The first four of the books of Hooker’s work were published in 1594, the fifth in 1597. As the other three had been left in manuscript, and did not appear in print till many years after his death in 1600, suspicions were raised that they might have been interpolated. As the Narrative of this chapter has given place to an exposition of Hooker’s fundamental position against the Nonconformists, it need not be repeated here.
For a long period, the well-known work[460] of Daniel Neal, in its successive editions, was the only one written from an historical point of view by an author not contemporary with its whole subject, which had appeared from the press, was widely circulated and generally accredited for its fidelity, its ability, and its trustworthiness. Mr. Neal, born in London in 1678, was a Dissenting minister in that city, and died in 1743. His history was published in portions between 1731 and 1738. The editions of it now in general circulation are those edited with valuable notes by Dr. Toulmin, the first of which appeared in London in 1793, and the last in 1837. The editor continued the history after the English Revolution. Mr. Neal made diligent research, in order to verify his statements from all the original sources which were open to him. He relied largely on the laborious Memorials gathered by the painstaking Strype, while owing much to Fuller and Burnet. Mosheim accepted Neal’s work as of the highest authority. Dr. Kippis commends it highly in the Biographia Britannica. After the publication of his first volume, Neal made public his answer to an anonymous work by Dr. Maddox, Bishop of St. Asaph, vindicating the Church of England “from the injurious reflections cast upon it in that volume.” Similar animadversions were cast upon the later volumes by Dr. Zachary Grey. Bishop Warburton, in some Notes to Mr. Neal’s history which he published in 1788, even brings in question the author’s veracity. Dr. Toulmin meets and answers such charges. Mr. Neal sought to give his pages authenticity by full quotations, citations, and references to his original authorities. In a few instances in which Burnet or others denied his fairness or accuracy, Dr. Toulmin has vindicated him against all aspersions, if not from all charges of error. The author wrote when the Dissenters were relieved by legislation of the severe impositions, fines, and inflictions of an earlier period, but were by no means brought into an equality in social and civil rights and privileges with the favored and patronized members of the Church Establishment. So Mr. Neal’s pages are free from the asperity and bitterness provoked into indulgence by his predecessors under the smart of humiliating wrongs. Still, he is loyal to the memory and steadfastness of those earlier sufferers. There was much on which the Dissenters of his time might pride themselves as won by the constancy of those who had fought for them the battles with lordly arrogance and hierarchical assumptions and prerogatives. There was a palmy age for Dissent in England which Lord Macaulay describes very felicitously, when, as he says, there were Dissenting ministers whose standing and condition in life compared favorably with those of all the clergy of the Establishment below those of the bishops. Among the Dissenting laity were men of wealth and of commercial consequence, as a high and honored social class, whose munificent endowments were bestowed on some of the noblest institutions of the realm.
Mr. Hallam devotes the second, third, and fourth chapters of his Constitutional History of England to the development of the history of Nonconformity, both among Roman Catholics and Protestants, during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. Among the many reviews and critical estimates of this history, that in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xlviii., is especially able and satisfactory. Mr. Hallam brought to the presentation of this part of his whole subject, not only his habitually thorough and conscientious fulness of research among authorities and documents, public and private, but also that spirit of candor, moderation, and equitable impartiality which, if not already cherished in the purposes and motives of one intending the task of an historian, may or may not be acquired and exercised in dealing with themes engaging so much of temper, strife, and intenseness of polemical animosity. From his point of view, reading backwards along the line of historical development, he recognized that the early Nonconformists were dealing with fundamental principles in religious affairs which, though not at the time fully apprehended, would necessarily involve immunities and rights of a political character. It is because of this, now clearly exposed and certified to us, that such lofty tributes are rendered to the Puritans as the exponents and champions of English liberty.
The Inner Life[461] of Robert Barclay, not completely, though substantially, finished and supervised by its author, is an admirable example of the more wise, just, and considerate tone and method adopted in quite recent years for dealing with times and subjects of once embittered religious agitation and controversy. It is calm and judicial in its temper, inclusive and well-digested in its materials and contents. The author’s research was most wide and comprehensive. He spared no labor in the quest of original documents, in manuscript or print, all over England and on the Continent, of prime use and authority for his purpose, whether in public repositories or in private cabinets. For some very important matters which entered into the full treatment of his theme he has used for the first time many records that had been lying in undisturbed repose, and he has enlisted the valuable aid of many friends.
