Besides the Presbyterians and Independents, there were ministers of
another persuasion, who accepted preferment in the Church of England
under the Commonwealth.
[Sidenote: _Baptists._]
The existence of the Baptists may be traced back to an early period.
One of this denomination, a yeoman of the guard at Windsor, suffered
martyrdom under Queen Mary.[221] In the time of Elizabeth, the
Antipædobaptists were complained of by Bishop Jewel "as a large and
inauspicious crop." A Church of that order appears to have existed at
Ely, in the year 1573. Flemish Baptists took refuge in this country
about the same time; and another English congregation, apparently of
Antipædobaptist principles, was discovered in 1586; a third, in 1588,
is described as meeting in the fields for prayer and exposition of
Scripture. It is said that they dined together, and collected money to
pay for their refreshments, giving the surplus to their brethren in
bonds. No forms were used. A liturgy seemed to them stinted prayer--a
mere babbling in the Lord's sight. They denied the authority of the
Queen in ecclesiastical matters, and counted it unlawful to attend
the parish church. They owned no necessity to wait for reform by
the magistrates, saying, wherever stones were ready, they ought to
build with them at once, as the apostles did. It is distinctly stated
that these people held it unlawful to baptize children.[222] In the
year 1589, it was affirmed that there were several Anabaptistical
conventicles in London and other places.[223] A prisoner named
Maydstone, holding Baptist opinions, is mentioned in 1597 as under
sentence of death in Norwich gaol. The Baptists were foremost in the
advocacy of religious freedom, and perhaps to one of them, Leonard
Busher, citizen of London, belongs the honour of presenting in this
country the first distinct and broad plea for liberty of conscience.
It is dated 1614, and is prefaced by an epistle to the Presbyterian
reader; and a very remarkable epistle it is, deserving a renown which
it has never acquired. The writer says, he is sure that the country
will be distracted with oppression and persecution until liberty of
conscience be allowed. His plea is no new doctrine, but as old as the
Word of God. It is the birthright of peaceful people, denied by the
subjects of popes, bishops, and selfish priests, a blessing for the
want of which the Christian part of the universe hath suffered "a
continual agony and earthquake." Appealing to King James, Busher says,
"that Jews, Christians, and monks are tolerated in Constantinople,"
and asks, "If this be so, how much more ought Christians to tolerate
Christians?" "It is not only unmerciful, but unnatural and abominable;
yea, monstrous, for one Christian to vex and destroy another for
difference and questions of religion." "Wherefore," he goes on to say,
"in all humility and Christian modesty, I do affirm, that through the
unlawful weed-hook of persecution which your predecessors have used,
and by your Majesty and Parliament is still continued, there is such
a quantity of wheat plucked up, and such a multitude of tares left
behind, that the wheat which remains cannot yet appear in any right
visible congregation." Boldly, and in the broadest way, this early
apostle of liberty condemns all persecution whatsoever, not excepting
even persecutions carried on against Papists; and he contends that by
persecuting them we Protestants encourage them to persecute us. People
tainted with treason are to be denied the liberty of congregating
together, but no others. And further, this writer demands, "That it be
lawful for every person or persons, yea, _Jews and Papists_, to write,
dispute, confer and reason, print and publish any matter touching
religion, either for or against whomsoever."[224]
Other publications of the same character were written by members of the
same communion, and in 1620 the Baptists issued a humble supplication,
abounding in references to the Fathers and to ecclesiastical history.
[Sidenote: _Baptists._]
In the Yarmouth Corporation Records there is a letter to the Lord
Chief Justice of England, written by the Bailiffs in the year 1624,
respecting the Baptists in that town: "Right honourable, our duties in
all humble wise remembered. We received certain letters, signed by your
lordship, but without either date or place, from whence, reproving our
predecessors, as having no care in the execution of a warrant made to
them by your lordship and Justice Dodridge (upon a certificate from
the Lord Bishop of Norwich at the last assizes in Norfolk, touching
the conventicles and meetings of Separatists and Anabaptists within
this town, and of a list of their names surprised at such conventicles)
for the apprehending of them, and sending them to the Lord Bishop of
Norwich, to be examined and further ordered, and for the re-committing
of Cayne, and apprehending of Uryn, the one dwelling and conversing
amongst us, the other frequenting this town as a merchant, so as by
such negligence your honour might conceive that some among us do
secretly connive, if not favour those ways (except that by a speedy
execution of your lordship's warrant directed unto us, the contrary
may appear) advising us to be so careful thereof, as we may give a
good account at the next assizes of our service therein. May it please
your honour, upon the receipt of your letters, we conferred with the
bailiffs of the town, for that time being, and required of them to
have the said warrant, with purpose to put the same in execution; who
answered us that they never had, nor before now heard of, any such
warrant. Now, so it is, saving your honour's favour and reformation,
not so much for want of date of your lordship's letter, or place from
whence it was directed, as for want of such warrant from your lordship
unto us, or our said predecessors, we presumed to forbear to execute
such business, humbly beseeching your lordship to grant us such your
warrant to the former effect, and to pardon us herein; and for our
parts, not knowing any of us to connive, or favour those ways, we
will be willing and ready, in all we can, to execute the same, and
whatever else your lordship shall give us in charge. And so, praying
to the Almighty to increase and prosper your days in all honour and
happiness, we rest, your honour's at command,
"J. TRINDLE, }
"THOMAS JOHNSON, } Bailiffs."[225]
The portion of the "Yarmouth Records" relating to this period are
defective, and consequently the information is imperfect; but it is
certain, that not long after the date specified, several persons
denominated Anabaptists were imprisoned in Yarmouth, and continued in
confinement until the year 1626, when it was resolved by "the Town" (as
the Corporation is usually designated), to apply to the Lord Archbishop
in Parliament and the Lord Treasurer, to have them removed. What became
of them is not known, but most likely they were discharged, as Abbot,
the then Archbishop of Canterbury, was a man distinguished by his
leniency towards Nonconformists.
[Sidenote: _Baptists._]
The "Records of the Church at Broadmead, Bristol," furnish an account
of the formation of a Baptist community in that place. The steps by
which it reached its ultimate ecclesiastical character are minutely
traced. Mr. Canne, a well-known Baptist minister, came to Bristol,
and debated the matter of baptism before "an abundance of people on
a green." He led the people to "step further in separation," so that
they would not so much as hear any minister who "did read the Common
Prayer." Thus, in language characteristic of such documents, it is
said, that the Lord led them by degrees, and brought them out of popish
darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel. Baptism by immersion
afterwards became the practice of the Church, but still Baptists and
Pædobaptists remained with each other in fellowship at Bristol, as they
did in some other places.[226] Having been joined by some persecuted
Welsh brethren, the Church met in "the great room" at the Dolphin, and
"sometimes at a baker's house," until the city fell into the King's
hands, when most of the professors were fain to journey to London under
the conduct of Royalist soldiers. But the guard proved treacherous,
and actually stripped and robbed the prisoners after they reached the
metropolis. They commonly met at Great Hallows, but those of their
number who had been baptized as adults, communed at the Lord's Table
with the Baptist Church under the pastoral care of William Kiffin. When
Bristol surrendered to the Parliament, the greater part of the Church
returned, but soon became "a chaos of confusion." We may add that
Mr. Kiffin, with whom these Bristol Nonconformists united in London,
describes, in a MS. History, the formation of a distinct Baptist
Church, in 1633, gathered out of the Independent community then under
the pastoral care of Henry Jacob.
Some Arminian Baptists published a Confession of Faith in 1611.[227]
Another confession, issued by the Calvinistic Baptists, containing
fifty-two articles, appeared in 1644. The Calvinistic doctrine
of predestination is distinctly affirmed, but in article xxv. the
preaching of the Gospel for the conversion of sinners is declared to be
absolutely free; and in article xxix. believers are defined as "a holy
and sanctified people." The Congregational order of Church Government
is propounded in article xxxvi. and baptism, on a profession of faith,
in article xxxix. A note to article xlviii. on civil government,
declares "it is the magistrate's duty to tender the liberty of men's
consciences, Ecc. viii. 8, (which is the tenderest thing unto all
conscientious men, and most dear unto them, and without which all
other liberties will not be worth the naming, much less enjoying),
and to protect all under them from all wrong, injury, oppression, and
molestation."[228]
By the Parliamentary ordinance of April, 1645, forbidding any person
to preach who was not an ordained minister, in the Presbyterian, or
in some other Reformed Church--all Baptist ministers became exposed
to molestation, they being accounted a sect, and not a Church.[229]
A few months after the date of this law, the Baptists being pledged
to a public controversy in London with Edmund Calamy, the Lord Mayor
interfered to prevent the disputation--a circumstance which seems to
shew that on the one hand the Baptists were becoming a formidable body
in London, and, on the other hand, that their fellow-citizens were
highly exasperated against them.[230]
[Sidenote: _Baptists._]
Before we close this brief notice of the rise and early progress of
the Baptist denomination, it may be remarked in connection with their
conspicuous advocacy of the fullest religious toleration, that they
furnish a striking example of the union of such advocacy with the
maintenance of dogmatic Christianity in that which may be termed its
most evangelical form. And, indeed, the same remark is applicable to
many of the Independents. Nor can there be any question respecting
the originality of the doctrines of religious liberty as held by the
Baptists, for it is manifest that they derived them neither from the
teaching of antiquity, nor from the writings of learned and gifted
contemporaries. Their sentiments on the subject can by no means be
considered as the expression of the genius and spirit of the age in
which they lived: for intolerance was at the time all but universal in
England and throughout the continent of Europe. So far as they were
indebted to history for their principles of freedom, the debt was
due to the sufferings of their fathers--for as Bayle says, the sect
"boasts of a great number of martyrs: its martyrology is a large volume
in folio."[231] And no doubt the discipline of pain in their own
experience had a share in both their intellectual and moral culture,
and that much of the grand lesson which they were enabled to teach had
been learned in the school of affliction. The love of liberty and the
endurance of oppression constituted the inheritance which they had
derived from their spiritual ancestry.
