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STUDIES IN ENGLISH RELIGION 
 IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
 RELIGION IN THE SEVEN- 
 TEENTH CENTURY 
 
 ST. MARGARET'S LECTURES 
 
 1903 
 
 By H. HENSLEY HENSON, B.D. 
 
 C.^NJN or WESTMlNSrFR AND RECTOR OF ST. MARG.^RFT's, WESTMINSTER 
 LATE FELLOW OF ALL SOULb' COLLEGL, OXFORD 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1903 
 

TO THE WARDEN AND FELLOWS OF 
 ALL SOULS' COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF 
 
 THEIR KINDNESS AND CONFIDENCE 
 
 CONTINUED THROUGH NINETEEN YEARS 
 
 (1884-1903) 
 
 THE AUTHOR INSCRIBES 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 \VITH THE UTMOST AFFECTION 
 
 
Preface 
 
 Some years ago I formed the design of writing a 
 history of the " Savoy Conference," and, by way of 
 preparing myself for my task, I directed my read- 
 ing to the literature of the seventeenth century. 
 In the summer of 1900 I printed for private 
 circulation two lectures, the one on "The religious 
 situation under Elizabeth," the other on " The 
 Hampton Court Conference," and these lectures 
 were republished last year, together with other 
 essays, in a volume entitled Cross-bench Vieivs 
 of Current Church Cluestions. When, in the 
 course of my duty, I had to arrange for a fresh 
 series of S. Margaret's Lectures, many persons 
 expressed to me their desire that I should take 
 the opportunity of continuing my discussion of 
 English religion in the seventeenth century. That 
 will, perhaps, suffice to explain the subject of the 
 lectures for 1903, and the fact that I myself was 
 the lecturer. In adopting the title " studies," I 
 could not escape from the limitations implied in 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 the composition of lectures intended in the first 
 instance for delivery in a church. A few leading 
 truths insisted upon again and again, a few repre- 
 sentative facts discussed with care, a few authorities 
 advanced and used throughout — these would seem 
 to be the unavoidable features of public lectures, 
 designed to set out clearly positions, deliberately 
 adopted, which, for their sufficient establishing, 
 would properly demand a more elaborate treat- 
 ment. The service which such " studies " are 
 able to render is that of suggesting points of 
 view and stimulating thought. Incidentally they 
 may contribute information, but that is not their 
 proper work. If I insist upon the limitations 
 under which I have perforce laboured, it is 
 in order to protect myself against a kind of 
 criticism which, however legitimate in other 
 spheres, is out of place in connection with 
 these lectures. It is not to be inferred that un- 
 named authorities are also unknown and unused, 
 or that important facts unmentioned are also un- 
 considered. Much had to be taken for granted 
 as already known, and it seemed to me that this 
 might be the more reasonably done since the 
 period of history dealt with has been, perhaps, 
 more thoroughly and effectively handled in easily 
 accessible works than any other. The time has 
 not come yet, if it ever comes, when such books 
 
PREFACE XI 
 
 as Dr. Masson's Life of John Milton^ and Dr. 
 Gardiner's great History of England from the 
 Accession of James I. will need to be rewritten. 
 
 Of Dr. Gardiner, indeed, it is impossible for 
 any student of history to speak without indulging 
 in the language of genuine admiration. Nothing 
 seems to have escaped his notice ; nothing was 
 able to deflect his judgment. He moved amid the 
 bewildering controversies of the most controversial 
 of centuries with a firm and even step, and, almost 
 alone among the historians of that age, he has 
 dealt equal justice to the protagonists of the con- 
 flicting causes, which stir men's hearts still and 
 still inflame their passions. Charles, Laud, and 
 Strafford are seen at their best on those pages 
 which yet record with luminous sympathy the 
 exploits of Pym, Owen, and Oliver ; for the 
 author had an intuitive appreciation of the higher 
 elements in them all, and was able to divine and 
 utter their often half-understood and clumsily- 
 expressed ideals, as partisans then and apologists 
 now, can never do. The very spirit of historic 
 science inspires the calm and lucid narrative and 
 the balanced judgment of Samuel Rawson Gardiner. 
 It is impossible not to compare him advantageously 
 in these respects with his great precursor in the 
 study of the seventeenth century, Lord Macaulay. 
 In another respect the two historians may be 
 
Xll PREFACE 
 
 compared. Lord Macaulay lies buried in Poets' 
 Corner, and few graves in that venerable place 
 attract more general homage ; but neither in 
 Westminster Abbey, the treasure-house of national 
 distinction, nor in S. Margaret's, the home of 
 Parliamentary traditions, is there any memorial 
 of one who was not only the historian of the most 
 famous Parliament that has ever sat at West- 
 minster, but also the most laborious, devoted, and 
 disinterested of all the students of our national 
 past. It may be fairly questioned whether Dr. 
 Gardiner's historical writings do not constitute the 
 greatest single achievement of the nineteenth 
 century in the sphere of English historical work. 
 
 In the account of Presbyterianism in England I 
 must acknowledge with special gratitude the help 
 I have received from Mr. William A. Shaw's 
 careful and valuable History of the English Church 
 during the Civil Wars and under the Commonwealth^ 
 1 640-1 660. Other acknowledgments have, I 
 think, been made where they are required ; but, 
 mainly, I have not concerned myself with modern 
 writers, preferring to draw what I had to say from 
 the men of the time, and base my contentions on 
 their evidence. 
 
 I have more frequently quoted from the volu- 
 minous writings of Richard Baxter than from 
 any other contemporary, and I did so with the 
 
PREFACE Xlll 
 
 deliberate design of bringing once more into pro- 
 minence the somewhat forgotten merits of that 
 admirable man. It is much to be desired that 
 some competent scholar would undertake the pub- 
 lication of a new edition of the Reliquiae Baxterianae. 
 Matthew Sylvester, the original editor, was wholly 
 without qualifications for his task, and he has given 
 to us one of the most interesting and valuable 
 autobiographies in the language in a state of such 
 confusion, so swollen with documents, and destitute 
 of notes of time, and other indispensable aids to 
 the reader, that it is certainly the case that, outside 
 the coteries of avowed historians, this work is 
 only known by a few extracts. If the documents 
 were removed from the text to an appendix, the 
 text itself broken up into chapters or sections, and 
 the whole carefully edited with explanatory notes, 
 the Reliquiae Baxterianae would take rank at once 
 as a book indispensable for students of the seven- 
 teenth century, and worthy of a place alongside 
 the best literary productions of the time. 
 
 The seventeenth century was perhaps the most 
 theological of all historic epochs, for it may be 
 doubted whether the popular discussions of tech- 
 nical theology which Socrates describes as prevailing 
 in the Nicene age really indicated any general 
 dominance of theology in the region of popular 
 practice, and in the "Ages of Faith" the intelli- 
 
XIV PREFACE 
 
 gence of the average multitude slumbered under 
 the unquestioned empire of the Church. And 
 because the age was thus pre-eminently theological, 
 it presented everywhere the strangest paradoxes. 
 It is hard for the modern student to combine in a 
 single view the barbarous superstition which gave 
 a career to the miscreant Hopkins, famous as " the 
 Witchfinder," and the pure and reasonable religion 
 of such men as Baxter or Jeremy Taylor, or (which 
 is still more perplexing) to understand in such men 
 the coexistence of the manliest thinking and the 
 worthiest living with the most infantile credulity. 
 But this paradoxical age, when theology was not 
 merely still, in the general estimate, the summa 
 scieniiarum, but even had passed into the political 
 sphere and seized on the helm of government, 
 stands in direct and intimate connection with our 
 own time, the least theological and, perhaps, the 
 least superstitious of all times. It is to the seven- 
 teenth century that the politician and the constitu- 
 tional lawyer refer for the decisive events out of 
 which the British Constitution finally emerged. 
 As with the State so with the Church. The seven- 
 teenth century determined the singular religious 
 constitution of the British people. Then the two 
 established Churches received their present form, 
 and then, not less, the great Nonconformist de- 
 nominations took shape. While, however, there 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 has passed upon the social and intellectual con- 
 ditions of the country an immense revolution, and 
 while political institutions have steadily developed 
 along the lines laid down at the end of the seven- 
 teenth century, in the department of the Churches 
 there has been a rigidity, equally irrational and 
 unfortunate. The practical system, established in 
 canons and rubrics, has indeed fallen everywhere 
 into desuetude, for the habits of the modern com- 
 munity are not patient of it, and against national 
 habits the best-considered and most authoritative 
 systems of discipline are wholly incapable of 
 enforcement, but the ecclesiastical system in the 
 more limited sense remains still operative. The 
 worship and formal belief of the established 
 Churches are still determined by the decisions of 
 the seventeenth century. The Act of Uniformity 
 passed at the Restoration, under circumstances the 
 least favourable in the world to the creation of a 
 lasting "settlement," remains binding still on the 
 Church of England, and constitutes the most 
 formidable legal barrier to healthy ecclesiastical 
 development. That calamitous measure belongs 
 historically to the statutes of the Caroline Penal 
 Code, of which it is now the solitary survivor, 
 and so long as it remains on the statute-book the 
 National Church is, in certain important directions, 
 unable to advance or develop. 
 
XVI PREFACE 
 
 But not only in the region of ecclesiastical 
 politics is the influence of the seventeenth century 
 thus direct and considerable: in the wider religious 
 life of the nation that influence is hardly less. The 
 religious public still concerns itself with the issues 
 which divided men two centuries and more ago, 
 and the old confusions of thought and violences 
 of fanaticism tend, under the milder conditions 
 which now obtain, to repeat themselves. It follows, 
 therefore, that for the right understanding of con- 
 temporary controversies and the just handling of 
 practical problems of our own time a knowledge 
 of the seventeenth century is eminently requisite. 
 And such knowledge is, for the most part, not very 
 accessible. The general histories are good, but 
 they naturally concern themselves mainly with the 
 secular aspect ; the religious histories are almost 
 invariably written from a partisan standpoint. 
 Moreover the mass of events and characters is so 
 great that there is always the danger of losing the 
 just sense of proportion. 
 
 Such considerations seemed to recommend the 
 plan of such a volume as this, in which, while no 
 attempt is made to write a complete or continuous 
 history, certain subjects of critical importance or 
 exceptional intrinsic interest are selected and treated 
 with sufficient care to indicate their permanent 
 bearings. Such a volume, if it gain the object 
 
PREFACE XVll 
 
 with which it was designed, would be a serviceable 
 introduction to more detailed study of the period, 
 and might tend to rectify the mental perspective 
 of those students of English ecclesiastical history 
 who have had the misfortune of reading the past 
 through the coloured glasses of religious party. 
 
 It would be affectation to deny that I was in- 
 fluenced in the choice of the subjects of these 
 studies by contemporary events, which have brought 
 again into prominence among us the very issues 
 which perplexed and divided our ancestors more 
 than two centuries since. Nor am I wholly without 
 hope that by pointing men to the historic causes 
 of their religious conflicts I may, in however 
 humble a degree, be serving the interest of that 
 pacification which thoughtful persons are every- 
 where coming to desire. 
 
 H. HENSLEY HENSON 
 
 August, 1903 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE PR^-LAUDIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND i 
 
 SABBATARIANISM - - . . 35 
 
 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT - - 76 
 
 ERASTIANISM - - - - - 125 
 
 CASUISTRY - - ... 171 
 
 TOLERATION - - - - - 211 
 
I 
 
The Prae-Laudian Church- 
 
 It Is recognised on all hands that Ajjchbishop Laud 
 stands In the history of the Anglican Church for 
 something more than a powerful and prominent 
 individual. He represented a movement and ex- 
 pressed a tendency ; he was the martyr of a cause 
 and the prophet of a change. The ecclesiastical 
 settlement of the Restoration was inspired by the 
 principles, and, in some sense, realised the ideals 
 of the party, which seemed to have perished when 
 the Archbishop laid his head on the block. Modern 
 Anglicans do not sufficiently remember that the 
 older Anglicanism was, in some important respects, 
 a wider and worthier version of Christianity than 
 that which for the last two centuries and more has 
 monopolised the name. 
 
 In studying the history of the seventeenth 
 century we have to remember that the mediaeval 
 tradition still exercised a potent authority over 
 men's minds. In spite of all the rapid and con- 
 siderable changes of religious opinion, which had 
 
 B 
 
2 THE PR.^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 successively secured the patronage of the State, the 
 notion of orthodoxy as morally right and politically 
 safe still governed the minds of statesmen. There 
 was in this respect no substantial difference between 
 Papist and Protestant, Arminian and Calvinist. 
 Under James I. heretics were sent to the stake as 
 under Henry VlII. or Henry IV., and, if it must 
 be admitted that the executions under the former 
 monarch had an anachronistic and extraordinary 
 character, which certainly was absent in earlier 
 times, yet the anachronism was rather felt than 
 understood. The theory of religious persecution 
 remained for the most part unsuspected and un- 
 challenged. Protestants drew the line between 
 permissible belief and unpardonable error at one 
 point. Papists at another, but at some point both 
 agreed that error was unpardonable, and therefore 
 both illumined Smithfield with the fires of per- 
 secution. In England the course of events had 
 secularised the persecuting authority. The Church 
 had become irrecoverably discredited. It was im- 
 possible for men to retain any genuine respect for 
 the ecclesiastical system, when they saw that it had 
 become the patient victim of secular policy, and 
 that it varied its form according to the require- 
 ments of the State. The spiritual prestige of the 
 Papacy could not survive the Revolution, which had 
 at once disproved its assumptions and disallowed 
 
DOMINANCE OF THE KING 3 
 
 its claims. To both the ecclesiastical system of 
 the country and the Papacy the monarchy suc- 
 ceeded. Here, obviously, was a power capable of 
 enforcing its own opinions. Here was an authority 
 older than the Papacy, not less sanctioned by the 
 Divine authority of Scripture, and not intrinsically 
 less reasonable. Therefore, in England the monarch 
 had taken a character which had no parallel in 
 Christendom. Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Obser- 
 vations on the State of France under Henry IV. ^ pub- 
 lished in 1609, compares the state of the clergy 
 in France and in England. In the former country, 
 he says, the churchmen suffer more than either in 
 England, where they wholly depend upon the King, 
 or in Spain and Italy, where they wholly subsist by 
 the Pope. This conception of the English Church 
 as uniquely dependent upon the crown comes into 
 prominence in many directions. When Dr. Mocket, 
 the Warden of All Souls' College, published an 
 apology of the Church of England, in which he 
 seemed to suggest some independent right in the 
 hierarchy, it was objected against him that he was 
 guilty of presumption for undertaking such a task 
 without commission from the King, " it being," 
 says Fuller,^ "almost as fatal for private persons 
 
 ^ Printed in Mr. Firth's Stuart Tracts^ v. p. 223. 
 
 2 V. Church History of Britain^ vol. iii. p. 266. [London, 1837.] 
 
4 THE PR^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 to tamper with such public matters as for a subject 
 to match into the blood royal without leave of his 
 Sovereign." James I. regarded himself, and was 
 regarded as, in the literal sense, a theological 
 authority. He declared that of all his royal titles 
 he valued most that of Defender of the Faith, 
 which ascribed to him a spiritual function, which 
 he was never slow to exercise. To this point we 
 shall recur later. Here it is sufficient to indicate 
 the necessarily monarchical aspect of the English 
 Church. So long as that aspect commended itself 
 as right to the conscience of ordinary Englishmen, 
 the Church gained rather than lost in popular 
 esteem by its dependence on the monarchy ; and 
 there were, in point of fact, reasons why this 
 should for a long time be the case. When those 
 reasons failed, and no fresh ones emerged, there 
 was a great and ominous change in the popular 
 sentiment. 
 
 As an excellent example of the state of the average 
 Englishman's mind at the end of Elizabeth's reign, 
 we cannot, perhaps, do better than accept a curious, 
 and, in its way, excellent little book of devotion, 
 published in the year 1591, and republished five 
 years later. Its author was a layman named John 
 Norden, who is known to have written a good 
 many religious pamphlets during the reign of 
 
NORDEN S PROGRESS OF PIETY 5 
 
 James I. The book^ is called A Progress of Piety, 
 whose Jesses lead into the Harbour of heavenly Hearfs- 
 easey to recreate the afflicted souls of all such as are shut up 
 in any inward or outzvard affliction. Only three years 
 had passed since the defeat of the great Armada, 
 and the effect of that episode of national enthusi- 
 asm and triumph is apparent in the author's fervid 
 loyalty, his intense belief in the Divine election and 
 preservation of England, his fear and hatred, as 
 much religious as patriotic, of Spain and the Papacy, 
 his dread and dislike of sectaries and the endless 
 disputes which they stirred up, his vein of puritan 
 resentment at the growing disorder and luxury of 
 social life. The paragraph entitled " A Motion to 
 a Prayer for Queen Elizabeth, who as the Servant 
 of the great King protecteth this Progress," ex- 
 presses the conviction of ordinary religiously minded 
 Englishmen at that time. 
 
 "What have we to do," he asks, "and what have 
 we to think of our gracious Queen, chosen of the 
 Lord himself, and miraculously preserved, and 
 lovingly given us for our most especial good : by 
 whom we have the freedom and liberty of the 
 
 ^ The book itself is very rare, only two copies, of which one 
 is mutilated, being known to exist, according to the Parker 
 Society's editor. I quote from the Parker Society's reprint, 
 published in 184.7. 
 
6 THE PR.t-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 Gospel, which is the path to our heavenly heart's 
 ease : which before her days we know was stopt up 
 with the briars and thorns of persecution and death, 
 and now laid open again, as a most evident token 
 that the Lord, by her sacred government, will lead 
 his people through the wilderness of all the di- 
 visions, hurlyburlies, and tumults in this world ; 
 and to that end hath raised up many zealous, grave, 
 and religious counsellors and godly ministers, who 
 do direct the whole progress and marching on of 
 her obedient people in the path of a godly profes- 
 sion of the word of God . . . ?"^ 
 
 He urges the special reasons which the English 
 have for carrying out the Pauline precepts of good 
 citizenship. " If," he says, " we look into the 
 present estate of our neighbours in foreign parts, 
 it will, if we be not careless, strike us with terror, 
 lest that God for our sins should also turn our 
 peace into war, our plenty into want, and our 
 comfort in her to misery and trouble by foreign 
 enemies."- Then follows a long, eloquent, and 
 fervid prayer for the Queen, which, in turn, is 
 followed by " A Praise for her Majesty's most 
 gracious government." The religious aspect of 
 the monarchy excludes every other. Elizabeth is 
 the commissioned and inspired servant of God. 
 
FEAR OF TME JESUITS 7 
 
 " None rulcth here but she ; 
 
 Her heavenly guide doth shew, 
 How all things should decreed be 
 To comfort high and low. 
 
 " Oh, sing then, high and low ! 
 Give praise unto the King 
 That made her queen ; none but a foe 
 But will her praises sing."i 
 
 This intense loyalty was connected necessarily 
 with an equally intense dread and loathing of those 
 allied powers of Spain and the Papacy in which 
 Englishmen, then, saw the natural and ever-active 
 foes of their religion and liberty. The memory of 
 St. Bartholomew's Massacre (1572) was yet recent ; 
 the Spanish Armada (1588) had been a papal crusade; 
 the Jesuits were in the meridian of their disastrous 
 influence, and, as all the world believed, perhaps 
 unfairly, but, surely, not without excuse, that in- 
 fluence was visible in the assassination or attempted 
 assassination of the opponents of their policy. In 
 1584 Balthazar Gerard had murdered William of 
 Orange, the heroic champion of Dutch independ- 
 ence ; five years later Henry III. of France had 
 fallen before the dagger of the priest Jacques 
 Clement ; plots against the life of Elizabeth were 
 continually being discovered and announced by the 
 government. The ordinary Englishman had some- 
 
 1 V. p. 4+. 
 
8 THE PR.E-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 thing more behind his horror of Rome than mere 
 ignorance and prejudice. To his mind the conflict 
 against the Spanish and papal alliance was some- 
 thing more than a chapter of normal politics. It 
 was, he felt, a phase, the crucial phase, of that high 
 mystic warfare in which God Himself and the 
 Prince of Darkness are protagonists. The course 
 of events seemed to confirm this view. 
 
 " England," says our author, " since it hath come 
 to the taste of true religion, hath tasted how true 
 it is that is said, that they that will live uprightly 
 shall have many that will rise up against them. 
 How hath the rage of Satan appeared against us, 
 with bitter threats from Spain, with excommunica- 
 tions and condemnations from Rome ! How have 
 we been laboured to have been seduced by priests 
 and seminaries from our bounden love and duty, 
 not only towards her majesty, but towards our God. 
 . . . How have they sought the death and destruc- 
 tion of our gracious queen and grave counsellors, by 
 enchantments, by magic, by murder, by all devilish 
 practices ! Have we not been environed by fleets 
 of foes at sea, by armies of rebels by land, and 
 endangered by hidden traitors at home .'' Hath 
 there yet any of their conspiracies prevailed .'' Hath 
 not God stood our defence ? " ^ 
 
 The same intense patriotism merging in, and in 
 
 1 V. pp. 92, 93. 
 
DISLIKE OF SECTARIES 9 
 
 some sense fashioning, religious conviction deter- 
 mined the ordinary Englishman's mind with respect 
 to the sectaries of his own country. They were 
 " troublers of Israel " : they weakened the Lord's 
 host in the day of battle : they were sacrilegious 
 rebels against the Lord's anointed. 
 
 " It Is time for the children of God to take warn- 
 ing and be watchful, considering these dangerous 
 times, wherein swarms of false prophets do every- 
 where fly to and fro to disquiet the godly, as Papists, 
 Brownlsts, Anabaptists, the family of lust and lewd- 
 ness, termed the Family of love ; and many other 
 dangerous sects, who seek to quench the ardent 
 zeal of sincere Christianity, striving about words, 
 which is to no profit, but to the perverting of the 
 hearers."^ 
 
 The two great controversies of the time are 
 briefly considered, the one dealing with the ecclesi- 
 astical authority of the State, the other with the 
 form of ecclesiastical government. " Whether they 
 should obey the magistrate In ecclesiastical causes ^ 
 and. Whether there should be a superiority or 
 equality In church governors } " The author's con- 
 clusion is that of a man who personally dislikes 
 controversy, but is conscious that there is some 
 cause for It. His references to the clergy are 
 curiously lacking in enthusiasm. 
 
lO THE PR.E-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 "And for us that are the common people, that 
 must expect to be fed by the ministry, let us pray 
 for their unity, and that God will give them humble 
 spirits, vigilant and watchful eyes, knowledge, love, 
 zeal, and constancy, that the false prophets may be 
 abandoned, and the true ministers of God be 
 esteemed and embraced as the ministers of God." ^ 
 The author holds a middle course. He deprecates 
 the virulence of the contemporary critics of the 
 hierarchy, but he holds that the hierarchy is not 
 blameless. Indeed, the puritan sentiment which 
 was destined to take such extreme expressions, when 
 once it had become divorced from the national 
 institutions of Church and State, is everywhere 
 latent. The author exposes and denounces the 
 current vices of society with prophetic fervour. It 
 is evident enough that his loyalty to the established 
 government is conditioned by its character as a 
 protection against foreign tyranny and domestic 
 corruption. Let that character be compromised or 
 lost, and he will become the most dangerous of 
 rebels. When James I. was negotiating with Spain, 
 and when his hapless son committed himself to an 
 ecclesiastical policy, which seemed to the mass of his 
 subjects to be Roman in tendency, the belief in the 
 Divine right of the monarchy as the foe of the 
 Spanish power, secular and spiritual, inevitably died 
 
 1 f. p. 1 1 8. 
 
SOCIAL DISSOLUTENESS II 
 
 out, and was replaced by a sense of disappointment, 
 almost of betrayal, in the minds of ordinary Eng- 
 lishmen. All the evidence we have proves that a 
 rising wave of dissoluteness was passing over the 
 country ; partly, the sudden prosperity which fol- 
 lowed the defeat of Spain and brought into the land 
 great wealth and a reckless spirit of adventure, 
 partly, the decay of all forms of moral discipline 
 which resulted from the violent and frequent reli- 
 gious changes, may explain the fact ; about the fact 
 itself there can be no doubt. The deeper religious 
 feeling of th& country tended to take a puritan 
 colour, and to inspire a severe theory of practical 
 duty. It was the supreme misfortune of the Na- 
 tional Church that, so far from drawing into itself 
 this moral enthusiasm, it offended and drove it into 
 revolt. No doubt Laud had his own notion of 
 reforming society by the restoration of ecclesiastical 
 discipline ; but in that age, hardly less than in our 
 own, that method of enforcing morality had an 
 unreal and anachronistic aspect, and nowhere com- 
 manded either the confidence or the respect of the 
 laity. Generally, the Court stood for moral licence, 
 and the clergy stood for the Court. Puritan senti- 
 ment fastened on the strict observance of the Lord's 
 Day, which was clothed with the attributes of the 
 Jewish Sabbath ; and both King and hierarchy 
 authorised and encouraged the secularisation of the 
 
12 THE PR/E-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 Day. To be a sound Anglican at the end of Eliza- 
 beth's reign did still mean to be patriotic and 
 puritan in sentiment though not in name : by the 
 accession of Charles I. patriotism was suspicious of, 
 and Puritanism hostile to, the National Church. A 
 curious pamphlet in verse published in 1622 suffi- 
 ciently indicates the change of sentiment. It is 
 called " The Inteiyreter, wherein three principal Terms 
 of State, much mistaken by the vulgar, are clearly un- 
 folded." ^ These terms are Puritan, Protestant, and 
 Papist. The writer begins by asserting that these 
 words no longer carry their old meanings. 
 
 " Time was, a Puritan was counted such 
 As held some ceremonies were too much 
 Retained and urged ; and would no Bishops grant, 
 Others to rule, who government did want. 
 Time was, a Protestant was only taken 
 For such as had the Church of Rome forsaken ; 
 Or her known falsehoods in the highest point : 
 But would not, for each toy, true peace disjoint. 
 Time was, a Papist was a man who thought 
 Rome could not err, but all her Canons ought 
 To be canonical : and, blindly led. 
 He from the Truth, for fear of Error, fled. 
 But now these words, with divers others more, 
 Have other senses than they had before : 
 Which plainly I do labour to relate. 
 As they arc now accepted in our State." 
 
 Then follow the expositions of the terms as cur- 
 
 1 V. Stuart Tracts, ed. Firth, pp. 233-244. 
 
PURITAN, PROTESTANT, PAPIST 1 3 
 
 rently used. The Puritan Is opposed to Spain, a 
 hater of corruption in Church and State, regular 
 and exact in his religious duties, an independent 
 member of parliament, not to be frightened by 
 courtiers out of his ancestral liberty. 
 
 "His character abridged, if you would have, 
 He's one, that would a Subject be, no Slave." 
 
 The term Protestant is next explained. He is 
 all that the Puritan is not, a servile royalist, an 
 opponent of the reformed cause on the continent, 
 a supporter of every established abuse in Church 
 and State, a time-server, an Erastian, and an un- 
 principled place-hunter. 
 
 "A Protestant is such an other thing 
 As makes, within his heart, God of the King. 
 
 A Protestant is he that with the stream 
 Still swims, and wisely shuns every extreme ; 
 Loves not in point of faith to be precise ; 
 But to believe as Kings do, counts it wise : 
 
 A Protestant is an indifferent man, 
 
 That with all faiths, or none, hold quarter can ; 
 
 So moderate and temperate his passion 
 
 As he to all times can his conscience fashion. 
 
 His character abridged, if you will have. 
 He's one that's no true Subject, but a Slave ! " 
 
 The Papist's turn comes next. It needs no 
 
14 THE PRi^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 saying that he is destitute of any redeeming virtue, 
 but it is worth noticing that the anti-national aspect 
 of Romanism is paramount. He is a tool of Spain 
 and the slave of the Pope, ceaselessly at work 
 against the interests of his own country. We have 
 already pointed out the large plausibility of such a 
 view at a time when every country in Europe was 
 distracted with Jesuit intrigues. 
 
 The Church of England under James I. had, in 
 truth, two very different aspects, and as the one or 
 the other was seen, so was the Church admired or 
 denounced. Unfortunately it was the worse rather 
 than the better side which was most often in the 
 view of Englishmen. Whatever the reasons, and 
 some of them lie on the surface of history, the 
 character of the Anglican clergy stood very low 
 in the estimate of their own countrymen. Two 
 authorities will suffice. In the year 1591 Spenser 
 published the remarkable satire on contemporary 
 life called Mother Hubbard's Tale. There we find a 
 description of the clergy which could hardly be 
 surpassed in point of severity by the avowed 
 enemies of the English Church. The Ape and the 
 Fox, following their fortunes, fall in with a " formall 
 Priest," with whom they enter into conversation, 
 and whose advice they request as to their own best 
 means of earning a maintenance. The Priest, rather 
 
MOTHER HUBBARD S TALE I 5 
 
 flattered at the compliment, advises them to take 
 Orders, and when the Ape objects that 
 
 "The charge is wondrous great, 
 To feed men's soules, and hath an heavie threat," 
 
 he proceeds to reassure him by a candid description 
 of clerical duty as currently understood. 
 
 " Therefore herewith doo not your selfe dismay ; 
 Ne is the paines so great, but beare ye may, 
 For not so great, as it was wont of yore ; 
 It's now a dayes, ne halfe so streight & sore. 
 They whilom used duly everie day 
 Their service & their holie things to say, 
 At raorne & even, besides their Anthemes swecte, 
 Their penie Masses, and their Complynes meete, 
 Their Diriges, their Trentals, & their shrifts, 
 Their memories, their singings, & their gifts. 
 Now all those needlesse works are laid away ; 
 Now once a weeke, upon the Sabbath day, 
 It is enough to doo our small devotion, 
 And then to follow any merrie motion. 
 Ne are we tyde to fast, but when we list : 
 Ne to wear garments base of wollen twist. 
 But with the finest silkes us to array. 
 That before God we may appeare more gay. 
 
 We be not tyde to wilfull chastitie, 
 But have the Gospell of free libertie." 
 
 Spenser incorporates into his satire the standing 
 accusations against the clergy, which, from quite 
 different standpoints, were persistently urged by 
 Papists and Puritans : and there can be no reason- 
 
1 6 THE PR/E-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 able doubt that those accusations contained a large 
 element of truth. The abrupt termination of the 
 old round of mechanical devotions, which had filled 
 the time and occupied the energies of the parish 
 clergy before the Reformation, had brought a strain 
 upon the clerical character, which, speaking gener- 
 ally, it was unable to endure. Incumbents were not, 
 for the most part, either saints or students. With- 
 out any very lofty devotional ideal to lift them, and 
 with no living intellectual interest to stimulate their 
 mental effort, they had, too often, nothing but their 
 official system to hold them to duty, and that system 
 then, as now, prescribed the veriest minimum of 
 work, and left almost everything to the recognition 
 and control of the parson's conscience. 
 
 A quarter of a century after Spenser published 
 the satire from which I have quoted, that is, in the 
 year 1615, Richard Baxter was born. He has 
 described in his Autobiography the ecclesiastical con- 
 dition of the country in which he was reared. The 
 description is a picture of the Jacobean Church of 
 England drawn from life. "We lived," he says, 
 " in a country that had but little preaching at all : 
 in the village where I was born there was four 
 Readers successively in six years time, ignorant men 
 and two of them immoral in their lives; who were 
 all my schoolmasters. In the village where my 
 father lived, there was a Reader of about eighty 
 
BAXTERS AUTOBIOGRAPHY I 7 
 
 years of age that never preached, and had two 
 churches about twenty miles distant : his eyesight 
 failing him, he said Common Prayer without book : 
 but for the reading of the psalms and chapters, he 
 got a common thresher and day-labourer one year, 
 and a taylor another year : (for the clerk could not 
 read well) and at last he had a kinsman of his own, 
 (the excellentest stage-player in all the country, and 
 a good gamester and a good fellow) that got Orders 
 and supplied one of his places ! After him another 
 younger kinsman, that could write and read, got 
 Orders : and at the same time another neighbour's 
 son that had been awhile at school turn'd minister, 
 and who would needs go further than the rest, 
 ventur'd to preach (and after got a living in Stafford- 
 shire,) and when he had been a preacher about 
 twelve or sixteen years, he was fain to give over, it 
 being discovered that his Orders were forged by the 
 first ingenious stage-player. After him another 
 neighbour's son took Orders, when he had been 
 awhile an attorney's clerk, and a common drunkard, 
 and tipled himself into so great poverty that he had 
 no other way to live : it was feared that he and 
 more of them came by their Orders the same way 
 with the forementioned person : These were the 
 schoolmasters of my youth (except two of them:) 
 who read Common Prayer on Sundays and holydays, 
 and taught school and tipled on the weekdays, and 
 
1 8 THE PR.^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 whipt the boys when they were drunk, so that we 
 changed them very oft. Within a few miles about 
 us were near a dozen more ministers that were near 
 eighty years old apiece, and never preached: poor 
 ignorant Readers, and most of them of scandalous 
 lives: only three or four constant competent preach- 
 ers lived near us, and those (though conformable all 
 save one) were the common marks of the people's 
 obloquy and reproach, and any that had but gone 
 to hear them, when he had no preaching at home, 
 was made the derision of the vulgar rabble, under 
 the odious name of a Puritan."^ Baxter goes on 
 to describe the process by which he was led as a 
 boy, almost in spite of himself, to associate the 
 Church with moral laxity, and to connect serious 
 religion with ecclesiastical censure. The account is 
 so interesting in itself, and the point it illustrates 
 is so important for the right understanding of that 
 great revolt of the religious reason and conscience 
 of the people which violently broke up the system 
 of the National Church, and for ever destroyed the 
 possibility of religious harmony in the country, 
 that we may with advantage have it before us : — 
 *' In the village where I lived the Reader read the 
 
 1 Reliquiae Tiaxterianae or, Mr. Richard ^axter^s Narrative of 
 the most memorable passages of Ins Life and Times, fait/fully pub- 
 lished from his offfi origijial manuscripts by Mattl?cw Sylvester. 
 London, 1696, pp. i, 2. 
 
BAXTERS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1 9 
 
 Common Prayer briefly, and the rest of the day 
 even till dark night almost, except eating time, 
 was spent in dancing under a may-pole and a great 
 tree, not far from my father's door : where all 
 the town did meet together : And though one of 
 my father's own tenants was the piper, he could 
 not restrain him, nor break the sport : so that we 
 could not read the Scripture in our family with- 
 out the great disturbance of the taber and pipe and 
 noise in the street ! Many times my mind was 
 inclined to be among them, and sometimes I broke 
 loose from conscience, and joyned with them ; and 
 the more I did it the more 1 was enclined to it. 
 But when I heard them call my father Puritan, it 
 did much to cure me and alienate me from them : 
 for I consider'd that my father's exercise of read- 
 ing the Scripture, was better than their's, and would 
 surely be better thought on by all men at the last ; 
 and I considered what it was for that he and others 
 were thus derided. When I heard them speak 
 scornfully of others as Puritans whom I never knew, 
 I was at first apt to believe all the lies and slanders 
 wherewith they loaded them : But when I heard 
 my own father so reproached, and perceived the 
 drunkards were the forwardest in the reproach, I 
 perceived that it was mere malice, For my father 
 never scrupled Common-Prayer or ceremonies, nor 
 spake against Bishops, nor ever so much as prayed but 
 
20 THE PR^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 by a book or form, being not ever acquainted then 
 with any that did otherwise : But only for reading 
 Scripture when the rest were dancing on the Lord's 
 Day, and for praying (by a form out of the end of 
 the Common-Prayer Book) in his house, and for 
 reproving drunkards and swearers, and for talking 
 sometimes a few words of Scripture and the life 
 to come, he was reviled commonly by the name of 
 Puritan, Precisian and Hypocrite : and so were the 
 godly conformable ministers that lived anywhere 
 in the country near us, not only by our neighbours, 
 but by the common talk of the vulgar rabble of 
 all about us. By this experience I was fully con- 
 vinced that godly people were the best, and those 
 that despised them and lived in sin and pleasure, 
 were a malignant unhappy sort of people : and this 
 kept me out of their company, except now and 
 then when the love of sports and play enticed 
 me." ^ 
 
 Mr. Baxter senior represents at a later stage the 
 same type of loyal religious Englishmen as John 
 Norden, and we can see that the loyal ardour with 
 which the latter accepted the system of Church and 
 State is exchanged for a conscientious but reluctant 
 acquiescence, which will not require much further 
 provocation to become implacable resentment. He 
 belonged to that large class of " conformable Puri- 
 
 ^ Ibid., pp. 2, 3. 
 
HOOKERS ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY 21 
 
 tans " who practised it (the Church system) out of 
 policy, yet dissented from it in their judgments, who 
 were, according to Fuller, the objects of Archbishop 
 Harsnett's especial dislike. These men would nor- 
 mally be the backbone of the National Church, as 
 they certainly were of the national morality ; un- 
 happily, to the Anglican hierarchy, preoccupied 
 with its dream of rebuilding in England the im- 
 posing fabric of that ecclesiastical power, of which 
 the name and framework yet survived in the coun- 
 try, they seemed nothing better than factious mal- 
 contents, to be discouraged and sternly held in check. 
 So the breach grew steadily wider between the 
 Church of England and the English conscience. 
 
 There was, as we have said, a worthier side to the 
 Anglican Church. Three years after Spenser satir- 
 ised the clergy in Mother Hubbard's Tale there issued 
 from the press the first four books of Richard 
 Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity (a.d. 1594), which 
 not merely gave an intellectual justification for the 
 Anglican system, but demonstrated its power to at- 
 tract and hold the highest intelligence of the country. 
 Hooker was but the most distinguished of a long 
 series of apologists, who, with varying degrees of 
 ability and learning, did battle with the enemy in 
 the gate. As yet the line of defence was reasonable 
 rather than traditional, an appeal to the intellect 
 rather than to antiquity ; and, so long as the domestic 
 
22 THE PR.^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 conflict with the Puritans was the principal issue, 
 this character of Anglican apologetics was main- 
 tained; but as against the Roman attack, the patris- 
 tic case for the Church of England was developed. 
 The war was carried into the enemy's camp, and 
 the appeal to Christian antiquity was successfully 
 retorted on those who had too confidently pressed 
 it. For such a controversy learning was indispen- 
 sable, and the Anglican clergy were, and were re- 
 garded as, a learned clergy. England became the 
 natural refuge of distressed scholars from abroad. 
 The character of the King coincided with the temper 
 of the Church. Mr. Mark Pattison's description 
 of James's Court is worth quoting : — 
 
 "The reigning prince," he says, "was a lover, if 
 not of learning, at least of a kind of theological lore 
 which borrowed its lights from learning. James 1. 
 surrounded himself with divines whose talk was of 
 fathers and councils. ' He doth wondrously covet 
 learned discourse,' writes Lord Howard to Harring- 
 ton, not indeed of the grand classical antiquity, for 
 which none about him had eye or ear, but the bas- 
 tard antiquity of the fourth century. They searched 
 the ecclesiastical writers for precedents in support 
 of English episcopacy, but they read them in the 
 original, and this served to maintain Greek at a 
 premium. For the first and the last time in our 
 annals, the Court was the theatre of these learned 
 
THE COURT OF JAMES I. 23 
 
 discussions. Notwithstanding foibles which have 
 handed down his character to ridicule, neither the 
 understanding nor the attainments of James were 
 contemptible. But his speech and action had a taint 
 of puerility which degraded them. The ironical 
 nickname of the British Solomon incurably clings 
 to the only English prince who had carried to the 
 throne knowledge derived from reading, or any 
 considerable amount of literature. Despised by the 
 men of business as a pedant, James had * by far the 
 best head in his council.' In the piteous condition 
 of learning and the learned at that time, without 
 patron or home, it was natural that the eyes of these 
 outcasts of society should be directed to the only 
 Court in Europe where their profession was in any 
 degree appreciated." ^ 
 
 Casaubon, admittedly the foremost scholar of 
 his time, found himself more and more out of 
 sympathy with his Calvinist co-religionists. " The 
 ministers of his own communion scouted antiquity 
 of which they were ignorant, and which Casaubon 
 regarded as the only arbiter of the quarrel. Books 
 fell in his way written on this side of the Channel, 
 in which he met with a line of argument very 
 different from the uninstructed, but presumptuous 
 dogmatism of the Calvinist ministers. He found 
 to his surprise and delight that there were others 
 
 ^ £'. l5.-:ac Casaubon, p. 295. 
 
24 THE PR.E-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 besides himself who could respect the authority of 
 the fathers, without surrendering their reason to 
 the dicta of the papal Church. The young Anglo- 
 Catholic school, which was then forming in England, 
 took precisely the ground which Casaubon had been 
 led to take against Du Perron." ^ Mr. Mark Patti- 
 son would explain the rise of what came to be the 
 Laudian theory of the Church by the necessity, 
 common to students as such, of finding in Christian 
 antiquity an apology for the Reformation. 
 
 " Laud was the political leader, but in this 
 capacity only the agent of a mode of thinking 
 which he did not invent. Anglo-Catholic theology 
 is not a system of which any individual thinker can 
 claim the invention. It arose necessarily, or by 
 natural development, out of the controversy with 
 the papal advocates, as soon as that controversy was 
 brought out of the domain of pure reason into that 
 of learning. That this peculiar compromise, or via 
 media^ between Romanism and Calvinism developed 
 itself in England, and nowhere else in Christendom, 
 is owing to causes," which it did not lie within Mr. 
 Mark Pattison's scheme to investigate, but which 
 we may perhaps indicate. In England alone, thanks 
 to the course of the Reformation, to the pre- 
 dominantly political character of the whole move- 
 ment, to the theological idiosyncrasies of the English 
 
 1 Ibid.^ p. 299. 
 
ISAAC CASAUBON 25 
 
 sovereigns, and, not least, to the deep, natural con- 
 servatism of the English mind, the Church had 
 emerged from the religious revolution with much 
 of its ancient aspect, much of its property, much 
 of its constitutional importance. Therefore in 
 England alone did the materials exist for a restora- 
 tion of the ancient claims and forms of worship. 
 The suggestions of Christian antiquity found natural 
 embodiment in the actual system of the Church ; 
 the surviving mediaeval framework seemed to re- 
 quire for its justification some renewal of the 
 mediaeval spirit. In Scotland, Germany, France, 
 and Holland the destruction had been so complete 
 that whatever existed had to find its origin and 
 apology in the age itself, but in England so much 
 of the old remained that a complete restoration was 
 never apparently impossible. 
 