The author, after defining the idea and object of a visible church, makes an elaborate effort to trace to its sources and in its course the development of religious opinion in England previous to 1640. He marks the rise of Barrowism, Brownism, of the Johnsonists, the Separatists, the Presbyterians, the early Independents, the two parties of Baptists, and the Friends, or Quakers. Some of the views, habits, and principles adopted by these parties he traces in their connection with the Mennonites on the Continent. He distinguishes, as far as possible, the various shades of opinion, the introduction of new points of controversy or discussion, the individualisms, extravagancies, eccentricities, and erratic excesses of individuals or parties, and he keeps distinct the two main currents of the development, as they favored or rejected the connection of civil and ecclesiastical authority. He draws the line distinctly between the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, on the one side, as according in favoring a state church and a national establishment, and the original ideas gradually developed into positive principles of individuals and societies among the Separatists, which involved the complete separation of the administration of religion from the civil power.
The central subject of Mr. Barclay’s volume is the early history of the Friends, or Quakers. Two chief points are specially dealt with: First, many of the distinctive principles in their teaching and conduct which have been generally regarded as original with them are traced as in full recognition by other parties previous to the preaching of George Fox. Second, the author presents many facts, new, or in a new light, which disclose how earnest were the efforts of the early Friends for a very careful and even elaborate inner organization and discipline of their membership, after the manner of a visible Church,—the appointment and oversight of a qualified ministry, the sending out of authorized missionaries, and the inquisition into the private affairs, the home life, habits, and business of members, carried out into very minute and annoying details. He reveals to us the embarrassments met by them in deciding upon the question of “birthright membership.” Manuscript documents, records, minute-books, etc., preserved in many places where the early Friends had their meetings, are found very communicative.[462]
Mr. Skeats, in his Free Churches[463] has in view as his general purpose, to trace “the part which English Dissent has played in the history of England.” Following this comprehensive design, he presents the various phases of Nonconformity and Separatism through denominational organizations among Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Independents, and Congregationalists, noting the attitude of opposition assumed towards them by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. He regards the Toleration Act, passed in 1689,—which even then excluded the Unitarians from its terms,—as drawing the line between the efforts which had been made up to that time to extinguish Dissent, and the leaving it simply under a stigma, as lacking social standing and Government recognition. Only the first chapter, covering a hundred of the six hundred pages of the volume, is concerned with the subject directly in our hands. The author is in full sympathy with the principles and the cause, the attitude and the persistency, of the resolute and buffeted men whose views he sets forth, as developed from the earliest stage of the Reformation in England. He cites and quotes original authorities to authenticate his statements and his judgments. In some instances, where they bear hard upon the conduct of the archbishops of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth, Curteis, in his Bampton Lectures, challenges their fairness. More than four hundred Dissenting societies, Congregationalist and Baptist, are now existing in England, which date their origin before the passage of the Toleration Act under William.[464] To these are to be added many societies of Presbyterians and Quakers.
The Congregational Union of England and Wales is an organized body devoted to the interests of the fellowship to which it succeeds as representing the original single and associated Nonconformists from the date of the English Reformation. Its magazines, its annual reports, and various publications issued under its patronage, keep in living interest and advocacy the principles first stood for by faithful witnesses, sufferers, and martyrs. One of these publications, of especial importance, bears the following title: Historical Memorials relating to the Independents, or Congregationalists, from their Rise to the Restoration of the Monarchy, 1660, London, 1839. The distinctive value and authority of this work, which is in four octavo volumes, attach to its being almost exclusively composed of the original writings, of various kinds, from the pens of the first Nonconformists, and the answers or arguments brought against them. These have been gathered by keen and extended investigation, carefully authenticated, and, where it is necessary, annotated. The motive which inspired this undertaking was to remove the obscurity and contumely which had been threatening to settle over the memory and principles of men whose own writings prove them to have been equal in learning, acumen, argumentative power, and heroic constancy of purpose to defend a cause by them thought worthy of their devotion. Many important papers which elsewhere are found only in quotations, extracts, or fragments, are here given in full.
The Bi-Centennial commemoration of the ejectment of all Nonconforming ministers from the parish churches of England, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1662, was made the occasion, after modern usage for such observances, of the delivery of a multitude of addresses, and the preparation and publication of numerous pamphlets and volumes, of local or general interest, with historical retrospect and review of the origin and development of English Nonconformity. Curteis[465] has a very pregnant note on the “bicentenary rhetoric” connected with this occasion. He alleges that “incredible exaggerations” were exposed, as founded upon the lists given in Calamy’s famous Nonconformist Memorial (edited by Palmer) of the ejected ministers, as being in number two thousand. Curteis says it was proved that instead of there being 293 such in London parishes, there were by count only 127, and that from the whole alleged number of two thousand, there should be struck off no less than twelve hundred.[466]