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CHAPTER VII.

DEMOCRATIC FORM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.-ITS EFFECT ON POLITICAL OPINIONS.

Different Course pursued by the Church and Dissenters at the ReformationDifference between Presbyterians, Independents, and Puritans-Three kinds of Puritans-Their Doctrines and Form of Ecclesiastical Government-Singular Valedictory Address of the Puritans to the Members of the Church of England - Extraordinary Union of Church and State among the formerCause of present political Unity of Action between Dissenters and Romanists.

WHILE the people on the continent of Europe were engaged in the work of reformation, the Church of England, with equal zeal and more discretion, set herself about the great task of restoration. She had never voluntarily submitted to Rome, nor fully admitted her authority over her. She had been previously encroached upon from time to time, owing to the imbecility or contentions of her princes, but had never failed either to resist or protest, to assert her exclusive jurisdiction, or to claim the exercise of her ancient usages.

If not anterior to that of Rome, the Anglican Church was at least coeval with it, being founded, as there is substantial ground for believing, by one of the Apostles. At a very early date, it had its orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, and subsisted, as independent in its action as it was isolated in position, for a period of nearly six hundred years, before the grasping and aspiring spirit of Rome attempted to seduce or force it into an acknowledgment of her supremacy. At the close of the sixth century, about the year 596, Gregory I. sent Augustine the monk to demand the submission of the English prelates, who, with their flocks, had gradually been driven westward by the barbarians that had invaded the island; and as these successful emigrants were heathens, he was at the same time instructed to Christianize them, if possible. In the first object of his mission he wholly failed, having received a decided refusal from the seven bishops, who assembled in Worcestershire to hear his proposition. In the latter (the conversion of the conquerors) he was more suc

cessful, and immediately assumed jurisdiction over his proselytes. The Papal power having thus obtained a footing, never afterward ceased its endeavors to enlarge it upon every practicable occasion, or plausible pretense.*

To shake off the errors and corruptions of Romanism, and preserve what was sanctioned by the usage of the apostolic age, was a work of great labor, and at the same time great delicacy. The task of the Church, unlike that of the impetuous and headstrong body of innovators who called themselves Protestant Reformers, was not to pull down and reconstruct, but thoroughly to repair and completely restore the ancient edifice in all its beauty, simplicity, and proportion. Nobly was this arduous and important duty performed. Search was made for the forms of the olden time, before the irruption of the Roman priesthood; for the prayers in all the ancient sees were not alike, as each bishop had, according to primitive custom, the power of regulating the liturgy of his own diocese. From these authentic sources was compiled with great labor and infinite patience the Book of Common Prayer, which has extorted from one of the most learned and eminent Dissenting divines of this century this extraordinary eulogium: "That it is by far the greatest uninspired work extant."†

Romanists themselves, when permitted to exercise an independent judgment, admitted its unexceptionable character and great beauty, and joined in its use for more than twelve years. Two of the Popes, Paul and Pius IV., went so far as to offer to sanction it if Queen Elizabeth would acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope. Upon her refusal she was excommunicated, in 1569, and from that period British Papists became schismatics.

The English Dissenting Reformers, though not so ignorant as those of the Continent, were, with some distinguished exceptions, in general violent and vulgar fanatics. They were but little acquainted with the history or antiquity of their own primitive church, and cared still less about it; all they knew was, that even when purified and restored, it still resembled that of Rome too much to please them. As they had rejected the Pontiff, they saw no reason to obey a bishop; and it was obvious to the meanest capacity, that if the regular clergy were abolished, tithes

*Bennet on Common Prayer. Theophilus Anglicanus.

t Hall.

would necessarily cease also. So convenient and so unscrupulous a party were soon seized upon by politicians to advance their own ends. They were told then, as their descendants are informed to this day, by the leading Liberals of England, who view with no friendly eye such a Conservative body as the Church, that it was the child of the Reformation, the offspring of chance, and the result of a compromise between royal prerogative, Papal pretension, and popular rights; that it had neither the antiquity of the old, nor the purity of the new faith; and that it was behind the enlightenment of the age. In fact, it was stigmatized as deriving its origin from no higher authority than an Act of Parliament. Macaulay has lent his aid to perpetuate this delusion, and the innovating propensities of the Whigs may well be imagined from the fact, that even history is not safe in the hands of a reformer.

As this dissentient body, at a subsequent period, furnished the pioneers who settled in New England, it is necessary to take a cursory view of their position, divisions, and political and religious principles, that we may understand the character and temper of the people we have been treating of.

There were at that time three great parties of Nonconformists in the parent country-the Presbyterians, the Independents, and the Puritans. There were some points in which they all agreed, but there was a broad line of distinction among them in others. They concurred in a thorough hatred of Popery and prelacy, which they affected to consider nearly synonymous terms, and united in a desire to restrain the regal authority, but different in degree. The Presbyterians, from the habit of mingling politics with their religious discourses, often gave vent to violent and seditious language. A preacher at St. Andrews, called monarchs "Beelzebub's children," and not long after, another at Edinburgh, said the king had been possessed of a devil, and that one being expelled, seven more fierce and unclean had entered in his place, and wound up by declaring that the people might lawfully use and take the sword out of his hand. But, notwithstanding these ebullitions of vulgar abuse and priestly insolence, the party in general, both in England and Scotland, were desirous of going no further than reducing the king to the simple station of first magistrate.

The Independents wished to abolish the monarchy altogether,

as well as the aristocratic order, and projected an entire equality of rank, and the establishment of a free and independent republic. At the same time they differed from the other two in upholding toleration; and it has often been remarked as a singular fact, that so rational a doctrine did not emanate from reason, but from the height of extravagance and fanaticism.* They neglected all ecclesiastical establishments, and would admit of no spiritual courts, no government among pastors, no interposition of the magistrate in religious concerns, and no fixed encouragement annexed to any system of doctrines or opinions. According to their principles, each congregation, united voluntarily and by spiritual ties, composed within itself a separate church, and exercised a jurisdiction destitute of temporal sanctions over its own pastor and its own members. The election alone was sufficient to bestow the sacredotal character; and as all essential distinctions were denied between the laity and the clergy, no ceremony, no institution, no vocation, and no imposition of hands was, as in all other Churches, supposed requisite to convey a right to holy orders. The enthusiasm of the Presbyterians led them to reject the authority of prelates, to throw off the restraint of liturgies, to retrench ceremonies, to limit the riches and power of the priestly office. The fanaticism of the Independents, exalted to a higher pitch, abolished ecclesiastical government, disdained creeds and systems, neglected every pre-existing form, and confounded all ranks and orders. The soldier, the merchant, the mechanic, indulging the fervors of zeal, and guided by the impulse of the spirit, resigned himself to an inward and superior direction, and was consecrated, in a manner, by an immediate intercourse and communication with Heaven.

The Puritans again, were divided into three classes, which, though commonly united, were yet actuated by different views and motives.t First, There were the political Puritans, who maintained the highest principles of civil liberty. Secondly, the Puritans in discipline, who were averse to the ceremonies and episcopal government of the Church. Thirdly, the doctrinal party, who rigidly defended the speculative system of the first reformers. These subdivisions are not very intelligible nor interesting to the general reader, and subsequent events have rendered

94 Hume.

t See Neal's History of the Puritans

them of less importance. The despised and persecuted Episcopal Church of England has, by the blessing of God, taken deep root in America; the uniformity of its practice, the simplicity and beauty of its ceremonies, the fixed and established principles of its creeds and doctrines, have survived the factious or prejudiced sects that opposed it; many of whose adherents, have at last found shelter and repose in its bosom from the doubts, contentions, and schisms in which they had been involved. The rest have changed with the mutations of times; for dissent carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution. The Puritans have declined into Unitarians. The Presbyterians of the States are becoming Anabaptists, Socinians, or Churchmen, more than three hundred of their clergy having recently sought episcopal ordination; while toleration or neglect, fashion, or ridicule, have nearly vanquished the Quakers. The Baptists again have separated into an endless variety of sects. It is not very probable that the Puritans of Massachusetts had agreed upon their form of ecclesiastical government before they left England; but they concurred in their dislike to the ceremonies and doctrines of the Church. Their last act, when embarked and ready for sea, was

* See Hume, from whom these distinctions have been freely extracted. They are thus described by a recent traveler in the Western States. He informs us, 66 that he saw on one occasion about a thousand men and women in a grove, rolling hoops, flying kites, playing ball, shooting marbles, leaping, running, wrestling, boxing, rolling and tumbling in the grass; the women caressing dolls, and the men astride of sticks for horses, and the whole company intently engaged in all the sports of childhood. At last he ventured to ask what it meant. They told him they professed to be little children, to whom the Lord had promised his kingdom, and affected some surprise that he seemed not to have known that it was written, 'Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no case enter the Kingdom of God.' He told them that that was true; that it was very well to imitate the virtues of infancy, but not its foibles; that the Apostle had said: 'In malice be ye children, but in understanding be men;' and this extraordinary conduct was the folly of childhood, without its immaturity to excuse it. We are not at all surprised that you think so,' they replied, 'for we are a reproach unto our neighbors, and they of our acquaintance do hide themselves from us; but we are willing to suffer persecution for the kingdom of heaven's sake; for these things are hidden, as it is written, from the wise and prudent, and are revealed unto babes.'"

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The reader may see in the histories of the Reformation, and even in D'Aubigné himself, that this sect is the genuine successor of the original Baptist body in Germany, Switzerland, and England, who ran many of them naked, in the pretended innocence of childhood, vociferating through the streets, rolling and tumbling, and affecting all the sports of children, believing that the truth is revealed by the Spirit to babes; throwing the word of God into the fire, exclaiming, says D'Aubigné, "that the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

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