6

with great importunity, he sought God in the behalf of his afflicted church, pleading that he would be gracious unto it, and restore it to peace in his own due time. He was particularly mindful of the church of Christ, in his family fasts and prayers. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its. 'cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.' (Psalm cxxxvii, 5, 6.) Dr. Twisse maintained, as several eminently orthodox divines have done, That God, by his absolute power, setting aside his decree or free constitution, can forgive sin without any satisfaction.** He hath a whole digression against Piscator and Lubbertus, on this subject. And Calvin expressly says, on John xv, 13, 'that God might, by 6 a word only, or by his command, have redeemed us; but he 'took this way through his Son, that his love might be made 'more manifest.' And Norton, in his Orthodox Evangelist, chap. 3, says, God, by his absolute power, could have saved man 'without a Mediator: he is omnipotent, and could have done 'what he pleased.' And Mr. Rutherford, Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself, pages 7, 8, says, If we speak of 'God's absolute power, without respect to his free decree, he 'could have pardoned sin without a ransom, and gifted all man'kind and fallen angels with heaven, without any satisfaction ' of either the sinner or his Surety; for he neither punisheth sin nor tenders heaven to men or angels by necessity of nature, (as the fire casteth out heat, and the sun light,) but freely.' But it appears to me both vain and dangerous to dispute what God can do by his absolute power, especially in the case before us, when he has most solemnly and plainly declared, in the strongest terms, that he will by no means clear the guilty, (Exod. xxxiv, 6, 7.) that is, He will not suffer guilty persons to go unpunished without a satisfaction. See Numb. xiv, 18; Jer. xxx, 11; Nah. i, 3. Sin is directly contrary to the perfections of God; and, therefore, it cannot go unpunished. Its impunity is incompatible both with the Divine nature and government; and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Dr. Owen opposes Dr. Twisse concerning this point, in his Dissertation on Divine Jus

learning, secured him from the extravagancies and follies of the demagogues, the people's oracles, every one of which affected to distinguish and signalize himself by some peculiar doctrine or custom; but, in truth, were no more fit for teachers and governors in religion, than mountebanks [are fit] to compose Dispensatories or to be Presidents of Colleges of Physicians.For one little proof of which, when, in the University itself [Cambridge] the use of the Lord's Prayer was generally laid aside, he did in the University Church, as I remember, both produce and discourse his own opinion concerning the obligations to use the form of it in public; and accordingly, to testify his more than ordinary assurance and zeal, he recited it both before and after his sermon.' On this last topic see page 381.

* What a horrid outcry would have been raised, had any famous Arminian divine at that juncture propounded such a sentiment!

tice; where he speaks very honourably and respectfully of him as his most learned antagonist. He says, (chap. xii, sec. 4,) 'But here, first of all the antagonists and who indeed is almost equal to them all, the very learned Twisse opposes himself to 'us.' He was allowed to be an excellent casuist. But, notwithstanding all his accomplishments, Mr. Neale says, that he died in very necessitous circumstances, having lost all that he had by the King's soldiers, insomuch that, when some of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster were deputed to visit him in his sickness, they reported, that he was very sick and in great straits.* And Mr. Jeanes, in his preface to his Riches of God's Love, complains of his having been shamefully neglected; where he declares against the unnatural vanity of England, in preferring strangers above such of their own countrymen as far surpassed them. And he adds, Of this unjust partiality no profession hath ' tasted more than that of divinity; for of our ministers, such 'whom God hath best fitted with parts and learning for discus'sing controversies, have been so undervalued in comparison of 'some foreign divines, whose learning was little better than systematic, as that they have languished in their private studies; and ' had died in obscurity, unless the fame of their great abilities ⚫ had been echoed over to us by the general applause of all Chris'tendom.'

"The great contentions and warm debates in the Assembly of Divinest much disturbed his thoughts; and his disturbed

Thus it appears, that while such alert and stirring brethren as Stephen Marshall, Hugh Peters, Philip Nye, John White and others, could procure a plentiful provision for themselves out of the sequestered livings of the Episcopal clergy, the aged Twisse, whose temporary rank and brilliant talents elevated him far above all these individuals, was left to perish in comparative poverty, because he neither possessed sufficient sycophancy nor strength of lungs to wheedle or to talk himself into republican notice and preferment. Yet with what craft and partiality does the historian of the Puritans endeavour to transfer this shameful treatment of an aged christian minister, from the ungenerous apathy and neglect of his Calvinistic brethren, to the aggressions of the king's troops at the commencement of hostilities! He must have known, that the soldiers on both sides were not much inclined to respect the property or the persons of their sworn adversaries. The subsequent complaints of Mr. Jeanes on this subject are very just, applied as they were to the men who were then in power, the precursors in fine and sentimental feeling" of that celebrated modern author who could weep over the sorrows of a dying ass, and yet refused the means of sustenance to his nearest relative. It must not be forgotten, however, that the Parliament took the Doctor's case into consideration, and issued an order, Dec. 4, 1645, "for one hundred pounds to be given him out of the public treasury."

+ This was not so pacific an Assembly as Mr. Reid, in a preceding part of his narrative, would have persuaded us to consider it. The lay-members, appointed by the two Houses, did not sit in state as silent spectators of the squabbles of the divines, like the States' Commissioners at the Synod of Dort; but they joined in the various debates, and controlled the impetuosity of some of the most ignorant and outrageous of the ecclesiastics. White. locke, in his Memorials, gives the following account of the treatment which several of them received from SELDEN, one of the four whom I excepted (page 401,) from the general charge of ignorance: "Divers members of

thoughts greatly impaired his bodily health; and his health being impaired, while his private studies and public employments were not abated, he was much reduced. Accordingly,

both Houses, whereof I was one, were members of the Assembly of Divines, to sit and debate, and give their votes in any matter which was in consideration amongst them. In which debates Mr. SELDEN spoke admirably, and confuted divers of them in their own learning. And sometimes, when they had cited a text of scripture to prove their assertion, he would tell them, Perhaps in your little pocket Bibles, with gilt leaves, (which they would often pull out and read,) the translation may be thus; but the Greek or the Hebrew signifies thus and thus:' And so would totally silence them." Whitelocke, be it remembered, (page 325,) is an impartial authority, according to Brook in his Lives of the Puritans.

Cleaveland, the famous satyrist, thus expresses himself concerning Selden, in his Mixed Assembly,

And Selden is a Galliard by himself,

And well may be; there's more divines in him
Than in all this their Jewish Sanhedrim !

It was a fortunate circumstance for the posthumous yet unfounded reputation of that Assembly, that those four learned individuals whose names I have specified were among its members. They illuminated the too-prevalent darkness of that Calvinistic Synod with occasional bright gleams and coruscations of genius; and threw an imposing air of learning and reputation upon its proceedings, which, in their absence, it would never have possessed. But the imposition is discovered, when once we become acquainted with the plainness of speech," which these eminent men were sometimes compelled to employ while trying to force an additional modicum of reason and common sense into the understandings of the more ignorant and assuming members-Dr. LIGHTFOOT, who is another of my exceptions, found it necessary to enlighten them on several points: It is well known that the Assembly spent much time concerning lay-elders, and their power of ruling. This they laboured to prove from the expressions in 1 Cor. xxii, 28, helps, governments, &c. Dr. L. opposed this opinion, by proving, that the Septuagint employ one of the Greek words, there used, as the translation of a Hebrew one, which imports not the act, but the ability of gifts fit to govern; and that the other word imports helps to interpret the language and sense of those who spake with tongues, as is apparent from the 28-30th - verses of the same chapter.-In discoursing upon Church Officers, one of the Divines asserted, "that Widows were to be esteemed as such officers;" and, for a confirmation of his opinion, he alleged that passage in Timothy which says, "Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old. Dr. L. employed the very argument, respecting the age at which widows were said to be eligible to office, to oppose the divine's posi"Under the old Testament," he said "the officers at the Temple were dismissed at fifty years of age; it is therefore unreasonable to suppose that, in the New, any should be admitted to office who were not under sixty." -On another occasion, when the right of the people to choose their own ministers was attempted to be proved by 1 Tim. iv, 14, in which, it was asserted, the Greek compound did not signify laying on of the hands but election or suffrage by holding up the hands; Dr. L. refuted that opinion by quotations from Zonaras, Balsamon, and from an Apostolical Canon, as well as from the peculiar notation of the Greek word. He added, "that it was not possible for the people, in those early times of Christianity, to elect their ministers, because none were fit in those times to be such, but by the gift of the Holy Ghost; and it was not reasonable to suppose, that the people nominated and chose those who were to receive that heavenly gift.". Upon a consultation, whether the Assembly should add a prohibition against converting the Directory into "a set form," Dr. L. spoke against the proposition, and considered it "dangerous so much as to intimate any thing against a set form.”

tion.

when he spake unto God in the name of the people, and to the people in the name of God, and raised up the hearts of his hearers unto heaven, he fell down in the pulpit. Though his constitution was naturally good, and his disposition cheerful; yet, through age, his body was now become heavy and somewhat burdensome: And therefore, when very warmly employed in

These are a few instances out of many, in which Dr. Lightfoot was compelled to stem the indiscriminate levelling arguments of the many.-Strype, the veritable and correct historian, has given the following additional instances: "Some arguments he made use of against certain city-ministers many years ago, more zealous than wise, and some of them Assembly-men, who earnestly advised to lay aside the celebration of Christmas-day: When beside reasons taken from RELIGION,-as, that the thing was in itself lawful, and that our Saviour preached at the Feast of Dedication which had a 'human original,' he urged the inconveniences of it in point of PRUDENCE, -as, that it would bring an odium upon the Assembly, that it would certainly breed a tumult, and that it would be safer to let such things alone to "authority than for them to meddle in.' Which bespake him to be a well-advised man, as well as one not affecting novelties.-And another thing shewed his acuteness as well as his prudence: It being moved in the Assembly, that when any went out of the Assembly before all rose, he should solemnly make. his obeisance, (that the better notice, I suppose, should be taken of such as went out,) this being even ready to pass, our Doctor desired that they ⚫ might not leave it upon their records to posterity, that this Assembly had need to take order for common reverence and civility! Upon which it was laid by, and the Order reversed.

Treating of the Thirteenth Article of Religion, that works done before Justification are not pleasing to God, one of the places brought to prove this proposition was, Unto the pure, all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.' (Titus i, 15, 16.) This place our Doctor held improper, upon these reasons: (1.) Because the place seems to speak concerning meats. (2.) It speaks of unbelieving Jews, and our Article seems to speak of men under Christianity. (3.) That [speaks] ' of most abominable wretches, our Article of men of good morals." But it was voted to pass, for all this.

"To that clause in the Second Article of Religion, who truly suffered, they added for its illustration, that for our sakes he suffered most grievous torments in his soul immediately from God.' These words, after much debate, were concluded on, and these proofs allowed for its confirmation, Isai. liii, 10, 11, Mark xiv, 33, 34. But those places gave not the Doctor satisfaction, nor the addition itself any content. For it was his fear, that it would intricate the Article rather than clear it, and that the proofs would not either satisfy the honest conscience or convince and stop the cavils of the captious. For the proving that clause in the same Article, to reconcile his Father to us, they produced Ezek. xvi, 63; which the Doctor opposed, as improper for the thing in hand.

"Among the rules laid down for preachers, it was made one of the qualifications of a doctrine raised from a text, a doctrine raised ought to be such a truth as is principally intended in that place. This was gainsaid by our Doctor, alledging these three places in one chapter, viz Matt. ii, Out of Egypt have I called my Son,-In Rama was a voice heard,-And, He shall be called a NAZARITE; which the Evangelist quotes besides the principal intent of the prophet. Whereupon they altered it thus, Such a truth as is principally intended, or what is most for edification.'

·

But these "great contentions" were not the only circumstances which "much disturbed the thoughts of Dr. Twisse." For, irritable as he naturally was, he must have been vastly chagrined at several of the irregularities enumerated by Lord Hailes, in his Remarks on the History of Scotland, who quotes, from the Wodrow MSS. one which was composed by George Gillespie, a Scotch Commissioner, and which contains the following statement, by the Assembly, of its own sins, with a view to a solemn fast: "The sins of the

spiritual things, his outward strength failed him.*-He was carried home and laid upon his bed, and continued about a year under a lingering indisposition. During this time he was visited by persons of all ranks, who loved either religion or learning. And to his friends who visited him on the day of his distress, he gave remarkable and very comfortable evidences of his faith. (Heb. xi, 13.) And under his affliction, he was a rare example of patience and christian resignation. When the time of his departure was at hand, he seriously uttered these following words, which were almost his last:- Now, at length, I shall 'have leisure to follow my studies to all eternity.' He died about the 20th July, 1646, in the seventy-first year of his age. His body was buried with great honour and solemnity, according to his dignity and former friendship with his brethren, at the request of the Assembly, in the collegiate church of St. Peter, Westminster, near the upper end of the poor folk's table, next the vestry, on the 24th of July, and was attended by the whole Assembly of Divines in a body. The day after his burial, the Parliament voted a thousand pounds to be given to his children, out of the public treasury; but they were cheated out of that, and whatever their father left. Notwithstanding, God was so pleased to appear for them, in his kind providence, that they obtained a decent support."

The foundation of the fame of Dr. Twisse lies principally in his "VINDICATION OF THE GRACE, POWER, AND PROVIDENCE OF GOD, that is, A Scholastic Reply to the Examination, instituted by James Arminius, into Perkins's Treatise on the Mode and Order of Predestination." After a very interesting Dedication to the Queen of Bohemia, (see page 453,) Dr. William Ames, who was then Professor of Divinity in the University of Franeker, communicates, under the date of Nov. 1, 1631, the following information to the reader: "Although I am not the man who can possibly contribute any additional degree of estimation to writings of this description, yet, the publisher having asked me for the sentiments of my heart on this work, with the leave of the

Assembly in Nine Points. (1.) Neglecting attendance in the Assembly, though the affairs be so important; late coming. (2.) Absence from the prayers. (3.) Reading and talking in time of debates. (4.) Neglect of committees. (5.) Some speak too much, others too little. (6.) Indecent behaviour. (7.) Unseemly language and heats upon it. (8.) Neglect of trying ministers. (9.) Members of Assembly drawing on parties, or being frightened with needless jealousies."

From this expression it is to be feared, that the good Doctor had at length considered it necessary for his personal interest, at that advanced period of life, to alter his former sedate mode of preaching, and to accommodate his practice to the loud and lengthy pulpit-harangues which were then in fashion. But nature was unequal to the exertion, and the Doctor's strength failed in the attempt.

+See here another instance of "the ruling passion strong in death."

What a picture does this present of the profligacy of those times, and of the public inconveniences and private grievances consequent upon political revolutions!