Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

1644.

The hard-pressed Independents again looked across the water for help; and, with a hope, as they expressed it, "to reconcile some present differences about discipline," Goodwin and Nye printed and circu

alliance with the hare-brained and foolhardy sectaries of other names; and the intimacy grew more close in proportion as the Presbyterians insisted more upon that ecclesiastical union, in which they hoped to find a remedy for the prevailing disorders.

It should further be said, that, had the Presbyterian party obtained the permanent power at which it aimed, there were numbers of good men belonging to it and possessing powerful influence in it, who without doubt would, to the utmost of their power, have restrained the impetuous intolerance of their less enlightened associates. But how far they might be able to do this could not be known till after the experiment; whether they would even wish to be lenient to the full extent that was desirable for the dissenting body, was uncertain; and, at all events, men who have power, or hope to have it, are not content to hold by sufferance what they esteem their right.

Whatever the Independents might have been justified in hoping, had they allowed the opposing party to establish itself in the authority at which it aimed, certainly they had cause for apprehension sufficient to forbid them to resign themselves to its mercy. Whatever influences they might imagine would ultimately prevail, certain it is, that the language of many of the Presbyterian leaders and among them men whose control over the passions of their friends was unsurpassed - was threatening in the extreme. The party had scarcely, in any rank of life, a man of more consequence than Robert Baylie. This is his language in the Preface to his Sermon preached before the House of

Lords in July, 1645: "It is more, at least no less, unlawful for a Christian State to give any liberty or toleration to errors, than to set up, in every city or parish of their dominions, bordels for uncleanness, stages for plays, and lists for duels. A liberty for errors is no less hateful to God, no less hurtful to men, than a freedom, without any punishment, without any discouragement, for all men, when and wheresoever they pleased, to kill, to steal, to rob, to commit adultery, or to do any of those mischiefs, which are most repugnant to the civil law, and destructive of human society." And if so, what followed in respect to the Independent party? For, he continues, "That so much extolled Independency, wherein many religious souls for the time do wander, is the chief hand that opened at first, and keepeth open to this day, the door to all the other errors that plague us."— Edmund Calamy was a Presbyterian oracle. in 1644, in a Sermon before Parliament, "you do not labor, according to your duty and power, to suppress the errors and heresies which are spread in the kingdom, all those errors are your errors, and those heresies are your heresies; they are your sins." (Price, Hist. Non-Conformity, II. 327.) — “A toleration," urged the Presbyterian Edwards in 1646, "is the grand design of the Devil, the master-piece and chief engine he works by at this time to uphold his tottering kingdom. It is a most transcendent, catholic, and fundamental evil..... The Devil follows it night and day, working mightily in many, by writing books for it, and other ways, all the devils in hell and their instru

66 "If," said he,

lated an elaborate treatise composed by Cotton, bearing the title of "The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven, and Power thereof, according to the Word of God." This was followed up by a larger work, also from his pen and published by his friends in London, on "The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England, or the Way of Churches walking in Brotherly Equality or Co-ordination, without Subjection of one Church to another, measured and examined by the Golden Reed of the Sanctuary." Some Presbyterian immediately published an elaborate

ments being at work to promote tolera-
tion. O, let ministers oppose toleration,
as that by which the Devil would at
once lay a foundation for his kingdom
through all generations." (See Gan-
græna, I. 58 – 85.) — The Presbyterian
ministers of Lancashire, in 1645, testified
with "harmonious consent," that tolera-
tion was
"soul-murder, the greatest
murder of all, for the establishment
whereof damned souls in hell would ac-
cuse men on earth." (Price, Non-Con-
formity, II. 331.) — Prynne was a man
well able to make himself heard, and
his multitudinous writings breathed an
uncompromising harshness against dis-
sent. — In fine, that the apprehensions
of the Independents from a Presbyte-
rian government had not been unrea-
sonable, was manifested by the strictest
proof, when, at a late stage of the quar-
rel (May 2, 1648), a temporary Pres-
byterian majority in Parliament, in an
"Ordinance against Blasphemy and
Heresy," constituted some alleged er-
rors capital offences, and made others
highly penal. (Crosby, History of the
English Baptists, I. 199.)

To avert the dangers thus threatened in England by a Presbyterian sway, the men of New England were prompted to interpose, not only by zeal for the defence of what they had themselves received as the truth, and by sympathy

with their English friends in both hopes and fears, but by the probability that the success of the plans which were avowed would ultimately involve peril to themselves, or would at least impair the cordiality of friendship between themselves and the rulers of the parent country. At the same time, the leaders in New England had no share in the anxieties which might seem to excuse the rigor of the English Presbyterians, nor was their position by any means the

same.

In New England, the Independents were the party interested to keep things as they were. They were in little danger from Familism and its kindred fancies; they had subdued it when they conquered the faction of Hutchinson and Wheelwright; and they had since had a settled order of their own, which a triumph of Presbytery in England could influence only to their disturbance. If conservatism in England might be excused for securing power to Presbyterianism, and exercising rigor against Independents, in New England it looked the other way. New-England conservatism was concerned to have Independency maintained intact.

