CCCVIII.--_For the Right Honourable, my Lady_ VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE.
(_WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY--RELIGIOUS SECTS._)
MADAM,--Grace, mercy, and peace be to you.--I am glad to hear that
your Ladyship is in any tolerable health; and shall pray that the Lord
may be your Strength and Rock. Sure I am, that He took you out of the
womb; and you have been casten on Him from the breasts. I am confident
that He will not leave you till He crown the work begun in you.
There is nothing here but divisions in the Church and Assembly;[438]
for beside Brownists and Independents[439] (who, of all that differ
from us, come nearest to walkers with God), there are many other
sects here, of Anabaptists,[440] Libertines who are for all opinions
in religion, fleshly and abominable Antinomians,[441] and
Seekers,[442] who are for no church-ordinances, but expect apostles to
come and reform churches; and a world of others, all against the
government of presbyteries.[443] Luther observed, when he studied to
reform, that two-and-thirty sundry sects arose; of all which I have
named a part, except those called Seekers, who were not then arisen.
He said, God should crush them, and that they should rise again: both
which we see accomplished. In the Assembly, we have well near ended
the government, and are upon the power of Synods, and I hope near at
an end with them; and so I trust to be delivered from this prison
shortly. The King hath dissolved the treaty of peace at Uxbridge, and
adhereth to his sweet prelates, and would abate nothing but a little
of the rigour of their courts, and a suspending of laws against the
ceremonies, not a taking away of them.[444] The not prospering of our
armies there in Scotland is ascribed here to the sins of the land, and
particularly to the divisions and back-slidings of many from the
cause, and the not executing of justice against bloody malignants.
[438] The Assembly of Divines at Westminster.
[439] The Independents are well known. Their real founder is
considered to have been one Mr. John Robinson, who became a Brownist
and was admitted pastor of the English church at Leyden. When he died,
many of his congregation went from Leyden into New England, whither
they carried his opinions, which spread widely there, and then by
letters and other means were conveyed back into Old England.
[440] The Anabaptists of England at that time are not to be confounded
with the fanatics of the same name who appeared in Germany in 1521,
soon after the dawn of the Reformation. The peculiar opinions of
English Anabaptists were, that baptism ought to be administered only
to adults, and that the mode of it ought to be by immersion, or
dipping. They were divided into _General_ and _Particular_, the former
holding Arminian views of Christian doctrine, while the latter were
strictly Calvinistic.
[441] The Antinomians professed to hold doctrinal sentiments rigidly
Calvinistic; but they deduced from them conclusions deeply injurious
to the interests of religion and morality.
[442] Of the _Seekers_ or _Expecters_, Pagitt has given the following
account:--"They deny that there is any true church, or any true
minister, or any ordinances: some of them affirm the church to be in
the wilderness, and they are asking for it there; others say that it
is in the smoke of the temple, and that they are groping for it there"
("Heresiography," p. 141).
[443] Thomas Edwards, in his "Gangræna," enumerates sixteen sorts of
sectaries of that time. 1. Independents; 2. Brownists; 3. Chiliasts,
or Millennaries; 4. Antinomians; 5. Anabaptists; 6. Manifestarians, or
Arminians; 7. Libertines; 8. Familists; 9. Enthusiasts; 10. Seekers
and Waiters; 11. Perfectists; 12. Socinians; 13. Arians; 14.
Antitrinitarians; 15. Antiscripturists; 16. Sceptics and Questionists,
who question everything in matters of religion. In these different
sects there were many subdivisions.
[444] In the contest between Charles I. and his English Parliament,
Charles was induced to make proposals of a treaty to the Parliament.
Uxbridge was fixed on as the place for conducting the treaty; and
commissioners from the King, the Parliament, and Scotland, were
appointed. But they found it impracticable to come to any agreement.
He alludes to this in his sermon before the House of Lords.
My wife here, under the physicians, remembereth her service to your
Ladyship. So recommending you to the rich grace of Christ, I rest,
your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ,