understood what life and conversation he hath been of, and whether he hath been addicted to any heresy, or to the reading of ANY heretical books, or to curious and strange questions, and idle speculations; or rather, whether he be accounted sound and consenting in all things to the doctrine received in the church. Whereunto if he agree, he is also to expound some part of the holy scriptures, twice or oftener, as it shall seem meet to the examiners, and that before the conference and that church which is interested. Let him also be demanded of the principal heads of divinity and whether he will diligently execute and discharge his ministry, and in the execution thereof propound unto himself, not his own desires and commodities, but the glory of God and edification of the church. Lastly, whether he will be studious and careful to maintain and preserve wholesome doc. trine, and ecclesiastical discipline." : So much for the restraints upon the clergy; let us now see in what manner the laity were to be restrained and punished. "Let them only be admitted to the communion, that have made confession of their faith, and submitted themselves to the discipline: unless they shall bring letters testimonial of good credit from some other place, or shall approve themselves by some other sufficient testimony." The reader must not suppose, that the letters testimonial, mentioned in the excepting clause, were intended to show the good standing of persons in other denominations. No such idea was then thought of, for it is expressly declared, that "the discipline of Christ's church, that is necessary for all times, is delivered by Christ, and set down in the holy scriptures ;" and that, according to this discipline, "of all particular churches, there is one and the same right, order, and form " These letters testimonial, therefore, were to be from other parishes or churches, where the same discipline was established; and no testimony would be considered as sufficient, which did not prove a submission to the discipline. No latitude for tender consciences-no admission for Lutheran protestants, or for those who were conscientious believers in the necessity of episcopal government and ordination. In every church there were to be pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons ; the pastors, to "administer the word and sacraments;" the teachers, to be "occupied in wholesome doctrine;" the elders, to “watch over the life and behaviour of every man ;" the deacons, to "have care over the poor." The pastors, teachers, and elders, were to form a consistory, or senate of elders, by whose "common counsel all things" were to be "directed, that belonged to the state of their church." In this consistory a plurality of voices was to govern ; "the most voices are to be yielded unto." Besides these consistories, there were to be conferences beld every six weeks, which were, "the meetings of the elders of a few churches, as for example, of twelve ;" one minister and one elder," from each particular church. To the consistories it would belong to administer ecclesiastical censures, such as admonition, suspension, and excommunication; to the conferences, to examine the proceedings of the consistories. "They that are to be excommunicated, being in pùblick charge in the church, are to be deposed also from their charges." "When there is question concerning an heretick, complained of to the consistory, straight let two or three neighbour ministers be called, men godly and learned, and free from that suspicion, by whose opinion he may be suspended, till such time as the conference may take knowledge of his cause. "The obstinate, after admonition by the consistory, though the fault have not been so great, are to be suspended from the communion; and if they continue in their obstinacy-let the sentence of excommunication be pronounced, &c. "He that hath committed great offences, opprobrious to the church, and to be GRIEVOUSLY PUNISHED by the magistrate's authority; albeit he profess his repentance in words, yet for the trial thereof, and to take away the offence, let him for a time be kept from the communion, which how often and how long it is to be done, let the consistory, according to their discretion, determine; after which, if the party repent, he is brotherly to be received again, but not until he have openly professed his repentance before the church, by consent whereof he should have been excommunicated. "Particular churches are to communicate one with another, by common meetings and resorts; in them, only ecclesiastical matters are to be handled, &c. They that are to meet in such assemblies are to be chosen by the consent of the churches. of that assembly, &c. "Let such only be chosen that exercise publick function in the church of ministry or eldership, and which have subscribed to the doctrine and discipline, and have promised to behave themselves according to the word of God, &c." Other elders, and ministers, and deacons, and students in divinity, are allowed to be present. "But they only are to give voice, which are chosen by the churches, and have brought their instructions signed from them." These assemblies were to be divided into conferences and synods; conferences consisting, as has been before stated, of delegates from particular churches, not exceeding twelve. Synods, or councils, were to be particular and universal: I. Particular, comprehending, 1. Provincial synods, consisting of two ministers and two elders from every conference in the province, there being twenty-four conferences in each province. 2. National, consisting of three ministers and three elders from every provincial synod. II. The universal, general or ecumenical synod or council, was to be "a meeting of the chosen men of every national synod." Such was the system which the puritans presented to the queen and parliament, as the holy and synodical discipline, agreeable to the word of God, and which they laboured, by every possible method, to make the law of the land. How little it provided for religious liberty, the reader must already have perceived; but a quotation or two, from other official writings of that period, will place this subject in the strongest light: "They may be of, and in the commonwealth," says the Defence of the Admonition, p. 51, "which neither may, nor can be, of, nor in the church; and, therefore, the church having nothing to do with such, the magistrate OUGHT to see, that they join to hear sermons in the place where they are made, whether it be in those parishes where there is a church, and so preaching, or where else he shall think best, and cause them to be exainined, how they profit, and if they profit not, to punish them, and as their contempt groweth, so to increase the punishment, until such times as they declare manifest tokens of un-repentantness, and then, as rotten members that do not only no good nor service in the body, but also corrupt and infect others, cut them off." Observe the gradation: punish them-increase the punishment-cut them off: and all this by the magistrate ! The consistories and conferences were first to try and condemn men for heresy, and then deliver them over to the secu lar arm, to be GRIEVOUSLY PUNISHED. "The church," says Cartwright, "wherein any magistrate, king, or emperor, is a member, is divided into some that are to govern, as pastors, doctors, and elders, and into such as are to obey, as magistrates of all sorts, and the people." 66 Every fault that tendeth either to the hurt of a man's neighbour, or to the hindrance of the glory of God, is to be examined and dealt in by the order of the holy church." Nay, the very sus picion of avarice, pride, superfluities have been the government; and as "the in meat or clothing, falls under their lash. most voices" were "to be yielded unto," it requires no great penetration to see, that she would have been constantly out-voted by her own subjects. She would have sunk to the character of a solitary individual of a solitary parish. She would have been subject to the consistory of her own parish, whose duty it would have been to watch over her life and behaviour, to receive any complaint against her, to examine her for heretical opinions, to cite her to appear publickly before them, and to admonish, suspend, or excommunicate her, as might be determined by the plurality of voices. “All men," says Goodman, one of the heads of the puritans, "are bound to see the laws of God kept, and to suppress and resist idolatry by force. Nor is it sufficient for subjects not to obey the wicked commands of princes, but they must resist them; and deliver the children of God out of the hands of their enemies, as we would deliver a sheep that is in danger to be devoured by a wolf. If the magistrates shall refuse to put mass mongers and false preachers to death, the people in seeing it performed shew that zeal of God which was commended in Phineas. Subjects do promise obedience, that the magistrate might help them; which, if he does not, they are discharged of their obedience. If magistrates, without fear, transgress God's laws themselves, and command others to do the like, they are no more to be taken for magis-lege of being the church's executioner— trates, but to be examin'd, accus'd, condemn'd, and punished, as private transgressors. Evil princes ought, by the law of God, to be deposed, and inferiour magistrates ought chiefly to do it." These last quotations will lead us to the real cause why the puritans were dealt with so rigorously by the govern ment. It was not so much for their non-conformity, as it was for the tendency of their principles and writings to overthrow the authority of the queen, and the very form and character of the government. This will be made evident, by observing the operation of the holy discipline itself, and the express declarations of its advocates. If the discipline had been established by the queen and parliament, they would at once have stripped themselves of all authority. The queen as a woman could have no voice in the consistories, conferences, and synods; and even if she could, it would not have been as head of the nation, but merely as a member of a particular church. T'he pastors, doctors, and elders, would What might thus be done to the queen, might be done also to every member of the parliament, and to every officer of civil government; for throughout the book of discipline, not a syllable is to be found of any prerogative to the civil magistrate, unless it be the privi the privilege of GRIEVOUSLY PUNISHING those whom the consistory or the conference might deliver over to the secular arm. As an evidence that such was the view taken of the holy discipline by the government, I shall lay before your readers an extract from two briefs, in which the doctrines and practices of the puritans are stated, from their own writings, as tending to the overthrow of her majesty's government and preroga tive, as well in causes civil as ecclesiastical, and dangerous to the state and policy of the realm. They are too long to be inserted entire, but may be found, the first in Strype's life of Whitgift. Appendix, p. 138. The second, in his Annals, vol. iv, p. 140. 1. "They do impugn her majesty's royal prerogative and governmentby attributing to her highness and her magistrates no more than the papists do, potestatem facti non juris in causis ecclesiasticis, viz. That which they de termine to be law and right, the prince and her officers shall see it put in execu tion politically." The authorities in the margin are Suecanus, p. 442. J. B. lib. 2. de polit. civil. et ecclesiastic. p. 83, 97, 98, 129.-" By making her highness subject to the censures and ex communications of their elderships and other assemblies." [Wal. Travers Ec. cles. Disc. cum epist. T. C. p. 142.] “For else she cannot be a child of the church." [Counterpoison, 174.] "2. They likewise, by their plot, shake the safety of her majesty, and of the realm, [Theol. Fenner, 186.] by making certain magistrates, in every commonwealth, (as God's institution,) who shall have authority to depose their sovereign, either by war, or otherwise, if he seem to them to break the covewant, as the Ephori in Lacedæmon had. By teaching that the government of the commonwealth must be framed to the government of the church, as the hanging to the house. [T. C. Reply. p. 646]* And they make the church government partly popular of all the people, and partly oligarchical, of a few ministers and elders. [Omnes illius secta.] *The full force of the expression of framing the government of the commonwealth to that of the church, as the hangings to the house, will be best seen by reading the pas sage in Cartwright's Defence, to which the writer here alludes. "The world," says Cartwright, "is now deceived, that thinketh that the church must be framed according to the commonwealth; and the church government according to the civil government; which is as much to say, as if a man should fashion his house according to his bangings, whereas indeed it is clean contray: That as the hangings are made fit for the house, so the commonwealth must be made to agree with the church, and the government thereof with her government; for as the house is before the hangings, therefore the hangings, which come after, must be framed to the house which was before; so the church being before there was any commonwealth, and the commonwealth, coming after, must be fashjoned, and made suitable unto the church; otherwise God is made to give place to men, heaven to earth," &c. All this clearly pointed to the subversion of the civil government. "3. Again, they impair the revenues of the crown, By teaching that things once consecrated to God, for the service of the church, belong to him forever; [Compt. of the commonalty, c. 6.] calling the having of impropriations and abbey lands sacrilege. [2 Admonit. p. 13. Learned Discourse, p. 54.] "By urging an immunity of the revenues of persons ecclesiastical, from publick impositions, &c. "4. Lastly. They abrogate or change the greatest part of the laws of the land; and namely, for example sake; 66 "By urging, legem talionis, an eye for an eye, &c. [Theol. Fenner, p. 178.] By urging of necessity the judicial law of Moses, for penalties of death upou blasphemers, &c. [Ibid. p. 174, 175, 176, 177.] For they hold that no prince or law may spare the life of any such persons. [T. C. Reply. p. 36.] By teaching that ministers should be judges juris, what is law in all matters, and civil magistrates judges only of the fact. [J. B. lib. 2. de Polit. Civil. et Ecclesiastic. p. 128, 129, 130.] By affirming that all controversies of doctrine and manners (so far as appertaineth to conscience) do belong to the determination of elderships, and other church assemblies. [Demonstr. of Discipline, p. 80.] 5. They also deprave the justice of the realm, and lords of the council, as writing thus: I will not in this place charge our council with that which followeth, &c. namely, that they execute no judgment, no, not the judgment of the fatherless. But this I will say, that they cannot possibly deal truly in the matter of justice between man and man; in so much as they bend all their forces to bereaf Jesus Christ of that right which he hath in the government of his church; by which ungodly and wicked course, as they have held on, ever since the beginning of her majesty's reign, so, at this day, they have taken greater boldness, and grown more rebellious against the Lord and his cause, than ever they were.' [Epist. bef. the book termed, Reformation no enemy to the state p. 4, 5.] All these mischiefs notwithstanding, &c. they say, it shall prevail; [Ref. no enemy, 6. 1.] Malgre the queen, council, and all that stand against it. [Epist. to the Demonst. circa finem.] To bring to pass that it may so prevail they have penn'd a book of discipline, partly termed holy, partly synodical, &c wholly innovating and changing all laws, common and ecclesi astical, concerning church matters and persons, without once naming the Christian magistrate, or his authority. MINISTERS; [Wright;] let us take our penny worths of them, and not dye in their debt.' "One of them [Snape] ask'd this question: What will you say, if we overthrow the bishops, and that government, all in one day? "They write [Epist. to the Demonstr.] that if it come in by such means as will make your hearts ake, you must blame yourselves. And Payne to Flud] that it is more than time to register the names of the fittest and hottest brethren, round about their several dwellings, whereby to put Suecanus's godly counsel in execution, viz. If the prince will not, then to erect it themselves. In which point,' saith he, we have dolefully fail'd, which now or never standeth us in hand to prosecute with all celerity, without lingring and staying so long for parliaments.' The second brief was drawn up by the lord keeper, sir John Puckring. I shall cite only a few paragraphs from it to show their coincidence with the statements in the first, above given. He speaks of two sorts of puritans, the proper presbyterians, who still continued in the communion of the church, and the Barrowists, or Brownists, who had separated.* Of the first of these he says: Seeing then it must (as they say) prevail, malgre all withstanders; [subscription to the book of discipline,] and they mention other means to advance it, besides suit to the queen's majesty, the council, and parliament; and in one book it is wish'd, [Epitome of Martin,] that the parliament would bring it in, though it were by withstand ing her majesty: what can those means be, but the prosecution (by force and rebellion) of that plot which men of the same humour have described, and followed in the like case. For they [Martin Senior,] brag of an 100,000 hands to offer a supplication; which, he saith, in policy would not be reject "When the supremacy was justly ed; especially, standing thus in danger restored to the crown, one chief superof our enemies abroad: [Motion with eminency was, that the last appellation, submission, p 39:] That thousands sigh in all ecclesiastical causes, was to be for it, and ten thousands have fought made to the king in the chancery. This for it, and approved; and worthy men they take away; for they make the apof all shires have consented to it. That pellation from an eldership consistory, [T. C. Reply, p. 44.] some of these to a colloquy or conference; from thence matters are such, as if every hair of to a provincial synod; and, lastly, to a our head were a life, we ought to national; and that to be final. afford them, in defence of them. "In their letters [Lord to Fenner] they begin to take care, how such as they displace, by their reformation, as bishops, deans, &c. may be provided for, so as the commonwealth be not pestered with beggars. They [Lord] aniinate one another thus: Buckle with the bishop. MASSACRE THESE MALKIN 6 *The Barrowists were the same as the Brownists; being so called after Brown, Their wards called independency, and was the origin of the congregational system Robinson, the pastor of the Plymouth colonists at Leyden, was of this sect. |