 Casaubon's arrival in England in 1610 is an event 
 of considerable interest. It was not merely a striking 
 proof of the intellectual prestige of the Jacobean 
 Church, but also indicates the friendly attitude which 
 was then maintained by Anglicans towards the non- 
 episcopal Churches of the Continent. Archbishop 
 Bancroft (whose famous sermon on Episcopacy in 
 1589 is considered to mark the definite beginning 
 within the English Church of that insistence on 
 the episcopal government, as alone divinely commis- 
 sioned, which has in later times so far prevailed as 
 
26 THE PR.E-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 to isolate the Church from all fellowship with the 
 other reformed Churches) himself wrote to urge 
 Casaubon's coming, and to promise him a prebendal 
 stall at Canterbury. King James bestowed on him 
 a pension of ;!^300 a year from his own purse, and 
 in the patent declared "his concurrancye with us and 
 the Church of England in profession of religion." 
 Archbishop Abbot, the puritanical successor of 
 Bancroft, stood godfather to his English-born son, 
 James. He became the personal friend of the lead- 
 ing English bishops. Casaubon, on his part, was 
 delighted. " If I am not mistaken," he wrote, " the 
 soundest part of the whole Reformation is to be 
 found here in England, where the study of antiquity 
 flourishes together with zeal for the truth." With 
 Andrewes, then Bishop of Ely, he formed a close 
 intimacy, and when he was dying that admirable 
 prelate ministered to him the sacrament of Holy 
 Communion ; yet Casaubon had remained a member 
 of the French congregation, and he had certainly 
 neither received the rite of episcopal confirmation, 
 nor episcopal ordination, nor had subscribed the 
 Anglican formularies. There was nothing extra- 
 ordinary in all this, and it did not attract any 
 special notice. " Before the rise of the Laudian 
 school, the English Church and the reformed 
 Churches of the Continent mutually recognised each 
 other as sisters." The supreme issue then was that 
 
CHELSEA COLLEGE 27 
 
 conflict with the Papacy, which literally was a con- 
 flict for life and liberty. Not the most orthodox 
 Anglican had any doubt as to his religious category. 
 He stood with the rest of Protestants against the 
 arch-enemy of Rome. How absorbing was that 
 controversy is apparent from the pretentious but 
 abortive scheme for founding a college in which the 
 equipment of anti-papal controversialists should be 
 systematically carried on. " It was intended," says 
 Fuller, " for a spiritual garrison, with a magazine 
 of all books for that purpose, where learned divines 
 should study and write in maintenance of all 
 controversies against the Papists. Indeed, the 
 Romanists herein may rise up and condemn those 
 of the Protestant confession. For as Solomon used 
 not his military men for any servile work, in build- 
 ing the Temple, whereof the text assigneth this 
 reason, * For they were men of war,' so the Romish 
 Church doth not burden their professors with 
 preaching, or any parochial incumbrances, but re- 
 serves them only for polemical studies. Whereas 
 in England the same man reads, preacheth, cate- 
 chizeth, disputes, delivers sacraments, etc. So that, 
 were it not for God's marvellous blessings on our 
 studies, and the infinite odds of truth on our sides, 
 it were impossible, in human probability, that we 
 should hold up the bucklers against them. Beside 
 the study of divinity, at the least two able historians 
 
28 THE PR^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 were to be maintained in this College, faithfully 
 and learnedly to record and publish to posterity 
 all memorable passages in Church and Comm.on- 
 wealth." 
 
 "King James's College in Chelsea" was founded 
 in 1610, and inaugurated with considerable eclat 
 by the King himself; but it was doomed to a brief 
 and stormy career, and scarcely outlived its first 
 provost and real founder, the eccentric and munifi- 
 cent Sutcliffe. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking indication of the close- 
 ness of the ties which the common dread of Rome 
 created between the Church of England and the 
 other Protestant Churches is the fact that Anglican 
 divines took their places with the members from 
 the United States at the national synod at Dort, 
 summoned in 161 8 with the scarcely concealed in- 
 tention of crushing the Arminians. The King took 
 the keenest interest in the synod. He sent for 
 the English deputies before their departure and 
 gave them a list of instructions. They were to 
 " inure themselves to the practice of the Latin 
 tongue, that when occasion offered, they might de- 
 liver their minds with more readiness and facility"; 
 they were always to act together, and in every possible 
 way to promote ecclesiastical peace. On their arrival 
 at Dort the English divines, on their admission to 
 the synod, took an oath not to make use of any 
 
THE SYNOD OF DORT 29 
 
 human writing, but only of God's Word for the 
 certain and undoubted rule of faith. The States 
 received them with much honour, and paid them an 
 allowance of no less than ;;^io sterling a day, which 
 they spent in * keeping a table general,' where any 
 fashionable foreigner was courteously and plentifully 
 entertained. 
 
 Every week they sent an account of the proceed- 
 ings to the King. When the Belgic Confession was 
 offered for the acceptance of the members, Carleton, 
 Bishop of Llandaff, in the name of the English 
 deputies, approved all the points of doctrine, but 
 made a protest on the subject of discipline, affirm- 
 ing " that the parity of ministers never prevailed 
 in the Church." When, in April, 1619, the synod 
 ended, the States presented every English deputy 
 with a golden medal, and added ;^2oo for the ex- 
 penses of their return journey. The synod of 
 Dort was, at the time, a notable triumph of Calvin- 
 ism, but already there were signs that the Calvin- 
 istic theology was losing its hold upon the higher 
 intelligence of the age. In England the rising school 
 of Anglo-Catholics combined Arminian doctrines 
 with their high ecclesiastical theory. Their extreme 
 monarchical principles rendered them at once highly 
 unpopular, and pleasing to the King. When James I. 
 died in 1625, Calvinism was still the prevailing 
 belief of religious Englishmen, but there was an 
 
30 THE PR.E-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 anti-Calvinist movement among the clergy which had 
 advanced with extraordinary quickness, and would 
 drive a wedge between the mass of the laity and the 
 more important clergy. It was a movement which 
 appealed with success to the scholarly, devotional, 
 and aesthetic instincts of English churchmen. It 
 made rapid way in the universities. It was well 
 represented in literature, especially in controversy. 
 It was well organised, ambitious, and aggressive. 
 In William Laud it found a whole-hearted exponent 
 and an unflinching leader. In Charles I. it obtained 
 a disciple and a patron. The royal prerogative was 
 frankly placed at the service of a religious faction. 
 For the first time since the Reformation the monarch 
 openly played the role of an ecclesiastical partisan, 
 and the party which the King favoured, however 
 rich in personal distinction, however strong its in- 
 tellectual position and equipment, was not that which, 
 to the view of ordinary Englishmen, seemed most 
 morally impressive. The association with the Court, 
 which was licentious under James, and seemed to be 
 papistical under Charles, went far to discredit the Ar- 
 minian clergy. Inevitably that association drew in its 
 train complicity with the unconstitutional and even 
 tyrannous proceedings of the King. Laud's policy 
 forced the fact on the notice of the country. He 
 himself was practically chief minister of the Crown, 
 and by a stroke of statecraft, on which he greatly 
 
^ CHURCH AND CROWN ' 3 1 
 
 plumed himself, the great office of Lord Treasurer 
 was held by another bishop. In short, the clergy were 
 tied hand and foot to the Crown precisely at the 
 moment when the Crown was getting out of touch 
 with the national sentiment. There was no reason 
 in the nature of things why the constitutional re- 
 volution should have involved the total destruction 
 of the ecclesiastical system, but, in the actual circum- 
 stances of the case, nothing else was possible. The 
 hierarchy had been fashioned to the uses of the 
 monarch, and had served his turn : for a few years 
 his support had sustained it against the popular 
 will, but when the day of reckoning came, and the 
 monarch's power was broken before the accumulated 
 difficulties of a political situation too artificial to 
 be tolerable any longer, the hierarchy was helpless, 
 and fell without a struggle. The great distinction 
 between the prae-Laudian Church and the Church 
 of later times lies here. The one, with all its faults, 
 scandals, confusions, was genuinely national, and its 
 dependence on the monarchy, however theoretically 
 indefensible, did but express and make effective the 
 fact. The other, with all its superiority of formal 
 system, theory, and even practice, was always an 
 artificial thing, and its constitutional dependence on 
 the monarchy, developed and exaggerated under 
 the coercion of its own religious theory, became 
 ministerial to its unpopularity, weakness, and. 
 
32 THE PR^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 finally, ruin. Precisely when the English people 
 felt most keenly their fellowship with Protestant 
 Europe in the desperate conflict with the mingled 
 forces of the counter-Reformation, the Church of 
 England began to adopt an attitude of exclusion 
 towards the non- episcopalian Churches, and to 
 elevate the matter of Church government into the 
 category of religious essentials. The prae-Laudian 
 Church was, in this respect also, a greater thing than 
 its successor, and though the Calvinist theology and 
 the conflict with Rome, which were the principal 
 bases of unity, were not in themselves favourable 
 to the highest spiritual results, yet, if only the 
 intercommunion to which they led in the first 
 instance had been maintained, it is impossible 
 not to believe that both in England and on the 
 Continent very happy consequences would have 
 followed. 
 
 The prae-Laudian Church had the strength, the 
 weakness, and the promise of a genuinely national 
 character. It stood with the English people, sharing 
 their prejudices, endorsing their ideals, consecrating 
 their efforts, lifting their normal life ; and, no doubt, 
 it paid the price of this close alliance in a certain 
 indifference to religious truth as such, an obvious 
 lack of formal discipline, and an acquiescence in 
 much that was limited and unworthy.' But though 
 there was thus weakness as well as strength in the 
 
LAUDIANISM 33 
 
 position, there was certainly also an almost infinite 
 hope ; for, so long as the Church remained the ac- 
 cepted exponent of the national faith and conscience, 
 holding both (however inadequately) to the guidance 
 and discipline of the Divine Gospel, it would follow 
 that, as the national life developed, growing more 
 complex, more refined, more weighted with respon- 
 sibility, so — as from an inexhaustible treasury — 
 would the Church draw from the national experi- 
 ence fresh illuminations of its message to humanity, 
 fresh discoveries of duty, fresh fields of spiritual 
 service. The brief triumph of Laudianism brought, 
 as its first consequence, the violent overthrow of the 
 constitution, political and ecclesiastical, and, as its 
 abiding effect, the loss of the national character of 
 the English Church. In the fervour of the politi- 
 cal reaction which restored the monarchy and the 
 hierarchy, and affirmed anew their inseparable 
 connection, the old position seemed to have been 
 recovered, and the Church of England again to have 
 behind it the strength of the national confidence ; 
 but, within a generation, the rift between the estab- 
 lished system and puritan sentiment became more 
 apparent than ever. The seventeenth century, which 
 opens with the canons of 1603, which express the 
 triumph of Anglicanism over the Puritans in the 
 Hampton Court Conference, and which we may 
 recognise as the rough draft of the Laudian scheme, 
 
 D 
 
34 THE PR^-LAUDIAN CHURCH 
 
 ends with the Toleration Act of 1689, in which the 
 defeat of that scheme was registered and declared, 
 and the loss of national religious unity, which was 
 the principal achievement of Laudianism, shown to 
 be final. The Church of England remains to us 
 now, national in name, in claim, and in sentiment, 
 but not in fact. On the lines of the Laudian move- 
 ment there was no real possibility of intellectual 
 growth. English churchmen were invited to turn 
 their backs on the present and to seek their prece- 
 dents and ideals in a distant and ill-understood 
 antiquity. Erudition, a somewhat archaic culture, 
 art in so far as it was ecclesiastical, fine but rather 
 artificial devotion, personal sanctity — all this was in 
 the movement, and this is much ; but there was 
 always this broad disadvantage that, on the Laudian 
 principles, the Church of England fell apart from 
 the main stream of national thought and feeling, 
 becoming estranged from the deeper life of the 
 people, and appearing in their eyes as an alien and 
 artificial thing. Even so, I do not say that the 
 balance of loss preponderates. To some minds, I 
 know, there will be no question as to the religious 
 gain ; but it is the loss which, perhaps, we most 
 clearly perceive when we pass from the rough 
 vigour of the prae-Laudian epoch to the unreal 
 and petty conflicts of our own time. 
 
Sabbatarianism 
 
 In the Middle Ages no man needed to ask a reason 
 for his obedience to the numerous and varied 
 regulations imposed by the established system of 
 religion. It was enough that the Church com- 
 manded, for the Church was, by universal agree- 
 ment, divinely authorised to govern her children, 
 and to dispute her right was obvious heresy to be 
 abhorred of all faithful Christians. The Reforma- 
 tion for ever destroyed this unanimity of sentiment. 
 The Church ceased to be above discussion, and 
 became at a stroke the most freely discussed of all 
 the institutions of society. Ecclesiastical authority 
 was no longer the postulate of practical ethics. 
 Men demanded a reason for every positive law 
 which they obeyed. Why should they go to 
 confession, hear mass, do penance, observe fast 
 and festival, pay tithes, or indeed continue subject 
 to any part of that great and complicated organisa- 
 tion of life by ecclesiastical rule, which had been 
 the undisputed assumption of thought and life, but 
 35 
 
36 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 was now little more than a discredited and fading 
 tradition ? As a matter of fact, a clean sweep was 
 made at the Reformation of most of the customary 
 acts and disciplines of religion. Popular life was 
 secularised, rationalised, and vulgarised by the 
 process, which yet contained the promise of a 
 higher spirituality and a more manly virtue than 
 any which had before been attained. It was only 
 by stages that the full content of the revolutionary 
 process disclosed itself. First one and then another 
 of the medieval arrangements was challenged, put 
 on its trial, debated, and either rejected with 
 contempt or furnished with a new title to accept- 
 ance. The creed, the government, the worship, 
 the discipline, the customs of the Church, all in 
 turn were subjected to this process, and the results 
 varied according to a hundred circumstances of 
 history, politics, and nationality. Of all Christian 
 observances the dedication to religious uses of the 
 first day of the week was the most venerable, popular, 
 and important, and it did not occur to the first 
 generation of reformers to question its claim on 
 Christian regard, or to consider the nature and 
 limits of the sanctity with which it was invested. 
 Circumstances in England forced these issues into 
 prominence, and led to results which have given a 
 distinctive colour and direction to English Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
ROYAL INJUNCTIONS 2>7 
 
 Sabbatarianism is an insular development of the 
 Reformation, and, alike in its origin and in its 
 history, reflects the idiosyncrasy of the insular 
 race. Had the presbyterian polity succeeded in 
 establishing itself in England as well as in Scotland 
 — and this at one time seemed likely enough — the 
 rigours of the proverbial Scotch sabbath would 
 have obtained over the whole island, but the 
 triumph, after a stormy interval, of episcopalianism 
 happily averted this disaster, and the triumph of 
 Sabbatarianism is no more than a curious and in- 
 structive episode in our ecclesiastical annals. 
 ' In the year 1583 a tragic accident at a bear- 
 baiting in London, on Sunday afternoon, shocked 
 the public conscience, and, being vigorously im- 
 proved by the preachers, became the starting-point 
 of a more careful observance of the Lord's Day 
 than had generally prevailed. There had, as yet, 
 been no Sabbatarianism in the conduct of the 
 Reformation, either at home or abroad. The 
 royal injunctions of Edward VL (1547) and 
 Elizabeth (1559) had ordered the due religious 
 observance of the day, but had not held that incon- 
 sistent with requiring the clergy to teach the people 
 "that they may with a safe and quiet conscience, 
 after their common prayer in the time of harvest, 
 labour upon the holy and festival days, and save 
 that thing which God hath sent"; and had even 
 
38 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 declared that not to do so on religious grounds 
 would be grievously offensive and displeasing to 
 God. The practice of the reformers, English and 
 foreign, had been consistent with this view of 
 Sunday observance. Aylmer, Bishop of London 
 from 1567 to 1594, gave great offence to the 
 Puritans by playing at bowls on Sunday, but he 
 was only following the example of the great master, 
 whom the Puritans exalted to an almost apostolic 
 position, Calvin himself. " Indeed," observes 
 Strype, commenting on the bishop's practice, " it 
 was the general custom, both at Geneva and in all 
 other places where Protestants inhabited, after the 
 service of the Lord's Day was over, to refresh 
 themselves with bowling, walking abroad, or other 
 innocent recreations, and the bishop followed that 
 which, in his travels abroad, he had seen ordinarily 
 practised among them." Puritan sentiment was 
 growing stronger among the religious laity at the 
 end of Elizabeth's reign, and it naturally tended to 
 attach itself to the one act of public religious ob- 
 servance which had survived the destructive pro- 
 cess of reformation. The attitude of a prelate, 
 who, beyond most of his brethren, had laid heavy 
 hand on nonconforming parsons as naturally pre- 
 disposed puritanically minded persons to accept the 
 loftiest version of sabbatic obligation. In the year 
 that followed Bishop Aylmer's death, i.e. iS9Si ^ 
 
BOUND S DOCTRINE OF THE SABBATH 39 
 
 book appeared which is generally accepted as the 
 first occasion of the protracted Sabbatarian contro- 
 versies of the seventeenth century. The author 
 was a clergyman named Nicholas Bound (or 
 Bownde), at the time rector of Norton, in Suffolk, 
 and his book was styled The Doctrine of the Sabbath, 
 plainly laid forth ^ and soundly proved by testimonies both 
 of Holy Scripture, and also of old and new ecclesiastical 
 writers. It was dedicated to no less a personage 
 than Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, at the 
 moment a popular favourite and well regarded at 
 Court. Fuller^ has set down under eleven heads 
 the main propositions of this book, and as they 
 formed the texts of heated controversy, we may 
 usefully reproduce some of them here. Dr. Bound 
 maintained : — 
 
 1. That the commandment of sanctifying every 
 
 seventh day, as in the Mosaical Decalogue, 
 is moral and perpetual. 
 
 2. That whereas all other things in the Jewish 
 
 Church were taken away (priesthood, sac- 
 rifices, and sacraments), this Sabbath was 
 so changed that it still remaineth. 
 
 3. That there is great reason why we Christians 
 
 should take ourselves as straitly bound to 
 rest upon the Lord's Day, as the Jews were 
 
 V. Church History, book ix. chaps. 20, 2 1 (vol. iii. p. 1 4.3. 
 
 London, 1837). 
 
40 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 upon their Sabbath, it being one of the 
 moral commandmentSj where all are of 
 equal authority. 
 4. The rest upon this day must be a notable and 
 singular rest, a most careful, exact, and 
 precise rest, after another manner than 
 men are accustomed. 
 
 The remaining propositions apply the principles 
 here stated to the main classes of human action. 
 The author falls away from the sustained severity 
 of his teaching when he exempts " lords, knights, 
 and gentlemen of quality " from his prohibition of 
 solemn feasts and wedding-dinners on the Lord's 
 Day ; but with this exception he is a thorough- 
 going Sabbatarian. The effect produced by this 
 volume was immediate and considerable. " It is 
 almost incredible how taking this doctrine was," 
 remarks Fuller, " partly because of its own purity 
 and partly for the eminent piety of such persons as 
 maintained it, so that the Lord's Day, especially in 
 corporations, began to be precisely kept, people 
 becoming a law to themselves, forbearing such 
 sports as yet by statute permitted ; yea, many re- 
 joicing at their own restraint herein." Among 
 educated and religious persons there was by no 
 means geheral acceptance of Dr. Bound's opinions. 
 Fuller's account cannot be improved upon, and it 
 has the advantage of belonging to the age. 
 
ROGERS S BOOK ON THE ARTICLES 4 1 
 
 "Learned men," he says, "were much divided 
 in their judgments about these Sabbatarian doctrines. 
 Some embraced them as ancient truths consonant to 
 Scripture, long disused and neglected, now season- 
 ably revived for the increase of piety. Others 
 conceived them grounded on a wrong bottom ; but, 
 because they tended to the manifest advance of 
 religion, it was pity to oppose them, seeing none 
 have just reason to complain, being deceived into 
 their own good. But a third sort flatly fell out 
 with these positions, as galling men's necks with a 
 Jewish yoke, against the liberty of Christians : that 
 Christ as Lord of the Sabbath had removed the 
 rigour thereof, and allowed men lawful recreations : 
 that this doctrine put an unequal lustre on the 
 Sunday on set purpose to eclipse all other holy- 
 days, to the derogation of the authority of the 
 Church : that this strict observance was set up out 
 of faction to be a character of difference, to brand 
 all for libertines who did not entertain it." 
 
 Bound's book was not left unanswered long. 
 Another Suffolk incumbent, Thomas Rogers, 
 rector of Horningsheath, led the way in defending 
 the traditional view, as he proudly affirms in the 
 preface to a work on the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 published in 1607. This preface, inscribed to 
 Archbishop Bancroft, is a document of consider- 
 able interest and importance, and will reward any- 
 
42 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 one, desirous of knowing the accepted view of the 
 English Church in the early seventeenth century, 
 who will be at the pains to read it. After tracing 
 rapidly the course of the Reformation in England, 
 and exulting in the defeat of all enemies of the 
 Church establishment both at home and abroad, he 
 goes on to speak of the fresh outbreak of disaffec- 
 tion, which had taken the form of " Sabbath specu- 
 lations and presbyterian (that is more than kingly 
 or popely) directions for the observation of the 
 Lord's Day." ^ 
 
 " In this their sally," he says, " they set not upon 
 the bishops and their calling, their chancellors, etc., 
 as popish and anti-christian : they let them alone, 
 seeing and knowing they are too well backed for 
 them to subvert : but (which are of great all, and 
 almost of the same antiquity with bishops divers of 
 them, and I had almost said as necessary) they 
 ruinate, and at one blow beat down all times and 
 days, by just authority destined to religious and 
 holy uses, besides the Lord's Day, saying plainly 
 and in peremptory words, that the Church hath 
 none authority, ordinarily, or from year to year 
 perpetually to sanctify any other day to those uses, 
 but only the Lord's Day." He gives some specimens 
 
 ^ V. The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England: an Exposi- 
 tion of the XXXIX. Articles, by Thomas Rogers, a.m.. Chaplain 
 to Archbishop Bancroft, p. l8. [Parker Society.] 
 
ROGERS S BOOK ON THE ARTICLES 43 
 
 of the new teaching which had come to his know- 
 ledge. " I have read (and many there be alive 
 which will justify it) how it was preached in a 
 market-town in Oxfordshire, that to do any servile 
 work or business on the Lord's Day is as great a 
 sin as to kill a man, or to commit adultery. It was 
 preached in Somersetshire that to throw a bowl on 
 the Sabbath day is as great a sin as to kill a man. 
 It was preached in Norfolk, that to make a feast or 
 wedding-dinner on the Lord's Day is as great a sin 
 as for a father to take a knife and cut his child's 
 throat. It was preached in Suffolk (I can name the 
 man, and I was present when he was convented 
 before his ordinary for preaching the same), that to 
 ring more bells than one upon the Lord's Day to 
 call the people unto the church is as great a sin as 
 to commit murder."^ These monstrous extrava- 
 gances, scarcely explicable, and in no respect to be 
 excused, by the enthusiasm of conviction and the 
 delusive vehemence of rhetoric, naturally shocked 
 Mr. Rogers deeply, and he lost no time in setting 
 the authorities to work. 
 
 " It is a comfort unto my soul, and will be till 
 my dying hour, that I have been the man and the 
 means, that these Sabbatarian errors and impieties 
 are brought into light and knowledge of the State : 
 whereby whatsoever else, sure I am, this good hath 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 19. 
 
44 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 ensued, namely, that the said books of the Sabbath 
 (comprehending the above-mentioned, and many 
 more such fearful and heretical assertions) have 
 been both called in, and forbidden any more to be 
 printed and made common. Your Grace's prede- 
 cessor. Archbishop Whitgift, by his letters and 
 officers at synods and visitations, anno 1599, did 
 the one : and Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice 
 of England, at Bury St. Edmund's in Suffolk, anno 
 1600, did the other." ^ Rogers, in the course of 
 his commentary on the Articles, succeeds in getting 
 in a good many effective thrusts against his oppo- 
 nent, and he certainly makes good his opinion that 
 the Sabbatarian movement was directly connected 
 with the anti-hierarchical crusade of the Puritans. 
 In truth, their Sabbatarian doctrine was double- 
 edged, and with both edges it cut away the authority 
 of the Church. On the one hand, it denied the 
 right of the Church to institute holy days, and, by 
 insisting on their observance, to impinge upon the 
 divinely certified right of every man to labour six 
 days in the week." On the other hand, by insisting 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 20. 
 
 2 Ibid., p, 322. "It sheweth also the boldness of our home 
 adversaries, the Puritan Dominicans, which say, that the Church 
 nor no man can take away the liberty (of working six days in the 
 week) from men, and drive them to a necessary rest of the body 
 upon any day saving the seventh." 
 
 cf. The London Petition against Episcopacy in 1640. The 
 
ROGERS S BOOK ON THE ARTICLES 45 
 
 on the divine institution of the Christian Sabbath, 
 it implicitly repudiated the ecclesiastical claim to 
 the appointment and regulation of the Lord's Day. 
 Moreover, as it inevitably linked itself to the 
 puritan exaltation of " the Ministry of the Word " 
 in preaching as the Christian analogue of the pro- 
 phetic witness under the Jewish system, it lent itself 
 to collision with the established Church system on 
 another side, on that side on which the Church sys- 
 tem was notoriously weak. "We damn ourselves" 
 — such is Rogers's summary of the Sabbatarian 
 view — " if we go not from those ministers and 
 churches where the scriptures and homilies only be 
 read, and seek not unto the prophets, when (and so 
 often as) we have them not at home."^ The argu- 
 ments of Mr. Rogers, though backed by the efforts 
 of the authorities as well ecclesiastical as civil, were 
 powerless to arrest a movement which, in spite of 
 
 twenty-second head of grievances is this : "The pressing of the 
 strict observation of the Saints' days, whereby great sums of 
 money are drawn out of men's purses for working on them ; a 
 very high Burthen on most people, who getting their living on 
 their daily Employments, must either omit them, and be idle ; 
 or part with their money, whereby many poor families are un- 
 done, or brought behindhand : yet many Churchwardens are 
 sued, or threatened to be sued, by their troublesome Ministers, as 
 perjured persons, for not presenting their Parishioners who failed 
 in observing Holy days." — v. Rushworth, vol. iv. p. 95. 
 ^ Hid., p. 327, 
 
46 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 its fanaticism and extravagance, did express the 
 serious moral purpose of the nation at the time. 
 
 "The price of the doctor's book began to be 
 doubled : as commonly books are then most called 
 on when called in, and many who hear not of them 
 when printed inquire after them when prohibited : 
 and though the book's wings were clipped from 
 flying abroad in print, it ran the faster from friend 
 to friend in transcribed copies : and the Lord's Day 
 in most places was most strictly observed. The 
 more liberty people were offered, the less they used 
 it, refusing to take the freedom authority tendered 
 them."^ A few years later the Sabbatarian con- 
 troversy leapt into the front rank of political 
 questions. James I., with his wonted confidence 
 and something less than his natural astuteness, 
 thrust himself into the fray. 
 
 In 1618 James, then on his way back from 
 Scotland, had been appealed to by divers Lancashire 
 magnates for relief from the Sabbatarian rigour of 
 the local ministers and magistrates, who had begun 
 to suppress the customary Sunday recreations. 
 The King gave a hasty decision in favour of the 
 complainants, and continued his journey. The 
 consequences might have been expected. It was 
 not in human nature not to abuse the victory, and 
 abused it was. The Sunday amusements became 
 
 ^ Fuller, loc. cit., p. 146. 
 
JAMES I. S DECLARATION 47 
 
 more aggressive and less respectable than ever. 
 Many of the Lancashire magnates were Roman 
 Catholics, and had other reasons for rejoicing in the 
 opportunity of humiliating their >,intolerant neigh- 
 bours. The disturbance became more serious than 
 before, and the King's interference again was 
 invoked. Acting on the advice of the Bishop of 
 Chester, at that time the excellent and conciliatory 
 Morton, James issued a declaration, which limited 
 the liberty of Sunday recreations to those of his 
 subjects who attended the church service, thus 
 chastening the unholy glee of the Papists. It is a 
 characteristically Jacobean composition, too long to 
 quote in full, but hardly to be compressed without 
 injustice. The King scolds impartially both Papists 
 and Puritans, and grants his indulgence on terms 
 which secured the discontent of both. The crucial 
 paragraph is the following : — 
 
 " Our pleasure is that the bishop of that diocese 
 take the like strait order with all the Puritans and 
 Precisians within the same, either constraining them 
 to conform themselves or to leave the county, 
 according to the laws of our kingdom and canons 
 of our Church, and so to strike equally on both 
 hands against the contemners of our authority and 
 adversaries of our Church : and as for our good 
 people's lawful recreation, our pleasure likewise is, 
 that after the end of divine service our good people 
 
4o SABBATARIANISM 
 
 be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any 
 lawful recreation, such as dancing, either men or 
 women ; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any 
 other such harmless recreation, nor from having of 
 May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances ; and 
 the setting up of May-poles and other sports there- 
 with used : so as the same be had in due and con- 
 venient time, without impediment, or neglect of 
 divine service : and that women shall have leave to 
 carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, 
 according to their old custom : but withal we do 
 here account still as prohibited all unlawful games 
 to be used on Sundays only, as bear and bull- 
 baitings, interludes, and (at all times in the meaner 
 sort of people by law prohibited), bowling." ^ 
 
 Hardly had the royal author of this curious 
 homily arrived home, than he reissued it for the 
 whole kingdom, requiring the bishops to order it 
 to be read in all the parish churches. In adopting 
 this method of publishing the proclamation, James, 
 in Dr. Gardiner's words " hit upon a plan which 
 was calculated to rouse the greatest possible amount 
 of opposition."- So general and so vehement was 
 
 1 The Declaration as reissued and slightly enlarged by Charles 
 I. is printed in Gee and Hardy's Documefits illustrative of Efig/ish 
 Church Hiitory, -p^. 528-32. [London, 1896.] 
 
 2 History of England (in ten vols.), vol. iii. p. 251. 
 [London, 1895.] 
 
THE BOOK OF SPORTS 49 
 
 the discontent, and even open resistance, that the 
 King had the prudence to give way, and withdraw 
 the order. Fifteen years later, in 1633, when the 
 puritan movement had immensely gained strength 
 from the fatuous proceedings of the government, 
 Charles I. had the temerity to reissue his father's 
 unfortunate declaration. In the interval a change 
 of no slight importance had happened at Lambeth. 
 Archbishop Abbot had died in 1632, and been 
 succeeded by Archbishop Laud, and the adoption 
 of a vigorous policy against Puritanism was the 
 immediate consequence of the change. When, 
 some years later, the Puritans had their old enemy 
 in their power, the accusation was pressed against 
 him that he had been responsible for reviving and 
 enlarging this declaration. It was said that he 
 " laboured to put a badge of holiness,' by his breath, 
 upon places, and to take it away from days," and 
 that he had designed to " take away preaching." 
 The archbishop denied the accusation, no doubt 
 sincerely ; the act was the King's without question, 
 but there was so much truth in the puritan case, 
 that the primate's great influence with the King 
 had certainly not been used in the interest of in- 
 dulgence. Laud retorted on his adversaries with 
 some effect the teaching of Calvin and the practice 
 of Geneva. " The book names (he said) none but 
 lawful recreations : therefore, if any unlawful be 
 
50 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 used, the book gives them no warrant. And that 
 some are lawful, (after the public service of God is 
 ended,) appears by the practice of Geneva, where, 
 after evening prayer, the elder men bowl, and the 
 younger train. And Calvin says in express terms, 
 that one cause of the institution of the sabbath 
 was, * that servants might have a day of remission 
 from their labour ': and what time of the day fit, if 
 not after evening prayer } and what rest is there 
 for able young men, if they may use no recreation }' 
 . . . *I pray God keep us in the mean, in this 
 business of the sabbath, as well as in other things, 
 that we run not into a Jewish superstition, while 
 we seek to shun profaneness. This Calvin hath 
 in the meantime assured me, ' that those men who 
 stand so strictly upon the morality of the sabbath, 
 do by a gross and carnal sabbatization, three times 
 outgo the superstition of the Jew.' " ^ 
 
 There is something oddly pathetic in the spectacle 
 of Archbishop Laud warning those strong icono- 
 clasts against superstition. That the warning was 
 necessary cannot be questioned. The Sabbatarian- 
 ism of the Puritans had already passed into 
 fanaticism as a doctrine, and into superstition as 
 a practice ; and yet it is certain that in their hands 
 lay in that critical epoch the task of destroying 
 
 ^ Laud''s Works, vol. iv. pp. 252-5. [Library of Anglo- 
 Catholic Theology.] 
 
THE rURITAN AUTHORITY 5 1 
 
 superstition in Church and State, and the arch- 
 bishop, in spite of the justice of his argument on 
 the specific issue, in spite of the apparent reason- 
 ableness of his mental attitude towards the practical 
 question, was truly standing for superstition in 
 Church and State. Perhaps the key to the paradox 
 lies here. The Puritan deferred to an authority, 
 which, however, for a time, he might disguise from 
 himself and from others its true character, was, in 
 the last analysis, the authority of his own reason 
 and conscience. His high-sounding appeals to the 
 divine law, written in the primal nature of man, 
 reaffirmed with awful solemnity amid the thunder 
 of Sinai, bound anew with fresh and more moving 
 sanctions on the Christian, were really, though he 
 did not suspect it, so many appeals to himself. In 
 his moral repugnance against the aggressive pro- 
 fligacy of a society, which was, for quite intelligible 
 reasons, unusually profligate, in his righteous resent- 
 ment against a soi-disant spiritual government, which 
 seemed habitually to depress religious enthusiasm, 
 and to spread its shield over lax morals and ap- 
 parent irreligion, the Puritan became fanatical, and 
 in his fanaticism degenerated quickly into absurdity 
 and intolerance ; but he was under no permanent 
 disqualifications in the matter of education by ex- 
 perience. He could unlearn his own errors and 
 undo his own mistakes, for the authority which 
 
52 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 determined his course was that of his own under- 
 standing, and that grew wiser and more trustworthy 
 under the disciplines of life. But the Anglicanism 
 of Laud was intrinsically unteachable, and therefore 
 ultimately, morally and mentally, enfeebling also. 
 No doubt at the moment its very principles of 
 dependence on Catholic precedents and the royal 
 prerogative secured it against the practical extrava- 
 gances which disgraced and discredited the Puritans ; 
 for the appeal to Christian antiquity was in some 
 sense an appeal to human experience, and the 
 royal prerogative was a political authority in direct 
 contact with the actual life of the nation ; and, 
 accordingly, both prohibited such grotesquely im- 
 practicable conceptions of Christian duty as were 
 solemnly proclaimed and defended by men who 
 ignored everything but the text of scripture. The 
 disadvantage of governing conduct by reference to 
 an external authority — discoverable in the past, 
 actually, though not theoretically, irreformable in 
 the present, and expressed in a series of rigid pre- 
 cedents — would become manifest as society de- 
 veloped new wants and passed under new conditions. 
 And the defects of the royal prerogative as an 
 instrument for regulating the religious practice of 
 the nation would become apparent precisely in pro- 
 portion to the strength and purpose of the national 
 religious sentiment. It is true that considerations 
 
THE SABBATARIAN CONTROVERSY 53 
 
 of reason and expediency were frequently advanced 
 in support of ecclesiastical rules, but we feel as we 
 read the Laudian arguments that these are not the 
 really determining elements in the reasoning. 
 
 On the Sabbatarian question, which directly 
 touched the procedure of common life at so many 
 points, Laudianism is seen at its best and Puritan- 
 ism at its worst ; and yet, as far as I can appreciate 
 the facts, the best intelligence (outside the univer- 
 sities, where anti-puritan views prevailed) and the 
 deepest piety of the country were rather puritan 
 than Laudian, until the excesses of the more violent 
 and fanatical Sabbatarians who came to power for a 
 few years during the Commonwealth, created the 
 revulsion of feeling which found expression in an 
 outbreak of profanity of all kinds under Charles II. 
 This revulsion was itself but a temporary aberra- 
 tion. There was a return to something like puritan 
 severity before the century closed, and the leading 
 Anglican clergy of the Revolution period insisted 
 strongly on the strict observance of the Lord's Day. 
 James I.'s declaration in favour of Sunday recrea- 
 tions would have been hardly less unpalatable to 
 the founders and patrons of the societies for the 
 reformation of manners than to the victims of the 
 High Commission. At the time men were mostly 
 impressed by the incongruity of the alliance between 
 the hierarchy and the laxer classes of society. 
 
54 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 Thomas May bore no high character with his 
 own contemporaries, but he was a keen and well- 
 informed observer of events, and there can be no 
 reason to doubt the substantial truth of his descrip- 
 tion of the impression made on the public mind by 
 the action of the church authorities with respect to 
 the Sabbatarian movement. " The like unhappy 
 course did the clergy take to depress Puritanism, 
 which was ' to set up irreligion itself against it,' the 
 worst weapon which they could have chosen to beat 
 it down ; which appeared especially in point of 
 keeping the Lord's Day, when not only books were 
 written to shake the morality of it, as that of 
 Sunday no Sabbath,^ but sports and pastimes of jollity 
 and lightness were permitted to the country people 
 upon that day, by public authority, and the warrant 
 commanded to be read in churches : which, instead 
 of producing the intended effect, may credibly be 
 thought to have been one motive to a stricter ob- 
 servance of that day in that part of the kingdom 
 which before had been well devoted ; and many 
 men, who before had been loose and careless, began 
 upon that occasion to enter into a more serious 
 
 1 This book was written by John Pocklington, Rector of 
 Yelden and Canon of Windsor. It was ordered to be publicly 
 burned in 1640, and its author was deprived of his preferments. 
 Dr. Bray, who had licensed his works, was enjoined to preach a 
 recantation sermon in St. Margaret's, Westminster. 
 
ANTI-SABBATARIAN REACTION 55 
 
 consideration of it, and were ashamed to be invited 
 by the authority of churchmen to that which them- 
 selves at the best could but have pardoned in them- 
 selves as a thing of infirmity." He adds that " the 
 example of the court, where plays were usually 
 presented on Sundays, did not so much draw the 
 country to imitation, as reflect with disadvantage 
 upon the court itself, and sour those other court 
 pastimes and jollities, which would have relished 
 better without that in the eyes of all the people, as 
 being things that had ever been allowed to the 
 delights of great princes." ^ 
 
 No doubt, as we have said, there was a change 
 of feeling when the controversy had come into 
 the hands of the uneducated classes, and, under 
 the terrible strain of the Civil War, these had broken 
 out in astonishing exhibitions of fanaticism. There 
 was a reaction against the presumptuous dogmatism, 
 the tyrannous intolerance, the meddlesome inquisi- 
 tions of zealots, whose personal character did not 
 commend their authority. 
 
 Fuller, himself in feeling and habit a Puritan, 
 writes with evident disgust of the general moral 
 decline which showed itself among the more vehe- 
 ment sectaries, and, oddly enough, beginning with an 
 
 1 V. History of the Parliament of England, by Thomas May, 
 p. 24. [Oxford, 1854.] 
 
56 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 exaggerated emphasis on the duty of observing the 
 sabbath, ended by repudiating the positive law alto- 
 gether. It was a logical development of Sabbatarian 
 contempt for church authority in one direction, as 
 the rise of the Seventh Day Baptists was in another. 
 " But here," he says, " it is much to be lamented, 
 that such who, at the time of the Sabbatarian 
 controversy, were the strictest observers of the 
 Lord's Day, are now ruled by their violence into 
 another extreme — to be the greatest neglecters, yea, 
 contemners thereof. These transcendents, account- 
 ing themselves mounted above the predicament of 
 common piety, aver they need not keep any, because 
 they keep all days Lord's Days, in their elevated 
 holiness. But, alas ! Christian duties, said to be 
 ever done, will prove never done, if not sometimes 
 solemnly done. These are the most dangerous 
 levellers, equalling all times, places, and persons, 
 making a general confusion to be gospel-perfection. 
 Whereas, to speak plainly, we in England are, 7'ebus 
 sic stantibus^ concerned now more strictly to observe 
 the Lord's Day than ever before. Holy days are 
 not, and holy eves are not, and Wednesday and 
 Friday litanies are not, and Lord's Day eves are 
 not ; and now some out of error, and others out of 
 profaneness, go about to take away the Lord's Day 
 also. All these things make against God's solemn 
 and public service." 
 
DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT 57 
 
 Perhaps the most astonishing evidence of the 
 confusion of the religious intelligence by the Sabba- 
 tarian controversies is presented by the account 
 of a discussion in Cromwell's parliament in 1657, 
 which is given in Burton's Parliamentary Diary.^ 
 A bill for securing the better observance of the 
 Lord's Day was read and debated. There was 
 much difference of opinion among the members 
 as to the limits of legitimate Christian action 
 on the sacred day. There was a severe party in 
 the House which would make " unnecessary 
 walking " a punishable offence, and even " idle 
 sitting, openly, at gates or doors, or elsewhere," 
 but there yet survived in the fanatical assembly 
 some elements of good sense, and even some 
 vestiges of humour, so that, on these points, a con- 
 siderable and vehement debate was carried on. " I 
 except against the words in the bill," said one 
 member, " * idle sitting, openly, at gates or doors, 
 or elsewhere ' ; and * walking in churchyards, etc.' 
 Let a man be in what posture he will, your penalty 
 fines him." Another objected to the word " else- 
 where," for " he knew not how far this may reach." 
 Major-General Whalley raised the question of 
 health. "God requires not these things of us," he 
 
 1 Diary of Thomas 'Burton, Esq., member in the Parliaments of 
 Oliver and Richard Cromwell from 1656 to 1659, edited by 
 John Towill Rutt, vol. ii. pp. 261-8. [London, 1828.] 
 
58 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 said. " We must take heed of adding to the com- 
 mandment of God. If you put this clause, you 
 deprive men of the very livelihood they have by 
 the air ; as at Nottingham, many people that have 
 houses in the rock, and have no air, live most part 
 of their time without doors." -This consideration 
 was not without effect. One member sarcastically 
 suggested that the proposed clause was inadequate, 
 and urged that it should include *' leaning or stand- 
 ing at doors." His levity was gravely rebuked by 
 another member, who would, however, make a dis- 
 tinction between " working " and " sitting at doors." 
 The law officers now intervened on the side of 
 practical common sense. " In some parts of this 
 city," said the Master of the Rolls, " unless people 
 have liberty to sit at doors, you deprive them of 
 most of the air they have all the week, and destroy 
 their children." The Lord Chief Justice followed 
 on the same side, pointing out that, ,if the clause 
 were adopted, it would probably " cause discord and 
 prying amongst neighbours into the actions of one 
 another." 
 
 The rigid Sabbatarians remained obdurate. "You 
 had as good leave out the whole bill as leave out 
 this clause," said Major Burton. " Follow out your 
 principle logically," was the rejoinder, " and where 
 will it carry you ? Why stop at the doorstep .'' 
 There may be profaneness by sitting under some 
 
DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT 59 
 
 eminent tree in a village, or an arbour, or Gray's 
 Inn walks." In the division the clause was lost by 
 the narrow majority of two votes. Encouraged 
 with this success, the rational party now pressed 
 for the withdrawal of the bill, and raised the 
 formidable plea of conscientious doubt. Major- 
 General Desborough had scruples as to the proper 
 duration of Sunday. Did the sabbath day begin 
 at twelve o'clock on Saturday night, or not ? 
 Colonel Holland was in the same perplexity, and 
 made an interesting personal admission. " Divers 
 godly precious people," he said, " are unsatisfied 
 about the institution of the day. And as to time, 
 it is likewise scrupled by many godly men, who 
 think that only twelve hours is the sabbath day. 
 It is rejoicing of the heart in observing a day to 
 the Lord. It is better than one thousand days to 
 be pinned up in a place. I was once when I would 
 have gone to six or seven sermons on a day. I 
 am not so now. I do not make so much conscience 
 of it now, but do think that I may serve God as 
 well at home with godly servants and other people. 
 I am for the observation of a day as much as any 
 man, and though there were no precept for it, 
 every man by nature is tied to it. I would have 
 it adjourned." The effect of this frank but in- 
 discreet utterance was unfortunate. The time had 
 not yet come when sermons could be so slightingly 
 
6o SABBATARIANISM 
 
 spoken about. The debate proceeded amid some 
 uproar, and in the end the bill passed the House. 
 Colonel Holland's speech, in the character of the 
 emancipated Puritan, appears to reflect the teaching 
 of the Quakers, which with respect to the observ- 
 ance of the Lord's Day, as to other matters of 
 current controversy, commended itself amid the 
 general distraction as obviously reasonable. At 
 that early stage of the Quaker movement popular 
 attention was mainly arrested by the extraordinary 
 exhibitions of fanaticism on the part of individuals, 
 such as the unhappy Nayler, whose case occupied 
 the attention of the very parliament from whose 
 proceedings we have made some extracts ; but the 
 real strength of George Fox's protest against the 
 existing ecclesiastical systems of his time lay in its 
 correspondence with the practical good sense of 
 a community, wearied beyond endurance by the 
 conflicts of sects. Barclay's Apology was not pub- 
 lished until 1675, ^^*^ ^^"^ ^^^ interval the Quakers 
 had to a great extent outgrown their earlier ex- 
 travagances ; but the fundamental reasonableness 
 of his general attitude was present from the 
 first in their teaching. I do not know a better 
 summary of the reasonable case for Lord's Day 
 observance than that of the Quaker apologist. 
 
 " We, not seeing any ground in scripture for it, 
 cannot be so superstitious as to believe, that either 
 
THE QUAKER DOCTRINE 6 1 
 
 the Jewish sabbath now continues, or that the first 
 day of the week is the antitype thereof, or the true 
 Christian sabbath ; which with Calvin we believe 
 to have a more spiritual sense ; and therefore we 
 know no moral obligation by the fourth command, 
 or elsewhere, to keep the first day of the week 
 more than any other, or any holiness inherent in 
 it. But first, forasmuch as it is necessary that 
 there be some time set apart for the saints to meet 
 together to wait upon God ; and that, secondly, it 
 is fit at some times they be freed from their outward 
 affairs ; and that, thirdly, reason and equity doth 
 allow that servants and beasts have some time 
 allowed them to be eased from their continual 
 labour ; and that, fourthly, it appears that the 
 apostles and primitive Christians did use the first 
 day of the week for these purposes ; we, finding 
 ourselves sufficiently moved for these causes, to do 
 so also, without superstitiously straining the Scrip- 
 tures for another reason ; which, that it is not to be 
 there found, many Protestants, yea, Calvin himself, 
 upon the fourth command hath abundantly evinced. 
 And though we therefore meet, and abstain from 
 working upon this day, yet doth not that hinder us 
 from having meetings also for worship at other 
 times. "^ The Quaker statement of the obligation 
 to observe the Lord's Day builds everything on 
 
 1 Barclay's Apology, tenth edition, p. 330. [London, 1841.] 
 
62 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 reason and expediency, nothing on any authority 
 whether of natural law, or of the decalogue, or of 
 the Church, and therefore, almost alone among the 
 doctrinal statements of the seventeenth century, it 
 remains still vital and satisfying to that compara- 
 tively small class, to whom reason and expediency 
 are sufficient governors of practice ; but then, as 
 ever since, the mass of men want some more 
 apparent and impressive authority to hold them to 
 their duty, and that authority was sought then, as 
 now, in two directions, either in the Bible or in 
 the Church. The mere stating of the alternative 
 indicates the religious and political affinities which 
 would reveal themselves in the Sabbatarian con- 
 troversy. Puritan sentiment, as we have said, 
 inevitably predisposed men to take up that view of 
 the question which minimised, or wholly ignored, 
 the authority of the Church, and gave a divine 
 sanction to civic disloyalty, when an anti-puritan 
 monarch ordered anti-sabbatarian proceedings. 
 Anglican sentiment, as inevitably, predisposed men 
 to take up the opposite view, which magnified 
 ecclesiastical authority, and seemed to disprove the 
 puritan contempt for the Church by exhibiting the 
 unconscious subjection to its law implied in the 
 puritan practice, and added an element of religious 
 zeal to their natural disposition to support an anti- 
 sabbatarian monarch, who was also a sound Anglican. 
 
UNREALITY OF THE CONTROVERSY 63 
 
 Thus an unconscious hypocrisy pervades the whole 
 conflict, the combatants are governed by other 
 reasonings than they acknowledge or suspect ; 
 sacred names are written on the rival banners, but 
 the determining influences throughout are more 
 political than religious. Individuals, of course, 
 were in deadly earnest, and when once the passion of 
 fanaticism had been set ablaze in the nation, though 
 the motives from which the conflagration sprang 
 were properly political, yet the consequences were 
 the genuine and normal products of fanaticism. 
 On both sides arguments were pressed to their ex- 
 tremest conclusions, logic counted for more than it 
 was worth in a discussion which touched the delicate 
 and complicated procedure of human life ; when 
 the great deeps were stirred, controversy could no 
 more be penned within the enclosures of knowledge 
 and reason, but became the interest and the victim 
 of ignorance and folly, until a cessation of the con- 
 flict came from the exhaustion of the combatants 
 and the general disgust of the people. English 
 good sense, as usual, steered the middle way. The 
 puritan sabbath was not able to maintain itself in 
 national acceptance, and no portion of the vast 
 mass of dead literature which the seventeenth 
 century has bequeathed to us is more incapable of 
 resuscitation than the storehouse of perverted 
 erudition and grotesque reasoning which the sab- 
 
64 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 batarian conflict created ; yet it is not less certain 
 that that conflict made an abiding impression on 
 the national life. The tradition of Lord's Day 
 observance which survived was neither Puritan nor 
 Anglican, but a blending of both. Less austere 
 than the one, more conscientious than the other, it 
 commended itself to the deliberate approval of a 
 people, averse to rigorous theories, curiously sen- 
 sitive to practical obligations. 
 
 An excellent example of the more sober Puritan 
 teaching on the subject of Lord's Day observance 
 is afixDrded by a sermon of the famous Puritan 
 scholar. Dr. John Lightfoot (i 602-1 675), Master 
 of Catherine Hall, Cambridge, whose works are 
 still used by biblical students.^ In spite of his 
 Puritanism, in spite of the fact that he had received 
 preferment from the rebel government and had 
 even pronounced a panegyric on the Protector, he 
 was exempted from the eviction which seemed to 
 await him at the Restoration, because the fame of 
 his learning commanded the admiration even of the 
 royalists. To his own honour Sheldon, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, stood his friend, and confirmed him 
 in his preferments. These particulars will make it 
 evident that the Sabbatarian views of Lightfoot 
 cannot be discounted on the grounds of his ignor- 
 
 1 The sermon is printed in vol. vii. pp. 367-90 of Light- 
 foot's Works, edited by Pitman. [London, 1822.] 
 
LIGHTFOOT S SERMON 65 
 
 ance, or fanaticism, or unimportance. The text of 
 the sermon in question is the fourth commandment, 
 and, after some general observations on the creation, 
 the preacher attacks his subject. Of course, the 
 narrative in Genesis is accepted as in the strictest 
 sense record of fact, and much that is not in the 
 narrative is read into it. What could be more 
 suggestive of the chasm which parts the educated 
 thought of our own day from that of the age, which 
 fixed the subscriptions and formularies of the 
 modern Anglican Church, than this .'' 
 
 " That the world was made at equinox all grant, 
 but differ at which, whether about the eleventh of 
 March or twelfth of September ; to me in September 
 without all doubt. All things were created in their 
 ripeness and maturity : apples ripe and ready to eat, 
 as is too sadly plain in Adam and Eve's eating the 
 forbidden fruit." 
 
 Lightfoot then proves that Adam fell on the very 
 day that he was created, " about the sixth hour, or 
 high noon most probably, as that was the time of 
 eating." That on the same afternoon Christ was 
 promised, and on the following day God ordained, 
 and Adam kept, the Sabbath. Thus the Gospel 
 preceded the institution of the Sabbath, and the 
 obligation to keep it holy rests both on the law of 
 nature written in man's heart and on " evangelical 
 revelation." The observance of the Sabbath was 
 
 F 
 
66 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 binding on Adam's posterity, because the Sabbath 
 corresponds to the nature of man. All varieties of 
 law — moral, commemorative, evangelical, typical — 
 combine in the law of the Sabbath. The patriarch 
 of the race set an example for perpetual imitation. 
 He kept the Sabbath, most probably by sacrificing 
 the animals whose skins were subsequently ap- 
 pointed for his clothing. Here follows a descrip- 
 tion of Adam's preaching to his family circle upon 
 the Sabbath Day, which may interest students of 
 Paradise Lost as providing a curious parallel to 
 Milton's description of the theological disquisitions 
 which relieved the taedium of paradise. The first 
 man, of course, displays the developed orthodoxy 
 of the seventeenth century. Having thus rooted 
 his case for the Sabbath in the very circumstances 
 of the creation, the preacher conceives himself to 
 have avoided the current controversies. 
 
 " The consideration of these ends of the Sabbath 
 may serve to assoil that controversy about the 
 antiquity of its institution, viz. whether its insti- 
 tution was not before the giving of the law } In 
 the dispute about the Sabbath, a-foot in England 
 some years ago, there were some went so high (shall 
 I say ?) or so low, as to maintain that our Sabbath 
 was not of Divine institution, but ecclesiastical 
 only ; not ordained by God, but the Church. And 
 to make good this assertion they would persuade 
 
lightfoot's sermon 67 
 
 you that there was no Sabbath instituted before the 
 giving of the law." This view, of course, is sum- 
 marily dismissed as not only inconsistent with the 
 evidence of Scripture, but also as obscuring the 
 "beauty of the Sabbath" as ancient, universal, 
 divinely exemplified, and intrinsically noble. " It 
 reacheth, as the cherubims' wings, from one end of 
 the world unto the other." Between the Christian 
 Sabbath and the first Sabbath of the world there 
 is no difference save the change of day, which was 
 effected by the authority of Christ, and agreed with 
 the general method of redemption. It was a case 
 of putting new wine into new vessels. " How pied 
 would Christianity have looked if it had worn a 
 coat all new in other respects, but had had on 
 the shirt or piecing of the old Sabbath ! And 
 how unfit was it to have tied Christians to the 
 observation of the old Sabbath of the Jews 1 " 
 With a few observations on the fitness of making 
 Christ's resurrection, rather than the original crea- 
 tion, the subject of sabbatic commemoration, the 
 sermon closes. The learned Lightfoot, immersed in 
 his rabbinic researches, discussed the Sabbath with 
 slight reference to the practical questions, which in 
 the first place would demand the attention of less 
 academic thinkers ; but it seemed well to consider 
 his views, as indicating the mental attitude of a 
 really considerable divine. Less erudite, but by no 
 
68 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 means less gifted with intellect, a man immersed in 
 the politics of the time, compelled to bring his 
 theories to the touchstone of human life as it pro- 
 ceeds among ordinary folk, a preacher of righteous- 
 ness, and an exemplary parish priest, Richard 
 Baxter may be taken as the exponent of sane and 
 tolerant Puritanism. In his voluminous writings 
 the Sabbatarian controversy looms largely, and per- 
 haps there is no more satisfying discussion of the 
 subject, from the Puritan standpoint, to be found in 
 the immense literature produced on either side of 
 the question than his treatise on The Divine Appoint- 
 ment of the Lord's Bay^ published In 1671, but 
 embodying the experience and the teaching of the 
 earlier period, when Baxter was in the front of 
 political movements. He explains his object in a 
 short Preface, which throws a curious light on the 
 age. "The reason of my writing it," he says, "was 
 the necessity and request of some very upright, 
 godly persons, who are lately fallen into doubt or 
 error in point of the Sabbath Day, conceiving that, 
 because the fourth commandment was written in 
 stone, it was wholly unchangeable, and consequent- 
 ly the Seventh-day Sabbath in force, and that the 
 Lord's day is not a day separated by God to holy 
 worship." He adds, not without a touch of gentle 
 
 ^ The treatise is printed in vol. xiii. of Orme's edition of 
 Baxttr's Practical Works, pp. 364-466. 
 
Baxter's treatise 69 
 
 sarcasm : " I much pity and wonder at those godly 
 men, who are so much for stretching the words of 
 Scripture, to a sense that other men cannot find in 
 them, as that in the words ' Graven Images ' in the 
 second commandment, they can find all set forms 
 of prayer, all composed, studied sermons, and all 
 things about worship of man's invention to be 
 images and idolatry ; and yet they cannot find the 
 abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath in the express 
 words of Colossians ii. 16, nor the other texts which 
 I have cited ; nor can they find the institution of 
 the Lord's day in all the texts and evidences pro- 
 duced for it." He then states with less than his 
 usual diffusiveness — a result, perhaps, of the separa- 
 tion from his books which he laments in the Preface 
 — the familiar arguments for disallowing the Jewish 
 law while retaining a moral obligation on Christians 
 to observe one day in seven, and justifying the 
 observance of the Lord's Day on the ground of 
 Apostolic appointment under special inspiration of 
 the Holy Spirit. Throughout he keeps up a 
 running criticism of Peter Heylyn's History of the 
 Sabbath, published in 1636, which represented the 
 extreme ecclesiastical theory of the origin and obli- 
 gation of the Lord's Day. Then he deals with 
 various questions raised by the Sabbatarians. He 
 decides the contested point as to the precise limits 
 of the sacred day by the sensible observation that 
 
70 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 the common estimation of the country where one 
 lives will best answer the ends of the institution.^ 
 He insists on the public exercises of religion as 
 peculiarly binding on the Christian ;- and, in this 
 view, he certainly represented the main stream of 
 Puritan teaching. Dr. Gardiner does not seem to 
 me justified when he describes the Puritan view of 
 the Sabbath as merely individualistic.^ In its ulti- 
 mate principle this may have been the case, but cer- 
 tainly not in conscious thought, still less in accepted 
 theory. Dr. Bound, the protagonist of Sabbatarian- 
 ism, had insisted on the duty of attending at sermons, 
 and Baxter, who was, hardly less than his Anglican 
 contemporaries, wont to seek his conception of 
 Lord's Day observance in the practice of the primi- 
 tive Christians, never wearies of enforcing the social 
 character of the day. He insists on the consecra- 
 tion of the entire day. " So much of the day as 
 can be spared from public church worship (and 
 diversions of necessity) should be next spent most 
 in holy family-exercises."'* Always, however, pri- 
 vate and family devotions are to yield place to the 
 public worship, because for the latter the Lord's 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 428. 
 
 2 Ibid.,- p. 429. " The principal work of the day is the 
 communion of Christians in the public exercise of God's wor- 
 ship." 
 
 3 History of England, vol. iii. p. 247. 
 * Loc. at., p. 433. 
 
BAXTERS TREATISE 7 I 
 
 Day is principally set apart.^ To the not unnatural 
 objection that human nature is not equal to the 
 strain of such continuous exercises, Baxter replies 
 only with severe rebukes of the cold-heartedness 
 implied in so regarding the worship of God. 
 Having dealt with the duties, he then discusses 
 the more common abuses of the day : and here 
 he falls foul of the common Sunday recreations, 
 which had originally caused so much disturbance. 
 All the intense Puritanism of the man comes out 
 as he denounces, with prophetic fervour, amuse- 
 ments which he had learned, as a parish priest, to 
 recognise as the ministers of sin. He appeals to 
 the recollections and experiences of his own life. 
 " I cannot forget when my conscience was against 
 their courses, and called me to better things, how 
 hardly when I was young, I passed by the dancing 
 and the playing congregations, and especially when 
 in the passage I must bear their scorn. And I was 
 one year a schoolmaster, and found how hard it 
 was for the poor children to avoid such snares, 
 even when they were sure to be whipped the next 
 day for their pleasures. . . ."^ 
 
 " I cannot forget that in my youth in those late 
 times, when we lost the labours of some of our 
 conformable godly teachers for not reading publicly 
 the Book of Sports and Dancing on the Lord's-days, 
 
72 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 one of my father's own tenants was the town-piper, 
 hired by the year (for many years together), and 
 the place of the dancing-assembly was not a 
 hundred yards from our door, and we could not 
 on the Lord's-day either read a chapter, or 
 pray, or sing a psalm, or catechise, or instruct 
 a servant, but with the noise of the pipe and 
 tabor, and the shouting in the street, continually 
 in our ears ; and even among a tractable people 
 we were the common scorn of all the rabble in 
 the streets, and called Puritans, Precisians, and 
 Hypocrites, because we rather chose to read the 
 Scriptures than to do as they did (though there was 
 no savour of Nonconformity in our family). And 
 when the people by the book were allowed to play 
 and dance out of public service-time, they could so 
 hardly break off their sports, that many a time the 
 reader was fain to stay till the piper and players 
 would give over ; and sometimes the morrice- 
 dancers would come into the church in all the linen 
 and scarfs, and antic dresses, with morice-bells 
 jingling at their legs. And as soon as common- 
 prayer was read, did haste out presently to their 
 play again. "^ He will not allow the plea that 
 labourers at least might have a valid claim to Sun- 
 day amusements. " Is it their bodies or their minds 
 that need recreation ? " he asks very cogently, and 
 
BAXTERS TREATISE 7^ 
 
 turns the tables on the objectors by saying that if 
 bodily recreations were needed by labourers, land- 
 lords might abate to their tenants as much rent as 
 one day's vacancy from labour in a month or a 
 fortnight will amount to. Students, lawyers, 
 ministers, and gentlemen, who work with their 
 brains, can for the most part obtain their bodily 
 recreations during the week. To the contention 
 that the mind is incapable, without some change, of 
 the protracted concentration on worship which his 
 theory demands, Baxter answers that there is 
 ample variety in the differing exercises of religion, 
 and that the true origin of the alleged mental fatigue 
 is lack of love. " Come and spend but a day in 
 loving God, as thou dost in talking of Him, and 
 try whether love, and the holiest love, be a wearisome 
 work." He interposes a pointed appeal to the 
 clergy, then as now heavily accused of dulness in 
 the pulpit. "But I will tell them that are the 
 teachers of the people, an honester way to cure the 
 people's weariness, than to send them to a piper or 
 to a play to cure it. Preach with such life and 
 awakening seriousness, preach with such grateful, 
 holy eloquence, and with such easy method, and 
 with such variety of wholesome matter, that the 
 people may never be weary of you."^ Of course 
 the inevitable Calvin has to be reckoned with. His 
 1 p. 4+8. 
 
74 SABBATARIANISM 
 
 Sunday game was a godsend to the Sabbath-breakers. 
 Baxter's answer is both ingenious and interesting. 
 *'You must remember," he says, "that they" {i.e. 
 the foreign reformers) " came newly out of popery, 
 and had seen the Lord's day, and a superabundance 
 of other human holy days imposed on the churches 
 to be ceremoniously observed, and they did not all 
 of them, so clearly as they ought, discern the differ- 
 ence between the Lord's day, and those holy days, 
 or church festivals, and so did too promiscuously 
 conjoin them in their reproofs of the burdens im- 
 posed on the Church." ..." And for Calvin you 
 must know that he spent every day so like to a 
 Lord's day . . . that he might the more easier be 
 tempted to make the less difference in his judg- 
 ment between the Lord's day and other days. . . . 
 But as England hath been the happiest in this piece 
 of reformation, so all men are inexcusable that en- 
 courage idleness, sensuality, or neglect of the im- 
 portant duties of the day." ^ 
 
 Baxter proceeds to discuss " What things should 
 not be scrupled as unlawful on the Lord's day," 
 and in the course of his discussion shows some 
 pretty play as a casuist. He concedes the lawful- 
 ness of taking exercise for the sake of one's health, 
 and confesses to doing so himself, but privately, 
 lest he should tempt others to sin.^ 
 1 p. 451. 2 p. ^57. 
 
MODERN LAXITY 75 
 
 Even the modified Sabbatarianism of Richard 
 Baxter has an impracticable and even extravagant 
 aspect now ; but then it commended itself to the 
 strong intelligence and healthy moral sense of men 
 like Sir Matthew Hale, who adopted it for them- 
 selves, and confessed its value for mind and body, 
 as well as spirit. And even now the reflection may 
 sometimes occur to us, as we mark on all hands, 
 and feel in ourselves, the injury of that severe and 
 ever severer strain of modern life, as it proceeds in 
 our great cities, that there was a deeper reasonable- 
 ness in the Puritan practice than the arbitrary and 
 whimsical arguments, by which they often defended 
 it, might at first view suggest. In repudiating, as 
 we cannot but repudiate, the bondage of the 
 Puritan Sabbath, we may well admit a certain 
 anxiety, lest we shall have endangered that strength 
 and simplicity of the Puritan character, which de- 
 pended more than we suspect on the normal 
 severity of a religious habit. 
 
The Presbyterian Experiment 
 
 However opinions may vary as to the intrinsic 
 worth of the Laudian theory of the English Church, 
 and as to the character of the Laudian ecclesiastics 
 who strove to reduce that theory to practice, there 
 can be but one opinion as to the effect produced on 
 the public opinion of the country at the time. The 
 extreme unpopularity of the English hierarchy after 
 a few years of Laudian supremacy is equally certain, 
 and, at first sight, hard to explain. The bishops 
 were for the most part personally respectable, and 
 there is no reason for thinking that their adminis- 
 tration of the Church was — ^judged by the standard 
 of their time — exceptionally harsh or unjust. The 
 ecclesiastical courts were, no doubt, unpopular with 
 those who came within their grasp, and they were 
 probably no more free from corruption than other 
 courts ; but even in that age, when the criminal 
 category included classes of offenders which have 
 long ceased to be the concern of the law, the actual 
 number of persons who had private reasons for 
 disliking the ecclesiastical system cannot have been 
 76 
 
FEELING AGAINST THE BISHOPS "J^ 
 
 relatively so considerable as to affect in such an 
 absolute way the general sentiment of the nation. 
 
 It is sufficiently evident that the intimate associa- 
 tion of the hierarchy with the secular government 
 prejudiced it badly in the judgment of that great 
 section of the people which resented, and in the 
 end resisted, the unconstitutional course which the 
 secular government took under the earlier Stuarts. 
 Men carried over to the credit of the hierarchy the 
 suspicion and dislike with which the political action 
 of the leading bishops had filled them ; and the 
 confusion was facilitated by the personal character 
 of Archbishop Laud. Nothing was too petty or 
 too apparently remote from spiritual interests for 
 his interference.^ His clear-cut personality met 
 men's eyes at every turn ; his sharp speeches were 
 rankling in many minds. His zeal for those un- 
 accustomed ceremonies which in his eyes were the 
 expressions and bulwarks of religion, but in the 
 
 1 Cf. Fuller's description of Archbishop Whitgift, who "re- 
 paired daily to the Council table early in the morning, and, 
 after his usual appreciation of a 'good-morrow' to the lords, he 
 requested to know if there were any Church business to be 
 debated, and, if the answer were returned in the affirmative, he 
 stayed and attended the issue of the matter. But if no such 
 matter appeared, he craved leave to be dispensed withal, saying, 
 'Then, my lords, here is no need of me,' and departed : a com- 
 mendable practice, clearing himself from all aspersions of civil 
 pragmaticalness and tending much to the just support of his 
 reputation" {v. Church History, sub anno 1589). 
 
78 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 eyes of the average Englishman were no better than 
 illegal and superstitious follies, his astonishing 
 pertinacity and ubiquitousness, even his personal 
 piety (always semi-grotesque in English eyes) — all 
 combined to constitute him in the eyes of the 
 people the incarnation of the Caroline tyranny in 
 Church and State. It is an error to suppose that 
 Laud was only disliked by the Puritans, and to 
 discount the suggestions of his remarkable unpopu- 
 larity by their not altogether disinterested preju- 
 dices. The fiercest denunciation possible came from 
 men who, under ordinary circumstances, would have 
 stood by those in authority. Harbotle Grimston, 
 for example, a country gentleman of the respectable 
 Conservative type, " the very embodiment of a 
 constitutional Conservative," to borrow Mr. Shaw's 
 description, used language about the Archbishop 
 which could only come from an intense repugnance. 
 " Mr. Speaker," he said, " we are now fallen upon 
 the great man, the Archbishop of Canterbury ; look 
 upon him as he is in highness, and he is the sty of 
 all pestilential filth that hath infested the State and 
 Government of this Commonwealth ; look upon 
 him in his dependencies, and he is the only man, 
 the only man that hath raised and advanced all 
 those that, together with himself, have been the 
 authors and causers of all our ruins, miseries, and 
 calamities we now groan under. . . . Who is it, 
 
THE LONDON PETITION 79 
 
 Mr. Speaker, but this great Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, that hath sat at the helm, to steer and manage 
 all the projects that have been set on foot in this 
 kingdom this last ten years past ? and rather than 
 he would stand out, he hath most unworthily 
 trucked and chaffered in the meanest of them. . . . 
 Mr. Speaker, he hath been the great and common 
 enemy of all goodness and good men, and it is not 
 safe that such a viper should be near His Majesty's 
 person to distil his poison into his sacred ears." ^ 
 
 This was the language, be it remembered, of 
 one who was, and was considered, a moderate man. 
 The dislike of Laud always seemed in some degree 
 personal to the man himself, but dislike, hardly less 
 vehement, was expressed against the whole episcopal 
 system. When the great London petition against 
 Episcopacy, signed by no less than 15,000 persons, 
 and presented to the House by as many as 1,600 
 gentlemen of quality, was discussed, very remark- 
 able speeches were made by the champions of the 
 bishops. Lord Digby, for example, began an ex- 
 tremely eloquent oration with the declaration that 
 there was no man within the walls of Parliament 
 more sensible of the heavy grievance of Church 
 government than himself, " nor whose affections 
 were keener to the clipping of these wings of 
 the prelates, whereby they have mounted to such 
 
 ^ Rushworth, iv. p. 127.. 
 
8o THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 insolencies, nor whose zeal was more ardent to the 
 searing them so, as they may never spring again." 
 
 " I do not think," he said, " that any people hath 
 been ever more provoked than the generality of 
 England of late years by the insolencies and 
 exorbitances of the prelates. 
 
 " I protest sincerely, Mr. Speaker, I cannot cast 
 mine eye upon this petition, nor my thoughts on 
 the practices of the churchmen, that have governed 
 it of late, but they appeared to me as a scourge em- 
 ployed by God upon us for the sins of the nation ; 
 and I could not but think of that passage in the 
 Book of Kings, ' He that escapes the sword of 
 Hazael shall Jehu slay, and he that escapes Jehu 
 shall Elisha slay.' 
 
 " Methinks the vengeance of the prelates hath 
 been so laid, as if 'twere meant, no generation, 
 no degree, no complection of mankind should 
 escape it. 
 
 " Was there a man of nice and tender conscience ^ 
 Him have they afflicted with scandal, in Adiaphoris, 
 imposing on him those things as necessary, which 
 he thinks unlawful, and they themselves knew to 
 be but indifferent. 
 
 " Was there a man of legal conscience, that made 
 the establishment by law, the measure of his re- 
 ligion ? Him have they nettled with innovations, 
 with fresh introductions of Popery. 
 
LORD DIGBY's speech 8 1 
 
 "Was there a man of meek and humble spirit ? 
 Him have they trampled to dirt in their pride. 
 
 "Was there a man of a proud and arrogant 
 nature ? Him have they bereft of reason, with 
 indignation at their superlative insolence about 
 him. 
 
 " Was there a man peaceably affected, studious 
 of the quiet and tranquillity of his country ? Their 
 incendiariships hath plagued him. 
 
 " Was there a man faithfully addicted to the 
 right of the crown, loyally affected to the king's 
 supremacy ? How hath he been galled by their 
 new Oath ? A direct covenant against it. 
 
 " Was there a man tenacious of the liberty and 
 property of the subject ? Have they not set forth 
 books, or sermons, or canons destructive to them 
 all? 
 
 " Was there a man of a pretty sturdy conscience 
 that would not blanch for a little ? This pernicious 
 oath has made him sensible and wounded ; or, 
 I fear, prepared him for the devil. 
 
 " Was there a man that durst mutter against their 
 insolencies ? He may inquire for his lugs ; they 
 have been within the bishop's visitation ; as if they 
 would not only derive their brandishment of the 
 spiritual sword from St. Peter, but of the material 
 one too, and the right to cut off" ears. 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, as dully, as faintly, as unlively, as 
 
8 2 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 in language, these actions of the prelates hath been 
 expressed unto you ; I am confident there is no 
 man hears me, but is brimful of indignation. 
 
 " For my part, I profess, I am so inflamed with 
 the sense of them, that I find myself ready to cry 
 out with the loudest of the fifteen thousand : *Down 
 with them, down with them, even to the ground.' " 
 
 Lord Digby was defending Episcopacy ; he follows 
 up this tremendous denunciation of the bishops by 
 a vigorous and telling argument against attributing 
 to the institution the faults of individuals. He 
 was a man of the world, and, beyond most of 
 his hearers, had personal knowledge of foreign 
 countries. He knew that there might be worse 
 tyranny than that of bishops. "If we hearken to 
 those that would quite extirpate Episcopacy : I am 
 confident that instead of every bishop we put down 
 in a diocese, we shall set up a pope in every parish." 
 The speech from which we have quoted was no 
 impromptu utterance ; it bears all the marks of 
 careful preparation. Its conclusion was a declara- 
 tion of policy : " Let us not destroy bishops, but 
 make bishops such as they were in the primitive 
 times. Do their large territories, their large 
 revenues offend .'' Let them be retrenched ; the 
 good Bishop of Hippo had but a narrow diocese. 
 Do their courts and subordinates offend } Let 
 them be brought to govern, as in the primitive 
 
LORD Falkland's speech 83 
 
 times, by assemblies of their clergy. Doth their 
 intermeddling in secular affairs offend ? Exclude 
 them from the capacity : it is no more than what 
 reason and all antiquity hath interdicted them." 
 The orator's political judgment was sounder than 
 his knowledge of ecclesiastical history ; the signifi- 
 cant thing about the speech is the open admission 
 that the Laudian administration was incapable of 
 defence. Perhaps even more suggestive is the 
 speech of Lord Falkland in the same debate: for 
 Lord Falkland was free from the opportunist ele- 
 ment which was certainly present in the character 
 of Lord Digby. He deservedly bore the reputa- 
 tion of a just, unprejudiced, outspoken man of 
 exceptionable gifts and learning. His speech has 
 the ring of sincerity, and we may accept it as a 
 faithful version of the opinion of the cultivated 
 class on the situation. The opening sentence 
 strikes the keynote of severe yet discriminating 
 censure, which is sustained throughout : " Mr. 
 Speaker, he is a great stranger in Israel who knows 
 not this kingdom hath long laboured under many 
 and great oppressions, both in Religion and Liberty: 
 and his acquaintance here is not great, or his in- 
 genuity less, who doth not both know and acknow- 
 ledge that a great, if not a principal, cause of both 
 these have been some bishops and their adherents. 
 " Mr. Speaker, a little search will serve to find out 
 
84 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 them to have been the destruction of unity, under 
 pretence of uniformity : to have brought in super- 
 stition and scandal under the titles of reverence and 
 decency : to have defiled our church by adorning 
 our churches : to have slackened the strictness of 
 that union which was formerly between us, and those 
 of our religion beyond the sea, an action as un- 
 politic as ungodly. . . . 
 
 "The truth is, Mr. Speaker, That as some ill 
 Ministers in our State first took away our money 
 from us, and after endeavoured to make our money 
 not worth the taking, by turning it into brass by a 
 kind of Anti-philosopher's stone : so these men used 
 us in the point of preaching ; first, depressing it to 
 their power, and next labouring to make it such, as 
 the harm had not been much if it had been de- 
 pressed : the most frequent subjects even in the 
 most sacred auditories, being the Jus Divinum of 
 bishops, and tithes, the sacredness of the clergy, the 
 sacrilege of impropriations, the demolishing of 
 Puritanism and propriety, the building of the Pre- 
 rogative at Paul's, the introduction of such doctrines, 
 as, admitting them true, the truth would not recom- 
 pense the scandal : or such as were so far false, that, 
 as Sir Thomas More says of the Casuists, their 
 business was not to keep men from sinning, but to 
 confirm them ... so it seemed their work was to 
 try how much of a papist might be brought in 
 
LORD Falkland's speech 85 
 
 without popery : and to destroy as much as they 
 could of the Gospel, without bringing themselves 
 into danger of being destroyed by the Law. 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, To go yet further, some of them 
 have so industriously laboured to deduce themselves 
 from Rome, that they have given great suspicion 
 that in gratitude they desire to return thither, or 
 at least to meet it half way : some have evidently 
 laboured to bring in an English, though not a 
 Roman, Popery : I mean not only the outside and 
 dress of it, but, equally absolute, a blind dependence 
 of the people upon the clergy, and of the clergy 
 upon themselves : and have opposed the Papacy 
 beyond the seas, that they might settle one beyond 
 the water :^ nay, common fame is more than ordin- 
 arily false, if none of them have found a way to 
 reconcile the opinions of Rome to the preferments 
 of England : and to be so absolutely, directly, and 
 cordially Papists, that it is all that Fifteen hundred 
 pounds a year can do to keep them from confessing 
 it." Falkland dilates in this strain at some length, 
 and concludes by endorsing Digby's proposals. He 
 thinks an Episcopate, stripped of its temporal func- 
 tions, associated with the inferior clergy in the 
 exercise of its spiritual office, and partially dis- 
 
 ^ i.e., across the Thames, at Lambeth. The orator was speaking 
 in Westminster. 
 
86 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 endowed, will certainly be incapable of grave mis- 
 chiefs and might even be serviceable. 
 
 " My opinion is, That we should not root up this 
 ancient tree, as dead as it appears, till we have tried 
 whether by this, or the like lopping of the branches, 
 the sap which was unable to feed the whole, may 
 not serve to make what is left both grow and 
 flourish." ^ 
 
 Such speeches by such men seem to me to con- 
 stitute weightier evidence against the Laudian 
 hierarchy than the language of the numerous and 
 numerously signed petitions, which from all sides 
 poured into the Parliament, giving lists of grievances 
 and clamouring for the destruction of the episcopal 
 system ; for the hand of the not unpractised agi- 
 tator is very apparent in those petitions, and while 
 they illustrate the general discontent of the nation, 
 I should hesitate to build much on their specific 
 statements. Men signed what was put before them, 
 and, sometimes, if Clarendon speaks truly,^ what 
 
 1 Rushworth, iv, pp. 170-87. 
 
 2 V. History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 271 [Oxford, 1888]. 
 " It was a strange uningenuity and mountebankery that was 
 practised in the procuring those petitions, which continued ever 
 after in the like addresses. The course was, first, to prepare 
 a petition, very modest and dutiful for the form, and for the 
 matter not very unreasonable : and to communicate it at some 
 public meeting, where care was taken it should be received with 
 approbation : the subscription of very i^\w hands filled the paper 
 
STATE OF OPINION IN 1640 87 
 
 they signed was not always identical with what 
 went up to Parliament. But the speeches which we 
 have quoted were those of the least fanatical and 
 best informed public men of the time, uttered 
 under circumstances, which called for reserve and 
 deliberately designed in the interest of the episcopal 
 system. 
 
 Mr. Shaw, in his admirable history of this period, 
 has shown that when the Long Parliament met in 
 November, 1640, there was no great volume of 
 opinion hostile to Episcopacy as such. Probably 
 the general view was that expressed in the House 
 by all the members, whose speeches have been pre- 
 served, that there had been scandalous abuse of 
 episcopal power, that drastic reforms both in the 
 extent and in the manner of exercising that power 
 were necessary, but that the power itself should be 
 
 itself where the petition was written, and therefore many more 
 sheets were annexed, for the reception of the number which 
 gave all the credit and procured all the countenance to the 
 undertaking. When a multitude of hands was procured, the 
 petition itself was cut off and a new one framed suitable to the 
 design in hand, and annexed to the long list of names which 
 were subscribed to the former. And by this means many men 
 found their names subscribed to petitions of which they before 
 had never heard." 
 
 Mr. Shaw has examined this allegation and shown that 
 Clarendon has put an unfair interpretation on procedure 
 which "seems to me [Mr. S.] to be perfectly legitimate" — 
 {z'. History of the English Church, 1640-1660, p. 23, note). 
 
88 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 retained. Very soon, however, the cry for reforma- 
 tion was exchanged for the demand for abolition. 
 Presbyterian opinions had never, since the Reforma- 
 tion, been wholly unrepresented among the Anglican 
 clergy. As early as the year 1568 we are assured 
 by Fuller that there was a " generation of active and 
 zealous nonconformists " who inveighed against the 
 Church discipline, " accounting every thing from 
 Rome which was not from Geneva, endeavouring 
 in all things to conform the government of the 
 English Church to the Presbyterian Reformation."^ 
 Of these men, Thomas Cartwright was the leader, 
 and they certainly commanded considerable influ- 
 ence. The attempt was made, and persisted in for 
 some while, to set up the Presbyterian polity with- 
 in the framework of the episcopal system. In 
 1572 a presbytery was actually set up at Wands- 
 worth, which, in Fuller's words, " was the first-born 
 of all presbyteries in England, and secundum usum 
 Wandsivorth as much honoured by some as secundum 
 usum Sarum by others." The character of this extra- 
 ordinary attempt to quietly transform an episcopal 
 into a presbyterian Church has been very well de- 
 scribed by the present Bishop of Oxford, in his 
 excellent Introduction to the Fifth Book of Hooker s 
 Ecclesiastical Polity. The calling and election of 
 
 1 V. Church History, sub anno 1568. 
 
THE WANDSWORTH PRESBYTERY 89 
 
 ministers was to be secured by requiring that no 
 man should offer himself to the ministry, and that, 
 when anyone was called by a Church, he should im- 
 part it to the c/assisj or conference, of which he was 
 a member, and then, if approved by that body, be 
 commended to the bishop for ordination. The 
 office of e/ders was to be provided for by arranging 
 that men likely to act as elders should be elected as 
 churchwardens. Deacons, in the Puritan sense of 
 the title, were to be got by taking similar care in 
 regard to the election of collectors for the poor. 
 The periodical assemblies of classes (or conferences) 
 and provincial, comitial, and national synods were to be 
 arranged by " a distribution of all churches, accord- 
 ing to the rules set down in the synodical disci- 
 pline." The extension of the system was to be 
 advanced by the classes dealing earnestly with 
 patrons to present fit men. Thus, at point after 
 point, the Genevan system was to be pushed for- 
 ward in the Established Church, and the forms of 
 the Church bent as near as might be to the Genevan 
 type. This was to be done by men who were hold- 
 ing office in the Church ; and it was agreed that 
 " those ceremonies in the Book of Common Prayer, 
 which being taken from popery are in controversy, 
 ought to be omitted, if it may be done without 
 danger of being put from the ministry ; but if there 
 be imminent danger of being deprived, then let the 
 
90 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 matter be communicated to the classis in which that 
 church is, to be determined by them."^ 
 
 This does not seem to us a very ingenuous course 
 of action, but probably it seemed more legitimate 
 in the sixteenth century than it does in the 
 twentieth. The vigour of Archbishop Whitgift 
 stamped out this nascent Presbyterianism, and, 
 though no doubt a certain number of the clergy 
 cherished a preference for that type of ecclesiastical 
 polity, there seems little reason to suppose that any 
 organised Presbyterian party existed in England 
 until the course of public events brought the 
 Presbyterianism of Scotland prominently before 
 
 1 Fuller states the actual situation with his usual felicity. 
 "The condition of the English Church must be conceived sad, 
 which at the same time had two disciplines, both of them plead- 
 ing scripture and primitive practice, each striving to support 
 itself, and suppress its rival : the Hierarchy commanded by 
 authority, established by law, confirmed by general practice, and 
 continued so long by custom in this land, that, had one at this 
 time lived the age of Methuselah, he could not remember the 
 beginning thereof in Britain, The Presbytery, though wanting 
 the stamp of authority, claiming to be the purer metal, founded 
 by some clergymen, favoured by many of the gentry, and 
 followed by more of the common sort, who, being prompted by 
 that natural principle — that the weakest side must be most 
 watchful, what they wanted in strength they supplied in activity : 
 but what won them most repute was their ministers' painful 
 preaching in populous places : it being observed in England 
 that those who hold the helm of the pulpit always steer people's 
 hearts as they please " (book ix. 21-3). 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCOTCH TOLITICS 9 1 
 
 the English people, and that under circumstances 
 eminently calculated to commend it to their 
 approval. 
 
 The first effective check to the King's career of 
 unconstitutional absolutism was given in Scotland 
 on the very matter, about which Laud's proceed- 
 ings in England had set men thinking. The 
 attempt to force Episcopacy on the Scots was the 
 crowning act of a policy of uniformity in the 
 Church, conceived in the interest of the hierarchy 
 and carried through by the reckless use of preroga- 
 tive. And Laud himself, with the curious fatuity 
 which marked his whole attitude towards public 
 sentiment, was the prominent agent in the policy, 
 of which he was universally believed to be the 
 author. It followed inevitably that all who, for 
 whatever reason, hated and dreaded Laud — and 
 they were many — thought the worse of Episcopacy 
 for his advocacy of its claims, and the better of 
 Presbyterianism for defeating him. Under the 
 Laudian administration. Episcopacy became gen- 
 erally suspected of inherent incompatibility with 
 Protestantism, and this happened when Protestant- 
 ism was fighting a desperate battle against the 
 forces of the counter-Reformation. Only eight 
 years had passed since Gustavus Adolphus had 
 fallen on the field of Liitzen (1632), and English- 
 men glowed with shame to reflect that in that holy 
 
92 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 war, which the heroic Swede had personified, 
 England stood aside in an ignoble and unnatural 
 inaction. The revulsion against the bishops is 
 only intelligible when it is seen how utterly out of 
 touch with the national feeling they had come to 
 be, or, at least, to appear. The heroes of the time 
 were all non-episcopalian. At the crisis of the 
 conflict for truth and liberty the cause of God owed 
 nothing to the bishops. Might it not be the case — 
 so men inevitably reflected — that those more ardent 
 and thorough-going Reformers of Scotland and the 
 Continent were wiser, as well as more logical, when 
 they swept away the whole ancient fabric of epis- 
 copal order } Dr. Masson estimated that when the 
 Long Parliament met in 1640, among the parish 
 clergy "as many as 1,000 or 1,500 of the more ex- 
 treme Puritans were considered as either belonging 
 to the [anti-episcopal party], or convertible to it 
 by circumstances." "But," he says, "among the 
 laity it was enormously and growingly powerful. 
 Not without a sprinkling among the nobility and 
 wealthier gentry, it had a large number of adherents 
 among the minor gentry, while in the great body of 
 the people it counted its tens of thousands. London 
 was its stronghold and headquarters, the traditional 
 Puritanism of that city having now almost avowedly 
 taken the form of a frenzy for Presbyterianism. 
 Most of the other considerable towns were centres 
 
rorULARITV OF TRESBYTERIANISM 93 
 
 of the same feeling, and there were particular 
 counties, more especially the eastern counties of 
 Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Bed- 
 ford, and the north-western counties of Lancaster 
 and Chester, where Root-and-Branch principles 
 were distinctly predominant among the farmers and 
 tenantry."^ From the beginning of the constitu- 
 tional conflict there had been a good understanding 
 between the Scots and the Parliamentary leaders. 
 When, after the King's defeat in the second 
 " Bishops' War," the negotiations for peace were 
 transferred, at the request of the victors, from 
 Ripon to London, the Scotch Commissioners were 
 accompanied by some Presbyterian divines, who 
 were both eager to seize the opportunity for spread- 
 ing their principles and eminently qualified to do 
 so with effect. By a striking coincidence the 
 Scotch preachers and the Earl of Strafford entered 
 London on the same day. The Commissioners 
 were received with the utmost consideration, lodged 
 in the city, and sumptuously entertained. The 
 house assigned to them joined hard to St. Antholin's 
 Church, into which there was a private passage, and 
 there they preached with great success. 
 
 Clarendon's account is, as usual, disfigured by 
 prejudice, but it is a lively description of the facts 
 notwithstanding. He says that Alexander Hender- 
 
 1 V. Life of John Milton^ vol. ii. p. 200. 
 
94 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 son was the principal preacher, and that to hear 
 those sermons " there was so great a conflux and 
 resort, by the citizens out of humour and faction, 
 by others of all quality out of curiosity, and by 
 some that they might the better justify the con- 
 tempt they had of them, that, from the first appear- 
 ance of day in the morning on every Sunday to the 
 shutting In of the light, the church was never 
 empty, they (especially the women) who had the 
 happiness to get into the church in the morning 
 (they who could not hang upon or about the 
 windows without, to be auditors or spectators) 
 keeping their places till the afternoon's exercise was 
 finished, which both morning and afternoon, except 
 to palates and appetites ridiculously corrupted, was 
 the most insipid and flat that could be delivered 
 upon any deliberation. " ^ 
 
 Clarendon was no fair judge of Scotch preachers 
 or of Presbyterian logic, but we may be sure that, 
 however eloquent the one, or cogent the other, 
 neither would have, by itself, overcome the English 
 dislike of "covenants," and it must be added, 
 English prejudice against those who then, and for 
 long afterwards, were accounted foreigners. The 
 acceptance of Presbyterlanism by the English 
 Parliament three years later was the price paid for 
 Scotch assistance, when the success of the royal 
 
 1 History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 251. [Oxford, 1888.] 
 
ALEXANDER HENDERSON 95 
 
 arms had made it apparent that without such assis- 
 tance the King would prevail ; and, so soon as the 
 defeat of the King was assured, Presbyterianism 
 was quietly dropped by the Government and 
 eagerly repudiated by the nation. As we review 
 the course of events we can see that a curious inter- 
 change of parts had taken place. The enforcement 
 of religious uniformity throughout Great Britain 
 had become the object, no more of Laud, already 
 half-forgotten in the Tower, which he would only 
 leave in order to mount the scaffold, but of Laud's 
 late victims and present masters. Alexander 
 Henderson was a more generous and liberal man 
 than the Archbishop, but he was deluded by the 
 same error. His idea was, says his Scotch 
 biographer, " to effect a presbyterian uniformity, 
 not only in the worship of the three kingdoms, 
 but in that of all the reformed churches. In this 
 he was guided by motives pure and patriotic. He 
 not only resisted the aims of the King to enforce 
 prelatic uniformity in our church, but he accom- 
 panied the Scottish army across the Tweed, and 
 struggled to compel the English to presbyterian 
 conformity." ^ 
 
 - Step by step the Long Parliament was driven by 
 the goad of apparent necessity first to abandon its 
 
 ^ Life and Times of Alexander Henderson, by John Aiton, u.d., 
 p. 451. [Edinburgh, 1836.] 
 
96 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 original purpose of reforming the episcopal system, 
 then, to abolish that system altogether, finally, to 
 accept the Solemn League and Covenant, and the 
 system, with certain modifications, which it pre- 
 supposed. 
 
 The year 1643 was full of disasters to the Parlia- 
 mentary cause. A series of Royalist victories 
 culminating in Rupert's storming of Bristol reduced 
 the Parliament to seek the aid of the Scots, and, 
 since that aid could be obtained on no other terms, 
 to accept the Covenant. Already the famous 
 *' Assembly of Divines " was established at West- 
 minster, summoned originally to form a permanent 
 Board of Advice to Parliament in all matters affect- 
 ing religion, and destined to do work of lasting 
 importance, and to take rank as one of the most 
 illustrious " sacred synods " of history. The 
 Assembly consisted of thirty-two lay-assessors and 
 one hundred and twenty-five divines, including the 
 Scottish commissioners, to one of whom, the lively 
 and ardent, but garrulous and conceited, Baillie, we 
 owe a curious and interesting account of the pro- 
 ceedings. Not all the divines who were sum- 
 moned attended, for the King had by proclamation 
 prohibited attendance, and his authority was 
 respected by the Episcopalians. On the opening 
 day, July ist, 1643, only sixty-nine divines were 
 present, and, generally, the attendance appears to 
 
TAKING OF THE COVENANT 97 
 
 have ranged between sixty and eighty. Every 
 member on taking his seat had to make the follow- 
 ing declaration : — 
 
 " I, , do seriously promise and vow, in the 
 
 presence of Almighty God, that in this Assembly, 
 whereof I am a member, I will maintain nothing in 
 point of doctrine but what I believe to be most 
 agreeable to the Word of God : nor in point of 
 discipline, but what I shall conceive to conduce 
 most to the glory of God, and the good and peace 
 of His Church." Every Monday morning the 
 protestation was read afresh. Among the members 
 was Dr. John Lightfoot, who kept a journal of 
 the proceedings, from which I extract the following 
 account of the taking of the Covenant : — 
 
 '-''Friday^ September imd. — Before we got out of 
 the Abbey, we had word to return to our House 
 again, for the Parliament had something to impart 
 unto us : which at last came by the hand of Mr. 
 Salloway, namely, ' that the Lords and Commons 
 intended to take the Covenant on Monday, in St. 
 Margaret's, Westminster, and sent to us to do the 
 like : and that we should appoint some to pray at 
 the time, and some to give a word of exhortation, 
 which we did accordingly, and nominated Mr. 
 White, the assessor, to pray before, Mr. Nye to 
 make the exhortation, and Dr. Gouge to pray after. 
 
 " Monday, September ic^th. — This morning being 
 
 H 
 
98 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 met, we had word presently, after our sitting into 
 Assembly, that the House of Commons was gone to 
 St. Margaret's Church, and so we went after them. 
 And after a psalm given by Mr. Wilson, picking 
 several verses, to suit the present occasion, out of 
 several psalms, Mr. White prayed near upon an 
 hour. Then he came down out of the pulpit, and 
 Mr. Nye went up, and made an exhortation of 
 another hour long. After he had done, Mr. 
 Henderson, out of the seat where he sat, did the 
 like : and all tended to forward the covenant. 
 Then Mr. Nye, being in the pulpit still, read the 
 covenant : and, at every clause of it, the House of 
 Commons, and we of the Assembly lift up our 
 hands, and gave our consent thereby to it, and then 
 went all into the chancel, and subscribed our 
 hands : and afterward we had a prayer by Dr. 
 Gouge, and another psalm by Mr. Wilson, and 
 departed into the Assembly again ; and after prayer, 
 adjourned till Thursday morning, because of the fast. 
 " Friday, September l^th. — Being sat, we hasted 
 to adjourn, that we might go hear a sermon at 
 St. Margaret's. For all the lords, knights, gentle- 
 men, Scots, divines, and soldiers, which were now 
 in London, and not inhabitants there, took the 
 covenant : and Mr. Coleman by an order preached 
 to them."^ 
 
 ^ Lightfoot, Worlds, vol. xiii. pp. 15, 16. 
 
SOLExMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT 99 
 
 The Covenant was taken In all the London 
 churches on the following Sunday, and ordered to 
 be taken throughout the kingdom with all con- 
 venient expedition. This famous document, thus, 
 so far as the Parliament could secure that result, 
 bound upon the English people, was composed by- 
 Alexander Henderson, and in one or two phrases^ 
 modified in deference to English objections. It 
 consists of six clauses with a preamble and a conclu- 
 sion. The salient pledges are those of the first and 
 second clauses. The Covenanters "all subscribe, and 
 each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up 
 to the most High God, do swear, — 
 
 " I. That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, 
 through the grace of God, endeavour, in our several 
 places and callings, the preservation of the reformed 
 religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, 
 worship, discipline, and government, against our 
 enemies : the reformation of religion in the king- 
 doms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, 
 discipline, and government, according to the Word of 
 God, and the example of the best reformed Churches ; 
 and shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God 
 in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction 
 and uniformity in religion, Confession of faith. 
 Form of Church Government, Directory for Wor- 
 ship and Catechising : that we, and our posterity 
 1 I have italicised these. 
 
lOO THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, 
 and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst 
 of us. 
 
 " II. That we shall, in like manner, without 
 respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of 
 Popery, Prelacy {that is, Church government by arch- 
 bishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, 
 deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all ecclesiastical 
 officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, 
 schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found 
 contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godli- 
 ness : lest we partake in other men's sins, and 
 thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues : 
 and that the Lord may be one, and His name one, 
 in the three kingdoms." 
 
 The third clause pledged the Covenanters "to pre- 
 serve and defend the King's Majesty's person and 
 authority, in the preservation and defence of the 
 true religion and liberties of the kingdom " ; and 
 protested that they " had no thoughts or intentions 
 to diminish his Majesty's just power and greatness." 
 At the time this declaration of loyalty had an aspect 
 of gratuitous hypocrisy which naturally incensed 
 both the King himself and his supporters, but its 
 sincerity was made manifest at a later period, when 
 the rise of the Independents overwhelmed both 
 Crown and Covenanters in a common calamity, and 
 
AMENDMENTS OF THE COVENANT lOI 
 
 the restoration of the monarchy, when at last it 
 was effected, was mainly the work of Presbyterians. 
 The Solemn League and Convenant, as it was 
 subscribed in England, was, as we have said, an 
 amended document, representing in its slight but 
 significant amendments the latent repugnance of 
 the English mind to so severe an ecclesiastical 
 system as that of Scotland. "In the xfifst- draft of 
 the Covenant, as agreed upon at Edinburgh^ • 
 Vane had proposed an amendment by adding' after 
 the words, ' the Church of Scotland in doctrine, 
 worship, discipline, and government,' the words, 
 ' according to the word of God.' When the 
 Covenant was referred to the Assembly of Divines 
 at Westminster, this amendment was retained, along 
 with another of the Assembly's own, defining the 
 prelacy, which it was desired to abolish, as that 
 which consisted in archbishops, bishops, etc. The 
 scope of both amendments is plain. The former 
 would pledge the Covenanted Parliament to the 
 Scottish system only in so far as it was found agree- 
 able to the Word of God : the latter gave it freedom 
 in the construction it put upon the word 'prelacy' — 
 in the view it took of the then existing Church 
 system. Practically both amendments were retained 
 in the final form of the Covenant." ^ 
 
 1 History of the English Church 1640- 1660, by W. A. Shaw, 
 vol. I. p. 143. 
 
I02 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 The situation, then, in September, 1643, ^^^^ 
 distinctly complicated. The ancient ecclesiastical 
 system of the country had been overthrown by 
 Parliamentary Ordinance, and nothing had as yet 
 been set up in its place. The Assembly of Divines 
 was in session at Westminster, charged to draft and 
 recommend to Parliament a constitution for the 
 English. Church. Under the pressure of political 
 extgency, the Parliament had accepted the Covenant, 
 and thus '' had forfeited its future freedom of action 
 in the matter of Church reform," but, in the process, 
 had endeavoured to retain a measure of liberty with 
 respect to Church order.^ The Scotch Commis- 
 sioners were in London pressing forward with 
 fervent zeal, and no less astuteness, the complete 
 establishment in England of the Presbyterian system 
 of Scotland, but both in Parliament and in the 
 Assembly there were very apparent signs of restive- 
 ness. Erastians and Independents, from opposite 
 standpoints, were averse to Presbyterianism ; and 
 
 ^Baxter states this clearly enough : "The Synod stumbled at 
 some things in it, and especially at the word 'prelacy.' . . . 
 Hereupon grew some debate in the Assembly, some being 
 against every degree of Bishops (especially the Scottish Divines), 
 and others being for a moderate Episcopacy. But these English 
 Divines would not subscribe the Covenant till there were an 
 alteration suited to their judgments ; and so a parenthesis was 
 yielded to, as describing that sort of Prelacy which they opposed " 
 {^■Autobiogniphy, i. pp. 48, 4.9). 
 
POLITICAL INFLUENCES IO3 
 
 there certainly was in the country a great volume 
 of opinion, not as yet audible, which disliked the 
 total extirpation of Episcopacy, and desired rather 
 the adoption of some such modified episcopal sys- 
 tem as that proposed by Archbishop Ussher. 
 Meanwhile, the war was in progress, and the men, 
 who were shaping the ecclesiastical constitution, 
 were preoccupied with the primary task of crushing 
 the King. Hence the interplay of spiritual and 
 secular motives which everywhere reveals itself in 
 the proceedings of Parliament. The Westminster 
 Assembly is dragged, not without reluctance and 
 even protest, in the wake of political movements. 
 Baillie's letters present a curious but not unfamiliar 
 blending of ecclesiastical fervour and political c\m- 
 ning. Milton was not far from the facts when he 
 wrote of "plots and packing worse than those of 
 Trent " as proceeding in the Assembly of Divines. 
 The prestige of the Assembly steadily sank as it 
 slowly worked through its immense programme of 
 business, and, by the time the complete Presbyterian 
 polity was ready to be set up, the nation was weary 
 of it. 
 
 Mr. Shaw discusses the constructive work of the 
 Westminster Assembly under nine heads, which we 
 can here do little more than enumerate. They are : 
 (i) The Thirty-nine Articles. The Assembly revised 
 the first fifteen only. (2) Church Government. In 
 
I04 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 the protracted debates on this subject two factors 
 came into prominence — the alienation of the In- 
 dependents and the political pressure from Scotland. 
 In the course of the years 1645-6 Parliament sub- 
 stantially agreed upon the Presbyterian system. 
 (3) Presbyterian Jurisdiction or Discipline. When it 
 is remembered how vehement had been the com- 
 plaints of the Puritans against the lax discipline of 
 the bishops/ it will be seen that this was a point of 
 cardinal importance. " The essence of Presbyterian- 
 ism is discipline." When the whole system of the 
 medieval Church, disciplinary as well as liturgical, 
 had been swept away, some substitute was required, 
 and this was provided by courts, created and con- 
 
 ^ See Baxter's description of " The English Diocesan Frame 
 of Episcopacy," which, he says, all the Nonconformists were of 
 one mind in regarding as "unlawful, and of dangerous tendency 
 in the Churches." He names as leading objections the great 
 size of the parishes, quite beyond the pastoral control of the 
 clergy, the lack of power to admonish scandalous persons or to 
 judge of men's fitness as communicants, the wholly mechanical 
 and unspiritual procedure of Episcopal Excommunication ad- 
 ministered by Lay Chancellors and commonly commuted for a 
 fine. "I have been in most parts of England, and in fifty years' 
 time I never saw one do penance, or confess his sin in public for 
 any scandalous crime : nor ever heard of but two in the Country 
 where I lived (that stood in a white sheet for adultery) except in 
 the space when Bishops were down, and then I have heard of 
 many that have penitently confessed their sin, and begged the 
 prayers of the congregation, and been prayed for" {v. Auto- 
 biography, i. p. 398). 
 
THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY IO5 
 
 trolled by the State. The theocratic conception of 
 the Church, which Calvin formed and expressed in 
 his Institutes^ was intolerant of this subordination of 
 the ecclesiastical to the civil power. In a protracted 
 conflict with the Genevan State he asserted for the 
 Church, and in the end enforced, the claim of in- 
 dependence in the matter of moral and spiritual 
 discipline, and, above all, he created an ecclesiastical 
 machinery for administering such discipline. This 
 machinery was successively adopted by the Re- 
 formed Churches of France (1559), of the Nether- 
 lands (1568), and of Scotland (1570). In England 
 the medieval courts substantially continued, and, 
 with the formidable addition of the High Com- 
 mission, administered discipline down to the time 
 when the Long Parliament abolished the whole 
 existing system. An irregular authority over faith 
 and morals was for a while exercised by the Houses 
 of Parliament, but this clearly could not be a per- 
 manent arrangement. When Presbyterianism had 
 been accepted, it would seem to follow that its 
 characteristic discipline would be accepted with it ; 
 but, as a matter of fact, a determined opposition 
 was made at this point, and, in the sequel, a com- 
 promise was effected. The Presbyterian discipline 
 was established, but with limitations and safeguards 
 which secured the ultimate authority of Parliament. 
 On June 9th, 1646, the final Ordinance was agreed 
 
I06 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 upon, and four days later the London ministers 
 were ordered to put the Church government into 
 execution. 
 
 (4) The Jus Divinum of Presbytery. On this 
 point there was an irreconcilable difference between 
 the Assembly and the Parliament and that secular 
 temper of the English mind which the Parliament 
 represented. The notion that Christ instituted a 
 form of Church government, and bound it as 
 a perpetual ordinance upon the Church, was the 
 common assumption of Papist, Episcopalian, Pres- 
 byterian, and Independent ; but in the hands of 
 the Presbyterian it became the very keystone of 
 his whole religious system. This was at once its 
 strength and its weakness. " We claim our power 
 of Jesus Christ" was a formula which, spoken un- 
 doubtingly in the smallest kirk-sessions, gave to 
 the lay-elders in their own eyes, and in those of 
 their fellow-believers and of their victims, a dignity 
 and a weight which no official of the State could 
 secure for his earth-born authority. But, as clearly, 
 the implied claim was too lofty for real life. It did 
 not admit of the indispensable opportunism of 
 politics. There was in it power neither to learn 
 nor to unlearn. Within the sphere of its own 
 interests no State can really admit the claim of 
 Divine authority anywhere save in itself, and how 
 wide that sphere is can only be determined by ex- 
 
THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY lOj 
 
 perience. As soon as the claim to a Jus Divinum 
 was advanced, the essential Erastianism of Parlia- 
 ment became apparent. " The civil magistrate," 
 said Sir Benjamin Rudyard in the House of 
 Commons, " is a Church officer in every Christian 
 Commonwealth." The issue had not been decided 
 when the whole Presbyterian experiment collapsed. 
 " The Assembly melted away into oblivion, with its 
 claim of the Jus Divinum still upon its head dis- 
 honoured and unsubstantiated." 
 
 (5) Ordination. This was a matter of practical 
 urgency. While divines were arguing preachers 
 were dying, and no fresh ones were coming on to 
 fill the vacancies created by death. By a series 
 of Ordinances the Parliament empowered the new- 
 established " Classical Presbyteries " to examine can- 
 didates and ordain them. The rules for Ordination 
 required the expectant to have taken the Covenant, 
 and this came to be of no small importance at a 
 later period when many of the clergy ordained 
 under these Parliamentary Ordinances had to 
 determine their attitude towards the Restoration 
 Settlement. The terms of the Covenant were not, 
 at least in England, held to be inconsistent with 
 a restoration of Episcopacy, provided that the 
 restored Episcopacy were not, in the old sense, 
 prelatic and hierarchic ; but the actual course of 
 events prevented any real modification, and, when 
 
I08 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 the Savoy Conference met, the returned Episco- 
 palians knew themselves to be secure. It is not 
 sufficiently remembered that the unhappy pledges 
 which, in the Covenant, the Presbyterian clergy had 
 taken, destroyed much of their liberty of action 
 and made an accommodation with their rivals almost 
 impossible. 
 
 (6) 'The Directory of Worship, The Prayer-book 
 — " the great idol of England," as Baillie terms it — 
 had, of course, shared the fate of the hierarchy, 
 and something had to be provided to take its place. 
 There was great repugnance manifested in the 
 Assembly at the Scotch proposal that communi- 
 cants should be required to come to the Lord's 
 Table to receive the sacrament. The tradition of 
 the English Puritans was to insist on having the 
 consecrated elements brought to them in their seats, 
 and no innovation had been more bitterly resented 
 than Laud's rule as to receiving the sacrament 
 kneeling at an altar rail. Baptism proved to be a 
 hardly less contentious subject than Holy Com- 
 munion, for there the burning question of dipping 
 versus sprinkling came up. On the whole, however, 
 the proceedings were expeditious, and on March 5th, 
 1645, the whole Directory was adopted by Parlia- 
 ment. The title, as adopted, is this : " A Directory 
 for the Public Worship of God throughout the three 
 Kingdoms of England^ Scotland, and Ireland^ together 
 
THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY IO9 
 
 with (in Ordinance of Parliament for the taking away 
 of the Book of Co7nmon Prayer^ and for establishing 
 and observing of this present Directory throughout the 
 kingdom of England and dominion of WalesT The 
 new book was forthwith ordered to be used, but to 
 little effect until Parliament attached penalties to 
 the continued use of the Prayer-book. 
 
 The Confession of Faith (7) and the Larger and 
 Smaller Catechisms (8) need not concern us here, for 
 neither had much effect in England. " It is not a 
 little curious," justly observes Mr. Shaw, "that 
 those portions of accomplished work which have 
 remained through later times the most distinct and 
 memorable accomplishment of the Assembly — i.e. 
 the Confession of Faith and the Larger Catechism 
 — should have never received the assent of the 
 Parliament which had called the Assembly into 
 being, and at whose behest it had prepared those 
 works. "^ 
 
 The Westminster Assembly was also charged 
 with the revision of the metrical version of the 
 Psalms (9), and accordingly revised and recom- 
 mended to Parliament the version made by Francis 
 Rous, Provost of Eton. This revised version was 
 "authorised by Parliament for general use, and 
 adopted by the committee of estates in Scotland, 
 where it still retains its popularity."'- 
 
 ^ Shaw, vol. i, p. 376. - Z)/V/. ^ iV. ^., vol. xlix. p. 317. 
 
no THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 It is one thing to draft an ecclesiastical system 
 and to enact its establishment, it is quite another 
 thing actually to establish it. The former had, not 
 without friction and delay, been the achievement of 
 the Westminster Assembly, and its author and 
 rather despotic master the Long Parliament. What 
 about the latter } How far was the Presbyterian 
 polity set up in the country } How far was the 
 Prayer-book displaced by the Directory of Worship, 
 discipline enforced by the lay-elders^ and ordinations 
 administered by the classes? Broadly it may be 
 said that the Presbyterian experiment was never 
 seriously attempted over the greater part of the 
 country. Only in London and Lancashire was the 
 parliamentary scheme officially adopted, and even 
 there, almost immediately, it reached a deadlock 
 over the thorny question of discipline. The scheme 
 assumed throughout the friendly co-operation of 
 the civil power, and, after the triumph of the army, 
 that co-operation was refused. The " classes " 
 almost everywhere sank into " examining and 
 ordaining bodies, and their records consist of little 
 more than the account of the various examinations 
 and ordinations of candidates." " In their dis- 
 appointment at the non-success of their Church 
 system the Presbyterian clergy almost in a body 
 made up their minds not to administer the sacra- 
 ment at all where they could not administer it in 
 
FAILURE OF THE STATE SYSTEM I I I 
 
 the way they wished. Their system required that 
 the sacrament should be guarded from the ignorant 
 and scandalous by means of the eldership. Parish- 
 ioners proposing to communicate were to submit 
 themselves to instruction by catechising, and to 
 examination by the eldership, and only such as 
 could pass the ordeal were to be accounted fit to 
 receive."^ But against this system, necessarily in- 
 quisitorial and running counter to English habits 
 of thought and life, the dislike of the people pre- 
 sented a sullen resistance, which the ministers were 
 unable to overcome. The parishes refused to elect 
 lay-elders^ and quietly ignored the admonitions, 
 rebukes, and menaces of the classes. Without the 
 assistance of the State there was no means of 
 coercing the parishioners to elect, and without 
 election there was no means of " fencing the tables " 
 by discipline. Zealous ministers made their accept- 
 ance of parochial charge conditional on the election 
 of lay-elders. The parishioners preferred to have 
 no ministers at all. It is stated in a petition of the 
 Provincial Synod of London to the Lord Mayor 
 and Common Council in 1648 that no less than 
 forty parish churches were vacant within the 
 Province.^ 
 
 The collapse of the State system occasioned the 
 
 ^ c. Shaw, vol. ii. p. 142. 
 
 2 The list is given in Shaw, vol. ii. p. 103, note. 
 
I I 2 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 organisation of voluntary associations to secure 
 such a measure of discipline as would enable con- 
 scientious ministers to administer the Sacraments. 
 Of these associations the most famous was that 
 founded by Richard Baxter in Worcester, and de- 
 scribed in his Autobiography^ and more generally in 
 the Preface to his famous treatise on pastoral work, 
 Gildas Salvianus ; or, the Reformed Pastor. Reason 
 and charity gained at the expense of Presbyterian 
 orthodoxy. Baxter explains the origin of his 
 attempt in the urgent need of his people. "The 
 state of my own congregation, and the necessity of 
 my duty, constrained me to make some attempt. 
 For I must administer the Sacraments to the Church, 
 and the ordinary way of examining every man 
 before they come, I was not able to prove necessary, 
 and the people were averse to it : so that I was 
 forced to think of the matter more seriously : and 
 having determined of that way which was, I thought, 
 most agreeable to the Word of God, I thought, if 
 all the ministers did accord together in one way, 
 the people would much more easily submit, than 
 to the way of any minister that was singular. To 
 attempt their consent I had two very great en- 
 couragements : the one was an honest, humble, 
 tractable people at home, engaged in no party, 
 Prelatical, Presbyterian, or Independent, and not 
 past four or five of them Episcopal, but loving 
 
THE WORCESTER ASSOCIATION II3 
 
 godliness and peace, and hating schism as that 
 which they perceived to tend to the ruin of re- 
 ligion. The other was a company of honest, godly, 
 serious, humble ministers in the country where I 
 lived, who were not one of them, that associated, Presby- 
 terian or Independent, and not past four or five of them 
 Episcopal, but disengaged faithful men. At a lecture 
 at Worcester I first procured a meeting, and told 
 them of the design, which they all approved : they 
 imposed it upon me to draw up a form of agree- 
 ment. The matter of it was to consist, ' So much 
 of the Church Order and Discipline, as the Epis- 
 copal, Presbyterian, and Independent are agreed 
 in, as belonging to the pastors of each particular 
 church. . . .' 
 
 "According to their desire, I drew up some 
 Articles for our consent, which might engage us 
 to the most effectual practice of so much discipline 
 as might reduce the churches to order, and satisfy 
 ministers in administering the sacraments, and stop 
 the more religious people from separation, to which 
 the unreformedness of the churches through v/ant 
 of discipline inclined them, and yet might not at 
 all contradict the judgments of any of the three 
 parties; and I brought in the reasons of the several 
 points, which, after sufficient examination and de- 
 liberation (with the alteration of some few words), 
 were consented to by all the ministers that were 
 
114 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 present. And after several meetings we subscribed 
 them, and so associated for our mutual help and 
 concord in our work. The ministers that thus 
 associated were for number, parts, and piety, the 
 most considerable part of all that county, and some 
 out of some neighbouring counties that were near 
 us. There was, not that I know of, one thorough Pres- 
 byterian among them, because there was but one such that 
 I knew of in all the county, and he lived somewhat 
 remote. . . . 
 
 " Having all agreed in this association, we pro- 
 posed publicly to our people so much as required 
 their consent and practice, and gave every family a 
 copy in print, and a sufficient time to consider and 
 understand it, and then put it into execution. . . . 
 
 " In our association we agreed upon a monthly 
 meeting at certain market towns for conference 
 about such cases of discipline as required consulta- 
 tion and consent. Accordingly at Evesham and 
 Kidderminster they were constantly kept up. In 
 the town where I lived we had once a month a 
 meeting of three Justices of the Peace, who lived 
 with us, and three or four ministers, for so many 
 we were in the parish, myself and assistants, and 
 three or four deacons, and twenty of the ancient and 
 godly men of the congregation, who pretended to no ojfice 
 as Lay-elders, but only met as the trustees of the 
 whole Church to be present and secure their liber- 
 
THE WORCESTER ASSOCIATION I I 5 
 
 ties, and do that which any of the Church might 
 do ; and they were chosen once a year hereunto 
 . . . because all the people could not have leisure 
 to meet so oft to debate things which required their 
 consent. At this meeting we admonished those 
 that remained impenitent in any scandalous sin, 
 after more private admonition before two or three ; 
 and we did with all possible tenderness persuade 
 them to repentance, and labour to convince them of 
 their sin and danger ; and pray with them if they 
 consented. And if they could not be prevailed 
 with to repent, we required them to meet before all 
 the ministers at the other monthly meeting, which 
 was always the next day after this parochial meeting. 
 There we renewed our admonitions and exhorta- 
 tions, and some ministers of other parishes laboured 
 to set it home, that the offender might not think it 
 was only the opinion of the pastor of the place, and 
 that he did it out of ill-will or partiality. If he 
 yielded penitently to confess his sin and promise 
 amendment, more or less publicly according to the 
 nature of the scandal, we then joined in prayer for 
 his true repentance and forgiveness, and exhorted 
 him farther to his duty for the future ; but if he 
 still continued obstinately impenitent, by the con- 
 sent of all, he was by the pastor of the place to be 
 publicly admonished and prayed for by that Church, 
 usually three several days together ; and if he still 
 
Il6 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 remained impenitent the Church was required to 
 avoid him as a person unfit for their com- 
 munion. . . ." 
 
 In this interesting narrative there are several 
 points which merit attention. In the first place, 
 Baxter's indifference to Presbyterianism, as such, 
 is very apparent. He aims at a rational com- 
 promise which shall enable men of goodwill to get 
 to work ; he has no regard for any ecclesiastical 
 system. In the next place. It is clear that, while 
 Puritanism prevailed in that part of England, 
 Presbyterianism was practically unknown. A few 
 of the clergy were " Episcopal," which, in Baxter's 
 usage, means conformist Puritan, men who desired 
 a reformed Episcopacy of the Ussherian type : 
 none were Presbyterian or Prelatical. Then it is 
 noticeable that Baxter is plainly anxious to protect 
 himself from the not unlikely supposition that his 
 committee of " ancient and godly men of the con- 
 gregation " were really in fact, though not in name, 
 "lay-elders," his anxiety in this respect Indicating 
 the special dislike which that part of the Scotch 
 system provoked in the English mind. The dis- 
 cipline attempted by the voluntary associations was 
 certainly, from the standpoint of Scotch orthodoxy, 
 a halting and ineffectual thing. Baxter describes 
 his work at Kidderminster, and the many circum- 
 stances, personal and local, which favoured It. 
 
BAXTER AT KIDDERMINSTER I I 7 
 
 Astonishing results were obtained — results which 
 only his extraordinary fervour and assiduous labours 
 could have obtained ; but it is impossible to miss 
 the sense of failure emerging in the narrative, or 
 to dispute the fact that a few years of Baxter's 
 ministry made the mass of the people ready to 
 welcome back the old, indulgent, indolent Prelatism. 
 "The congregations were usually full, so that 
 we were fain to build five galleries after my coming 
 thither (the church itself being very capacious, 
 and the most commodious and convenient, that ever 
 I was in). Our private meetings also were full. 
 On the Lord's days there was no disorder to be 
 seen in the streets, but you might hear an hundred 
 families singing psalms and repeating sermons, as 
 you passed through the streets. In a word, when 
 I came thither first, there was about one family in 
 a street that worshipped God and called on His 
 Name, and when I came away there were some 
 streets where there was not past one family in the 
 side of a street that did not so ; and that did not 
 by professing serious godliness, give us hopes of 
 their sincerity : and those families which were the 
 worst, being inns and alehouses, usually some 
 persons in each house did seem to be religious. 
 Though our administration of the Lord's Supper 
 was so ordered as displeased many, and the far 
 greater part kept away themselves, yet we had 600 
 
Il8 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 that were communicants, of whom there were not 
 twelve that I had not good hopes of, as to their 
 sincerity : and those few that did consent to our 
 communion, and yet lived scandalously were ex- 
 communicated afterward : and I hope there were 
 many that had the fear of God that came not to 
 our communion in the sacrament, some of them 
 being kept off by husbands, by parents, by masters, 
 and some dissuaded by men that differed from us : 
 those many that kept away yet took it patiently, 
 and did not revile us, as doing them wrong, and 
 those unruly young men that were excommunicated, 
 bore it patiently as to their outward behaviour, 
 though their hearts were full of bitterness. . . . 
 When I set upon personal conference with each 
 family and catechizing them, there were very few 
 families in all the town that refused to come : and 
 those few were beggars at the town's end, who 
 were so ignorant that they were ashamed it should 
 be manifest. And few families went from me with- 
 out tears, or seemingly serious promises for a godly 
 life. Yet many ignorant and ungodly persons there 
 were still among us. . . ." ^ 
 
 Kidderminster contained, according to Baxter, no 
 less than i,6oo persons old enough to be communi- 
 cants. Of these he only claims 600 as actually being 
 admitted to communion : that unreconciled major- 
 
 ^ Autobiography, i. pp. 84, 85. 
 
FAILURE OF PRESBYTERIANISM IIQ 
 
 ity, nearly two-thirds of the people, were chafing 
 against the humiliations imposed on them and the 
 restraints imposed on their liberty by Puritanical 
 magistrates, kept up to the mark by the pastor's 
 fiery zeal ; and they showed their feelings when the 
 time came. Baxter stands out from the mass of his 
 contemporaries as a liberal, fair-minded man ; in his 
 hands the system would be comparatively moderate 
 and reasonable, but in the hands of lesser men it 
 would become quickly intolerable. Certain it is 
 that both the formal Presbyterianism of London 
 and Lancashire and the quasi-Presbyterianism of 
 the voluntary associations throughout the country 
 fell before the impatience of the people, so soon as 
 the political situation made the revelation of that 
 impatience possible. 
 
 Thus, then, the Presbyterian experiment failed 
 almost as soon as it was seriously tried. It is an 
 interesting question why this should have happened. 
 The passionate enthusiasm with which the destruc- 
 tion of the episcopal government was pressed 
 forward in the early stages of the Long Parliament 
 proved the strength of the resentment provoked 
 by the Laudian administration, and facilitated the 
 establishment of that Presbyterian polity, which, as 
 matters then stood, was the only possible alternative 
 to Episcopacy; but it implied no genuine popular 
 sentiment in favour of the new system, which, for 
 
I20 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 many reasons, was little likely to commend itself to 
 the acceptance of Englishmen. In the first place, 
 Presbyterian ism was a foreign system, and then, as 
 now, whatever was foreign was, to that extent, 
 suspicious in English eyes. In the next place, 
 Presbyterianism, though in form oligarchic, is, in 
 spirit, essentially democratic. It suited the republi- 
 can tradition of Switzerland and Holland, and, in 
 Scotland itself, was repudiated after an interval by 
 the greater part of the nobility and gentry. The 
 English genius is not democratic. When Charles II. 
 said that Presbyterianism was no religion for a 
 gentleman, he spoke the mind of the nation. But, 
 these disadvantages apart, the failure of Presbyterian- 
 ism was inevitable so soon as the attempt was made 
 seriously to apply that discipline, which was its most 
 distinctive, and not least honourable, characteristic. 
 Aristocratic in social sentiment, intensely conserva- 
 tive in his habit of thought, the Englishman, within 
 the sphere of his own personal and domestic life, is 
 the most jealously independent of all men. His 
 home is his castle, his religion is his own secret, and 
 his morals his own affair. Let but the attempt be 
 made to push authority into that sphere, to examine 
 his orthodoxy and regulate his behaviour, and he 
 will manifest at once an attitude of relentless and 
 unreasoning hostility. This desperate attempt the 
 Presbyterian system required, and, therefore, that 
 
PRESBYTERIAN PRIDE 121 
 
 system was repudiated with a promptitude and 
 decision which have no parallel elsewhere. The 
 accusation of pride levelled at Presbyterianism is 
 suggestive. There was clearly a plausibility in the 
 accusation which arrested attention. Butler, in his 
 coarse satire, gives expression to a widely felt senti- 
 ment. Pride is the prevailing element in his de- 
 scription of Presbyterianism. 
 
 "Great piety consists in Pride; 
 To rule is to be sanctify'd : 
 To domineer, and to controul, 
 Both o'er the body and the soul, 
 Is the most perfect discipline 
 Of Church Rule, and by Right Divine. 
 
 Presbytery does but translate 
 
 The Papacy to a free state. 
 
 A Common-wealth of Popery, 
 
 Where every village is a See 
 
 As well as Rome, and must maintain 
 
 A Tythe-Pig Metropolitan." ^ 
 
 The origin of this unamiable quality must be 
 sought rather in the Calvinistic doctrine than in 
 the Presbyterian polity. The belief in divine elec- 
 tion of the few and divine predestination to ruin of 
 the many can hardly fail to breed arrogance in the 
 chosen few. Spiritual privilege Is perhaps the most 
 demoralising form of privilege. The history of 
 
 1 V. Hui/i^ras, pSiTt i., ca.nto iu., 1 175-1180, 1201-1206. 
 
122 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 religion seems to make it evident that a rigid 
 dogma readily commends itself to the acceptance of 
 men of a low moral type. Antinomianism is the 
 historic parasite of spiritual privilege, and the 
 Presbyterian Calvinists illustrated the general law. 
 Moreover, Presbyterianism was bound to the Cal- 
 vinistic theology just at the moment when that 
 theology was losing its hold on human intelligence. 
 This fact became aggressively prominent when the 
 question of religious toleration was raised by the 
 Independents. The Presbyterian system, as it was 
 conceived and defended in the seventeenth century, 
 was as hostile to the notion of toleration as the 
 medieval Papacy. Men found the most vehement 
 obstacle to religious liberty in the very system 
 which seemed daily in itself less tolerable. Presby- 
 terianism, in short, united the attributes of obsolete- 
 ness and arrogance. Therefore it raised against 
 itself the most formidable array of opponents con- 
 ceivable. Men of tender conscience and of no 
 conscience at all, the latitudinarian in belief and the 
 Epicurean in practice, the zealot for liberty, and 
 the Erastian in political theory, in a word, the 
 thoughtful, the tolerant, the sensitive, and the 
 worldly, combined to overthrow, trample upon, and 
 revile a system which had succeeded in wounding 
 and exasperating them all. And yet he must be 
 a careless or prejudiced student of the later history 
 
INFLUENCE OF PURITANISM I 23 
 
 of the English Church who would infer from the 
 failure of the Presbyterian experiment in the seven- 
 teenth century a conclusion unfavourable to the 
 character of the Puritanism which for the time 
 ruled and failed with it. If there be any truth in 
 the statement that the English Church, in spite of 
 many faults, has sustained in the nation with un- 
 equalled success the notion that religion is essenti- 
 ally moral and can never tolerate the severance of 
 devotion and right conduct, the fact is in great 
 part due to the Puritan protest against a mundane 
 Church and the low standard of religious habit 
 which it permitted and fostered. If the English 
 clergy have maintained a higher conception of 
 pastoral duty than has prevailed elsewhere, the fact 
 is, to a great extent, the result of Puritan theory 
 and practice during the anarchic period of a nomi- 
 nal Presbyterian supremacy. The latitudinarian 
 divines of the Revolution epoch are the true 
 spiritual children of the Puritan Presbyterians of 
 the previous generation. It is sufficiently sugges- 
 tive that the Puritan Baxter has left behind him 
 not only the most striking example of pastoral 
 activity which that age can produce, but also the 
 most moving and valuable treatise of pastoral duty 
 which our religious literature contains. The moral 
 of the story is the futility of the attempt to ig- 
 nore terrestrial conditions of spiritual movements. 
 
124 THE PRESBYTERIAN EXPERIMENT 
 
 Puritanism was home-born, redolent of the English 
 soil, akin to the English character ; Presbyterianism 
 was alien, and distasteful to Englishmen. The 
 association of the two was arbitrary, shortlived, 
 and injurious. Puritanism was hampered and dis- 
 credited by the polity to which " by the fatal 
 surrender of 1643 ^o Scotch Presbytery" it found 
 itself bound ; Presbyterianism never had a fair 
 chance in England. Across the Border it gained 
 and held the ardent attachment of a strong, proud 
 nation, which was the better for its stern discipline, 
 and found in its simple forms the sufficient ex- 
 pressions of its piety. Here it was an exotic and 
 a parasite. The Nonconformist Churches are the 
 progeny of Puritanism ; they owe nothing but 
 unhelpful political memories to the Presbyterian 
 experiment. 
 
Erastianism 
 
 1524, 
 1568 
 
 1583 
 1589 
 1594 
 
 1597 
 1603, 
 1640, 
 1643- 
 
 1648. 
 
 1651, 
 1654. 
 1659. 
 1662. 
 1673. 
 
 Birth of Thomas Erastus. 
 Erastus writes Theses. 
 Death of Erastus. 
 
 Publication of the Theses and Confirmatio Thesium. 
 Publication of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Books I.-IV. 
 Publication of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V. 
 Bancroft's Canons. 
 Laud's Canons. 
 6. The Erastians in the Westminster Assembly and Par- 
 liament oppose theyV/ divinum of Presbytery. 
 Publication of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Books VI. 
 
 and Vin. 
 Publication of Hobbes' Leviathan. 
 Death of Selden. 
 
 English Translation of Theses of Erastus. 
 Publication of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Book VII. 
 The Test Act. 
 
 Erastianism stands in common usage for so many 
 different, and not always very obviously connected 
 opinions that it may, perhaps, be useful to take pains 
 to show what it properly is, and how it came to 
 mean so much. 
 
 Thomas Erastus was born in Baden in Switzer- 
 
 125 
 
126 ERASTIANISM 
 
 land in 1524 of humble parents. At the age of 
 sixteen he moved to Basel, where he pursued his 
 studies, and was fortunate enough to find a patron, 
 by whose assistance he was enabled to continue at 
 the university. After visiting Italy and studying 
 philosophy at Bologna, he returned to Germany 
 and practised medicine at the court of the Prince of 
 Henneberg. Thence he was invited by Frederick 
 III., Prince Elector Palatine, to fill the professorship 
 of physics in the University of Heidelberg, and to 
 act as principal court physician. Heidelberg was 
 just then the scene of embittered controversy, for 
 the Elector was forcing into acceptance the " Re- 
 formed," that is the Calvinist, system of faith and 
 discipline in place of the Lutheranism, which had 
 formerly obtained. The introduction in 1562 of a 
 catechism, in which the Calvinist view of the Lord's 
 Supper is set forth, led to a lively conflict, in which 
 Brenz in Stuttgart, on the Lutheran side, attacked, 
 and Bullinger and Beza, the champions of Calvinism, 
 defended it. To bring the dissension to an end 
 the Elector arranged a conference at Maulbronn in 
 1564, at which Erastus was commanded to assist, 
 and which, so far from composing, further aggra- 
 vated the religious disputes. Six years later the 
 Elector ordered the introduction of presbyteries, 
 and Erastus, accused of sympathy with the Socinians, 
 was excommunicated by the new authority. In 
 
 I 
 
CHARACTER OF ERASTUS 127 
 
 1575 the sentence was reconsidered and reversed, 
 but his position at Heidelberg was no longer easy. 
 In 1580 he retired to Basel, where he died three 
 years later, and was buried in St. Martin's Church. 
 On his tomb was placed a laudatory inscription, in 
 which he is described as " an acute philosopher, a 
 skilled physician, a sincere theologian." He is said 
 to have been a man of blameless life, and singular 
 zeal for the truth, ready at all times to acknowledge 
 error, but sceptical of unsifted statements. 
 
 " Neither had he any man's authority in such 
 esteem, that it could move him to depart from what 
 was evident to sense, or agreeable to reason ; but 
 he always judged that truth was to be taken from 
 the matter itself, and not from authority."^ 
 
 " As an investigator of nature he was honourably 
 distinguished by his adherence to a sound inductive 
 method. Most of the works that appeared during 
 his lifetime were directed against the fantastic 
 notions of Paracelsus and his school,"- but he fails 
 to rise above the superstition of his age when, in 
 his treatise on the subject, he urges that witches 
 should be put to death. 
 
 The ecclesiastical writings, which have made the 
 name of Erastus immortal, were never published 
 during his lifetime. They consist of two works, 
 
 1 Dr. Lee's Theses of Erastus, Preface, p. xii. 
 
 2 Eficyclopeedia Britannica, vol. viii. p. 518. 
 
1 28 ERASTIANISM 
 
 bound up in a single, rather slender quarto, bearing 
 the date 1589. The two works are the Theses and 
 the Confirmatio Thesium^ the latter directed against 
 Beza and the other opponents of the Theses. "The 
 indignation which the opinions maintained in them 
 had occasioned seems to have rendered the publica- 
 tion dangerous, as both the printer's name and the 
 place are suppressed on the title-page of the original 
 edition and fictitious names substituted/ The 
 work was reprinted at Amsterdam a.d. 1649, ^'""^ 
 an English translation of the Theses appeared in 
 London the year before the Restoration."^ 
 
 ^ >. Selden, De Synedriis, c. x. \JVor\s, vol. i. torn. 2, pp. 
 1019-21], says that the book was published in London by John 
 Wolfe, with the approval of Archbishop Whitgift, and at the 
 instance of other leading English ecclesiastics. 
 
 "Ab Erasti vidua, aut a Castelvetro, cui nupta ilia est, auto- 
 graphum impetrarant viri aliquot ex ordine ecclesiastico in Anglia 
 summi, qui etiam in regimine publico partes tunc agebant hie 
 primarias. Atque eorum auspiciis jussuque typis et mandatum. 
 Placuit quidem illis ut non sine fictorum loci et typographi 
 nominum larva prodiret ; quale pro hominum arbitrio saepius fit." 
 
 Selden says that he had seen in the Lambeth Library, lately 
 removed to Cambridge, a volume of Erastus's Theses, which he 
 believed to be the printer's presentation copy to Archbishop 
 Whitgift. 
 
 2 Lee, p. xvii., xviii. The title of the book is the following : 
 " Explicatio gravissimae Quaestionis utrum Excommunicatio, 
 quatenus Religionem intelligentes et amplexantes, a Sacra- 
 mentorum usu, propter admissum facinus arcet, mandato nitatur 
 divino an excogitata sit ab hominibus." 
 
ORIGIN OF THE "THESES I 29 
 
 In an Interesting preface addressed to " the pious 
 and truth-regarding Reader," Erastus explains how 
 he came to write the Theses. 
 
 "It is about sixteen years ago [i.e. 1568) since 
 some men were seized on by a certain excommuni- 
 catory fever, which they did adorn with the title of 
 ecclesiastical discipline, and did contend that it was 
 holy and commanded of God to the Church : and 
 which they earnestly did desire should be imposed 
 on the whole Church. They affirmed the manner 
 thereof to be this : that some certain presbyters 
 should sit in the name of the whole Church, and 
 should judge who were worthy or unworthy to 
 come unto the Lord's Supper." Alarmed at this 
 project, Erastus first protested against it on practical 
 grounds as unsuitable in a community in which 
 " scarcely the thirtieth part of the people did under- 
 stand or approve the Reformed religion," and then 
 proceeded to examine it with the aid of all the 
 authorities he could discover — schoolmen, modern 
 writers, finally the scriptures. 
 
 "After this I did confer about my thoughts with 
 good, holy, and learned men, and I did exhort them 
 that they should not lightly ponder the cause. For 
 it seemed to me most unnecessary to put two heads 
 upon one body of a visible Church, whose com- 
 mands, decrees, and government were already 
 diverse, so that the rule of the one was not subject 
 
130 ERASTIANISM 
 
 to the care of the other, but the government of each 
 in its own kind was supreme. Indeed they would 
 have had their ecclesiastical senate or presbytery 
 so constitute, that it should have the supreme power 
 of punishing of vices, yea, in the magistrates them- 
 selves : notwithstanding, not with corporal punish- 
 ments, but with the debarring them from the sacra- 
 ment, first privately, and if this did not succeed 
 well, then next solemnly and publicly. But I said, 
 I did believe that one magistrate, appointed by 
 God, could as well now bridle all transgressors as 
 he could of old." Erastus confined himself to 
 private discussions, fearing to cause disturbance in 
 the church, but at last his hand was forced. It is not 
 uninteresting that the occasion of public conflict 
 was one of our own countrymen, carrying abroad, 
 then, as Englishmen have so often done since, the 
 domestic religious bickerings of Britain. " It fell 
 out afterwards that an Englishman,^ who was said 
 to have left his country by reason of certain vestures 
 in the church, desired to be graduate doctor, and 
 did propose a dispute concerning indifferent things 
 and vestures. This dispute our theologues would 
 
 1 Selden names him. " Occasionem autem proximam unde, 
 ut videtur, ortae sunt theses illae nactus est Erastus ex disputa- 
 tione Heidelbergae habita, praeside D. Petro Boquino, respondente 
 pro gradu doctorali M. Georgia JVitkero Anglo, anno 1568, 10 
 junii, in qua de disciplina hac scu excommunicatione contro- 
 vertcbatur " {I.e., p. 1017). 
 
ORIGIN OF THE " THESES " I3I 
 
 not admit, lest they should offend the English . . . 
 wherefore amongst other theses he proposed this, 
 that it behoved in each right constitute Church this 
 order should be kept, that the ministers, with their 
 presbytery chosen for that purpose, should have 
 power to excommunicate any sinners, yea, princes 
 themselves." 
 
 This disputation of the Englishman was as the 
 letting out of the water, and together with the rest 
 Erastus was swept along by the tide of controversy. 
 He had a natural fondness for intellectual conflict. 
 " He did wonderfully extol school disputes," 
 observes his biographer, " in respect they did exer- 
 cise both invention and judgment, and confirm the 
 same. And further, he constantly professed that 
 he never returned from any of those disputes, but 
 always bettered." Being busy just then with a 
 batch of invalided soldiers, he " noted down his 
 thoughts in pieces as they occurred to him," and 
 showed his notes to others with a request for their 
 opinion on them. Finally he " contracted " them 
 into a set of theses, which were widely circulated 
 in manuscript throughout Germany. On his death- 
 bed he ordered his theses to be published.^ 
 
 1 So the title-page of the Theses states : " Opus nunc recens 
 I ex ipsius Autoris authographo erutum, et in lucem, prout moriens 
 
 jusserat, editum." 
 
132 ERASTIANISM 
 
 II 
 
 The question with which Erastus is concerned is 
 stated in the IXth thesis : " Whether any person 
 ought, because of his having committed a sin, or of 
 his living an impure life, to be prohibited from the 
 use and participation of the sacraments with his 
 fellow-Christians, provided he wishes to partake 
 with them ? . . ." " Whether any command or 
 any example can be produced from the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, requiring or intimating that such persons 
 should be excluded from the sacraments ? " He 
 then reviews the evidence of the Bible, examining 
 with much acuteness the passages advanced in 
 defence of excommunication. In the XXIIIrd 
 thesis he sums up his conclusions as to the Old 
 Testament. " This, then, remains firm and im- 
 movable that, in the Old Testament, none was de- 
 barred from the sacraments on account of the im- 
 morality of his conduct : but, on the contrary, the 
 pious priests, prophets, judges, kings, and finally that 
 most illustrious and holy forerunner of our Lord, 
 John the Baptist, instead of debarring, rather invited 
 all the people to the celebration of the sacrament, as 
 the law required them to do." The substantial 
 identity of the Jewish and the Christian sacraments 
 
THE "THESES OF ERASTUS 1 33 
 
 being asserted on the authority of St. Paul, the infer- 
 ence from the practice disclosed in the Old Testa- 
 ment is manifest, and stated in the XXVth thesis. 
 " For, as we properly urge against the Anabaptists 
 this very valid argument, that, because baptism has 
 come in the place of circumcision, and Christ no- 
 where forbade the baptizing of infants, therefore we 
 are no less permitted to baptize our infants than 
 the Jews to circumcise theirs. So, in the case 
 before us, we may reason no less conclusively in 
 this manner. The Lord's Supper has come in the 
 room of the Passover. But men's sins were not 
 punished by denying them the Passover, nor was 
 any one kept back from it on account of his sins ; 
 but, on the contrary, all the people, especially males, 
 were, by the Law of Moses, invited to join in the 
 celebration of it. And seeing we nowhere read that 
 this principle has been superseded, or abolished, 
 therefore the people's sins are not to be punished 
 now by refusing them the Lord's Supper, neither 
 is any one for that reason to be kept back." Erastus 
 then examines the evidence of the New Testament, 
 and with great skill turns the sacramental theory of 
 his Calvinistic opponents to the service of his argu- 
 ment. " Do not almost all divines hold the sacra- 
 ments to be visible words, and to exhibit to the 
 eyes what words express to the ear } Why, then, 
 do we go about to exclude nobody from the word, 
 
134 ERASTIANISM 
 
 while from the sacraments, especially the Lord's 
 Supper, we would exclude some, and that contrary 
 to, or at least without, the express command of 
 God ? Because, say they, the word was appointed 
 for all men, the sacraments only for those who are 
 converted. I know it : and I am not speaking of 
 admitting Mohammedans or unconverted pagans, 
 but those who are called by God into His church, 
 and engrafted into it, who approve of its doctrines, 
 and who appear at least desirous to use the sacra- 
 ments properly " [XXXVIII.]. His examination 
 of his opponent's case leads him in the LXVIIIth 
 thesis to " the correct and true conclusion, that 
 this excommunication, by which Christians are de- 
 barred solely on account of unholiness of life from 
 the sacraments, is not an ordinance of God, but an 
 invention and a device of men ; and, so far from 
 having any foundation in the sacred scriptures, 
 these can be shown rather to prohibit it." " I see 
 no reason," he continues in thesis LXXIII., "why 
 the Christian magistrate at the present day should 
 not possess the same power which God commanded 
 the magistrate to exercise in the Jewish common- 
 wealth. . . ." "Wherefore" (thesis LXXIV.), "if 
 that Church and State were most wisely founded, 
 arranged, and appointed, any other must merit ap- 
 probation which approaches to its form as nearly as 
 present times and circumstances will permit. So 
 
THE "THESES OF ERASTUS I35 
 
 that wherever the magistrate is godly and Christian, 
 there is no need of any other authority, under any 
 other pretension or title, to rule or punish the 
 people — as if the Christian magistrate differed 
 nothing from the heathen. ' Of all errors in 
 truth,' says Wolfgang Musculus, in his Common 
 Places, De Magistral, from which book the words 
 immediately preceding are quoted, 'of all errors, 
 in truth, the most hurtful is this, which a great 
 many people entertain, that the Christian magis- 
 trate is to be viewed in the same light in which 
 we regard a heathen government, whose authority 
 is to be recognised only in respect of secular 
 matters.' If, then, the Christian magistrate 
 possesses not only the authority to settle religion 
 according to the directions given in holy scripture, 
 and to arrange the ministries and offices thereof 
 — for which reason Moses requires him who 
 should be elected king to transcribe with his own 
 hand the Book of the Law, or writings of Moses, 
 and to exercise himself in the study of these con- 
 tinually — but also, in like manner, to punish crimes : 
 in vain do some among us now meditate the setting 
 up a new kind of tribunal, which would bring down 
 the magistrate himself to the rank of a subject of 
 other men. I allow, indeed, the magistrate ought 
 to consult, where doctrine is concerned, those who 
 have particularly studied it ; but that there should 
 
136 ERASTIANISM 
 
 be any such ecclesiastical tribunal to take cognizance 
 of men's conduct, we find no such thing anywhere 
 appointed in the holy scriptures." The concluding 
 thesis deals with the case of churches " under an 
 ungodly government (for example, Popish, or 
 Mohammedan)." He holds that voluntary officers 
 should be appointed to act as arbitrators, and to 
 unite with the ministers in maintaining moral 
 discipline by admonition, reproof, refusal of private 
 intercourse, and public rebuke. " But from the 
 sacrament which God has instituted, they may not 
 debar any who desire to partake. For who but 
 God is the judge of men's hearts .'' It may happen 
 that some spark may be kindled by the public 
 preaching, which it may be not at all useless, but 
 rather most beneficial, to cherish by every means 
 not inconsistent with piety. And tell me, I pray, 
 how it can be otherwise than absurd, and therefore 
 impious, to debar from a solemn thanksgiving and 
 commemoration of the death of the Lord, a person 
 who declares that he feels his heart prompts him so 
 to do ? — that he desires with the Church to celebrate 
 that death, and to be a member of the Church, and, 
 finally, that he wishes to testify that he disapproves 
 his past life." 
 
HOOKERS "ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY I 37 
 
 III 
 
 The Theses of Erastus were published in 1589, 
 five years later appeared the first four books of 
 Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. In his preface Hooker 
 refers to the circumstances which occasioned the 
 writing of the Theses, and the "controversy which 
 sprang up between Beza and Erastus about the 
 matter of excommunication," in consequence. His 
 judgment was not wholly favourable to either com- 
 batant. " In which disputation," he says, " they 
 have, as to me it seemeth, divided very equally the 
 truth between them : Beza most truly maintaining 
 the necessity of excommunication, Erastus as truly 
 the non-necessity of lay-elders to be ministers there- 
 of." ^ It is well known that the last three books of 
 Hooker's great work were published long after his 
 death, and under circumstances which justly arouse 
 suspicion as to their authenticity. The sixth and 
 eighth books appeared together in 1648, the seventh 
 in Bishop Gauden's edition in 1662. On the 
 literary question we may well accept Mr. Sidney 
 Lee's conclusion that " the seventh and eighth 
 books, in their existing shape, are constructed from 
 Hooker's rough notes, and, although imperfect, are 
 
 ^ Works, vol. i. p. 175 (Kcblc'i Edition). 
 
138 ERASTIANISM 
 
 pertinent to his scheme : but that the so-called sixth 
 book has no right to its place in Hooker's treatise."^ 
 It is with the eighth book only that we are here 
 concerned. It may be taken as a representative 
 statement of Anglican doctrine on the subject of 
 the relations of Church and State. In common 
 with Erastus, and, indeed, with all his contem- 
 poraries, Hooker assumes, and makes the basis of 
 argument, that analogy between the Jewish mon- 
 archy and church and the Christian, which lies at 
 the bottom of so much mental confusion, and gives 
 to the writings of that age an aspect so grotesque 
 and arbitrary. This analogy implies the further 
 assumption that, as in ancient Israel, the extent of 
 Church and nation is absolutely identical. " In a 
 word, our estate is according to the pattern of 
 God's own ancient elect people, which people was 
 not part of them the commonwealth, and part of 
 them the Church of God, but the self-same people 
 whole and entire were both under one chief 
 Governor, on whose supreme authority they did all 
 depend." ^ The Royal Supremacy is determined as 
 to its character and extent by the testimony of the 
 Old Testament. As the Jewish monarch was 
 subject to the law of Moses, so is the Christian 
 monarch bound to the gospel. " For the received 
 
 ^ Diet, of Nat. Biog.,\o\ xxvii. p. 293. 
 2 Works, vol. iii. part i. p. 425. 
 
hooker's "ecclesiastical roLiTY " 139 
 
 laws of liberty of the Church the king hath 
 supreme authority and power, but against them 
 none." ^ Hooker repudiates with some scorn the 
 notion that the king's business can be properly 
 limited to the material concerns of the common- 
 wealth. "A gross error it is, to think that regal 
 power ought to serve for the good of the body, 
 and not of the soul ; for men's temporal peace, and 
 not for their eternal safety : as if God had ordained 
 kings for no other end and purpose but only to fat 
 up men like hogs, and to see that they have their 
 mast."- Descending to particulars, Hooker ex- 
 amines in detail the actual authority possessed by 
 the monarch over the national Church. He 
 defends the much-criticised title " Head of the 
 Church," as being nothing more than a convenient 
 statement of the fact. " If the having of supreme 
 power be allowed, why is the expressing thereof by 
 the title of head condemned .''"^ It is curious that 
 he seems unconscious of the fact, which had not 
 been without significance at the time, that the title 
 " Supreme Head " had not been revived with the 
 supremacy which it expressed, when Elizabeth re- 
 established the system of Henry VIII. He con- 
 siders the calling of ecclesiastical assemblies and 
 the making laws about religion. The Apostolic 
 Council of Jerusalem is not to be made a precedent, 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 447. 2 ii^ij^^ p. 453. ^ Il>id., p. 460. 
 
140 ERASTIANISM 
 
 as its composition and conditions of meeting were 
 extraordinary. "As now the state of the Church 
 doth stand, kings being not then that which now 
 they are, and the clergy not now that which then 
 they were : till it be proved that some special law 
 of Christ hath for ever annexed unto the clergy 
 alone the power to make ecclesiastical laws, we are 
 to hold it a thing most consonant with equity and 
 reason, that no ecclesiastical laws be made in a 
 Christian commonwealth, without consent of the 
 laity as of the clergy, but least of all without 
 consent of the highest power." ^ To the papist 
 objection that Parliament has no more right "to 
 give order to the Church and clergy " in religious 
 matters than "to make laws for the hierarchies of 
 angels in heaven," Hooker replies with a dignified 
 description of the Parliament, as the organ of the 
 national will, and retorts on his opponent the 
 parliamentary proceedings under Queen Mary 
 when the Houses voted submission to the Pope. 
 " Had they power to repeal laws made, and none 
 to make laws concerning the regiment of the 
 Church.?"^ He justifies the English practice of 
 conjoining the action of the clergy in Convocation 
 with that of the nation in Parliament, by pointing 
 out that, while reason and piety suggest the pro- 
 priety of taking the matter of laws from the 
 
 1 Ibid.^ p. 505. - Ibid., p. 511. 
 
HOOKERS "ecclesiastical POLITY I4I 
 
 judgment of the wisest in those things which they 
 are to concern, i.e. the pastors and bishops of our 
 souls, yet " it is the general consent of all that 
 giveth them the form and vigour of laws, without 
 which they could be no more unto us than the 
 counsels of physicians to the sick," ^ and to give 
 such general consent is the sole and incommunicable 
 attribute of Parliament. Hooker goes on to justify 
 the royal power of appointing the bishops as pro- 
 perly consequent on the royal endowment of the 
 bishoprics, and the character of the bishops as 
 spiritual peers. After justifying the king's appellant 
 jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical courts. Hooker 
 brings his treatise to a close by discussing the much 
 debated question of excommunication. Is the 
 king exempt from spiritual censures ^ His con- 
 clusion is that, while the sovereign cannot rightly 
 be subjected to public examination and punishment 
 such as the presbyterian discipline provided, yet he 
 ought to submit himself to such " excommunica- 
 tion as is only a dutiful, religious, and holy refusal 
 to admit notorious transgressors in so extreme 
 degree unto the blessed communion of saints, 
 especially the mysteries of the Body and Blood of 
 Christ, till their humbled penitent minds be made 
 manifest." 
 
 " Sith the kings of England are within their own 
 1 1/>i^., p. 513. 
 
142 ERASTIANISM 
 
 dominions the most high, and can have no peer, 
 how is it possible that any, either civil or ecclesias- 
 tical, person under them should have over them 
 coercive power, when such power would make that 
 person so far forth his superior's superior, ruler, 
 and judge ?"^ Excommunication "according to 
 the platform of reformed discipline " is declared 
 to be incompatable with the king's " sovereign 
 regiment." 
 
 IV 
 
 Hooker's doctrine was officially adopted in the 
 Canons of 1603, which still are held by the lawyers 
 to have a shadowy and undefined authority over 
 the English clergy. The first canon requires the 
 clergy " four times every year at least, in their 
 sermons and other collations and lectures," to teach 
 that within his dominions the king's power " is the 
 highest power under God " : and the second canon 
 binds on the Church that false and unfortunate 
 parallel with ancient Israel, which, as we have seen, 
 confused both Erastus and Hooker. " Whosoever 
 shall hereafter affirm, that the King's Majesty hath 
 not the same authority in causes ecclesiastical, that 
 the godly kings had amongst the Jews and Chris- 
 tian emperors of the primitive Church ... let 
 ^ Ibid., p. 569. 
 
STUART BYZANTINISM 1 43 
 
 him be excommunicated ipso facto." Two circum- 
 stances tended to develop Hooker's theory in a 
 very unfortunate direction. The personal character 
 and predilections of the first two Stuarts were 
 eminently favourable to the growth of what may be 
 called Byzantinism. James I., both as a despot in 
 temper and a theological student in habit, was 
 naturally disposed to take literally the current 
 Anglican language about the monarchy. Charles I. 
 made up by strength of conviction and obstinacy of 
 purpose for his inferiority to his father in learning 
 and caution. It was inevitable that in the hands of 
 these sovereigns the royal supremacy should be- 
 come less legal and constitutional, and more religious 
 and personal. This tendency on the side of the 
 kings coexisted with a kindred tendency on the side 
 of the churchmen. The puritan movement was 
 hostile to kingly independence and to episcopal 
 supremacy alike. " No king, no bishop " expressed 
 a view of the situation which seemed as reasonable 
 to Archbishop Bancroft as to King James. And, 
 therefore, as the episcopal party in the English 
 Church pushed itself into greater prominence, 
 secured the principal patronage, and manipulated in 
 its own interest the machinery of ecclesiastical 
 government, so the sacred character of the kingship 
 was emphasised, and the royal supremacy made to 
 appear a personal attribute of a Christian sovereign. 
 
144 ERASTIANISM 
 
 the anointed of the Lord, His vicar and oracle. 
 Hooker, with the philosophic depth and robust 
 common sense which marked his whole treatment 
 of ecclesiastical politics, had perceived and made 
 prominent the representative and constitutional 
 aspects of the kingly office. He had dwelt on the 
 sole power of Parliament to give validity of law to 
 the decisions of the Church : he had made it clear 
 that royal supremacy really meant the supremacy of 
 that law which uttered the general consent of the 
 nation itself. The Jacobean and Caroline ecclesias- 
 tics, who served themselves of Hooker's great and 
 justly honoured reputation, were men of another 
 spirit. They separated the King from the Parlia- 
 ment : set prerogative before the general assent : 
 preferred a mysterious divine right vested in a 
 person, to a constitutional authority uttered, secured, 
 controlled by the law. There is a long step from 
 Hooker to Laud, from the grave and balanced 
 reasoning of the Ecclesiastical Polity to the astonish- 
 ing homiletics of the canons of 1640. The words 
 of those canons might be justified by Hooker's 
 argument, but their whole spirit and effect are 
 different. There is something grotesque, at once 
 grimly humorous and oddly pathetic, about those 
 canons of 1640, which summed up the Laudian 
 venture in a declaration of ecclesiastical theory, and 
 which figured so largely in the indictment which 
 
THE CANONS OF 1 64O 1 45 
 
 the Parliament was about to frame and press relent- 
 lessly against the archbishop and his system. The 
 canons begin by renewing with more precision the 
 rule of 1603, which required the clergy four times 
 in the year to exalt the royal supremacy, and then 
 prescribe a lengthy " explanation of the regal 
 power," which they must " treatably and audibly 
 read " to their congregations once a quarter at 
 morning prayer. It is a very characteristic docu- 
 ment, exaggerated and at the same time apologetic, 
 the work of a small mind aflame with an immense 
 conviction, yet dimly conscious that there were 
 objections to be answered and risks to be run. 
 The most noticeable feature of the canons is 
 their total silence as to Parliament or the law. 
 The Church is throughout connected solely, as to 
 its supreme control, with the monarch, and there 
 is no suggestion anywhere that the monarch's power 
 is limited by anything save his own sense of duty. 
 The Erastian doctrine is explicitly asserted both 
 against the Papists and the Presbyterians. " For 
 any person or persons to set up, maintain, or avow 
 in any their \_sc. the king's] said realms or terri- 
 tories respectively, under any pretence whatsoever, 
 any independent coactive power, either papal or 
 popular (whether directly or indirectly), is to under- 
 mine their great royal office, and cunningly to 
 overthrow that most sacred ordinance, which God 
 Himself hath established : and so is treasonable 
 
146 ERASTIANISM 
 
 against God, as well as against the King." With 
 an obvious reference to the Scotch revolt, it is 
 declared that "for subjects to bear arms against 
 their kings, offensive or defensive, upon any 
 pretence whatsoever " is, in S. Paul's words, " to 
 receive to themselves damnation." Then the 
 burning question of the taxes is dealt with in 
 a curiously feeble paragraph, which begins with 
 an assertion of the King's divine right to receive 
 from his subjects "all manner of necessary support 
 and supply," then, with evident allusion to current 
 controversies, affirms that " nevertheless, subjects 
 have not only possession of, but a true and just 
 right, title, and propriety to, and in all their goods 
 and estates, and ought to have," and concludes 
 with the statement, sufficiently futile at a moment 
 when the country was seething with indignation on 
 the very count of unjust exactions, that " these two 
 are so far from crossing one another, that they 
 mutually go together for the honourable and com- 
 fortable support of both. For as it is the duty 
 of the subjects to supply their King, so it is part 
 of the kingly office to support his subjects in the 
 property and freedom of their estates." No 
 allusion to Parliament, no reference to the law, 
 no consciousness of the Constitution ! Contrast 
 the language of Hooker : "I am not of opinion 
 that simply always in kings the most, but the best 
 limited power is best ; the most limited is, that 
 
THE CANONS OP' 1 64O 1 47 
 
 which may deal in fewest things ; the best, that 
 which in dealing is tied unto the soundest, per- 
 fectest, and most indifferent rule : which rule is the 
 law : I mean not only the law of nature and of 
 God, but very [? every] national or municipal law 
 consonant thereunto. Happier that people whose 
 law is their king in the greatest things, than that 
 whose king is himself their law. Where the king 
 doth guide the state, and the law the king, that 
 commonwealth is like a harp or melodious instru- 
 ment, the strings whereof are tuned and handled 
 all by one, following as laws the rules and canons 
 of musical science. . . . The axioms of our regal 
 government are these, ^ Lex facit regem' : the king's 
 grant of any favour made contrary to the law is 
 void : '■Rex nihil potest nisi quod jure potest.' " ^ The 
 second canon laments the negligence of the people 
 in observing with suitable thanksgiving the day of 
 the king's " most happy inauguration," and orders 
 the presentment and punishment of absentees from 
 the parish churches on that day. 
 
 Next follow lengthy canons against the growth of 
 Popery, Socinianism, and sectaries (among whom 
 the whole mass of Puritans are, though unnamed, 
 yet unmistakably included, being probably the most 
 part of the religious folk in the kingdom), and 
 then comes the canon which imposed the famous 
 
 ^ IVor/^s, vol. iii. part i. pp. 439-40, 
 
148 ERASTIANISM 
 
 " etcetera oath," which may be called the " last 
 straw" of Laudianism on the patience of the 
 English people. The measure of the resentment 
 which it provoked will only be appreciated when 
 it is remembered, that it specifically prohibited that 
 distinction between episcopacy and prelacy, which 
 was the practically universal assumption of English 
 churchmen, apart from the straitest sect of Laudians. 
 Conceive the folly which could propose to a nation, 
 throbbing with religious discontent, a pledge to be 
 taken by all its religious teachers, in whatever 
 capacity, that " they would never consent to alter 
 the government of the Church by archbishops, 
 bishops, deans, and archdeacons, etc., as it stood 
 then established," and to do this, apart from Parlia- 
 ment altogether (though it plainly trenched on "the 
 legal and constitutional functions of Parliament), by 
 the king's "prerogative royal and supreme authority 
 in causes ecclesiastical." 
 
 The true development of Hooker's theory was 
 towards such a supremacy of Parliament over the 
 Church as did ultimately obtain : but that theory 
 lent itself easily to the misunderstanding of men, 
 preoccupied with an ecclesiastical ideal which seemed 
 for the nonce compatible with the royal supremacy, 
 but was not only intrinsically unreasonable, but 
 could in no way be reconciled with the necessary 
 predominance of Parliament. 
 
FAILURE OF BYZANTINISM 1 49 
 
 So long as king and hierarchy were of one mind 
 Laud's Byzantinism was practicable, but he did not 
 contemplate the contingency which had to be faced 
 before the century was out. A vicious king like 
 Charles 11. is painful to contemplate and humiliating 
 to obey, but profligacy has never been found in- 
 compatible with orthodoxy, and one can always 
 fall back on the distinction between the man and 
 the monarch, but when the king combined popery 
 with profligacy, as James II. actually did, the Laudian 
 scheme became manifestly unworkable. It is one 
 of the ironies of history that the expulsion of the 
 king was the work of men who had spent their 
 lives in preaching the Laudian doctrine of non- 
 resistance. For a brief space the English bishops 
 were popular favourites, but, significantly enough, 
 it was the brief space in which they swallowed 
 their most vaunted principles, and went back on 
 their most venerated precedents. At the time when 
 the Laudian system collapsed, this demonstration of 
 its intrinsic unreasonableness was yet in the distance. 
 Parliament, as we have shown above, adopted 
 Presbyterianism in a panic as a weapon against the 
 king, and only gradually discovered the gravity of 
 
150 ERASTIANISM 
 
 its decision, and, as the discovery was made, that 
 decision became increasingly unpalatable. Erastian- 
 ism was historically a protest against the discipline 
 of Presbyterianism. The point on which Erastus 
 came into conflict with his Calvinist contem- 
 poraries was, precisely, the point of excommuni- 
 cation : but that point raised the whole question of 
 the relations of Church and State. Concede the 
 discipline, and, in respect of a large class of human 
 action, you admit an authority within the State 
 greater than the State itself. It must always be re- 
 membered that as yet men's minds were governed 
 by the notion that the Church, however organised, 
 must be coextensive with the nation. From that 
 assumption it seemed to follow inevitably, as Hooker 
 argued, that the national institutions alone sufficed 
 for the exercise of ecclesiastical functions. But at 
 this point two classes of difficulty emerged. On 
 the one hand, there is the fact of the Church's 
 spiritual character, which, secured and certified by 
 its divine origin, could never really accept national 
 authority as adequate within the spiritual sphere. 
 The frank recognition of this fact was the strength 
 both of the papist and of the presbyterian : the 
 weakness of both lay in their diverse but kindred 
 misapprehensions of its meaning and practical 
 bearings. On the other hand there is the fact of the 
 individual conscience, which disdains to own an ulti- 
 
THE ROYAL SUPREMACY I5I 
 
 mate authority in any institution, whether political 
 or ecclesiastical, and finally confesses the supremacy 
 of its own self. The frank recognition of this fact was 
 the strength of the sectary, now beginning to loom 
 threateningly on the horizon of national politics, 
 but he also misapprehended the bearings of the 
 truth he saw. The royal supremacy was properly 
 Erastian in so far as it secured the single govern- 
 ment of Church and State : but the characteristic 
 doctrine of Erastus as to excommunication was 
 adopted by the representatives of no body of religi- 
 ous opinion, and, indeed, implied the negation of a 
 Christian Church conceived as an organised society. 
 The term Erastianism, then, by a legitimate and 
 inevitable extension, came to mean the subordination 
 of the Church to the State in such sense and to such 
 extent, that the effective unity of the common- 
 wealth is secured. The royal supremacy did this, 
 and so long as the monarch, in fact as well as in 
 theory, embodied the national will, the royal 
 supremacy commanded the general acceptance ot 
 the nation : under the two first Stuart kings, as has 
 been already explained, the monarchy pursued an 
 ecclesiastical policy of its own, using the constitu- 
 tional supremacy as a personal prerogative, and, by 
 its means, denationalising the Church. The result 
 was inevitable. The royal supremacy, ceasing to 
 reflect the national will, ceased also to command the 
 
152 ERASTIANISM 
 
 national acceptance. At the moment when Presby- 
 terianism crossed the border, and was received at 
 Westminster, it seemed to offer a way of escape 
 from an intolerable ecclesiastical system, which en- 
 forced a discipline of its own upon a reluctant people, 
 who resented both its principles and its methods : 
 but hardly had the political crisis passed, and the 
 necessity arisen for seriously considering Presby- 
 terianism as an alternative system, than the old 
 grievance emerged again in a more threatening form. 
 The debates in the Westminster Assembly, and, 
 still more, the debates in Parliament on the Jus 
 Dhinum of the Presbytery, and the vital question 
 of excommunication revealed a strong, and in the 
 end, prevailing sentiment, which was genuinely 
 Erastian. 
 
 VI 
 
 The English Erastians were a mixed company. 
 Some were dominated by the undoubted supremacy 
 of the Jewish monarch in religious matters. They 
 claimed for the Christian state an equal authority. 
 Of such men the learned Lightfoot was the most 
 conspicuous representative.^ Others, notably the 
 
 1 V. Fuller, Church History, sub anno 1644. " Mr. John Cole- 
 man, a modest and learned man, beneficed in Lincolnshire, and 
 Mr. John Lightfoot, well skilled in rabbinical learning, were the 
 chief" members of the Assembly, who (for the main) maintained 
 
THE ENGLISH ERASTIANS I 53 
 
 common lawyers, who formed an important, almost 
 a dominating, part of the Long Parliament, were 
 swayed by that dislike and jealousy of the ecclesias- 
 tical jurisdiction, which was an immemorial tradition 
 of Westminster Hall, and had been stimulated to 
 the point of conflict by the eager aggressions of 
 Archbishop Laud. " We will have much to do 
 with them," wrote Baillie in April, 1645, " ^o make 
 sundry of our votes pass, for most of their lawyers 
 are strong Erastians, and would have all the Church 
 government depend absolutely on the Parliament." 
 In close sympathy with the lawyers was a small 
 knot of persons, who superadded the characters of 
 antiquarians and philosophers, and who were repre- 
 sented both in the assembly and in the Parliament 
 by the keen-tongued and erudite Selden. They 
 brought to the discussion a knowledge, which for 
 the most part the divines did not possess, and 
 which, even those who did possess it, were eager to 
 ignore, as to the actual course of Christianity in 
 the world. In the pretensions of the Presbyterians, 
 pressed with all the ardour of fresh conviction and 
 accepted in many quarters as new revelations, Selden 
 sav/ nothing more respectable than a rather shabby 
 
 the tenets of Erastus. These often produced the Hebrew 
 original for the power of princes in ecclesiastical matters." 
 Coleman's Christian name was not John, but Thomas, and he 
 was known as "Rabbi Coleman." 
 
154 ERASTIANISM 
 
 version of the age-long conflict for secular dominion, 
 which had been waged with the State by ecclesiastics, 
 since ecclesiastics were. He discounted with a 
 sneer the solemn protestations of principle, and dis- 
 missed as irrelevant the elaborate arguments from 
 scripture. At bottom the question was practical, 
 and here expediency must be the principle, and 
 precedents the authority. As a matter of fact, what- 
 ever the theory, there had never been recognised 
 any such ecclesiastical independence as the West- 
 minster divines were claiming. What the State 
 would not yield to the Papacy, could it be expected 
 to yield to the Presbytery ? When a letter from 
 the Zealand churches was read to the House, and a 
 motion was made that it should be read, " Mr. 
 Selden spake earnestly against it, shewing that in 
 that letter they challenged an ecclesiastical or Church 
 government to be jure divino, with which the civil 
 magistrate had nothing to do, and this, he said, was 
 contrary to the ancient law of England and the use 
 here received." Selden had his own private reason 
 for distrusting the moral competence of ecclesiasti- 
 cal authorities. In his History of Tithes he had 
 brought the jus divinum in another of its many 
 expressions to the test of history, and he had demon- 
 strated its unsoundness ; the same logic dictated 
 the same conclusion when, not property, but juris- 
 diction was in question. In both cases, the State had 
 
JOHN SELDEN 155 
 
 fixed the limits of ecclesiastical action, and determined 
 the practical recognition of ecclesiastical " rights." 
 Selden speaks of Erastus with the utmost respect, 
 and quotes the respectful language of his principal 
 opponent, Beza, in evidence of his merits as a theo- 
 logian. He protests energetically against the notion 
 that Erastus was the originator of the views he 
 advocated, and objects with justice to the fashion 
 of stigmatising all who shared his opinions as to 
 the human origin of excommunication by the scorn- 
 ful name Erastians, or even Colemannites, after 
 Dr. Coleman, who represented that opinion in the 
 Westminster Assembly ; for though that was the 
 contention of Erastus, yet it was not his invention, 
 and had indeed been the assumption of English 
 law from the earliest times. In truth, Selden com- 
 bined in his Erastianism the knowledge of the con- 
 stitutional lawyer with the anti-ecclesiastical senti- 
 ment of the scholar, and the intellectual audacity of 
 the sceptic. His scorn of ecclesiastics in general, and 
 of presbyterian ecclesiastics in particular, is always 
 breaking through his arguments. " There's no 
 such thing as spiritual jurisdiction ; all is civil, the 
 church's is the same with the lord mayor's." 
 
 " Presbyters have the greatest power of any 
 clergy in the world, and gull the laity most." 
 " When the queries were sent to the assembly con- 
 cerning the jus divinum of presbytery, their asking 
 
156 ERASTIANISM 
 
 time to consider them was a satire upon them- 
 selves. For if it were to be seen in the text, they 
 might quickly turn to the place, and shew us it. 
 Their delaying to answer makes us think there is 
 no such thing there. They do just as you have 
 seen a fellow do at a tavern reckoning, when he 
 should come to pay his reckoning he puts his 
 hands into his pockets, and keeps a grabbing, and 
 a fumbling, and a shaking, at last tells you he has 
 left his money at home ; when all the company 
 knew at first he had no money there, for every 
 man can quickly find his own money." " Christ 
 suffered Judas to take the communion. Those 
 ministers that keep their parishioners from it, be- 
 cause they will not do as they will have them, 
 revenge rather than reform. No man can tell 
 whether I am fit to receive the sacrament : for 
 though I were fit the day before, when he examined 
 me : at least appeared so to him : yet how can he 
 tell what sin I have committed that night, or the 
 next morning, or what impious, atheistical thoughts 
 I may have about me, when I am approaching to 
 the very table ? " These, and many similar utter- 
 ances in the latest published and best known of 
 Selden's works, indicate something more than the 
 relentless lucidity of an unusually lucid under- 
 standing : they are pointed with the bitterness 
 of intellectual resentment. The Tal^/e Talk is a 
 curiously faithful summary of its author's mind, 
 
JOHN SELDEN 157 
 
 as expressed in his voluminous and erudite writings. 
 It is odd to think of Selden subscribing the 
 covenant with the rest in S. Margaret's Church. 
 His singularly handsome face must have worn a 
 more than commonly sardonic expression as he 
 affixed his name to the famous document, which 
 might be fairly described as the formal statement 
 of all he most disliked in politics and in religion. 
 He certainly was an uncomfortable person in that 
 company of divines. "The Assembly met with 
 many difficulties," observes Fuller, " some com- 
 plaining of Mr. Selden, that, advantaged by his 
 skill in antiquity, common law, and the oriental 
 tongues, he employed them rather to pose than 
 profit, perplex than inform, the members thereof, 
 in the fourteen queries he propounded : whose 
 intent therein was to humble the jure-divino-shlp of 
 presbytery : which, though hinted and held forth, 
 is not so made out in scripture, but being too 
 scant on many occasions, it must be pieced with 
 prudential additions. This great scholar, not over- 
 loving of any (and least of these) clergymen, de- 
 lighted himself in raising of scruples for the vex- 
 ing of others : and some stick not to say, that 
 those who will not feed on the flesh of God's 
 word cast most bones to others, to break their 
 teeth therewith." ^ 
 
 ^ Church History, sub amio 1 644. 
 
158 ERASTIANISM 
 
 VII 
 
 On November 30th, 1654, Selden died, attended, 
 if we may credit a probable story, by his friend the 
 learned puritan, Archbishop Ussher, and declaring 
 that " at that time he could not recollect any passage 
 out of infinite books and manuscripts he was master 
 of wherein he could rest his soul, save out of the 
 holy Scriptures, wherein the most remarkable pas- 
 sage that lay upon his spirit was Titus ii. 11-14." 
 It is a notable and characteristic preference of a 
 passage which exalts the moral power and immortal 
 hope of Christ's religion. Three years before, 
 Thomas Hobbes, his contemporary^ and intimate, 
 had published the Leviathan^ a treatise which carried 
 the Erastian principle to conclusions which Erastus 
 himself would never have allowed, and which have 
 been justly held to be inconsistent with Christianity 
 itself. The book appeared with a frontispiece 
 which indicated its principal contention. The State 
 is symbolised by a giant man, whose body is made 
 up of many small ones. The Colossus is crowned, 
 and holds a sword in its right hand, and a crozier 
 in its left, and it rises out of a country with a city 
 in the foreground, which it dominates and protects. 
 
 ^ Selden was born in 1584. ; Hobbes in 1588. 
 
FRONTISPIECE OF LEVIATHAN 1 59 
 
 Above is written the description of Leviathan in 
 the Book of Job : " Non est potcstas super terram 
 quae comparetur ei,' and below the space is divided 
 into three columns, that on the left, underneath the 
 sword, represents the symbols of the civil power : 
 a castle, a crown, a cannon, a sheaf of arms, and 
 a battle ; that on the left, underneath the crozier, 
 represents the symbols of the ecclesiastical power : 
 a church, a mitre, a thunderbolt, logic, and a court 
 or assembly of clergy ; that in the centre contains 
 the title of the book. The suggestion is apparent and 
 unmistakable. The State is indivisibly one, the 
 Church is incontestably subject. Excommunication 
 is as much Leviathan's weapon as the cannon ; 
 Leviathan smites his enemies by the decisions of 
 his ecclesiastics as truly as by the weapons of his 
 soldiers. There is no power but Leviathan ; the 
 powers that be are ordained of Leviathan. The 
 picture inevitably suggests comparison with the 
 well-known frontispiece of the Great Bible, ascribed 
 to Holbein. Henry VIII. has the place of Leviathan, 
 and the artist has followed a similar arrangement. 
 The sovereigns delegate their powers to the officials 
 of Church and State, but the whole spirit of the 
 pictures is different. The one is personal, the 
 other impersonal ; the one is religious, the other 
 is secular. The one indicates the apotheosis of 
 the king, the other the rationalising of the 
 
l6o ERASTIANISM 
 
 monarchy ; the one is Erastian in the sense of 
 Cranmer, the other is Erastian in the sense of 
 Hobbes. In the chapter, '-'- Of power Ecclesiastical^' 
 Hobbes starts with the postulate that Christ be- 
 stowed on the Church no coercive power, but only 
 a power to proclaim the gospel and to persuade 
 men to accept it. Coercive power was by Christ's 
 ordinance the sole attribute of the king, or other 
 " sovereign representative of the commonwealth." 
 Hence it follows that no part of the Christian 
 system can be enforced except by the civil power : 
 and, when the civil power itself became Christian, 
 such enforcement followed as a matter of course. 
 But the right to determine what doctrines and 
 disciplines should be enforced was inseparable from 
 the power to enforce them. This had been the 
 case with the heathen ; it did not cease to be the 
 case when the heathen had become Christian. 
 " Therefore Christian kings are still the supreme 
 pastors of their people, and have power to ordain 
 what pastors they please, to teach the Church, that 
 is, to teach the people committed to their charge." 
 In truth, all the powers inherent in the Church are 
 vested in the Christian sovereign, for the Christian 
 sovereign is " the Church by representation." He 
 alone executes his office '-'-jure divino^' all others 
 act ^'^ jure civilly " And therefore none but kings 
 can put into their titles (a mark of their submission 
 
 I 
 
HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN l6l 
 
 to God only) Dei gratia Rex, etc. Bishops ought 
 to say in the beginning of their mandates, * By the 
 favour of the king's Majesty, bishop of such a 
 diocese'; or as civil ministers, Mn His Majesty's 
 Name.' For in saying, Divind providentid, which 
 is the same with Dei gratid, though disguised, they 
 deny to have received their authority from the civil 
 state, and slyly slip off the collar of their civil 
 subjection, contrary to the unity and defence of the 
 commonwealth." Hobbes does not shrink from 
 the full consequences of his theory. The Christian 
 sovereign has authority " not only to preach (which 
 perhaps no man will deny), but also to baptize, and 
 to administer the sacrament, etc." He is absolute 
 legislator over the Church, and its supreme execu- 
 tive officer. " In sum, he hath the supreme power 
 in all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil, as far as 
 concerneth actions, and words, for those only are 
 known, and may be accused ; and of that which 
 cannot be accused, there is no judge at all, but 
 God, that knoweth the heart. And these rights 
 are incident to all sovereigns, whether monarchs or 
 assemblies : for they that are the representants of 
 a Christian people, are representants of the Church : 
 for a church and a commonwealth of Christian 
 people, are the same thing." 
 
 To the obvious question, what securities his 
 theory offers for the Christianity of the sovereign, 
 
1 62 ERASTIANISM 
 
 Hobbes makes answer in a curiously cynical dis- 
 cussion, " Of what is necessary for a maris reception 
 into the Kingdom of HeavenT Nothing is necessary 
 but faith in Christ and obedience to laws. The 
 one is internal and invisible, and under the worst 
 circumstances Christians " have the licence that 
 Naaman had, and need not put themselves into 
 danger for it " ; the other is summed up in 
 obedience to the laws of God, which are only the 
 laws of Nature, " whereof the principal is, that we 
 should not violate our faith, that is, a command- 
 ment to obey our civil sovereigns, which we 
 constituted over us, by mutual pact one with 
 another." The Erastianism of Hobbes is plainly 
 and all but confessedly non-Christian. Dr. Gardiner 
 observes that " the historian is mainly interested 
 in the Leviathan as a sign of reaction against 
 prevailing beliefs."^ We may add that the ex- 
 travagance of those beliefs must indeed have been 
 great which could explain so extravagant a reaction. 
 The book raised a storm of opposition. Baxter 
 names it among the causes which induced him to 
 write his unfortuate Holy Commonwealth r Bramhall 
 wrote a seHes of treatises, exposing and denouncing 
 
 1 V. History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate^ vol. ii. p. 4. 
 
 2 V. Autobiography, i. p. 118 : "But the book which hath 
 furnished my enemies with matter of reviling (which none must 
 dare to answer) is my Holy Commonzuealth. The occasion of it 
 was this . . . Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan had pleased many." 
 
EFFECT OF THE LEVIATHAN 1 63 
 
 his errors.^ Thorndike was hardly less copious in 
 the same task." But the Leviathan was only the 
 more read for the onslaughts made upon it. Pepys 
 relates under the year 1668 that"Hobbs'sLd"u/^///^z«" 
 was "now mightily called for"; and that he had to 
 give 245. for a second-hand copy originally published 
 for 8j. ; a new copy cost 30J., "it being a book the 
 bishops will not let be printed again." It was, in 
 truth, Hobbes who gave to Erastianism the definitely 
 unfavourable sense which the term has ever since 
 carried in the usage of religious men : for every- 
 where Hobbism was assumed to be essentially 
 identical with Erastianism, and the Hobbesian 
 principles, as Bramhall argued in his Catching 
 of Leviathan, were " destructive to Christianity and 
 all religion." 
 
 VIII 
 
 In truth, the Erastian controversy, so far as the 
 original issue of excommunication was concerned, 
 had lost practical importance and degenerated into a 
 tiresome logomachy. For there was really no longer 
 any question of an independent coercive power in 
 
 ^ These are collected in vol. iv. of Bramhall's Wovf(_s (Library 
 of Anglo-Catholic Theology). 
 
 2 V. Works (Anglo Catholic Library). 
 
164 ERASTIANISM 
 
 the Church. The rise of the dissenters, in the 
 modern sense, went far to paralyse ecclesiastical 
 discipline. Excommunication could never again 
 carry its old dreadful suggestion, while the ex- 
 communicate from one Church was, by that very 
 title, the welcome recruit of another. The machinery 
 remained, but it was no longer effectively used, 
 though for a few years after the Restoration the 
 practice of excommunicating for moral offences 
 lingered. Thus, for example, in the parish register 
 of Barking, in Essex, there is a list of such ex- 
 communicates in the early years of Charles II., and 
 probably in the country districts similar lists may 
 yet be found among the parish papers of the period. 
 Ecclesiastical discipline, obsolete everywhere else, 
 survived in the island-diocese of Sodor and Man 
 far into the eighteenth century, but the circum- 
 cumstances, personal and local, which made such 
 survival possible, were not found elsewhere. As 
 late as 1735 Bishop Wilson understood Erastianism 
 in its true, original sense as a denial of the coercive 
 authority of the Church. After enumerating some 
 recent crimes in the island, he proceeds : " I cannot 
 but ascribe this surpassing growth of wickedness 
 ... to the great contempt that of late has been 
 put upon the discipline of the Church, even by 
 some in authority, whose duty it had been to have 
 countenanced it, as it is the law of Christians as 
 
ANGLICAN ERASTIANISM 1 65 
 
 Christians. But Erastianism and wickedness go 
 hand in hand and prevail." ^ 
 
 The doctrine of Erastus with respect to excom- 
 munication had always, as Selden maintained, been 
 implied in the practice of the English State ; it 
 became again, after the Restoration, what it had 
 been before — the avowed doctrine of the Anglican 
 divines. Jeremy Taylor, for example, argues that 
 " it is not lawful for the ecclesiastical power to ex- 
 communicate Christian princes or the supreme civil 
 power " ; and, though he concedes that a bishop 
 " not only may, but in some cases must," refuse 
 "to administer the holy communion to princes of 
 a scandalous and evil life,"^ yet he seems to admit 
 that if the prince, thus refused, persists in desiring 
 to communicate, " the bishop hath nothing else to 
 do but to pray, and weep, and willingly to minister." 
 
 1 Life of Bishop Wilson, by Keble, vol. ii. p. 773 (Library 
 of Anglo-Catholic Theology). 
 
 2 Jeremy Taylor's words are ambiguous, and I am not sure 
 that I take his meaning. " For whatsoever is in the ecclesiastical 
 hand by divine right, is as applicable to him that sits upon the 
 throne, as to him that sits upon the dunghill. But then the 
 refusing it must be only by admonition and caution, by fears 
 and denunciations evangelical, by telling him his unfitness to 
 communicate, and his danger if he do ; but if, after this separa- 
 tion by way of sentence and proper ministry, the prince will be 
 communicated, the bishop hath nothing else to do but to pray, 
 and weep, and willingly to minister." This must be compared 
 with other passages, and interpreted in the light of Anglican 
 practice {v. Works^ vol. xiii. p. 598 f. Heber's edition.) 
 
1 66 ERASTIANISM 
 
 Erastus would certainly have endorsed such a state- 
 ment as the following : " The ecclesiastical state 
 hath no proper coercion by divine right, but is a 
 minister of the divine coercion, of spiritual pro- 
 mises and threatenings ; their power is spiritual 
 and internal, it hath its effort [ ? eifect] upon the 
 spirit, and not upon the outer man, and therefore 
 is to proceed by methods fitted to the spirit, that 
 is, by reason and argument, by the fear of God, 
 and the terror of His threatenings, by the love of 
 God and the invitation of His promises. But all 
 the ministries and compulsions about the external 
 is the gift and leave of princes. . . ." 
 
 Jeremy Taylor, in common with all the Anglican 
 divines of his age, was preoccupied with the fear 
 of civil sedition as commended, disguised, and 
 advanced by religious zeal. Public reproof of kings 
 can hardly fail to diminish their dignity in the eyes 
 of the people, and to do this is to raise the sleeping 
 dragon of popular disaffection. " But how and if 
 the people be as zealous as the priest, and think it 
 lawful to call their king by all the names of re- 
 proach, which they hear in the sermons of the 
 ministers } And if the bishop calls a spade a spade, 
 it is very possible the people may do so too, for 
 they are soon taught to despise their rulers. . . ." 
 
 This is the timidity of panic, not the reasoning 
 of moral philosophy. Jeremy Taylor was far too 
 
ANGLICAN ERASTIANISM 167 
 
 genuine a Christian to be satisfied with his own 
 conclusions, and the whole treatment of the subject 
 has a suggestive aspect of vacillation and misgiving. 
 The Dtictor Dubitantium^ or Rule of Conscience^ was 
 dedicated by its author to Charles II., and in its 
 treatment of that worthless profligate the Anglican 
 Church acted on the time-serving principles which 
 inspire the passages we have quoted. A single 
 extract from Evelyn's Diary will show to what 
 lengths of degrading complacency the Church 
 proceeded. "[1684] Easter day. The Bishop of 
 Rochester preached before the King ; after which 
 his Majesty, accompanied with three of his natural 
 sons, the Dukes of Northumberland, Richmond, 
 and St. Alban's (sons of Portsmouth, Cleveland, 
 and Nelly) went up to the altar ; the three boys 
 entering before the King within the rails, at the 
 right hand, and three Bishops on the left : London 
 (who officiated), Durham, and Rochester, with the 
 Sub-Dean, Dr. Holder. The King, kneeling before 
 the altar, making his offering, the Bishops first 
 received, and then his Majesty : after which he 
 retired to a canopied seat on the right hand. Note, 
 there was perfume burnt before the office began." 
 That service, in spite of its parade of bishops 
 and incense, was a triumph of Erastianism ; and 
 Bishop Wilson's dictum is justified, "Erastianism 
 and wickedness go hand in hand and prevail." 
 
1 68 ERASTIANISM 
 
 Perhaps an even more instructive example is pro- 
 vided by the infamous measure, which directly 
 seized on the Holy Sacrament and bent it to the 
 service of a political end. The Test Act of 1673 
 is the extremest example of Erastianism which our 
 national record preserves. In that measure the 
 Church tacitly, nay eagerly, yielded up to the State 
 its spiritual heritage, to be used as a weapon against 
 civic treason. If any proof be needed of the spiritual 
 deadness, which is the true and unfailing conse- 
 quence of Erastianism, it may be found in the 
 amazing and disgraceful fact that the Anglican 
 hierarchy for generations clung to the Test Act as 
 the very palladium of Anglicanism. It will be 
 sufficiently evident that, if this be a true account 
 of Erastianism, the name is more often than not 
 misapplied. The relations of Church and State in 
 an old Christian country must necessarily take the 
 form of working compromise in many respects, for 
 there are facts which cannot be ignored, and ought 
 to be fairly and frankly given their due weight when 
 the administration of the Church is in question. 
 The citizens are in many cases also Christians ; the 
 laws are the depositaries, expositions, and instru- 
 ments of Christian principles ; the system of the 
 Church is, in a hundred ways, incorporated into 
 the system of the State ; interests, not distinctively 
 spiritual and not formally or specifically ecclesiastical. 
 
ANGLICAN ERASTIANISM 1 69 
 
 enter the sanctuary when a Christian Church has 
 once taken possession of a national life. From all 
 these conditions of existence there is no escape ; in 
 them there is no necessary Erastianism. There 
 would be nothing inherently Erastian in a parlia- 
 mentary revision of the Prayer-book, though it 
 might be unconstitutional, and would almost cer- 
 tainly be unsatisfactory. A church which admits 
 notoriously immoral persons to Holy Communion 
 is properly and apparently Erastian. There is no 
 validity in the common claim of the clergy to 
 monopolise the name and attributes of the Church. 
 No official class can really absorb into itself the 
 powers of the society, from which it draws its 
 being ; and if that society be, — as is the case of the 
 Christian Church, — divinely originated, that cir- 
 cumstance implies no exception to the general rule. 
 The original elements of historic Christianity are 
 few, and they are as much beyond the manipulation 
 of the "Church" as of the "State." Convocation 
 may be as Erastian as Parliament, and has a far 
 inferior record of religious legislation. 
 
 To sum up. Erastianism, as the protest against 
 attaching civil penalties to spiritual censures, has 
 rooted itself among us as an axiom of ecclesiastical 
 politics. Erastianism, as a denial of the obligation 
 resting on the Church of Christ to assert the moral 
 conditions of Christian membership, has revealed 
 
1 70 ERASTIANISM 
 
 in experience its inherent infidelity to fundamental 
 Christian principle, and is repudiated by all to whom 
 the religion of Christ is something more than an 
 earth-born tradition, or a serviceable factor in 
 secular politics. 
 
Casuistry- 
 
 Richard Hooker 
 
 William Perkins 
 Joseph Hall 
 William Ames . 
 Robert Sanderson 
 Thomas Barlow 
 Jeremy Taylor . 
 Richard Baxter . 
 Thomas Ken 
 Gilbert Burnet . 
 
 I 554-1600 
 i55§-i6o2 
 1 574-1656 
 1576-1633 
 1587-1663 
 1607-1691 
 1613-1667 
 1615-1691 
 1637-1711 
 1643-1715 
 
 The Reformation was an indiscriminating process 
 for the most part ; it swept away much that, when 
 the first ardours of zeal had subsided, men found 
 cause to regret. Thus in respect of the ancient 
 and complicated system of moral discipline, the 
 most abused, perhaps, and the least defensible of 
 all the characteristic features of the medieval 
 Church, there was a sudden, violent, and com- 
 plete transition effected by the Reformers. They 
 moved almost at a stride from the control of the 
 171 
 
172 CASUISTRY 
 
 confessional to that absolute independence of ex- 
 ternal moral discipline which has become the dis- 
 tinguishing mark of Protestant society. This 
 transition, apparent at once in the region of practice, 
 was but slowly and reluctantly admitted in that of 
 ecclesiastical theory. All the Protestant Churches 
 provided some machinery to take the place of the 
 medieval penitential system. A voluntary and 
 consultative confessional was set up, and Christians 
 were urged to make use of it ; more or less vague 
 assurances as to the value of ministerial absolution 
 were offered to penitents, and no doubt there 
 were many to whom they brought spiritual comfort ; 
 but, for the mass of men, the definite repudiation 
 of the sacerdotal character of the ministry, and the 
 explicit assertion of the right of private judgment, 
 implied the disappearance of external moral dis- 
 cipline, apart, of course, from the restraints of 
 public law. The effect on morality was not good. 
 Abrupt abolitions of disciplinary systems are always 
 very precarious and perilous experiments, and in 
 this case the character of the system — detailed, 
 compulsory, universal — enhanced the risks of aboli- 
 tion. Private virtue had from time immemorial 
 been subjected to vigilant and continuous official 
 oversight ; and, as an inevitable consequence, it had 
 become, for the multitude of men, a strangely 
 dependent thing ; the cessation of official oversight 
 
EFFECT OF THE REFORMATION 1 73 
 
 drew with it, in countless cases, the failure of 
 personal morality. Moreover, the confessional of 
 the medieval Church had reposed on an implicit 
 faith in certain dogmas, sacerdotal and sacramental, 
 which, so far as the mass of Christians was concerned, 
 were so firmly rooted that almost incredible practical 
 abuses and the grotesquest theoretical paradoxes 
 were powerless to affect them. These dogmas 
 perished wherever the Reformation prevailed, and, 
 in place of the old, unquestioned, and coherent 
 system of belief, men found themselves committed 
 to a distracting series of speculations and disputa- 
 tions, theological, moral, political, which seemed 
 to bring the very existence of religious truth into 
 question and to destroy all firm foundation for 
 conduct. There was much failure of faith, much 
 disorder of life, much distress of mind. Under 
 these circumstances it is not surprising to find that 
 serious Christians, in all sections of the Protestant 
 Church, turned their thoughts towards discovering 
 some remedy for these mischiefs. In point of fact, 
 we find a twofold movement in progress. On the 
 one hand, there was the sustained attempt to formu- 
 late and practically enforce a new conception of the 
 Christian Church as a society exercising moral 
 discipline over its members ; on the other hand, 
 there was the effort to discover in Scripture and 
 reason a new casuistry for the guidance of Christians, 
 
174 CASUISTRY 
 
 which should take the place of the canon law and 
 the confessor's direction. 
 
 This twofold movement proceeded throughout 
 reformed Europe, but in England, as might have 
 been expected, it took a form and course of its 
 own. It is to be observed that there was in progress 
 at the same time, and connected with the same 
 causes, that great reform and redirection of the 
 confessional at the hands of the Jesuits, which was 
 the prevailing instrument of the counter-Reforma- 
 tion, and has transformed the aspect and spirit of 
 the Roman Church. At every point the Protestant 
 casuists are found to be taking account of their 
 Jesuit contemporaries, and the whole disciplinary 
 movement, Roman and Reformed, must take its 
 place in a philosophic view of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury as a single phenomenon. But though the 
 phenomenon was one and the same, being, in truth, 
 the attempt to bring again under the control of the 
 moral law the populations of Christendom, which, 
 under the revolutionary conditions of the time, had 
 in many directions broken away from all moral 
 restraints, yet it proceeded on very different prin- 
 ciples in the Roman and in the Protestant spheres, 
 and commonly took the aspect of avowed contradic- 
 tion. Casuistry in the mouth of a Protestant does 
 not mean the same thing as in that of a Roman 
 Catholic. Protestant casuistry is primarily intended 
 
ROMAN AND PROTESTANT CASUISTRY 1 75 
 
 for the use of perplexed persons, and serves more 
 or less sufficiently the purpose of a living guide : 
 it therefore discusses principles, and indicates the 
 general line of their practical application ; but 
 abstains from elaborate discussions, avoids un- 
 likely cases, and everywhere makes appeal to the 
 conscience and reason of the perplexed, as properly 
 responsible in the sequel for whatever decision 
 is taken. It exhibits the reticence, reasonableness, 
 and responsibility of public teaching. The writ- 
 ings of the English casuists are in no need of 
 the apologies for inevitable indecency and ethical 
 paradox which are advanced in defence of the 
 casuistry of the Jesuits : they might be read from 
 the pulpit, or to a family circle. It is hardly an 
 exaggeration to say that they were meant to be so 
 read. The practice of private confession may or 
 may not be recommended by the casuist : it certainly 
 has no necessary connection with his casuistry. 
 The Roman Catholic casuistry, on the contrary, is 
 inseparable from the confessional : it is the private 
 manual of the priest, designed to equip him for his 
 work in hearing confessions. Not the morally 
 perplexed are his concern so much as the morally 
 polluted. Perplexity may be limited to a single 
 point, but pollution has endless ramifications, and 
 in determining its extent and gravity, the doctor of 
 the soul can recognise no limits to the information 
 
176 CASUISTRY 
 
 he may require. The Protestant casuistry recog- 
 nises the normal and ultimate judge of conduct to 
 be the individual Christian conscience, illumined 
 by the Holy Spirit and informed by the gospel, 
 and proposes the help of the Christian ministry as 
 one of the means by which the conscience may 
 be strengthened for its own incommunicable task. 
 The Roman Catholic casuistry assumes that " in the 
 confessional the priest holds the place of God, and 
 is obliged to utter a decision on all matters sub- 
 mitted to him : his jurisdiction extends over every 
 act of life, and decides not only the destiny of the 
 soul, but the legality of whatever the penitent may 
 do or leave undone ; no transaction is too complex, 
 no social relation too delicate, to be withdrawn 
 from his judgment ; and on it may depend the 
 future of the faithful both in this world and the 
 next, for the Church assumes the direction of the 
 lives as well as of the souls of its subjects."^ 
 
 From the necessities of so immense a task, 
 casuistry of the elaborated and unblushing type 
 which Blaise Pascal exposed to perpetual contempt 
 took its origin. "Papal and conciliar decrees cover 
 but a fraction of the cases on which the confessor 
 must act, and even in these the application of 
 general rules to special cases is mostly a task of 
 
 ^ V. Auricular Confession and Indulgences, Henry Charles 
 Lea, LL.D., vol. ii. p. 285. [London, 1896.] 
 
PROBABILISM 177 
 
 extreme nicety, so that for the most part he must 
 trust to the opinions of the experts who have 
 exhaustively investigated law and morals, and 
 endeavoured to reason out every possible con- 
 tingency in the boundless intricacy of human 
 thoughts and passions and actions."^ But when 
 once free play is permitted to the human mind, 
 a conflict of opinions is certain to arise. This 
 was notoriously the case within the casuistic 
 sphere. The masters of moral science were not 
 agreed, and the confessor, depending on their 
 guidance, was in worse case than ever. A way 
 out of the ecclesiastical impasse was found by the 
 famous theory of probabilism, which took its 
 origin in the sixteenth century, and in the hands 
 of the Jesuits pushed its way to general acceptance 
 in spite of the most vehement opposition, and of 
 scandals persistent and amazing. Jeremy Taylor, 
 in the preface to his famous casuistic treatise, 
 Ductor Bubitantiunjj or the Ride of Consciences^ pub- 
 lished at the Restoration with a dedication to 
 Charles II., dwells on the false method of the 
 Roman casuists, and the unfortunate moral con- 
 sequences to which it led. After denouncing the 
 " heaps of prodigious propositions and rules of 
 conscience their doctors have given us," and 
 alluding to that pervading and persistent indecency 
 1 Ibid. 
 
 N 
 
178 CASUISTRY 
 
 which is the worst feature of Roman casuistry, 
 he proceeds to challenge " the strange manner of 
 their answerings." "That which I suppose to be 
 of greatest consideration is, that the casuists of 
 the Roman Church take these things for resolution 
 and answer to questions of conscience, which are 
 spoken by an authority that is not sufficient .... 
 And the mischief of this is further yet discernible, 
 if we consider that they determine their greatest 
 and most mysterious cases oftentimes by no other 
 argument but the saying of some few of their 
 writers . . . The effect of these uncertain principles 
 and unsteady conduct of questions is this ; that 
 though by violence and force they have constrained 
 and thrust their churches into a union of faith, 
 like beasts into a pound, yet they have made their 
 cases of conscience and the actions of their lives 
 unstable as the face of the waters, and immeasur- 
 able as the dimensions of the moon : by which 
 means their confessors shall be enabled to answer 
 according to every man's humour, and no man 
 shall depart sad from their penitential chairs, and 
 themselves shall take or give leave to any thing ; 
 concerning which I refer the reader to the books 
 and letters written by their parties of Port-Royal, 
 and to their own weak answers and vindications." 
 Jeremy Taylor, therefore, finding the Roman 
 casuistry unsuitable for English use, thinks it 
 
DUCTOR DUBITANTIUM 1 79 
 
 " necessary that cases of conscience should be written 
 over anew, and established upon better principles, 
 and proceed in more sober and satisfying methods," 
 and sets himself to do this in his treatise. He 
 intends his book to be in the hands of laymen, 
 but does not suppose that it will provide them 
 with an adequate substitute for the guidance of 
 the clergy. " For I intend here to offer to the 
 world a general instrument of moral theology, by 
 the rules and measures of which, the guides of 
 souls may determine the particulars that shall be 
 brought before them : and those who love to 
 inquire, may also find their duty so described, 
 that unless their duties be complicated with laws, 
 and civil customs and secular interests, men that 
 are wise may guide themselves in all their pro- 
 portions of conscience : but if their case be indeed 
 involved, they need the conduct of a spiritual 
 guide, to untie the intrigue, and state the question, 
 and apply the respective rules to the several parts 
 of it : for though I have set them down all in 
 their proper places relating to their several matters, 
 yet when a question requires the reason of many 
 rules, it is not every hand that can apply them : 
 men will for ever need a living guide ; and a wise 
 guide of souls will, by some of these rules, be 
 enabled to answer most cases that shall occur." 
 There was an ascetic strain in Jeremy Taylor which 
 
l8o CASUISTRY 
 
 gives a distinctive tone to his writings, and a 
 strong professional sense, which makes him always 
 set the position of the clergy high, but the im- 
 portant thing to notice is the decisive repudiation 
 of Roman principles and methods with which he 
 prefaces his great casuistic treatise. Anglican 
 casuistry may be good, or bad : one thing is 
 certain, it is a home-grown thing, and has little 
 in common with the casuistry of the Church of 
 Rome. 
 
 II 
 
 In the prae-Laudian Church, especially among 
 the Puritans, no casuist was more highly regarded 
 than " that famous and worthy minister of Christ 
 in the University of Cambridge, Mr. William 
 Perkins," whose life was almost exactly contermin- 
 ous with the reign of Elizabeth. In his quaintly 
 fascinating treatise, The Holy and Profane State^ 
 Fuller chooses Perkins as the type of "the faithful 
 minister," and describes him with evident admira- 
 tion. In his youth he had been addicted to 
 drunkenness, but, being converted, he became a 
 rigid Calvinist. His work as a preacher began 
 among the prisoners in the Castle of Cambridge, 
 and was speedily extended to others until it exer- 
 cised a distinct and powerful influence on the 
 
WILLIAM PERKINS l8l 
 
 general life of the University. Perkins, in fact, 
 was a sixteenth-century Charles Simeon. It is 
 evident that he was a notable and winning person. 
 " Of a ruddy complexion, very fat and corpulent, 
 lame of his right hand," he arrested the gaze of 
 the undergraduates, who found him, after the first 
 stiffness had worn away, " of a cheerful nature and 
 pleasant disposition," " merry and very familiar." 
 And yet he must have been severe enough in the 
 pulpit. " He would pronounce the word damn 
 with such an emphasis as left a doleful echo in 
 his auditors' ears a good while after ; and when 
 Catechist of Christ College, in expounding the 
 Commandments, applied them so home, able almost 
 to make his hearers' hearts fall down and hairs to 
 stand upright. But in his older age he altered his 
 voice, and remitted much of his former rigidness ; 
 often professing that to preach mercy was that 
 proper office of the ministers of the Gospel." 
 He was gifted with the power of easy and lucid 
 utterance, and he facilitated attention by a simple 
 but logical arrangement of his materials. "An 
 excellent surgeon he was at jointing a broken 
 soul, and at stating of a doubtful conscience." 
 " Perkins's reputation as a teacher during the 
 closing years of his life was unrivalled in the 
 University, and few students of theology quitted 
 Cambridge without having sought to profit in 
 
1 82 CASUISTRY 
 
 some measure by his instruction ; while as a 
 writer he continued to be studied throughout the 
 seventeenth century as an authority but little 
 inferior to Hooker and Calvin."^ 
 
 An excellent example of Perkins's casuistic 
 method is The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Con- 
 science^ distinguished into 3 books. It is on many 
 counts interesting that he, like Jeremy Taylor, 
 distinctly advises the practice of private confession, 
 though under conditions far enough removed from 
 those which obtain in the Roman Church. 
 
 "In the troubles of the conscience," he says, "it 
 is meet and convenient that there should always be 
 used a private confession. For James saith, ' Con- 
 fess your sins one to another, and pray for one 
 another,' thereby signifying that confession in this 
 case is to be used as a thing most requisite. For 
 in all reason the physician must know the disease 
 before he can apply the remedy : and the grief of 
 the heart will not be discerned unless it be mani- 
 fested by the confession of the party diseased ; and 
 for this cause also in the grief of conscience, the 
 scruple, that is, the thing that troubleth the con- 
 science, must be known. Nevertheless, in private 
 confession, these caveats must be observed. First, 
 it must not be urged as a thing simply or absolutely 
 necessary, without which there can be no salvation. 
 
 1 Dictiojiary of National Biography, vol. xlv. p. 7. 
 
TERKINS ON CONFESSION 1 83 
 
 Again, it is not fit that confession should be of all 
 sins, but only of the scruple itself, that is, of that 
 or those sins alone which do trouble and molest the 
 conscience. Thirdly, though confession may be 
 made to any man (' Confess one to another,' 
 saith James), yet is it especially to be made to 
 the prophets and ministers of the Gospel. For 
 they, in likelihood of all other men, in respect of 
 their places and gifts, are the fittest and best able 
 to instruct, correct, comfort, and inform the weak 
 and wounded conscience. Lastly, the person to 
 whom it is made must be a man of trust and 
 fidelity, able and willing to keep secret things 
 that are revealed, yea, to bury them, as it were, 
 in the grave of oblivion, for ' love covereth a 
 multitude of sins.'"' 
 
 In his treatise, Of the Nature and Practise of 
 Repentance^ Perkins speaks even more decisively : 
 " As for confession of sins to men," he says, " it 
 is not to be used but in two cases. First, when 
 some offence is done to our neighbour : secondly, 
 when ease and comfort is sought for trouble of 
 conscience."^ In another treatise, A Salve for a 
 Sick Man^ or A Treatise containing the nature^ differ- 
 ences, and kinds of death^ as also the right manner of 
 dying well^ he states and repudiates the Roman 
 
 ^ V. Works, vo]. ii. p, 2. 1609. 
 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 461. 
 
184 CASUISTRY 
 
 doctrine of " Sacramental Confession." " Confes- 
 sion of our sins, and that unto men, was never 
 denied of any ; the question only is of the manner 
 and order of making confession. And for this 
 cause we must put a great difference between 
 Popish shrift and the confession of which St. James 
 speaketh. For he requires only a confession of 
 that or those sins which lie upon a man's conscience 
 when he is sick ; but the Popish doctrine requireth 
 a particular enumeration of all a man's sins."^ It 
 is sufficiently evident that Perkins had little sym- 
 pathy with the confessional in the Roman sense. 
 His lofty doctrine as to the conscience could not be 
 reconciled to an Institution which inevitably lowered 
 the prestige and limited the authority of the indi- 
 vidual conscience. " Inferior authority," he says 
 in his Treatise of Conscience^ "cannot bind the 
 superior ; now the courts of men and their au- 
 thority are under conscience. For God in the 
 heart of every man hath erected a tribunal seat, 
 and in his stead he hath placed neither saint nor 
 angel, nor any other creature whatsoever, but con- 
 science itself, who therefore is the highest judge 
 that is, or can be, under God ; by whose directions 
 also courts are kept and laws are made." *' If a 
 man being to make an unknown journey should 
 find one that would go with him, and show him 
 
 1 Ibid,, vol. i. pp. 496-8. 
 
WILLIAM AMES I 85 
 
 the way, and all the turnings thereof, he could not 
 but take it for a point of courtesy. Well, we are 
 pilgrims in this world, our life is our journey. 
 God also hath appointed our conscience to be our 
 companion and guide, to show us what course we 
 may take and what we may not."^ 
 
 This note of the supremacy of conscience is 
 sustained throughout the discussions of specific 
 " cases," and constitutes them, what indeed 
 casuistic writing rarely is found to be, really 
 invigorating to the moral character of the student. 
 Perkins transmitted to his disciples this tradition 
 of case-morality, and it is the honourable distinction 
 of his school that, in the main, it continued loyal to 
 his teaching. Perhaps the most widely influential 
 of the Puritan casuists who owed their training to 
 Perkins was William Ames (i 576-1 633), long 
 known in casuistic discussions as Amesius. His 
 stiff Puritanism and plain speech destroyed a 
 promising academic career, and brought him into 
 collision with the ecclesiastical authorities. Even 
 the Calvinistic Archbishop Abbot described him 
 as no obedient son of the Church, being a rebel 
 against her authority. For ten years he held the 
 professorship of theology at Franeker with great 
 distinction, " his reputation as a theologian and his 
 ability as a teacher attracting students not only 
 
 1 Ibid., vol. i. pp. 523, 530. 
 
1 86 CASUISTRY 
 
 from all parts of the United Provinces, but also 
 from Hungary, Poland, and Russia." In the year 
 before his death, i.e. in 1632, Ames published the 
 work which has made his reputation with posterity, 
 De Conscientia^ ejus Jure et Casibus. "It was an 
 elaborate attempt to make the application of the 
 general principles of Christian morality more certain 
 and clear in relation to particular cases, and served 
 to make the name of 'Amesius' classical in the 
 schools of moral philosophy. His biographer 
 speaks of it as removing a reproach from the 
 learning of Protestantism, and relieving its teachers 
 from the necessity of resorting to * the Philistines' 
 for assistance in the determination of nice points in 
 cases of conscience." ^ " Within the compass of a 
 small i2mo volume," writes Orme of this book, 
 " is comprised a larger portion of practical and 
 scriptural instruction than in almost any book that 
 I know. He is remarkably accurate in his defini- 
 tions, and had a power of compression utterly 
 unknown to Baxter." - In his interesting and 
 characteristic " Advertisement " to his lengthy 
 treatise, A Christian Directory, or a sum of Practical 
 theology and Cases of Conscience, Baxter pays 
 homage to the casuistic labours of Amesius. 
 The bulk of this treatise was, he says, written 
 
 ^ Diet, of Nat. Biog., vol. i. p. 357. 
 2 r. Life of 'Baxter, p. 544, note. 
 
RICHARD BAXTER I 87 
 
 in 1664 and 1665, when he "was forbidden by 
 the law to preach, and when he had been long 
 separated far from his library and from all books, 
 saving an inconsiderable parcel which wandered 
 with him where he went." At that time his only 
 casuist was Amesius. Baxter thinks that the 
 absence of books may not be wholly disadvan- 
 tageous. " It may be some little advantage to 
 [the reader] that he hath no transcript of any 
 man's books, which he had before ; but the product 
 of some experience, with a naked, unbiassed per- 
 ception of the matter or things themselves." He 
 sums up the situation with respect to English 
 casuistry in the paragraph in which he states the 
 objects with which he himself put his hand to the 
 task. He wrote " that the younger and more 
 unfurnished and unexperienced sort of ministers 
 might have a promptuary at hand for practical 
 resolutions and directions on the subjects that they 
 have need to deal in. And though Sayrus and 
 Fragoso have done well, I would not have us under 
 a necessity of going to the Romanists for our 
 ordinary supplies. Long have our divines been 
 wishing for some fuller casuistical tractate : Perkins 
 began well : Bishop Sanderson hath done ex- 
 cellently Me juramento'; Amesius hath exceeded 
 all, though briefly. Mr. David Dickson hath put 
 more of our English cases about the state of sancti- 
 
i88 
 
 CASUISTRY 
 
 fication into Latin than ever was done before 
 him. Bishop Jeremy Taylor hath in two folios 
 but begun the copious performance of the work. 
 And still men are calling for more, which I have 
 attempted, hoping that others will come after and do 
 better than we all." But Baxter did not write only 
 for the clergy, he designed his " Directory" for " the 
 more judicious masters of families, who may choose 
 and read such parcels to their families as at any 
 time the case requireth." ^ The work itself is 
 marked by the great merits, and also by the well- 
 known faults, of its author. Perhaps, considered as a 
 practical guide to conduct, it is the most serviceable 
 book in the language. In spite of its diffuseness, 
 and tendency to excessive subdivision, it is always 
 shrewd, reasonable, and high-minded ; besides being, 
 what casuistic treatises very frequently are not, 
 eminently readable. 
 
 Perkins, Ames, and Baxter form the trinity of 
 Puritan casuists, who are matched by the three 
 casuistic bishops. Hall, Sanderson, and Taylor. 
 It is very noteworthy that there is no essential 
 divergence either of principle or of method between 
 Puritans and Anglicans on the subject of moral 
 theology. The practice of confession probably con- 
 nected itself in the Anglican mind with a theory of 
 the ministry, which the Puritans did not allow ; but 
 
 ^ r. Works, ed. Orme, vol. ii. 
 
BISHOP HALL 159 
 
 this connection was for the most part unexpressed, 
 and as to the practical wisdom of consulting a 
 spiritual guide, the Puritan, who regarded the 
 ordained minister as the Christian prophet, came 
 not a whit behind the Anglican, who regarded him 
 as a Christian priest. Both repudiated the Roman 
 confessional with equal decision. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Bishop Hall (1574-1656) enjoyed among his 
 contemporaries a reputation as a preacher, divine, 
 and devotional writer which has thrown into ob- 
 scurity his character as a casuist, but that he was 
 no mean proficient in this respect also will be at 
 once apparent to the student of his Resolutions and 
 decisions of divers practical cases of conscience in con- 
 tinual use among men^ published in 1648, with the 
 official licence of John Downham, expressed in 
 highly laudatory terms. The author in a brief 
 preface justifies his method. He has limited him- 
 self to those practical cases which are of most common 
 use, because error in respect of them is most widely 
 mischievous. "These I have selected out of many, 
 and having turned over divers casuists have pitched 
 
 ^ This treatise is printed in vol. vii. of Hall's works, edited 
 by Wynter. [Oxford, 1863.] 
 
igO CASUISTRY 
 
 upon these decisions, which I hold most conform- 
 able to enlightened reason and religion. Sometimes 
 I follow them, and sometimes I leave them for a 
 better guide." The treatise is divided into four 
 decades of cases, (i) Cases of Profit and Traffick. 
 (2) Cases of Life and Liberty. (3) Cases of Piety 
 and Religion. (4) Cases Matrimonial. To the 
 last four additional cases are appended. At the 
 end is ^n Advertisement to the Reader, which is not 
 without interest. " I have been earnestly moved 
 by some judicious friends to go on with this sub- 
 ject, and to make up a complete body of case- 
 divinity, both practical, speculative and mixed ; 
 whereof, I confess, there is great defect in our 
 language." This task he declines on the ground of 
 his advanced age (he was then in his seventy-fifth 
 year), but pledges himself to deal with such scruples 
 as he shall meet with in his way, and to "leave the 
 answers upon the file." The distinctive character 
 and special excellence of English casuistry are in- 
 dicated in these words. It has its origin in practical 
 necessities, and is determined in method and limited 
 in range by actual conditions of life. Its authors 
 are men of affairs, heads of households, in close, 
 habitual contact with the ordinary course of human 
 action. It is not unworthy of notice that all the 
 principal English casuists of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury were married men. Hooker, Perkins, Ames, 
 
THE ROMAN CASUISTS I9I 
 
 Hall, Sanderson, Baxter, Jeremy Taylor all formed 
 and wrote their casuistic opinions in the atmosphere 
 of their own homes. And this circumstance goes 
 far to explain the sanity and clean-mindedness of 
 their discussions. The Roman casuists were always 
 celibates, and commonly worked in the cloister. 
 Their facts were collected, not in the healthy inter- 
 course of ordinary society, but in the confessional. 
 And the atmosphere of the confessional must be 
 unhealthy and unfavourable to just views, for 
 human nature, as exhibited in the self-revelations 
 of remorse and the self-accusations of penitence, is 
 necessarily abnormally bad, and the moral phil- 
 osopher who accepts that version of human nature 
 as the basis of his work will inevitably assume the 
 worst of human action, and credit to ordinary, 
 healthy-minded individuals something of the morbid 
 viciousness which has given to the confessional its 
 lurid interest. Moreover, the atmosphere affects the 
 moral philosopher himself. A powerful and well- 
 trained mind, continually engaged in the considera- 
 tion of unwholesome aspects of human nature, 
 deliberately committed to the logical treatment of 
 intrinsically demoralising phenomena, must itself be 
 injuriously affected. Even moral philosophers are 
 also men, and cloister walls cannot shut out the 
 incorrigible weakness of humanity. In effect, 
 the actual character of Roman casuistry exhibits 
 
192 CASUISTRY 
 
 precisely the qualities which a review of the condi- 
 tions under which it originates would suggest — 
 thoroughness, extraordinary detail, rigorous logic 
 as to arrangement, an underlying assumption 
 everywhere sustained that men are probably more 
 debased than they know, and (to speak the whole 
 truth) a certain fondness for handling unclean sub- 
 jects, which makes that literature the most subtly 
 demoralising in the world. 
 
 It may be serviceable to quote the description 
 of the Roman practice and its effect, which one 
 who had experienced both in the double capacity 
 of priest and penitent has left on record. Blanco 
 White no doubt viewed the Roman system with 
 insurmountable resentment, and the reader of the 
 " narrative of his life " will remember the fact, but 
 he was a singularly honest man, and there can 
 be no doubt whatever as to the substantial truth 
 of his statements. Speaking of Loyola's spiritual 
 exercises, he says : — 
 
 "This was the appointed time to begin the 
 General Confessions. That name is likely to lead 
 Protestants into a mistake ; for it means, not a 
 general acknowledgment of sinfulness, but a de- 
 tailed account of the previous life of the person 
 who is to make the general confession. Every 
 thought, word, and deed, nay, every doubt, every 
 uncertainty of conscience that can be called to 
 
THE ROMAN CONFESSIONAL 1 93 
 
 remembrance, must be stated to the Priest, at 
 whose feet the self-accuser kneels during the long 
 narrative. I say long^ because the result of such 
 a process of examination, as is carried on for 
 four or five days, by the penitent himself, under 
 the impression that any negligence on his part 
 must involve him in guilt far exceeding that of 
 all his former misdeeds, produces (in the sincere 
 and sensitive) a morbid anxiety of which none but 
 those who have experienced it can form an adequate 
 notion. I will not stop to urge the grounds of 
 a conviction, on which I have enlarged elsewhere 
 — that auricular confession is one of the most 
 mischievous practices of the Romanist Church. 
 To those who are not totally ignorant of the 
 philosophy of morals, it must be clear that such 
 minute attention to individual faults — not to trace 
 them to their source in the heart, but in order 
 to ascertain whether they are venial or morta sins, 
 according to the judgment of another man — must, 
 in an infinite number of cases, check the develop- 
 ment of conscience, and may totally destroy it in 
 many. As far as my experience extends (and I 
 have had fair opportunities of observing the effects 
 of Romanism in myself and in many others), the 
 evils of auricular confession increase in proportion 
 to the sincerity with which it is practised. I know 
 that what I am going to say will sound extremely 
 o 
 
194 CASUISTRY 
 
 harsh and startling to many. But I will not 
 conceal or disguise the truth. Many, indeed, were 
 the evils of which my subsequent period of dis- 
 belief in Christianity (a disbelief full of spite for 
 the evils inflicted upon me in its name) was the 
 occasion ; yet I firmly believe that, but for the 
 buffetings of that perilous storm, scarcely a rem- 
 nant of the quick moral perception which God 
 had naturally given to my mind would have 
 escaped destruction by the emaciating poison of 
 confession. I judge from the certain knowledge 
 of the secret conduct of many members of the 
 clergy, who were deemed patterns of devotion. 
 Like those wretched slaves, I should have been 
 permanently the worse for the custom of sinning 
 and washing the sin away by confession. Free, 
 however, from that debasing practice, my conscience 
 assumed the rule, and, independently of hopes and 
 fears, it clearly blamed what was clearly wrong, 
 and, as it were, learned to act by virtue of its 
 natural supremacy."^ I think it may be said with 
 confidence that such " general confession " as is 
 here described receives no countenance from the 
 Anglican casuists. It is, indeed, an interesting 
 question how far their authority can fairly be 
 
 1 V. Life of the Rey. Joseph Blanco WInte. Written by him- 
 self ; edited by John William Thom, vol, i. pp. 42-4. [London, 
 1845.] 
 
THE ANGLICAN PRACTICE 1 95 
 
 pleaded by the advocates of private or auricular 
 confession. That a practice of private confession 
 is recognised in the Prayer Book is, of course, 
 apparent, and not seriously disputed in any quarter. 
 But what was that practice ? How far can it be 
 urged to justify the restoration within the Anglican 
 Church of what is to all intents and purposes the 
 Roman institution, in its later Jesuitised form, of 
 the confessional.'' The 113th Canon of 1603 
 prohibits the minister " under pain of irregularity " 
 from revealing offences made known to him in 
 confession, unless " they be such crimes as by 
 the laws of this realm " the minister's own life 
 might be endangered for concealing them. 
 
 Dr. Pusey in an elaborate introduction to his 
 translation of the Abbe Gaume's Mamtal for Con- 
 fessors^ designed for the use of the English clergy, 
 collected an imposing array of Anglican testimonies 
 to the theory and practice of confession ; but those 
 testimonies, in order to be justly appraised, ought 
 to be in every case considered in connection with 
 the immediate purpose of the writer, and, in most 
 cases, conditioned by his general attitude of hostility 
 to the Roman confessional. There is, on the face 
 of it, something oddly incongruous in making the 
 Anglican casuists recommend a Roman Manual, 
 for, speaking broadly, it was an agreed point among 
 them that the Roman casuistry was unsound and 
 
196 CASUISTRY 
 
 demoralising. To give but a single example. Dr. 
 Pusey gives an extract from the famous poet- 
 preacher Donne, who at the end of a sermon 
 preached to the Royal Household at Whitehall 
 in 1626 makes some reference to confession. The 
 actual quotation as it stands in Dr. Pusey's Catena 
 is as follows : — 
 
 " For confession, we require public confession in 
 the congregation ; and in time of sickness, upon the 
 death-bed, we enjoin private and particular confes- 
 sion, if the conscience be oppressed ; and if any man 
 do think that that which is necessary for him, upon 
 his death-bed, is necessary every time he comes to 
 the communion, and so come to such a confession, 
 if anything lie upon him, as often as he comes to 
 the communion, we blame not, we dissuade not, we 
 discounsel not, that tenderness of conscience, and 
 that safe proceeding in that good soul." Now this 
 passage is taken out of a polemical context. Donne 
 is defending the Anglican system against " the 
 Pharisees, our adversaries," i.e. the Roman Catholics, 
 who " say we admit men too easily to the sacra- 
 ment ; without confession, without contrition, with- 
 out satisfaction." Then follows the passage quoted, 
 after which Donne goes on to gird at his adversaries 
 again. Dr. Pusey observes that Donne " praises 
 the tenderness of conscience which would make 
 confession before every communion," whereas the 
 
PRIVATE CONFESSION 1 97 
 
 real drift of the whole passage is not hortatory, but 
 apologetic.^ The controversy with Rome did un- 
 doubtedly induce in Anglicans an emphasising of 
 such elements in the English Church as were denied 
 to exist by the Roman enemy. For polemical 
 purposes it was important to show that there was 
 no part of the traditional Catholic system which the 
 reformed Church of England did not possess, but 
 it would be precarious to build too much on these 
 polemical assertions. An immense amount of 
 formal theorising and conventional exhortation go 
 to an astonishingly small amount of appropriate 
 practice. Private confession was practised by the 
 Laudian clergy and by a certain number of devout 
 lay-folk, like Evelyn,^ who had adopted Laudian 
 principles ; but the mass of Anglicans, both clergy and 
 laity, then, as now, did not go to confession them- 
 selves, and thought it rather an unwholesome sign 
 in other people if they did. No doubt the theory 
 of the confessional made way in the Church under 
 the twofold pressure of Puritanism and Popery. 
 Bishop Hall is appreciably more sacerdotal than 
 Perkins, and Jeremy Taylor than Bishop Hall. 
 The excellent Ken, in his Manual of Prayers 
 
 ^ V. Donne's Wor\s^ vol. v. p. 482-506. [London, 1 839.] 
 2 V, Diary, March i8th, 1655 : "I made a visit to Dr. Jeremy- 
 Taylor, to confer with him about some spiritual matters, using 
 him thenceforward as my ghostly father." 
 
198 CASUISTRY 
 
 for the use of the Scholars of Winchester^ tells his 
 young Philotheus, quite in the style of a modern 
 Ritualist, to go to confession to a Spiritual Guide ; 
 but we may be fairly confident that the public 
 school-boy of the seventeenth century was no more 
 responsive to such treatment than his compeer of 
 our own time. Individuals here and there went 
 to confession as they do now, and it was urged as a 
 Christian duty by many of the clergy then as now, 
 though far more moderately, but so far as the 
 general practice of English churchmen went, the 
 practice of private confession had ceased to exist. 
 Casuistry, then, in England was developed apart 
 from that institution and that religious habit, which 
 on the Continent exercised a dominating influence. 
 " Scruples " were the main concern of the insular 
 divines, and these were often rather theological and 
 ecclesiastical than, in the true sense, moral. One 
 class of questions which has an important place in 
 the casuistic discussions of the age was directly 
 connected with the religious controversies which 
 then raged with almost incredible fury. 
 
 " I was troubled this year," writes Baxter under 
 the date 1671, "with multitudes of melancholy 
 persons from several parts of the land, some of 
 high quality, some of low, some very exquisitely 
 learned, some unlearned (as I had in a great 
 measure been above twenty years before). I know 
 
SCRUPLES 199 
 
 not how it came to pass, but if men fell melancholy, 
 I must hear from them or see them (more than any 
 physician that I know). Which I mention only for 
 these three uses to the reader, that out of all their 
 cases I have gathered, (i) That we must very much 
 take heed lest we ascribe melancholy phantasms and 
 passions to God's Spirit : for they are strange ap- 
 prehensions that melancholy can cause. ... (2) I 
 would warn all young persons to live modestly, and 
 keep at a sufficient distance from objects that tempt 
 them to carnal lust, and to take heed of wanton 
 dalliance, and the beginnings or approaches of this 
 sin, and that they govern their thoughts and senses 
 carefully. For I can tell them by the sad experience 
 of many that venerous crimes leave deep wounds 
 in the conscience. . . . (3) I advise all men to take 
 heed of placing religion too much in fears, and 
 tears, and scruples ; or in any other kind of 
 sorrow, but such as tendeth to raise us to a high 
 estimation of Christ, and to the magnifying of 
 grace, and a sweeter taste of the love of God, and 
 to the firmer resolution against sin. . . . Reader," 
 he adds, "I do but transcribe these three counsels 
 for thee, from a multitude of melancholy persons' 
 sad experiences."^ Bishop Burnet, with character- 
 istic good sense, declared that these cases of melan- 
 choly were often more physical than religious. 
 
 ^ Autobiography^ part iii., pp. 85-6. 
 
200 CASUISTRY 
 
 " Alas ! the greater part of those that think they 
 are troubled in mind are melancholy, hypochon- 
 driacal people, who, what through some false 
 opinions in religion, what through a foulness of 
 the blood, occasioned by their unactive course of 
 life, in which their minds work too much, because 
 their bodies are too little employed, fall under dark 
 and cloudy apprehensions — of which they can give 
 no clear nor good account. This, in the greatest 
 part, is to be removed by strong and chalybeate 
 medicines : yet such persons are to be much pitied, 
 and a little humoured in their distemper. They 
 must be diverted from thinking too much, being 
 too much alone, or dwelling too long on thoughts 
 that are too hard for them to master." He directly 
 ascribes such cases of melancholy to the fanatical 
 religious movements of the time. "The opinion 
 that has had the chief influence in raising these 
 distempers has been that of praying by the Spirit — 
 when a flame of thought, a melting in the brain, 
 and the abounding in tender expressions, have been 
 thought the efl^ects of the Spirit, moving all those 
 symptoms of warm temper. ... If then a minister 
 has occasion to treat any in this condition, he must 
 make them apprehend that the heat or coldness of 
 their brain is the effect of temper, and flows from 
 the diff'erent state of the animal spirits, which have 
 their diseases, their hot and their cold fits, as well as 
 
RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLY 20I 
 
 the blood has : and therefore no measure can be taken 
 from these either to judge for or against themselves. 
 They are to consider what are their principles and 
 resolutions, and what is the settled course of their 
 life : upon these they are to form sure judgments, 
 and not upon anything that is so fluctuating and 
 inconsistent as fits and humours."^ Whether 
 Burnet's diagnosis of melancholy would pass the 
 College of Physicians I cannot say, but I am sure 
 he was right in regarding this unhappy state as 
 more properly related to the physical than to the 
 spiritual condition of the sufferer. 
 
 Religious melancholy, stimulated by the fanatic- 
 ism and superstition of the time, led to many 
 tragedies of suicide : and, in this connection, we 
 must mention the terror of Satanic action, ex- 
 pressed by the numerous judicial executions of 
 witches,^ and a revived interest in astrology, necro- 
 mancy, and many similar forms of superstition. 
 These darker aspects of that age, which constitute 
 it perhaps the most bigotry-ridden epoch of modern 
 history, were necessarily reflected in the "scruples," 
 which casuistic divines were called upon to consider 
 and determine. 
 
 ^ >. " Of the Pastoral Instructor," printed in The Clergyman's 
 Instructor, pp. 175-6. [Oxford, 1855.] 
 
 2 It is said that no less than 5,000 persons suspected of 
 dealings with the Evil One perished in the kingdom during the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
202 CASUISTRY 
 
 Robert Sanderson (1587-1663), who held the 
 See of Lincoln for three years after the Restoration, 
 was, perhaps, the most highly regarded of all the 
 Laudian casuists. Laud is said to have recom- 
 mended him to Charles L specially on the ground 
 of his excellence in all " casuistical learning," and 
 once known to the king, he rapidly acquired great 
 influence with him. Charles " put many cases of 
 conscience to him," and " received such deliberate, 
 safe, and clear solutions as gave him great content." 
 During Sanderson's month of attendance as chaplain 
 the good king was never absent from his sermons, 
 and would usually say, " I carry my ears to hear 
 other preachers, but I carry my conscience to hear 
 Mr. Sanderson, and to act accordingly." " And 
 this ought not to be concealed from posterity," adds 
 Walton, " that the king thought what he spake, 
 for he took him to be his adviser in that quiet part 
 of his life, and he proved to be his comforter in 
 those days of his affliction when he was under such 
 a restraint as he apprehended himself to be in 
 danger of death or deposing." 
 
 In 1642 Charles appointed him Regius Professor 
 of Divinity at Oxford, where, however, he per- 
 formed none of the duties of his professorship 
 until 1646, when he delivered a course of casuistic 
 lectures, which became famous. He began with 
 a subject Be Juramento^ which was, in that age of 
 
ROBERT SANDERSON 203 
 
 political and religious unrest, a fruitful cause of 
 perplexity. " But this learned man," writes his 
 admiring biographer, " as he was eminently fur- 
 nished with abilities to satisfy the consciences of 
 men upon that important subject : so he wanted 
 not courage to assert the true obligation of it, and 
 of oaths, in a degenerate age, when men had made 
 perjury a main part of, or at least very useful to, 
 their religion." When the king fell into the hands 
 of the Independents, and was permitted to have 
 chaplains of his own choice, he sent for Sanderson, 
 among others, and consulted him as to the parlia- 
 mentary demands. " And at Dr. Sanderson's then 
 taking his leave of His Majesty in this his last 
 attendance on him, the king requested him to betake 
 himself to the writing cases of conscience for the 
 good of posterity. To which his answer was, 
 "That he was now grown old, and unfit to write 
 cases of conscience." But the king was so bold 
 with him as to say, " It was the simplest answer he 
 ever heard from Dr. Sanderson ; for no young 
 man was fit to make a judge or write cases of con- 
 science." It was to Sanderson, together with 
 Morley, that Charles entrusted his secret purpose 
 " that if God ever restored him to be in a peaceable 
 possession of his crown, he would demonstrate his 
 repentance" for assenting to Strafford's death and 
 to the abolition of episcopacy in Scotland " by a 
 
204 CASUISTRY 
 
 public confession and voluntary penance from the 
 Tower of London, or Whitehall, to St. Paul's 
 Church, and desire the people to intercede with 
 God for his pardon," and Charles is said to have 
 spent his solitude in the Isle of Wight, before the 
 final disaster came to him, in translating Sanderson's 
 lectures De Juramento into exact English. Charles I., 
 with no other consciousness of political fault than 
 this, and no other purpose of showing his repent- 
 ance than a procession barefoot through the streets 
 of London begging his people's prayers that he 
 might be forgiven the two acts which they almost 
 all would certainly hold to be the wisest he ever 
 performed, is an interesting but hardly an edifying 
 spectacle. Casuistic guidance does not appear to 
 have done much to clear and strengthen his natur- 
 ally crooked intelligence or to awaken and direct 
 his curiously obtuse conscience, obtuse, and yet 
 as curiously sensitive, the conscience in fact of a 
 narrow-natured man in a great and difficult position 
 confused by the twin errors of absolutism and 
 superstition. Sanderson's close intimacy with the 
 Royal Martyr marked him out as a spiritual guide 
 for all who revered the Royal Martyr's memory, 
 and found themselves, in consequence, strangely 
 perplexed by the revolution in which the king had 
 perished. And his situation as one of the few 
 leading royalist ecclesiastics who remained in the 
 
ROBERT SANDERSON 205 
 
 country made recourse to him for spiritual counsel 
 comparatively easy. " In this time of his poor but 
 contented privacy of life, his casuistical learning, 
 peaceful moderation and sincerity, became so re- 
 markable that there were many that applied them- 
 selves to him for resolution in perplexed cases of 
 conscience, some known to him and many not, 
 some requiring satisfaction by conference, others by 
 letters ; so many, that his life became almost as 
 restless as their minds." Some of these cases of 
 conscience were collected and published. Walton 
 enumerates eight which may be quoted as showing 
 the nature of the questions which exercised men's 
 minds at that time. They are the following : — 
 
 (i) Of the sabbath. 
 
 (2) Marrying with a recusant. 
 
 (3) Of unlawful love. 
 
 (4) Of a military life. 
 
 (5) Of scandal. 
 
 (6) Of a bond taken in the king's name. 
 
 (7) Of the engagement. 
 
 (8) Of a rash vow. 
 
 About the year 1655 Walton relates that he fell 
 in with Sanderson "accidentally in London in sad- 
 coloured clothes, and, God knows, far from being 
 costly," that as it came on to rain they took 
 shelter together, and, the rain increasing, were 
 
206 CASUISTRY 
 
 finally forced " into a cleanly house, where they 
 had bread, cheese, ale, and a fire for their ready 
 money." Walton seized the opportunity for learn- 
 ing the famous doctor's opinions as to the existing 
 religious confusion ; nor was Sanderson averse to 
 speaking freely to one who was so well known 
 as a loyal and religious Anglican. He seemed to 
 lament very much that, by the means of irregular 
 and indiscreet preaching, the generality of the 
 nation were possessed with such dangerous^- mis- 
 takes as to think * they might be religious 
 first, and then just and merciful ; that they might 
 sell their consciences, and yet have something 
 left that was worth keeping : that they might be 
 sure they were elected, though their lives were 
 visibly scandalous : that to be cunning was to be 
 wise, that to be rich was to be happy, though 
 it is evidently false : that to speak evil of govern- 
 ment, and to be busy in things they understood 
 not, was no sin.' He attributed these mischiefs 
 to " the unhappy Covenant," which had induced 
 a state of ecclesiastical anarchy. His remedy does 
 not strike one as worthy of so famous a divine. 
 " He then said to me * that the way to restore 
 this nation to a more meek and Christian temper 
 was to have the body of divinity (or so much 
 of it as was needful to be known by the common 
 people) to be put into fifty-two homilies, or 
 
SANDERSON AND WALTON 207 
 
 sermons, of such a length as not to exceed a third 
 or fourth part of an hour's reading : and these 
 needful points to be made so clear and plain, that 
 those of a mean capacity might know what was 
 necessary to be believed, and what God requires 
 to be done : and then some plain applications of 
 trial and conviction : and these to be read every 
 Sunday in the year, as infallibly as the blood 
 circulates the body at a set time ; and then as 
 certainly begun again, and continued the year 
 following," This somewhat " grandmotherly " 
 scheme commended itself at a later period to the 
 excellent Tillotson, who actually went some way, 
 in conjunction with Patrick and Burnet, to put 
 it into execution. But, indeed, the day for 
 homilies set forth by authority had long passed 
 by : and politicians, ecclesiastical not less than civil, 
 would have to make their count with the demands 
 of a nation which had for ever left the disciplinary 
 methods of the prae-Revolutionary period. The 
 past and* the future of the English Commonwealth 
 were parted by a stream of blood, and nothing 
 could ever again obliterate that barrier. 
 
 A contemporary of Sanderson, who afterwards 
 sat also in the bishop's seat at Lincoln, the acute 
 and learned, but timorous and time-serving, 
 Thomas Barlow (i 607-1 691) related to Walton, 
 in a letter which is appended to Sanderson's Life, 
 
208 CASUISTRY 
 
 the answer that Sanderson returned to " a person 
 of quality " who had privately asked him " what 
 course a young divine should take in his studies to 
 enable him to be a good casuist." " His answer 
 was, that a convenient understanding of the learned 
 languages (at least of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin) 
 and a sufficient knowledge of arts and sciences pre- 
 supposed, there were two things in human litera- 
 ture, a comprehension of which would be of very 
 great use to enable a man to be a rational and able 
 casuist, which otherwise was very difficult, if not 
 impossible, (i) A convenient knowledge of moral 
 philosophy ; especially that part of it which treats 
 of the nature of human actions. . . . For every 
 case of conscience being only this — Is this action 
 good or bad .'* May I do it, or may I not .'' He 
 who (in these) knows not how and whence human 
 actions become morally good and evil never can 
 (in hypothesi) rationally and certainly determine 
 whether this or that particular action be so. (2) A 
 convenient knowledge of the nature and obligation 
 of laws in general ... for every case of conscience 
 being only this — Is this lawful for me, or is it not .'' 
 and the law the only rule and measure by which I 
 must judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any 
 action ; it evidently follows that he who (in these) 
 knows not the nature and obligation of laws, never 
 can be a good casuist, or rationally assure himself 
 
CASUISTIC SIMPLICITY 209 
 
 (or Others) of the lawfuhiess or unlawfulness of 
 actions in particular." The comparative simplicity 
 of casuistic method described in these words is 
 characteristic of the English casuists. They were 
 not, as was the case with their Roman contem- 
 poraries, confused by the mass of conflicting 
 authorities, or by the radically false classification 
 of sins as mortal and venial, or by the theory of 
 probabilism, or by the requirements of the con- 
 fessional, or by the perverse logic of the cloister. 
 They dealt with genuine questions, actually pro- 
 posed to them, and these they answered by applying 
 with the broad reasonableness of sincere and sensible 
 men certain fundamental principles of morality 
 which assumed and received the assent of the 
 conscience. In trying to estimate the part which 
 the English casuists played in the national life in 
 the seventeenth century, we must bear in mind that 
 the relative importance of the clergy in that age was 
 immensely greater than is now the case. Puritanism 
 in its own way magnified the ministry hardly less 
 than the opposed system of Laudianism ; it was not 
 until the rise of the sects, and especially of the 
 Quakers, that English people grew familiar with 
 the notion of a Christianity which ignored the 
 ministry. The constitutional position of the English 
 clergy was far stronger then than now, and their 
 personal weight was infinitely greater. Literature, 
 
2IO CASUISTRY 
 
 science, and politics still remained to a large extent 
 within the clerical profession, or subject to clerical 
 influence. The pulpit was a powerful engine of 
 influence, and the press was normally controlled by 
 the Bench. It did not seem extravagant, then, to 
 lay on the clergy the task of moral guidance ; their 
 office still carried authority,^ and men turned in- 
 stinctively to them for advice and direction. But 
 the casuists of the modern age are not divines, 
 but dramatists and novel-writers, who dictate to 
 the semi-educated classes their moral standards 
 by subtly re-issuing to them their prejudices. 
 Whether the new casuistry is an improvement 
 on the old remains yet undecided. 
 
 ^ cf. Mr. Charles Booth's statement: "The clergy and 
 ministers have no authority that is recognised, but their pro- 
 fessional character remains, and owing to it they perhaps lose 
 influence." — Life and Labour in Londo?;, third series, vol. vii. 
 p. 428. 
 
Toleration 
 
 I 
 
 It is one of the ironies of history that France, the 
 country in which religious bigotry found its ex- 
 tremest expression, led the way in adopting a 
 policy of toleration. As early as 1598, the Edict 
 of Nantes secured to the Protestant minority in 
 that country rights which were still refused to 
 English Nonconformists nearly a century later. 
 When Richelieu finally crushed the political power 
 of the Huguenots, he maintained intact the re- 
 ligious settlement. Dr. Gardiner discusses the 
 reason why England, where, as he freely admits, 
 " the condition of mutual forbearance which 
 renders toleration possible " ^ was more nearly 
 approached than elsewhere, yet lagged behind 
 France in adopting the policy. " Mutual forbear- 
 ance " is, indeed, the condition of genuine and 
 lasting toleration, but the political and ecclesiastical 
 situation in England was very unfavourable to an 
 adoption of that policy. " It is not to be denied," 
 
 ^ History of England, 1603-42, vol. vii. p. 159. 
 211 
 
212 TOLERATION 
 
 says Dr. Gardiner, *' that the adoption of a system 
 of toleration would have been in some respects 
 attended with greater difficulties in England than 
 it was in France. What was granted in France 
 was a local toleration for those who lived in certain 
 places. Nothing of the kind would meet the 
 requirements of England. Toleration there must 
 be not local but universal. The men who rever- 
 enced the communion-table as an altar, and the 
 men who looked upon it as a mere table to which 
 no reverence was due, lived side by side in the 
 same street." We may observe that this necessity 
 of universal toleration in England delayed the 
 victory of reason until the policy of toleration had 
 been deliberately and intelligently adopted by the 
 nation, and thus secured its permanence. French 
 toleration was the creature of Richelieu's profound 
 statecraft ; it had no guarantees in the reason and 
 conscience of the French people, who acquiesced 
 readily enough in its repudiation by the fanaticism 
 of Louis XIV. less than a century after its estab- 
 ment. Dr. Gardiner continues : " The main con- 
 dition of toleration was the absence of fear lest 
 toleration should be used as a means of attack 
 upon those who granted it. The discovery that 
 the dominant religion in France was in no danger 
 from the assaults of the Huguenots had made 
 toleration possible there. Laud had no such com- 
 
CONDITIONS OF TOLERATION 213 
 
 forting assurance in England. As the leader of 
 a governing minority, he was beset with fear that 
 his work would crumble away the moment the 
 strong hand of Government was withdrawn from 
 its support. All the more tolerant maxims with 
 which he had started were stripped away from him 
 by the falseness of his position. In proportion as 
 his weakness grew more evident his intolerance 
 increased. The true word and thought could not 
 proceed from one who was occupying the ground 
 on which he was standing. Not till a Government 
 arose whose ecclesiastical institutions rested on the 
 conviction of the nation, and which could there- 
 fore afford to deal generously with the few who 
 held divergent opinions, would the doctrine of 
 toleration take its place among the accepted prin- 
 ciples of English politics,"^ 
 
 Dr. Gardiner, in this luminous and characteristic 
 paragraph, omits a circumstance of some import- 
 ance. Toleration can never really commend itself 
 to men who believe themselves possessed of a 
 divinely-ordained system. It is unquestionably 
 true that Laud was " the leader of a governing 
 minority," and that the inherent falseness of his 
 position compelled him to maintain himself in 
 power by a " reign of terror," but it is equally 
 certain that such was not his view of the situation. 
 
 ^ Ibid., vol. viii. pp. 165-6. 
 
2 14 TOLERATION 
 
 His intolerance had its origin, not in political 
 exigency, though this contributed arguments of 
 its own in support, but in religious conviction. 
 In this respect, indeed, the archbishop and his 
 enemies stood on the same ground. The fiercest 
 opponents of toleration in the England of that 
 age were the Presbyterians, who believed their 
 system of church order to be divinely instituted, 
 and their intolerance, also, became more vehement 
 as their political position grew more insecure. 
 The nation, as a whole, believed as little in the 
 Episcopalianism of Laud as in the Presbyterianism 
 of the Westminster Assembly ; both these succes- 
 sive fanaticisms had behind them eager and en- 
 thusiastic minorities, but neither could hold its 
 own against the decisive repugnance of the general 
 sentiment which both in turn provoked. The 
 general sentiment, however, was slow to make 
 itself felt, and there were reasons why toleration 
 seemed less rational than it was finally confessed 
 to be. We may add to Dr. Gardiner's explanation 
 of English intolerance two other circumstances. 
 English Nonconformity was not merely diffused, 
 but it was also various. The spectacle of the 
 sects was neither edifying nor attractive. Non- 
 Anglican Christianity presented an aspect of un- 
 reason and anarchy, which scared from the project 
 of religious toleration those sober-minded and 
 
ANTI-EPISCOPAL FANATICISM 215 
 
 equitable Englishmen who would naturally have 
 been the first to embrace it. Moreover, this 
 anarchic and irrational sectarianism was passion- 
 ately aggressive and anti-episcopal. We may, and 
 indeed we ought to, make allowance for the 
 madness which oppression never fails to cause, 
 but we cannot ignore the excuse for intolerance 
 which was provided by the insane violence of 
 the sectaries. They spoke with two voices. With 
 the one they pleaded reasonably, sometimes elo- 
 quently, for liberty of conscience and worship ; 
 with the other they called for the destruction 
 of the English hierarchy, upon which they poured 
 forth the most venomous insults. The intense 
 hatred of the English bishops, which is the 
 common and most prominent feature of sectarian 
 literature, is not altogether easy to explain. Some- 
 thing, perhaps, must be allowed for the fact that 
 in England there was no such consciousness of 
 the inherent Divineness of the Church as existed 
 in Roman Catholic countries. The whole disci- 
 plinary system, which then extended over a far 
 larger range of human action, and affected a more 
 considerable proportion of the people than now, 
 bore upon men as the action of the individual 
 bishops, who often reluctantly had to administer 
 it. As a matter of fact, the idiosyncrasy of the 
 bishop, or his personal beliefs, did count for much 
 
2l6 TOLERATION 
 
 in his diocesan government. Puritans were harried 
 in one diocese, caressed in another. Bishop 
 Williams in Lincohi was ordering the com- 
 munion table to be brought into the body of 
 the church, while Archbishop Laud in Canterbury- 
 was vigorously insisting on its position and in- 
 closure at the east end. The Book of Sports was 
 ignored in Exeter and enforced in Winchester. 
 It was impossible to recognise the impersonal law 
 of the Church through the bewildering varieties 
 of episcopal practice. In taking this personal 
 aspect the episcopal administration lost the sem- 
 blance of equity, and was resented as a capricious 
 tyranny. Thus experience seemed to give coun- 
 tenance to the anti-episcopal prejudice, which was 
 extremely strong throughout the Protestant world. 
 We have shown in an earlier lecture how un- 
 popular the bishops had become within England 
 itself when the Long Parliament began its sessions ; 
 outside of England, within the Protestant world, 
 bishops were not found, and this suggestive fact 
 was forced on English attention at that juncture 
 precisely at which the principles of Protestantism 
 were directly endangered by the flood-tide of 
 counter-Reformation. However the bitter dislike 
 of the bishops may be explained, the fact on which 
 we have commented is certain, viz. that the 
 violent anti-Episcopalianism of the sectaries hin- 
 
INFLUENCE OF JAMES I. 217 
 
 dered the advent of the toleration for which they 
 clamoured by seeming to demonstrate that such 
 toleration was inconsistent with the security of 
 Church and State. 
 
 II 
 
 Among the leaders of the movement of thought 
 which finally established religious toleration as one 
 of the axioms of English politics must be named 
 the garrulous and pedantic, but shrewd and broad- 
 minded James I. His curious homilies to Parlia- 
 ment constantly dealt with the nature, measure, and 
 object of religious coercion, for, both as a polemical 
 theologian and as a statesman, he was continually 
 required to explain and justify the oppressive pro- 
 ceedings of the English State with regard to recu- 
 sant Papists and rebellious sectaries. The sectarian 
 pamphleteers, who now began to press for toleration, 
 were naturally eager to commend their arguments 
 by the authority of the Sovereign, in whose name 
 and, in some sense, in whose interest they were 
 oppressed ; and as a matter of fact, quotations from 
 the king's speeches are plentifully scattered over 
 the tracts of the period. The writers appeal from 
 the bishops to the king, and invoke the king 
 against the bishops. For obvious reasons it served 
 their turn to exempt the sovereign from their 
 
2l8 TOLERATION 
 
 criticisms of the Government, and to direct their 
 whole strength against the hierarchy. 
 
 The protagonists of religious liberty in this 
 country were members of the most suspected and 
 oppressed of all the sects — Anabaptists as their 
 opponents called them, Baptists as they preferred 
 to call themselves. In or about the year 1611 
 Thomas Helwys arrived in England from Amster- 
 dam, where he was known as the pastor of the 
 Baptist church founded by the erratic John Smyth, 
 commonly called the Se-baptist, because, unable to 
 accord with any existing church, he publicly baptised 
 himself. Helwys gathered a congregation in Lon- 
 don, which is reckoned as the first general Baptist 
 Church established in England. From this congre- 
 gation there proceeded a series of bold and able 
 pleas for religious liberty. We may select as an 
 excellent example of this literature a substantial 
 pamphlet published anonymously by a member 
 of Helwys's Church in 16 15. The title is worth 
 reproducing in full : — ^ 
 
 " Objections answered by way of dialogue ^ wherein 
 is proved by the Law of God : by the Law of our 
 Land: .and by his Majesty's many testimonies that no 
 man ought to be persecuted for his religion^ so he testify 
 
 ^ V. Tracts on Liberty of Co?iscie?icc and Persecution^ 1 6 14-166 1, 
 edited for the Hanserd KnoUys Society, with an historical in- 
 troduction by Edward ^ean Under hill, p. 85. [London, 1846.] 
 
SECTARIAN PLEAS FOR TOLERATION 219 
 
 his allegiance by the Oath appointed by law.'' The 
 pamphlet is prefaced by an epistle subscribed " by 
 Christ's unworthy Witnesses, His Majesty's faithful 
 subjects : commonly (but most falsely) called Ana- 
 baptists." In this epistle they disclaim the anarchic 
 sentiments with which the Anabaptists were 
 commonly credited, and which unquestionably 
 weighed most with the public mind when the 
 policy of toleration was debated. " We do un- 
 feignedly acknowledge the authority of earthly 
 magistrates, God's blessed ordinance, and that all 
 earthly authority and command appertains unto 
 them ; let them command what they will, we must 
 obey, either to do or suffer upon pain of God's 
 displeasure, besides their punishment : but all men 
 must let God alone with His right, which is to 
 be lord and lawgiver to the soul, and not command 
 obedience for God where He commandeth none. 
 And this is only that which we dare not but main- 
 tain upon the peril of our souls, which is greater 
 than bodily affliction. And only for the main- 
 tenance of Christ's right herein, do false prophets 
 and deceivers (who by that craft are clothed in fine 
 apparel, and fare deliciously every day) labour to 
 make us odious in the ears and eyes of prince and 
 people, knowing well that if they had not power 
 by persecution to force men to dissemble to believe 
 as they, their kingdom and gain would soon come 
 
2 20 TOLERATION 
 
 to nought."^ This is an instructive introduction 
 to an appeal for liberty of conscience, for it breathes 
 the arrogant spirit of persecution. So long as the 
 dissentient minority held the majority to be " false 
 prophets and deceivers," it is no marvel that the 
 majority doubted the practical wisdom of conceding 
 toleration. The pamphlet is well represented by 
 the introduction. It is cast into the form of a 
 dialogue between an "Anti-Christian" and a 
 " Christian," with an " Indifferent Man " interven- 
 ing, and passing by easy stages from umpire to 
 convert. The objection that such liberty as was 
 demanded could not be granted without danger to 
 the State is well stated and answered. 
 
 "yf. If it were as you would have it, that all 
 religions should be suffered, how dangerous 
 would it be to the king's person and state ! 
 What treacheries and treasons would be 
 plotted ! 
 "/. Indeed that is a thing greatly to be suspected, 
 but if permission of all religions should be 
 cleared of that, there is no question but 
 it might prevail with the king and state. 
 " C If it be not cleared of that, then let all men 
 abhor it." " 
 
 It is remarkable that the author is prepared to 
 extend toleration even to the Papists. 
 
 1 Ibid.,^. loo. 2 Il)iJ,^Y>^^ 113-14. 
 
SECTARIAN PLEAS FOR TOLERATION 221 
 
 " And for the Papists," he says, " may it not 
 justly be suspected that one chief cause of all their 
 treasons hath been because of all the compulsions 
 that have been used against their consciences, in 
 compelling them to the worship practised in public, 
 according to the law of this land ; which, being 
 taken away, there is no doubt but they would 
 be much more peaceable ; as we see it verified in 
 divers other nations where no such compulsion 
 is used, for if they might have freedom in their 
 religion unto their faithful allegiance to the king, 
 the fear of the king's laws, and their own prosperity 
 and peace, would make them live more inoffensively 
 in that respect." 
 
 Such sentiments as these, within ten years of 
 the Gunpowder Plot, are certainly surprising, and 
 the reference to foreign countries as the homes of 
 religious liberty is suggestive. 
 
 The familiar parallel between the kings of 
 Israel and Christian sovereigns, which had been 
 the very keystone of Anglicanism, and, indeed, 
 by the Canons of 1603 had been raised to an 
 article of faith, is boldly examined and repu- 
 diated. There is some historic interest in the 
 author's account of the apprehension with which 
 the advent of James, from Presbyterian Scotland, 
 had been, in the first instance, regarded by English 
 Churchmen. 
 
22 2 TOLERATION 
 
 " /. The convocation of bishops, and the rest 
 have made a canon, that whosoever shall 
 affirm that the king's majesty hath not 
 the same power in causes ecclesiastical, 
 under the gospel that the godly kings of 
 Israel had under the law, let him be ex- 
 communicate, ipso facto. 
 
 " C. Yes, they have so. In the beginning of 
 his Majesty's reign, when they had got him 
 sure unto them — of the which they so much 
 doubted, as with my own ears I heard 
 some of their chief followers say, when 
 his highness was coming into England, 
 ' Now must steeples down, and we shall 
 have no more high commission ! ' (with 
 lamentation they spake it) — then they 
 made this canon ; because their con- 
 sciences are convinced that they stand 
 only by his power ; and if his hand be 
 turned, their spiritual power of darkness 
 falleth to the pit of darkness, from whence 
 it came."^ 
 
 The writer is at his best when he argues 
 that hypocritical conformity, which is all that 
 persecution can secure, gives no real security 
 for true allegiance. " If I should come to church, 
 
 ^ V. Ibid., pp. 1 30- 1. 
 
SECTARIAN TLEAS FOR TOLERATION 223 
 
 and not of conscience, but for other respects, 
 as many Papists and other hypocrites do, to 
 God it were most abominable, and what faith- 
 fuhiess can be hoped for in such towards his 
 Majesty's person and state ? Can any godly, 
 wise man think that he that playeth the dissem- 
 bling hypocrite with God, that he will do less 
 with men, and will not work any villainy, if it 
 were in his power ? And, therefore, herein you 
 compelling me by tyranny, to bring my body 
 whereunto my spirit cannot be brought, you 
 compel me to hypocrisy with God and man ; for 
 if my heart were not faithful in sincerity to his 
 Majesty's crown and dignity, as I take God 
 to witness (before whom I must be condemned 
 or justified) it is, these courses would rather 
 harden my heart to work villainy than otherwise."^ 
 When we read such sane and persuasive reason- 
 ing, we wonder that it failed so completely to 
 carry conviction ; but the reason is discovered 
 when we read on to the end. The last half of 
 the pamphlet destroys the impression made by 
 the first. The author lays aside his engaging 
 moderation in order to give rein to the frenzied 
 hatred of the bishops which is consuming him. 
 He proves to the "Indifferent Man" that the 
 Roman Church is the Apocalyptic beast, and 
 
 ^ V. Ibid., p. 139. 
 
2 24 TOLERATION 
 
 the Church of England the beast's image, and 
 that all the seer's curses are properly due to 
 conformity. " The sum of all which is, that 
 whosoever openly professeth obedience and sub- 
 jection to that spiritual cruel power of Rome, 
 the beast, or to that spiritual cruel power of 
 England, his image (wheresoever they, or either 
 of them, are exalted), such a one, and such persons, 
 shall drink of the wine of God's wrath, and be 
 tormented in fire and brimstone, and shall have 
 no rest day nor night for evermore."^ The " In- 
 different Man " suggests that, when all is said, 
 " they have the word and sacraments in the 
 English assemblies," and that " it cannot be 
 denied but that the ministers preach many ex- 
 cellent truths, and do bring people to much 
 reformation in many things"; but he is at once 
 assured that these semblances of piety are only 
 the transforming robe of Satan. 
 
 " So his ministers, if they should teach all lies, 
 men would not be deceived by them, nor plead for 
 them, but because they teach many truths, people 
 receive them." Moreover, their alleged reforma- 
 tion does not really amount to much, for it only 
 affects men's morals and leaves them ignorant 
 of religion, content to submit to "anti-Christ's 
 abominations." The writer is thorough-going ; 
 
 1 V. Ibid., p. 147. 
 
THE ANGLICAN APOLOGISTS 225 
 
 he will admit no compromise ; he quotes and 
 adopts the opinion of another sectary, " that there 
 is nothing to be expected from Christ by any 
 member of the Church of England, but a pouring 
 out of his eternal wrath upon them." ^ 
 
 The pamphlet concludes with an earnest argu- 
 ment against the common practice of the sectaries 
 when persecuted of flying from the country. The 
 sectarian literature of the time is very fairly repre- 
 sented by the piece we have examined. Broad 
 truths are there, which in course of time will 
 receive universal recognition and become the 
 axioms of civilised society; but they are em- 
 bedded in the crudest fanaticism, which now 
 moves contemptuous wonder, but then stirred 
 genuine alarm. The fanaticism of the context 
 arrested more notice than the truth of the text 
 itself, and added to the normal distaste of new 
 notions a distinctive objection, intelligible to the 
 simplest, and capable of effective statement in 
 the hands of the skilled controversialist. Such 
 a controversialist was the famous Bishop Hall, 
 whose Common Apology against the BrownistSy pub- 
 lished originally in 16 10, and several times 
 republished in the course of the century, may 
 stand as an excellent example of the Anglican 
 apologetic. We may say of this literature the 
 
 1 zf. Hi J., p. I 56. 
 Q 
 
2 26 TOLERATION 
 
 precise opposite of what was said above. The 
 central thesis is unsound, but it is presented 
 in a context so reasonable and attractive that 
 the unsoundness escapes notice. Hall definitely 
 affirms the rightfulness of coercion in the matter 
 of religion. 
 
 " Your subtle doctor," he says, " can tell us from 
 Bernard, that ' Faith is to be persuaded, not 
 to be compelled ' ; yet, let him remember that 
 the guests must be compelled to come in, though 
 not to eat when they are come : compelled, not by 
 persuasions, for these were the first invitations, 
 therefore by further means." ^ And, again, he 
 refers with approbation to "Augustin's resolution 
 concerning the sharp penalties imposed upon the 
 Donatists, in his time, with his excellent defences 
 of those proceedings." There is a suggestion of 
 violence in his reference to that plea of conscience 
 which was commonly on sectarian lips. " Con- 
 science is a common plea even to those you hate : 
 we inquire not how strong it is, but how well 
 informed ; not whether it suggests this, but where- 
 upon. To go against the conscience is sin ; to 
 follow a misinformed conscience is sin also ; if 
 you do not the first, we know you are faulty in 
 the second. He that is greater than the conscience 
 will not take this for an excuse." ^ 
 
 1 V. lVor\s, ed. Wynter, vol. ix. p. 21. [Oxford, 1863.] 
 
 2 V. Ibid., p. 37. 
 
BISHOP HALLS APOLOGY 2 27 
 
 Of course Hall, as a sound Anglican, builds 
 much on the precedents of the Old Testament, 
 while he denounces the certainly not more irra- 
 tional literalism of the sectaries with respect to 
 the New. The denunciations of Episcopacy, in 
 which his opponents indulged, he meets by adduc- 
 ing proofs of the friendly attitude of the foreign 
 Churches towards the Church of England. 
 
 " I reverence from my soul (so doth our Church, 
 their dear sister) those worthy foreign churches 
 which have chosen and followed those forms of 
 outward government that are every way fittest for 
 their own condition. It is enough for your sect to 
 censure them. I touch nothing common to them 
 with you."^ 
 
 " I blush to see so wilful a slander fall from the 
 pen of a Christian, that all reformed churches 
 renounce our prelacy as anti-christian .'' Yea, what 
 one foreign divine of note hath not given to our 
 clergy the right hand of fellowship ? 
 
 " These sisters have learned to differ, and yet to 
 love and reverence each other : and in these cases 
 to enjoy their own forms without prescription of 
 necessity or censure."^ It was, of course, only the 
 divine-right, exclusive Episcopacy of Laudianism 
 which was intolerable to the reformed Churches, but 
 in 1610 that was not maintained by the leading 
 
 ^ v. Ibid., p. 40. 2 j,_ Il^iJ^^ p. 61. 
 
228 TOLERATION 
 
 representatives of the Church of England. In this 
 pamphlet Hall justifies the Anglican ministry on 
 other grounds than that of " apostolic succession," 
 grounds that would equally justify episcopal and 
 non-episcopal ministries. " Call them what you 
 please, superintendents, that is, bishops, prelates, 
 priests, lecturers, parsons, vicars, etc., if they 
 preach Christ truly, upon true inward abilities, 
 upon a sufficient if not perfect outward voca- 
 tion ; such a one (let all histories witness) for the 
 substance, as hath been ever in the Church since 
 the apostles' times ; they are pastors and doctors 
 allowed by Christ. We stand not upon circum- 
 stances and appendances of the fashions of ordina- 
 tion, manner of choice, attire, titles, maintenance : 
 but if, for substance, these be not true pastors and 
 doctors, Christ had never any in his Church since 
 the apostles left the earth." ^ 
 
 Nothing could be more commendably reasonable, 
 and as the writer takes up the sectarian contentions 
 one by one and exposes their grotesque ex- 
 travagance, the reader receives an overwhelming 
 impression of intractable and irrational fanaticism 
 encountered by sane and balanced reasoning. Hall 
 points with crushing effect to the dissidence of 
 dissent displayed in " the English-parlour-full at 
 Amsterdam." " Our land," he says, " you could like 
 
 1 V. Ibid., p. 54. 
 
BISHOP HALLS APOLOGY 229 
 
 it well, if you might be lords alone. Thanks be 
 to God it likes not you : and justly thinks the 
 meanest corner too good for so mutinous a genera- 
 tion. When it is weary of peace, it will recall 
 you. You, that neither in prison, nor on the seas, 
 nor in the coasts of Virginia, nor in your way, nor 
 in Netherland, could live in peace : what shall we 
 hope of your case at home V^ "Will you never 
 leave," he asks scornfully, " till you have wrangled 
 yourselves out of the world ? " He exults in the 
 controversial triumphs won by Anglicans in the 
 chronic contest with Rome. Their " learned pens," 
 he says, " have pulled down more of the walls of 
 Rome than all the corner-creeping Brownists in the 
 world shall ever be able to do while Amsterdam 
 standeth."^ As we read the effective denunciations 
 of the sectaries we ought to remember that the 
 writers were entrenched in privilege and power, 
 while their opponents were deprived even of 
 liberty. In spite of their amazing fanaticism the 
 sectaries had got hold of the sound principle ; in 
 spite of their attractive reasonableness the Angli- 
 cans were enslaved by the false. 
 
 V. Ibid., p. I02. 2 V. Ibid., p. 113. 
 
230 TOLERATION 
 
 III 
 
 The Laudian policy of uniformity, secured by 
 using the royal prerogative unflinchingly in the 
 interest of divine-right Episcopalianism, permitted 
 no place to religious sectaries. Toleration was 
 dismissed as politically unsafe and morally wrong. 
 Nonconformists were, in James l.'s notable phrase, 
 *' harried " out of the kingdom. Even the con- 
 gregations of foreign Protestants were not per- 
 mitted to remain outside the national system 
 of religion. Laud could not run the risk of having 
 an object-lesson in non-episcopalian Christianity 
 offered to English Churchmen within England 
 itself. *' The edifice which he was rearing was 
 of so artificial a character that he dared not with- 
 draw his eye from it for an instant."^ The im- 
 migrants were to be permitted the use of their 
 native language, but they must employ a translation 
 of the English Prayer-book, and their children 
 born in England must attend the parish churches. 
 An appeal to the king secured release from the 
 order to use the Prayer-book, but the more sub- 
 stantial grievance implied in the treatment of their 
 English-born children was insisted upon." In the 
 
 1 Gardiner, History of England^ 1 603-1 642, vol. viii. p. 120. 
 
 2 This proceeding was charged against the archbishop at his 
 trial as showing that he had " traitorously endeavoured to cause 
 
THE LAUDIAN POLICY 23 1 
 
 accounts of his province made to the king during 
 the seven years from 1633 to 1639 we have a 
 curious revelation of Laud's mind and of the 
 religious state of England as he saw it. Reading 
 between the lines, it is plain enough that he 
 was dimly conscious of failure. The sectaries — 
 " Brownists and other separatists," " Anabaptists," 
 and the like — were not yielding to his treatment. 
 Patience and threatening were equally without 
 effect, and he had come to think that the only 
 adequate method would be to expel them from the 
 country — a method which was a patent confession 
 of failure. In his latest account — that for the 
 year 1639 — he writes despondently of his own 
 diocese: "The great thing which is amiss there, 
 and beyond my power to remedy, is the stiffness 
 of divers Anabaptists and separatists from the 
 Church of England, especially in and about the 
 
 division and discord between the Church of England and other 
 reformed Churches." Laud justified himself by pleading that the 
 example of the foreign Protestants " standing so strictly to their 
 own discipline wrought upon the party in England which were 
 addicted to them, and made them more averse than otherwise they 
 would have been to the present government of the Church of 
 England." He urged Ac political danger of tolerating such an 
 " imperium in imperio," and characteristically quoted Exodus 
 xii. 49 : " Our law shall be to him that is homeborn, and to 
 the stranger that sojourns among you." 
 
 y. fforks, vol. iu. -p-p. J\.2i, ^22. [Library of Anglo-Catholic 
 Theology.] 
 