1 Mather says (Introduction to the Cambridge Platform) that Owen, having undertaken to answer this book, found it too strong for him, and was converted by it.

reply to Cotton's book. Persons of no less consideration than the Scottish Commissioners, Samuel Rutherfurd2 and Robert Baylie, came into the lists against him. Herle, the Prolocutor of the Assembly, lent his aid, and was answered by two divines of New England.1 Other distinguished Englishmen took part in the controversy;5 none entered into it with more bitterness on the Presbyterian side than William Prynne, the sufferer a few years before from the tyranny of Laud. William Apollonius, of Middelburg, in Zeeland, maintained the cause of the

1 "Vindicia Clavium, or a Vindication of the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven into the Hands of the Right Owners, being some Animadversions upon a Tract of Mr. J. C., &c. By an Earnest Well-wisher to the Truth."

the Independency of Churches," &c.,
by Richard Mather of Dorchester, and
William Tompson of Braintree.
66 А
Reply to Mr. Rutherfurd, or a Defence
of the Answer to Reverend Mr. Herle's
Booke against the Independency of
Churches," &c., by Richard Mather.

5 As Thomas Edwards, in his " Antapologia, or Full Answer to the Apologetical Narration," &c.; William Rathbun, in his "Brief Narration of some Church Courses held in Opinion and Practice in the Churches lately erected in New England," &c.

6

2 "The Due Right of Presbyteries, wherein is examined the Way of the Church of Christ in New England," &c. It is an answer, in a quarto volume of 800 pages, to Cotton's "Way of the Churches." It was particularly in reply to this that Thomas Hooker of Hartford wrote his "Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline, wherein the Way of the Congregational Churches of Christ in New England is warranted and cleared," &c., a volume of 490 pages, with a short Appendix by Mr. Goodwin. "Many books coming out of England [1645], some in defence of Anabaptism and other errors,.... others in maintenance of the Presbyterial government, agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines in England against the Congregational way, which was practised here," &c. "The several answers were these; Mr. Hooker in answer to Mr. Rutherfurd, the Scotch minister," &c. (Winthrop, II. 248.) 3" A Dissuasive from the Errors of Epist. Ded., A. 2; comp. 51.) Prynne's the Time," &c. composing vein flowed very freely. There are more than a dozen tracts of his in this controversy.

"A Modest and Brotherly Answer to Mr. Charles Herle his Book against

Prynne would have the Parliament make some of their opponents 66 exemplary monuments of their impartial severity;” and “if the new seditious lights and firebrands will needs set up new churches, heresies, church governments, and vent their new errors or opinions," he would have them "do it only in New England, or other Newfoundlands, since Old England needs them not, unless it be to set her all on fire." (A Fresh Discovery of some Prodigious New Wandering Blazing Stars and Fire Brands, styling themselves New Lights, firing our Church and State into New Combustions, &c.,

English Presbyterians in a learned Latin treatise,1 and was answered by John Norton, of Ipswich, in Massachusetts.2 Much of the discussion between parties in the Assembly was conducted in writing, and the papers were from time to time given to the public in print.3

The irreconcilable character of these differences was becoming apparent, when, after the second battle of Newbury, the royalist and patriot armies withdrew for some months from the field. From other causes which had now arisen, the rivalry between the two popular religious parties took more practical and vigorous forms.

Politics of

rians.

The King signified his disposition to treat. His affairs had by no means become desperate. The great disasters which had befallen him had not been uncompenIndependents sated, and the termination of the last campaign and Presbyte- had been honorable to his arms. But, in respect to regular supplies of money, he was at serious disadvantage when compared with the Parliament; and this, he now clearly perceived, would be a growing embarrassment, till negotiation or victory should restore him to his power. The Presbyterians were not indisposed to an accommodation with him. They meant that a condition of it should be the establishment of their own church order; but to this they were not without strong

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

together with the Answer of the Assembly of Divines to those Reasons of Dissent." The book is the same as that which, with the date of 1652, has for a title-page, "The Grand Debate concerning Presbytery and Independency," &c. The copy which I use (belonging to the American Antiquarian Society) has attached to it another volume, also published in 1648, consisting of "Papers given in to the Honorable Committee of Lords and Commons and Assembly of Divines by a SubCommittee of Divines of the Assembly and Dissenting Brethren."- Compare "Anatomy of Independency" (1644).

hope of obtaining his consent, and they had become jealous of the army, which they already apprehended to be freeing itself too much from their control, but which could not be disbanded while the King was at the head of a hostile array. The Independents, on the other hand, would have been satisfied with no peace which, in the place of the Episcopacy that had been overturned, would have set up a religious authority equally intolerant of them, if not equally odious to them.

1645.

The negotiation for a peace was held at Uxbridge, a town fifteen miles from London, on the road to Negotiation Oxford, where were the royal head-quarters. It at Uxbridge. lasted twenty days. The King was represented February. by sixteen Commissioners, the English Parliament by twelve, and the Scots by ten, "for the Estates of the Parliament, together with Mr. Alexander Henderson, upon the Propositions concerning religion."1

The various subjects of dispute arranged themselves under three heads; - the religious establishment, the control of the militia, and the disposal of affairs in Ireland. The king was prevailed upon by his advisers to propose that the militia should be intrusted to twenty Commissioners, to be designated by agreement between him and the Parliament, or one half by each party;- the command to be restored to him at the end of three years. On the other side, no less was required than that the command for seven years should belong to officers named by the Parliament, and that at the end of that time it should be subject to legislative arrangement. As to Ireland, it was demanded that Parliament should have the exclusive management of the war, and that, after the reduction of that island, they should appoint the high officers for its government. To any such terms, it was manifestly impossible that the King should accede, until he was much further humbled; and it was therefore with

1 Parliamentary History, III. 322.

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »