equal force, to some which had been retained. The sign of the cross in baptism, the use of the surplice, bowing to the east, and kneeling before the table of the Lord, were as devoid of warrant in the Bible, as the ceremony of following the cross in procession, the use of holy water, ashes, and palms, or the worship of the sacramental wafer. The bishops in the earlier part of Elizabeth’s reign, had looked upon the catholic rites, which had been allowed to creep into the protestant church, as having been only tolerated for a time, and as a blot upon the Reformation, to be wiped off as soon as circumstances would admit. [77a] On the contrary, they were now held up as, each and all of them, essential to the uniformity of religion, and indispensable to the authorized performance of her public services. If Mr. Fleming deemed any one of them contrary to Scripture, as not being conducive to edification, but rather causing offence, [77b] he could not honestly put his signature to the archbishop’s Articles.
Turning over, with anxiety and thoughtfulness, the pages of the Book of Common Prayer, to which he was called upon to give so uncompromising an approval, he may be supposed to have noticed such particulars as the following.
The Creed attributed to Athanasius in effect declared it essential to salvation, not only that the mysterious doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ should be believed, but that the explanation therein attempted of those doctrines should be embraced as “the right faith;” and it denounced the sentence of eternal condemnation against those who did not “thus think,” with a peremptoriness and reiteration amounting to a virtual claim of infallibility. But if he could not discover in the Sacred Records any such explanation of the doctrines in question, nor, consequently, any such conditions of salvation, he might hesitate to declare his belief that those harsh clauses were not at variance with the word of God.
In the Baptism of Infants he would perceive that the priest was required to declare the baptized child to be regenerated, and to return thanks to God for so great a blessing. And he might think the doctrine obviously implied in that form, and plainly expressed in the catechism which follows it, “contrary to the word of God,” which treats of regeneration as a change of heart, such as no outward ceremony could confer. [79a]
In the Catechism also, the Common Prayer Book taught that there were two sacraments “generally necessary to salvation,” whereas he might conceive that it was “contrary to the word of God” to make such an assertion respecting either of them, in any instance. [79b]
In the Order for the Visitation of the Sick, the priest was directed to assume authority to “absolve” the penitent sinner: but while he was required to subscribe, as perfectly scriptural, the volume containing that formulary, conscience might be demanding, who can forgive sins but God alone? [80a]
Perhaps Mr. Fleming might apprehend that it was “contrary to the word of God,” which enjoins faithfulness in ministers, and sincerity in all, [80b] to adopt indiscriminately, with reference to all who were not unbaptized, excommunicated, or suicides, the form for the Burial of the Dead. He would gladly have availed himself, it may be, always of some portions, and frequently, of the whole of that beautiful and impressive service, if he might have been excused from expressing alike over the saint and the reviler of holiness—over him who had embraced and him who had denied the creed which all were required to receive as expounded by the church on pain of eternal death—over him who had calmly died in the well-grounded hope of acceptance at the bar of God, and him who had been hurried to that bar from scenes of intemperance or brawling—the same “sure and certain hope” of the resurrection of the deceased to eternal life; and if he had not been called upon, however depraved and hopeless the character of the departed, or however irreparable the breach in society occasioned by his removal, to give Almighty God thanks for taking him to Himself—thanks which the lip must profess to be “hearty,” but to which the heart, in the utmost stretch of charity in the one case, or of self-denial in the other, could not respond.
The version of the Psalms incorporated with the Book of Common Prayer, differed in many respects from that in the authorized version of the Bible, and in one instance directly contradicted it. [81] He, therefore, who acknowledged the more recent version as the word of God, and had noticed the discrepancy, could not, with strict truth, profess his conviction that the Prayer Book contained nothing contrary to the word of God.