232 TOLERATION 
 
 parts near Ashford. And I do not find either 
 by my own experience, or by any advice from my 
 officers, that this is like to be remedied, unless the 
 statute concerning abjuration of your kingdom, or 
 some other way by the power of the temporal law 
 or state be thought upon. But how fit that may 
 be to be done for the present, especially in these 
 broken times, I humbly submit to your majesty's 
 wisdom, having often complained of this before." 
 In the diocese of Hereford he reports that the 
 Brownists were particularly active, " and when they 
 hear of any inquiry made after them, they slip out 
 into another diocese." " However," he concludes 
 dejectedly, " your majesty may hereby see how 
 these schisms increase in all parts of your domin- 
 ions."^ The notion of leaving the country as the 
 only solution of the problem of conscientious 
 refusal to obey the law was already familiar to 
 the English Puritans. As early as 1620 the May- 
 flower had sailed on that voyage to New England 
 which later generations of Englishmen would 
 
 ^ The accounts are printed in vol. v. of Laud's Wor\s in the 
 Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (see especially pp. 326, 336, 
 347, 355, 361). Laud describes the sectaries as "all of the poorer 
 sort, and very simple," " very busy, miserable, poor." Their 
 leaders — Brewer, Fenner, and Turner — had been imprisoned and 
 banished, but apparently had returned. Brewer was recaptured 
 " and was called before the high commission, where he stood silent, 
 but in such a jeering, scornful manner, as I scarce ever saw the 
 like." 
 
JOHN ROBINSONS SPEECH 233 
 
 regard as a memorable turning-point in the history 
 of their race. 
 
 The departure of the pilgrims is said to have 
 given occasion to a remarkable speech by John 
 Robinson, " the father of the Independents," 
 which merits reproduction in any history of 
 toleration. 
 
 "Brethren," he said, **we are now quickly to 
 part from one another, and whether I may ever 
 live to see your face on earth any more, the God 
 of heaven only knows ; but whether the Lord 
 has appointed that or no, I charge you before 
 God and His blessed angels, that you follow 
 me no farther than you have seen me follow the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. If God reveal anything to 
 you, by any other instrument of His, be as ready 
 to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth 
 by my ministry : for I am verily persuaded, the 
 Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of 
 His holy word. For my part, I cannot sufficiently 
 bewail the condition of the reformed churches, 
 who are come to a period in religion, and will 
 go at present no farther than the instruments 
 of their Reformation. The Lutherans cannot be 
 drawn to go beyond what Luther saw : whatever 
 part of His will our God has revealed to Calvin, 
 they will rather die than embrace it : and the 
 Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were 
 
2 34 TOLERATION 
 
 left by that great man of God, who yet saw 
 not all things. This is a misery much to be 
 lamented, for though they were burning and 
 shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated 
 not into the whole counsel of God, but were 
 they now living, would be as willing to embrace 
 farther light as that which they first received. 
 I beseech you remember, it is an article of your 
 church-covenant, that you be ready to receive 
 whatever truth shall be made known to you from 
 the written word of God. Remember that, and 
 every other article of your sacred covenant. But 
 I must here withal exhort you to take heed 
 what you receive as truth — examine it, consider 
 it, and compare it with other scriptures of truth, 
 before you receive it, for it is not possible the 
 Christian world should come so lately out of 
 such thick anti-christian darkness, and that per- 
 fection of knowledge should break forth at once. 
 I must also advise you to abandon, avoid, and 
 shake off the name of Brownists : it is a mere 
 nickname, and a brand for the making religion 
 and the professors of it odious to the Christian 
 world." ^ 
 
 This dignified and courageous language was 
 far beyond the comprehension of the Pilgrim 
 
 ^ V. Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 476. [London, 
 
JOHN ROBINSONS SPEECH 235 
 
 Fathers, and, indeed, probably gives an exag- 
 gerated impression of its author's tolerance ; for 
 though spoken in 1620, the earliest extant report 
 of the speech belongs to the year 1646, when 
 the bigotry of the Independents had provoked 
 general protests, and there was a desire to demon- 
 strate the liberality of Independent tenets. The 
 address, as we have it, " owes something to the 
 reporter's controversial needs." ^ Still, when all 
 allowances have been made, Robinson's speech 
 remains a notable utterance, and marks a stage 
 in the evolution of religious liberty. It goes 
 far beyond the position maintained in the most 
 famous of all the pleadings for theological toler- 
 ance which the seventeenth century has bequeathed 
 to us — Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying^ pub- 
 lished in 1647. 
 
 At Amsterdam and Leyden were numerous 
 colonies of religious exiles, to which, as the 
 policy of uniformity was more rigorously pressed 
 in England, recruits continually arrived. Laud 
 perceived new risks arising from these centres 
 of untamable sectarianism. Commerce and poli- 
 tics were ever carrying abroad English citizens 
 
 1 The literary history of this famous address is given shortly 
 in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xlix. p. 21. For 
 the purposes of a history of toleration the personal question is of 
 little importance. As a document of 1646 it may even be thought 
 more astonishing than as an oration of 1620. 
 
236 TOLERATION 
 
 in pursuit of gain or in the king's service. Were 
 they to be corrupted in their absence from the 
 national fold, and to bring back with them the 
 very heresies which, with such labour and diffi- 
 culty, had been removed from the State ? With 
 characteristic energy the archbishop forced the 
 Prayer-book on the merchant colonies and on 
 the English regiments serving abroad ; he even 
 attempted to stretch across the Atlantic and extend 
 religious conformity to the Puritan communities 
 which were taking root in America, but in this 
 direction his power was too inadequate to his 
 designs, and the determined attitude of the 
 colonists threatened the total loss of their alle- 
 giance, if here also it were to be made the pretext 
 for oppressing their conscience. The sudden and 
 complete collapse of the Laudian system before 
 the uprising of the Puritan sentiment of the 
 nation seemed at first to promise an epoch of 
 religious liberty based on a substantial religious 
 agreement ; but this promise failed of fulfilment 
 mainly for two reasons. On the one hand, as 
 we have already pointed out, the Presbyterian 
 system was intensely hostile to the principle of 
 toleration ; on the other hand, toleration was 
 quickly discredited by the astonishing outbreak 
 of fanaticism which was induced by the mental 
 and moral strain of the civil war following upon 
 
THE PRESBYTERIAN SYSTEM 237 
 
 the destruction, amid general contumely, of the 
 ecclesiastical system of the country. It will, 
 perhaps, be worth while to examine these more 
 closely. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Presbyterian system was a divine -right 
 system, as were the rival systems — Roman, Angli- 
 can, and even Congregational — and as such it 
 was exclusive and intolerant ; but its intolerance 
 took a more vehement and conscientious character 
 from the circumstances under which it had taken 
 shape. To begin with, it was a very new system ; 
 to its adherents it had the aspect of a divine 
 revelation. Then it professed to base itself utterly 
 on the Scriptures, and as these were in the 
 hands of all its members, it was a thoroughly 
 intelligible system, which carried its divine cre- 
 dentials on its front. It was, moreover, a strictly 
 logical system ; it left no place anywhere for 
 anything else ; and being severely biblical, at 
 a time when the Old Testament was generally 
 accepted as hardly less authoritative than the 
 New, it was properly a territorial system, cover- 
 ing the whole area, and requiring within its 
 dominion the eviction or destruction of every 
 rival. Being thus scriptural, logical, and terri- 
 
238 TOLERATION 
 
 torial, it commended itself to all Puritanically 
 minded laymen as the most satisfactory of all 
 known substitutes for the ancient, and now 
 abhorrent, Church of Rome. It allowed no good- 
 ness in and sought no connection with the mystic 
 Babylon, and while thus satisfying to the full 
 the rancour of Protestantism, it was as intolerant 
 of anarchy as Rome itself. Presbyterianism im- 
 plied an ordering of the State not less than an 
 ordering of the Church. 
 
 Perhaps no better evidence as to the spirit 
 of Presbyterianism can be found than that pro- 
 vided in the sermons of the period ; and of this 
 evidence it needs no saying that we possess 
 abundance. The Long Parliament early in its 
 course adopted as a regular institution the 
 monthly Fast, which the House of Commons 
 observed by attending two or three sermons in 
 St. Margaret's, Westminster, preached by divines 
 specially nominated by the House, which regu- 
 larly thanked them afterwards and requested 
 them to publish their sermons. The House of 
 Lords similarly appointed fasts, attended sermons 
 in Westminster Abbey, and regularly thanked 
 the preachers and authorised the publication of 
 their discourses. 
 
 These parliamentary sermons form a body of 
 contemporary literature of no mean historic value. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY SERMONS 239 
 
 In them are reflected the very emotions of the 
 time, and they reveal its inner mind. In the 
 pulpit the preachers, almost always members of 
 the Westminster Assembly, were able to say what 
 they thought without the disabling conscious- 
 ness that Selden was revolving some bitter and 
 humbling sarcasm, or that the " Dissenting 
 Brethren " were eager to turn on them that 
 biblical artillery which they accounted peculiarly 
 their own. 
 
 The sermons may be gathered under three heads, 
 marking successive political stages. At first they 
 are mainly concerned with pulling down the whole 
 Laudian system, with its Romish affinities and 
 temper of dangerous compromise. Then, under the 
 influence of Scotland, they are directed to the de- 
 fence, exaltation, and enforcement of " The Solemn 
 League and Covenant." Finally, when the power 
 of the sectaries has become everywhere manifest, 
 they thunder against Toleration. An excellent 
 example of these parliamentary sermons is the 
 discourse preached before the Lords in Westminster 
 Abbey by William Jenkyns, "Minister of God's 
 Word at Christ Church, London," a prominent 
 defender of Presbyterianism, on the 25th of 
 February, 1645. The sermon fills thirty-six 
 closely printed pages, and on a reasonable estimate 
 must have taken two hours to deliver, if the 
 
240 TOLERATION 
 
 preacher actually spoke all that he published. In 
 his peroration he takes a sentence from the descrip- 
 tion of Ezekiel's vision — " the spirit of the living 
 creature was in the wheels " — and uses it with much 
 skill and effect. The spirit of " carnal interest," 
 he says, has been, and still is, the mainspring of 
 parliamentary action, and against it he thunders. 
 The following is a curiously just estimate of the 
 course of events : — 
 
 " Our reformation, in the destructive part of 
 it to Episcopacy and scandalous ministers, was 
 prosecuted with much eagerness ; spectators re- 
 joiced to see our zeal for the Lord, in putting 
 down them with their crosses, images, and crucifixes, 
 but did not this wheel move also according to the 
 spirit of carnal interest } were not the men and 
 their usurped power, lately very burdensome and 
 prejudicial to us, to our estates and liberties, not 
 to say to our honours and rule ? and was not the 
 ejection of those, who knew how to fish for tithes, 
 though not for souls, a very taking plausible thing ? 
 interest agreed with it : (and the breaking down 
 of images did not bite) but when interest makes 
 a stop, our reformation stops also : we throw down 
 the superstitious priests and their altars, with their 
 many idolatrous reliques, but doth our reformation 
 proceed to deal with Jeroboam's calves too ? to 
 prohibit effectually the divulging and scattering of 
 
TARLIAMENTARY SERMONS 24 I 
 
 all those many blasphemous opinions, which are not 
 only cried up in Dan and Bethel, but are scattered 
 up and down from Dan to Beersheba, from one end 
 of the kingdom to the other ? Are not the second 
 and third persons in Trinity, as much dishonoured 
 by blotting them out of our faith, as by picturing 
 them in a window ?" 
 
 " Our care and love in encouraging the godly 
 and painful Ministers of the Gospel was here- 
 tofore very common, and full out as commend- 
 able as common ; a faithful minister that stood 
 out under the time of Episcopal tyranny, by 
 opposing himself to the innovations thereof, 
 was a man of desires in the beginning of these 
 wars ; this wheel went on very nimbly too, but was 
 there not a living creature of carnal policy that 
 moved with it ? was not respecting of godly 
 ministers the way to be honoured before the 
 people ? and were not they the men that were 
 fittest to move to contributions, and improve 
 their power for exhorting to assist in the cause 
 of late so much endangered ? But when they 
 could do no more, and by the goodness of 
 God other means were found out for relieving of 
 us ; in a word, when interest made a stop, our love 
 to ministers was soon at a stand, nay, declined ; 
 witness not only the disgraceful and reproach- 
 ful language which every uncontrolled sectary 
 
242 TOLERATION 
 
 hath inured his tongue and pen to cast upon 
 them, but the denial of necessary subsistence 
 to themselves and theirs, in many places where 
 those who have wept and prayed and preached 
 down Anti-Christ, are now accounted the only 
 Antichristian burdens." ^ A few months later in 
 the same place, Mr. Francis Taylor, " Pastor 
 of Yalding in Kent, and a member of the 
 Assembly of Divines," called for the suppression 
 of the sectaries, whose number and audacity 
 daily increased. " Why," he demands of the 
 Peers, " suffer ye books to be printed under 
 colour of maintaining liberty of conscience for 
 the toleration of all sorts of heresies and 
 blasphemous religions ? "^ Another preacher, Mr. 
 Thomas Horton, denounced as the very climax 
 of national guilt " that sin of Libertinism and 
 Toleration which is the ringleader to all the 
 rest, and involves all others in it." '' What } " 
 he cried, " when we have so much appeared 
 against Popery and Superstition, shall we now 
 begin to think of indifferency and toleration .'' 
 Certainly, it's but a sorry exchange of a bad 
 religion for none. Although indeed it will be 
 
 ^ Reformation'' s Remora, or Temporizing the stop of building 
 the Temple. A Sermon, etc., pp. 33, 34. London, 1646. 
 
 ^ The Danger of Vows neglected and the necessity of Reform- 
 ation. A Sermon, etc., preached in the Abbey Church at 
 Westminster, (May z^th, 1646, p. 26. London, 1646. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY SERMONS 243 
 
 no exchange, but rather a further confirmation ; 
 toleration of all other errors does but strengthen 
 popery amongst the rest ; which will at least think 
 so well of itself, as to come in for a child's 
 part."^ Four weeks later Mr. William Jenkyn 
 again preached a passionate sermon, which was 
 published under the title, A sleeping Sickness the 
 distemper of the Times, as it was discovered in its 
 Curse and Cure. In an epistle dedicatory he 
 declared that the Church was wounded by "the 
 soul-stroying opinions of Antinomians, Arminians, 
 Anabaptists, Seekers, Anti-Scripturists, Anti- 
 Trinitarians," and all these errors " had been more 
 propagated these four years of Church Anarchy 
 than in fourscore of Church Tyranny." But all 
 was to no purpose. In this very discourse the 
 preacher confesses the futility of exhortation. 
 " For the Parliament," he said bitterly, " 'tis a 
 common observation that it is sermon-proof."^ 
 The sermons to the House of Commons in 
 
 1 Sin^s discovery and Reyenge, as it was delivered in a Sermon, 
 etc., in the Abbey Church at Westminster, on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 
 1646, pp. 37, 38. London, 164.6. 
 
 2 Jenkyn preached this sermon on January 27th, 1647. 
 Students of manners will note the curious denunciation of current 
 fashions. He enumerates scornfully the " elfish attire, shameful 
 and yet shameless nakedness of necks and backs, those sin-black, 
 hell-black, beauty-spots (people would not account it a beauty to 
 be born with them), that swaggering profanation of Sabbath, 
 drinking and riotousness among us." 
 
244 TOLERATION 
 
 S. Margaret's were of the same uncompromis- 
 ing character, and, as being addressed to the 
 really dominant power in the country, even more 
 important. All justify the contention, which 
 indeed cannot be reasonably denied, that " as a 
 body, the Presbyterians of 1644 and subsequent 
 years were absolute Anti-Tolerationists." Two 
 causes co-operated in holding them to this un- 
 fortunate position — their theory of the Church 
 and their horror of the sectaries. The one did 
 not admit of ecclesiastical variation ; the other 
 could not endure the apparent risks of toleration. 
 The severity of their logic was reinforced by the 
 timidity of panic. It must indeed be allowed 
 that they had reason for their fears. The panic- 
 striken mind of the Presbyterians is uncovered 
 in the famous Gangraena of Thomas Edwards, a 
 work equally extravagant and characteristic, which 
 merits the study of anyone who would understand 
 the mental standpoint of the age, and which 
 certainly made at the time an immense im- 
 pression. It appeared in 1646, when the Pres- 
 byterian influence was waning and the Solemn 
 League and Covenant was everywhere being 
 ignored, and it indicates the desperate rally 
 against sectarianism which was expressed by the 
 preachers to whom we have made reference. 
 
SECTARIES IN THE ARMY 245 
 
 The course of events had steadily depressed 
 every form of established authority and brought 
 into prominence the more relentless and thorough- 
 going advocates of change. Cromwell was driven 
 by force of circumstances to depend ever more 
 completely on the sectaries, and the consequences 
 might have been foreseen. The fanatical zeal, 
 which bore down all opposition in the field of 
 battle, was not less effective in the field of politics ; 
 the triumph of the remodelled army, in short, 
 drew in its train the complete overthrow of the 
 constitution. Baxter has described the state of 
 opinion in the army when he joined it with the 
 plucky determination to encounter sectarianism in 
 its stronghold. " I was almost always," he says, 
 " when I had opportunity, disputing with one or 
 other of them : sometimes for our civil govern- 
 ment, and sometimes for Church order and govern- 
 ment : sometimes for infant baptism, and oft 
 against Anti-nomianism and Arminianism and the 
 contrary extreme. But their most frequent and 
 vehement disputes were for liberty of conscience, 
 as they called it ; that is, that the civil magistrate 
 had nothing to do to determine of anything in 
 matters of religion, by constraint or restraint, but 
 every man might not only hold but preach and do 
 
246 TOLERATION 
 
 in matters of religion what he pleased ; that the 
 civil magistrate hath nothing to do but with civil 
 things, to keep the peace, and to protect the 
 Church's liberties." ^ Baxter disliked and distrusted 
 Cromwell, but his evidence on matters of fact 
 within his own knowledge may always be trusted. 
 " All this while," he says, " though I came not 
 near Cromwell, his designs were visible, and I saw 
 him continually acting his part. The Lord General 
 [Fairfax] suffered him to govern and do all, and to 
 choose almost all the officers of the army ... so 
 that by degrees he had headed the greatest part of 
 the army with Anabaptists, Anti-nomians, Seekers, 
 or Separatists at best : and all these he tied together 
 by the point of liberty of conscience, which was 
 the common interest in which they did unite." ^ 
 
 Cromwell himself was, perhaps, as sincerely 
 attached to religious toleration as any sectary in 
 the host he led to victory, but political necessity 
 set limits to his action. Roman Catholics were 
 
 1 Autobiography, part i, p. 53. 
 
 2 V. Ibid., p, 57. Baxter attributes to Sir Henry Vane the 
 special advocacy of religious toleration. " The two courses in 
 which he had most success, and spake most plainly, were his 
 earnest plea for universal liberty of conscience, and against the 
 magistrates intermeddling with religion, and his teaching his 
 followers to revile the ministry, calling them ordinarily Blackcoats, 
 Priests, and other names which then savoured of reproach ; and 
 those gentlemen that adhered to the ministry, they said, were 
 Priest-ridden" (p. 75). 
 
INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT 247 
 
 left outside every scheme of toleration ; the in- 
 compatibility of their doctrines with good citizen- 
 ship was the one point on which all parties were 
 agreed ; and Prelatists were necessarily also " ma- 
 lignants." These, therefore, were excluded from 
 legal recognition. The Instrument of Government 
 [1653] under which the Protectorate was established 
 secured toleration within certain limits. It required 
 that there should be a public profession of Chris- 
 tianity with full protection for those congregations 
 which felt themselves unable to comply with the 
 established forms, provided that they did not abuse 
 this liberty to the civil injury of others and to the 
 actual disturbance of the public peace on their 
 parts, and it was distinctly added "that this liberty i,f 
 was not to be extended to Popery or Prelacy." ^ 
 
 The first Parliament of the Protectorate showed 
 a tendency to recede from the position established 
 by the Instrument. A certain reaction was, indeed, 
 inevitable, for not only was the extravagance of the 
 sectaries more than ever alarming, but the influence 
 of the clergy, Presbyterian and Independent, began 
 to reassert itself as soon as any degree of settled 
 government had been assured. Another assembly 
 of divines — fourteen in number" — was brought 
 
 ^ V. Gardiner, Commonwealth and Protectorate, vol. ii. p. 290. 
 
 2 The original design was to have a numerous assembly drawn 
 from the whole country, and more or less representative ; but this 
 was given up in favour of a committee of selected divines. 
 
240 TOLERATION 
 
 together in Jerusalem chamber to advise Parlia- 
 ment in matters of religion, and it fell at once 
 to the old task of determining the "fundamentals" 
 of Christianity. 
 
 Of this assembly Baxter was a member, but he 
 arrived late, and found the members engaged on a 
 long list of" fundamentals " drafted by John Owen, 
 the famous Independent, Dean of Christ Church.^ 
 Baxter was averse to lengthy doctrinal statements, 
 and proposed the " Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Deca- 
 logue" as sufficient for parliamentary purposes, 
 but he was overruled. Thereupon he says, " I saw 
 that there was nothing for me and others of my 
 mind to do, but only to hinder them from doing 
 harm and trusting in their own opinions or crude 
 conceits, amongst our fundamentals." ^ It was 
 
 1 Owen and fourteen other ministers had protested against 
 Socinianism in 1652, and "accompanied their protest with a 
 scheme for the settlement of outstanding ecclesiastical questions." 
 The House responded by appointing a Committee for the Propa- 
 gation of the Gospel. " Challenged to explain what they regarded 
 as the principles of Christianity, any assault on which was to 
 disqualify from toleration, Owen and his supporters produced no 
 less than fifteen fundamentals, asserting amongst other things, that 
 none who sought to discover the mind of God except by the Holy 
 Scriptures, who denied the ordinary doctrine of the Trinity, the 
 incarnation, justification by grace, the necessity of forsaking sin, 
 the resurrection, or even forsook and despised the duties of God's 
 worship, were to be allowed to propagate their opinions." >. Dr. 
 Gardiner, Commonwealth a7id Protectorate, vol. ii. p. 3 I . 
 
 - >. Autobiography y bk. i. pp. 198, 1 99. 
 
BAXTER AND CROMWELL 249 
 
 during his stay in London in order to attend the 
 discussions in the Jerusalem chamber that Baxter 
 was ordered to preach before the Protector. It 
 was eminently characteristic of the most single- 
 minded and least tactful of Puritan divines that he 
 thought himself called upon to denounce the inter- 
 ference of politicians in ecclesiastical controversies.^ 
 In a subsequent interview with Cromwell, Baxter, 
 according to his own account, descanted on the 
 blessing of the old English monarchy, and ap- 
 parently caused some resentment in his formid- 
 able listener. The two men were more nearly 
 agreed in their political judgment than they knew, 
 but they were entirely antipathetic in temper and 
 habit of mind. Cromwell seemed to Baxter a 
 cynical Erastian masquerading as a religious zealot ; 
 Baxter, in the eyes of Cromwell, looked the very 
 mode) of a futile and loquacious bigot. 
 
 On December 7th, 1654, the Parliament passed 
 a resolution that " the true, reformed, protestant, 
 
 ^ Ibid., ^.20^. " I knew not which way to provoke him better 
 to his duty than by preaching on i Corinthians i. 10 against the 
 divisions and distractions of the Church, and shewing how 
 mischievous a thing it was for politicians to maintain such 
 divisions for their own ends, that they might fish in troubled 
 waters, and keep the Church by its divisions in a state of weak- 
 ness, lest it should be able to offend them, and to shew the 
 necessity and means of union. But the plainness and nearness I 
 heard were displeasing to him and his courtiers, but they put it 
 up." 
 
250 TOLERATION 
 
 Christian religion, as it is contained in the Holy- 
 Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and 
 no other shall be asserted and maintained as the 
 public profession of these nations." The question 
 of the limits of the toleration which should be 
 granted to the sectaries who stood outside the 
 established system of religion was next debated ; 
 and here it speedily became apparent that the old 
 persecuting leaven of the Covenant was working 
 potently in the legislature. There was a victim ready 
 to hand in the person of the irrepressible Socinian 
 John Biddle, who had once more brought himself 
 within reach of the law by publishing two heretical 
 Catechisms. It was ordered (December 13th, 1654), 
 " that John Biddle be committed prisoner to the 
 Gate house in Westminster : and there be kept 
 close prisoner, without pen, ink, or paper, in order 
 to a further proceeding against him." To what 
 lengths of severity the Parliament would have 
 proceeded against opinions regarded almost univer- 
 sally with horror does not appear, for the breach 
 with the Protector on other grounds led soon to its 
 dissolution, and Biddle's case passed into the more 
 merciful hands of Cromwell himself, who, however 
 deeply he abhorred Socinianism, was resolutely 
 averse to severe measures of religious suppression. 
 " If his views on toleration," says Dr. Gardiner, 
 '* did not quite reach the standard of the nineteenth 
 
CROMWELL S TOLERATION 25 I 
 
 century, [it must be allowed not only that] ^ they 
 were in advance of all but the choicest spirits of 
 the day in which he lived, but also that his practice 
 time after time outran his profession. Again and 
 again he had associated hirnself with the opinion 
 that blasphemy and atheism, whether they were 
 dangerous to the Government or not, were insuffer- 
 able in a Christian State. Yet when he was called 
 on to put his opinion in practice, his generosity of 
 spirit proved too strong for the theories, and he 
 showed himself anxious to alleviate the lot of the 
 sufferers, if not to remit entirely the penalties 
 imposed on them by law."^ Biddle, whose ag- 
 gressive courage almost forced the most tolerant 
 of governors to approve severity, was finally 
 banished to the Scilly Isles by an order of the 
 Council. Socinians were exasperating enough, but 
 they were few in number ; it was otherwise with 
 the Quakers, who made their appearance during the 
 Commonwealth, and almost at a bound became a 
 numerous community. 
 
 ^ This must be inserted to complete the sentence. For once 
 Dr. Gardiner exhibits an example of slipshod writing. In his 
 case, certainly, the exception proves the rule. 
 
 2 y. Commonr^ealtk and Protectorate, vol. iii. pp. 209, 210. 
 
252 TOLERATION 
 
 VI 
 
 We have said that the most resolute opposition 
 to religious liberty came from the Presbyterians ; 
 it is important to remember that the Quaker 
 movement was in its origin a vehement protest 
 against the doctrine and discipline of the Solemn 
 League and Covenant. " In the really formative 
 years of Fox's religious development, not Epis- 
 copacy, but Presbyterianism was the dominant 
 form of Church government. Calvin's Institutes^ 
 not Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity^ was the text- 
 book of the clergy with whom he was brought 
 in contact." It is no doubt true that, after the 
 restoration, the Quakers endured at the hands 
 of the dominant Episcopalians the bitterest per- 
 secution ; but still their main and most consistent 
 testimony was against the doctrine of the Presby- 
 terians. " Still the Calvinistic teaching was that 
 against which he (Fox) bore his most persistent 
 protest, and when his young disciple Barclay gave 
 literary and logical form to the new sect's teach- 
 ing, his apology was a veiled attack upon the 
 Westminster Confession, the great manifesto of 
 seventeenth-century Calvinism." ^ 
 
 The Quakers in principle were the most tolerant 
 
 1 V. (jeorge Fox, by Thomas Hodgkin, pp. 4-6. [Leaders of 
 Religion Series.] 
 
FANATICISM OF THE QUAKERS 253 
 
 of religious men, and it is claimed for them that 
 alone of all Christians they have never persecuted 
 others ; but against this honourable distinction 
 must be advanced the fact that their tolerant 
 principles were long obscured by their fanatical 
 conduct, and that their characteristic extravagances 
 threw back the cause of toleration by associating 
 it with intolerable disorder and the most grotesque 
 eccentricities. They shocked public decency, they 
 insulted public order, they threatened the rights 
 of property. " Magistrates detested them for 
 their insolence in refusing to acknowledge the 
 dignity of local authority by bowing or removing 
 their hats, whilst they alienated the masses by con- 
 demning their revelries. Religious people of 
 fixed opinions were irritated not only by the 
 pertinacity of their arguments, but by the un- 
 seemly interruption of their favourite preachers. 
 Behind all this was a widely-spread conviction that 
 the doctrine of the inner light was a blasphemous 
 assumption of the personal inspiration of the 
 Almighty." Baxter's account of them reflects the 
 horror they inspired in religious men, not un- 
 friendly to the notion of a wide religious liberty. 
 " The Quakers," he says in his autobiography, 
 " were but the Ranters turned from horrid pro- 
 faneness and blasphemy, to a life of extreme 
 austerity on the other side. Their doctrines were 
 
2 54 TOLERATION 
 
 mostly the same with the Ranters. They make 
 the light which every man hath within him to 
 be his sufficient rule, and consequently the scrip- 
 ture and ministry were set light by. They speak 
 much for the dwelling and working of the Spirit 
 in us, but little of justification, and the pardon of 
 sin, and our reconciliation with God through 
 Jesus Christ ; they pretend their dependence on 
 the Spirit's conduct, against set times of prayer 
 and against sacraments, and against their due 
 esteem of scripture and ministry. They will not 
 have the scripture called the word of God. Their 
 principal zeal lieth in railing at the ministers as 
 hirelings, deceivers, false prophets, etc., and in 
 refusing to swear before a magistrate, or to put 
 off their hat to any, or to say ' you ' instead 
 of * thou ' or * thee,' which are their words to 
 all. At first they did use to fall into tremblings 
 and sometimes vomitings in their meetings, and 
 pretended to be violently acted by the Spirit : but 
 now that is ceased, they only meet, and he that 
 pretendeth to be moved by the Spirit speaketh ; 
 and sometimes they say nothing, but sit an hour 
 or more in silence, and then depart. One while 
 divers of them went naked through divers chief 
 towns and cities of the land, as a prophetical act ; 
 some of them have famished and drowned them- 
 selves in melancholy." ^ 
 
 ^ Autobiography, bk. i. p. 77. 
 
JAMES NAYLERS CASE 255 
 
 Baxter was writing at the end of his life, and 
 he could contrast the comparatively ordered and 
 demure aspect of the Quakers, whose leader was 
 William Penn, with the demented fanaticism of 
 the earlier time when for a brief space the unhappy 
 James Nayler held a principal place in the sect. 
 The barbarity which marked the action of Parlia- 
 ment with respect to that wretched enthusiast ^ 
 
 ^ The debate on Nayler's punishment is an amazing exhi- 
 bition of blended fanaticism and cruelty. The final result was 
 the following resolution : — " That James Nayler be set on the 
 pillory, with his head in the pillory, in the New Palace, 
 Westminster, during the space of two hours, on Thursday next, 
 and be whipped by the hangman through the streets of West- 
 minster to the Old Exchange, London, and there, likewise, to 
 be set upon the pillory, with his head in the pillory, for the 
 space of two hours, between the hours of eleven and one, on 
 Saturday next, in each of the said places, wearing a paper con- 
 taining an inscription of his crimes, and that, at the Old 
 Exchange, his tongue shall be bored through with a hot iron, 
 and that he be there also stigmatised in the forehead with the 
 letter B ; and that he be afterwards sent to Bristol and conveyed 
 into and through the said city, on a horse bare ridged, with his 
 face back and there also publickly whipped, the next market day 
 after he comes thither, and that from thence he be committed to 
 prison in Bridewell, London, and there restrained from the 
 society of all people, and kept to hard labour till he be released 
 by the Parliament : and during that time be debarred of the use 
 of pen, ink, and paper, and have no relief but what he earns by 
 his daily labour." This barbarous sentence was actually carried 
 out. 
 
 V. Burton's Cromwellian Diary, vol. I. p. 158. There is a 
 careful account of the unfortunate Nayler in the T>ict. of Nat. 
 Biog., vol. xl. 
 
256 TOLERATION 
 
 is itself sufficient proof of panic ; the discussions 
 on Quakerism which his case induced in Parlia- 
 ment discover the unanimity of repugnance which 
 possessed the House against a movement which 
 seemed plainly anarchic in tendency and blas- 
 phemous in method. At the time men could not 
 be blamed for thinking that stern measures were 
 necessary for dealing with enthusiasts who, as 
 the Lord Chief Justice declared, "openly professed 
 against the ministers and ordinances and magis- 
 tracy too." It was impossible then to foresee the 
 rapid subsidence of that early madness, or to 
 understand that even then its violence was much 
 more closely connected with the severities exerted 
 in its repression than with the principles of 
 Quaker teaching. Alike in its initial fanaticism, 
 in its quick relapse into secularity, in its loss 
 of the public confidence as a religious movement, 
 in its waxing power as a philanthropic influence, 
 Quakerism is unique. No one will question the 
 great services it has rendered to humanity in later 
 times, but none can deny that its early extrava- 
 gances prolonged the reign of religious intolerance. 
 We may go farther and say that Quakerism in 
 its early enthusiasm could not be tolerated by any 
 self- respecting government. Just as Roman 
 Catholics were properly excluded from the full 
 enjoyments of civil rights until they had demon- 
 
THE RESTORATION 257 
 
 strated their practical repudiation of the formal 
 theories of their Church which were inconsistent 
 with the security of the Constitution, so the 
 Quakers were justly held to be unfit for toleration 
 until they had abandoned a procedure incom- 
 patible with public order. In both cases it may 
 not be doubted that severity provoked fanaticism, 
 but certainly in neither was severity unexcused 
 by fanaticism. 
 
 VII 
 
 The circumstances under which the Restoration 
 of the Monarchy was effected might have been 
 thought eminently favourable to the establishment 
 of religious toleration. On all hands men were 
 weary of strife ; the shibboleths of the great con- 
 troversy were generally discredited ; a salutary 
 distrust of fanaticism was widely spread. The 
 conduct of public affairs had passed out of the 
 hands of zealots into those of less principled and 
 more cautious politicians, to whom compromise 
 was easy. The actual Restoration, so far as it could 
 be credited to any party, was the work of the 
 Presbyterians, as they were commonly styled, who 
 certainly included the serious Puritans of all kinds. 
 It had been preceded by friendly negotiations be- 
 
258 TOLERATION 
 
 tween the leaders on both sides ; it was carried out 
 under pledges of liberty. The Declaration of Breda, 
 when critically examined, is seen to be vague and 
 elusive, but at the time was thought to be clear 
 and decided enough. " And," so runs the para- 
 graph on the religious question, " because the 
 passion and uncharitableness of the times have 
 produced several opinions in religion, by which 
 men are engaged in parties and animosities against 
 each other (which, when they shall hereafter unite 
 in a freedom of conversation, will be composed or 
 better understood) we do declare a liberty to tender 
 consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or 
 called in question for differences of opinion in 
 matter of religion, which do not disturb the peace 
 of the kingdom, and that we shall be ready to 
 consent to such an Act of Parliament as, upon 
 mature deliberation, shall be offered to us, for the 
 full granting that indulgence." 
 
 Neither the Presbyterians nor Charles II. really 
 grasped the situation in England. The former 
 underrated the strength of the reaction against 
 Puritan experiments in government ; the latter 
 ignored the immense change in the whole position 
 of parties which his return to England would 
 effect. The Church that re-entered on possession 
 of its ancient heritage in 1660 was, in many 
 
NARROWING OF ANGLICANISM 259 
 
 important respects, an altered Church.^ Persecu- 
 tion may purify, but it rarely widens, and never 
 softens those whom it affects. The Anglican exiles 
 came back with sharpened prejudices and narrowed 
 sympathies, but this was not all. Those years 
 of exile had been years of unflagging controversy. 
 There is no stronger intellectual stimulus than 
 peril, and the peril of Anglicanism had been 
 extreme. The ancient adversary Rome had seized 
 the opportunity to press its claims ; the arguments 
 of the enemies of Prelacy were commended by 
 their apparent success. Abundant evidence has 
 survived to show that the notion was as general 
 as it was plausible, that Anglicanism was about 
 
 ^ Baxter constantly affirms the change which, in his own 
 experience, had passed over Anglicanism. Thus {Autobiog., i. 207), 
 " Since the war, the Diocesan party by Dr. Hammond's means 
 was gone to a greater distance, and grown higher than before, and 
 denied the very being of the reformed churches and ministry ; 
 and avoided all ways of agreement with them, but by an absolute 
 submission to their power, as the Papists do by the Protestants." 
 In (^ildas Salyiams [Works, ed. Orme, vol. xiv. p. 171 f.] he 
 writes very indignantly on the subject. " Must the people " (he 
 asks) " turn their backs on the assemblies and ordinances of God ? 
 Is it better for them to have no preaching, and no sacraments, and 
 no public communion in God's worship, than to have it in an 
 assembly that hath not a prelate over it, or from a minister 
 ordained without his consent ? I confess I would not for all the 
 world stand guilty before God of the injury that this doctrine 
 hath already done to men's souls, much less of what it evidently 
 tendeth to." The whole passage should be read. 
 
26o TOLERATION 
 
 to die out altogether. That expectation was dis- 
 appointed. The Church displayed an amazing 
 vitality hitherto unsuspected. A series of vigorous 
 and able apologies made their appearance. The 
 pens of the banished divines were ceaselessly active, 
 and a copious literature of positive Anglicanism 
 came into being. Cosin, Bramhall, Hammond, 
 Thorndike, Taylor, and many others defended the 
 Anglican position against all enemies. Their learn- 
 ing was considerable, their devotion admirable, their 
 industry astonishing. The Church of England 
 became distinctive, logical, exclusive ; there really 
 was no longer a conscientious desire on the Anglican 
 side for the kind of comprehension which Baxter 
 and his friends in England were counting upon.^ 
 Laud was a martyr and Charles I. a canonised 
 saint. If the restored Anglicans had found them- 
 
 1 Baxter ascribes the reluctance of moderate men to join 
 Charles II. in his invasion of England, which ended in the rout at 
 Worcester, to the implacable attitude of the prelatical divines 
 under Hammond's influence. " It is hard to bring men readily to 
 venture their lives to bring themselves into a prison, or beggary, or 
 banishment " [)>. tAutobiog., i. p. 68]. For Hammond's views 
 see the treatises " Of Schism, a defence of the Church of England 
 against the exceptions of the Romanists," and " A parajnesis or 
 seasonable exhortatory to all true sons of the Church of England " 
 \Miscelhuieous Theological Works, vol. ii.. Lib. of Ang.-Cath. 
 Theol.]. Hammond presented that combination of natural sweet- 
 ness, theological sanity, and ecclesiastical intolerance which modern 
 Anglicanism appears to foster. 
 
PUBLIC OPINION AT THE RESTORATION 26 1 
 
 selves encountered by such a national sentiment as 
 that which had given strength to the Long Parlia- 
 ment, they might have moderated their ecclesiastical 
 theory and accepted a genuine compromise with 
 their religious rivals ; but they found nothing 
 of the kind. On the contrary, all things facilitated 
 the intolerance to which they inclined. 
 
 The intense unpopularity of the Presbyterian 
 discipline placed at the disposal of the hierarchy 
 forces of public opinion which assuredly neither 
 the bishops nor their system could have secured. 
 There was no general feeling in favour of the 
 Prayer-book and the bishops. The episcopal 
 system was dear to the memory of the non- 
 religious and irreligious masses as being the 
 negation of any effective moral discipline ; it 
 was welcomed as promising release from an in- 
 tolerable yoke. As the Cavaliers re-entered on 
 their estates and realised the whole extent of 
 their losses, it is not wonderful that they were 
 filled with a vengeful resentment, which easily 
 expressed itself in political action when oppor- 
 tunity came. Charles II. and his brother pursued 
 a policy which the mass of Englishmen hated : 
 they ran counter to the Protestant feeling of the 
 nation. 
 
 Their experiments in toleration were deter- 
 mined by political exigencies, never by political 
 
262 TOLERATION 
 
 principles, and, therefore, they never succeeded 
 in gaining any serious support even from those 
 sections of the community which had suffered 
 most from the established system.^ By bringing 
 into prominence the essential agreement of the 
 nation on the fundamental issue of Protestantism, 
 the restored Stuarts promoted the victory of so 
 much toleration as the circumstances of the 
 country admitted. It was impossible to maintain 
 the repressive system, built up under the ex- 
 
 1 The intrinsic falseness of Stuart patronage of religious 
 liberty was instinctively divined by sincere men of all parties. 
 Anthony Wood gives a curious account of James II. 's homily 
 on charity to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, during a visit to the 
 University, plainly designed to promote the most flagrant violence 
 to law and conscience in the interest of his Romanising crusade. 
 The king was evidently possessed by the desire to push that 
 project, and he showed the fact in everything he said and did. 
 In complimenting South on his preaching, he took occasion to 
 remark " that he heard many of them used notes in their sermons, 
 but none of his church ever did." Mr. Clark, of All Souls, was 
 reminded that as a fellow of that College he was " bound by 
 statute to pray for the dead." In parting from the vice- 
 chancellor and doctors, the king said, " I must tell you that in 
 the king my father's time the Church of England's men and the 
 Catholicks loved each other and were, as 'twere, all one ; but now 
 there is gotten a spirit among you which is quite contrary." The 
 Popish plot was still fresh in the popular memory, and might 
 justify some contempt of Protestant tolerance. But even more 
 recent was the "Revocation of the Edict of Nantes" [1685], 
 which cast a suggestive light on Romanist notions of religious 
 liberty. *)>. Wood's Life and Times, vol. iii. p. 232 f [Oxford 
 Historical Society.] 
 
LOCKE S LETTER ON TOLERATION 263 
 
 asperating conditions of the Restoration, when 
 Anglicans and Nonconformists had united in 
 effecting the Revolution. Locke certainly uttered 
 the general feeling of thoughtful Englishmen 
 when he summed up the situation in his brief 
 preface to A letter concerning Toleration. 
 
 " Our government," he said, " has not only been 
 partial in matters of religion, but those also who 
 have suffered under that partiality, and have there- 
 fore endeavoured by their writings to vindicate 
 their own rights and liberties, have for the most 
 part done it upon narrow principles, suited only to 
 the interests of their own sects. This narrowness 
 of spirit on all sides has undoubtedly been the 
 principal occasion of our miseries and confusions. 
 But whatever have been the occasions, it is now 
 high time to seek for a thorough cure. We have 
 need of more generous remedies than what have 
 yet been made use of in our distemper. It is 
 neither declarations of indulgence, nor acts of 
 comprehension, such as have yet been practised 
 or projected amongst us, that can do the work. 
 The first will but palliate, the second increase our 
 evil." Locke's ideal was " absolute liberty, just and 
 true liberty, equal and impartial liberty " ; but for 
 that the nation was not then prepared. The Tolera- 
 tion Act [1689] ^^^ ^^'' short of the philosopher's 
 conception. Its range was limited to Protestants, 
 
264 TOLERATION 
 
 and from that category all but orthodox believers 
 were excluded. Substantially the system of the 
 Commonwealth was incorporated in the statute, 
 with the difference that in the interval the estab- 
 lished Church had again become *' prelatic." The 
 exceptional situation of the Quakers was recognised 
 in the matter of oaths and ignored in that of 
 tithes. Property rights could not be sacrificed 
 even to the alleged distress of conscience. Dis- 
 senting ministers were permitted to officiate in 
 certified meeting houses, open to the public, on 
 condition that they subscribed the Articles of 
 Religion with exception of three Articles and part 
 of a fourth. In the case of Anabaptists a further 
 concession was made to cover their objection to 
 infant baptism. Thus the Toleration Act secured 
 a very modest instalment of that " absolute liberty " 
 for which Locke pleaded, but its very modesty 
 was a pledge of its practical success. The senti- 
 ment of the nation was certainly hostile to any 
 larger measure, and remained hostile for genera- 
 tions. No conclusion emerges more clearly from 
 a review of religious legislation than the practical 
 futility of outrunning popular opinion ; until the 
 English people had become tolerant, a genuine 
 religious equality was unattainable, and only in 
 proportion to the actual tolerance of society can 
 laws, the most liberal in the world, affect anything. 
 
MODERN TOLERATION 265 
 
 Even now, after more than two centuries, it would 
 be a rash thing to affirm that the settled temper of 
 the masses is tolerant ; interest in religion has 
 declined, and zeal is very generally discredited. 
 Men's passions are more easily engaged in the 
 conflicts of trade and class ; we are all secularists 
 now. It is in these altered directions of the 
 popular interests rather than in any genuine im- 
 provement of the national temper that the security 
 of religious liberty among us must perhaps be 
 sought. 
 

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