What has been said of the polity and discipline of Independents will
apply generally to the polity and discipline of the Baptists. These
two religious denominations substantially agreed with each other; the
main and almost the only difference between them, having relation to
the mode of Baptism, and to the recipients of the rite. When Baptist
ministers held livings they stood in the same relation to the national
establishment as did their fellow Congregationalists, admitting
members, exercising discipline, and conducting their business quite
independently of the political powers.
[Sidenote: _Tombes--Jessy._]
John Tombes, an Oxford Bachelor of Divinity of superior ability and
learning, and standing high in the estimation of all parties, had felt
difficulties respecting infant baptism long before the commencement
of the wars. Not receiving answers to certain questions which he
proposed on the subject to the Westminster Assembly, he renounced his
former practice, and avowed Antipædobaptist opinions. This brought
him into collision with some of his parishioners, whilst minister of
Fenchurch.[232] Though forfeiting that incumbency for not baptizing
infants, he was deemed eligible for the preachership of the Temple,
and obtained that honourable post. But he soon lost this preferment
also, in consequence of his publishing a treatise on the subject
which so much occupied his thoughts. The people of Bewdley, in
Worcestershire--his native town--were however allowed to choose him
for their minister, and there it was that he held the public dispute
with Richard Baxter, already described. Seeing no prospect of any
alteration in the Establishment with regard to baptism, he "gathered a
separate Church of those of his own persuasion, continuing at the same
time minister of the parish." The perpetual curacy of Bewdley having
become impoverished by the sale of ecclesiastical property, Tombes
received the parsonage of Ross, which he subsequently relinquished for
the Hospital at Ledbury. Retaining the Hospital, and removing from
Bewdley, he became once more minister of the parish of Leominster, in
Herefordshire, the place in which he had held his first preferment.
His name appears amongst Cromwell's Triers; a circumstance involving
this important consequence, that "the Commissioners agreed to own
the Baptists as their brethren, and that if such applied to them for
probation, and appeared in other respects to be duly qualified, they
should not be rejected for holding this opinion. And hence it came
to pass, that at the Restoration several parishes were found to have
Baptist ministers fixed in them."[233] Yet throughout this good man's
life, after he had embraced Antipædobaptist views, his peculiarities in
that respect exposed him to much trouble and sorrow.
Henry Jessy, a Cambridge Master of Arts, after holding the living of
Aughton, in Yorkshire, accepted the pastorship of an Independent
congregation in the borough of Southwark; but in consequence of several
of the members embracing Baptist opinions, he examined the controversy
for himself, and this ended in his submitting to be immersed, and in
his becoming a zealous advocate of the practice. Yet he continued to
admit Pædobaptists to the Lord's Supper, and lived in charity with his
Independent brethren. During the Commonwealth, he spent every Lord's
Day in the afternoon "among his own people," giving instruction and
sustaining discipline; but "in the morning he usually preached at St.
George's parish church, in Southwark," of which he had become Rector.
Besides being renowned for ministerial diligence, catholicity of
temper, and liberality to the poor, he took great interest in revising
the authorized version of the Scriptures, carrying about with him
constantly a copy of the Hebrew and of the Greek Testaments, quaintly
calling one "his sword and dagger," and the other his "shield and
buckler." He sought the aid of learned friends in the revision of his
work, and would often exclaim, "Oh, that I might see this done before I
die."[234] He further made large collections for the Jews at Jerusalem,
and together with the money which he obtained he sent them letters with
the view of converting them to the Christian faith.
[Sidenote: _Ewins--Bunyan._]
There lived at Bristol a remarkable man, one of those born orators in
whom genius makes up for defect of culture, and who in all ages have
distinguished themselves by their rude unfettered eloquence. Thomas
Ewins was a mechanic, with little or no education; but becoming a
preacher he speedily rose to eminent popularity. Elected pastor of the
Baptist church in the city just mentioned, and objecting to tithes and
all compulsory payments, accepting only free gifts, he nevertheless
ordinarily preached at Christ Church before the Mayor and Aldermen, and
conducted lectures at St. Nicholas' and other churches--thus sustaining
a sort of semi-relation to the Establishment. "The Broadmead Records"
contain specimens of his preaching, and also a curious diagram which he
drew of certain blazing stars observed in the heavens, portending, as
he thought, the approach of Divine judgments.
Another example of a Baptist preacher in a parish church is taken from
the "Life and Death of Mr. John Bunyan:"--
"Being to preach in a church in a country village (before the
restoration of King Charles) in Cambridgeshire, and the people being
gathered together in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, and none
of the soberest of 'em neither, enquired what the meaning of that
concourse of people was, it being upon the weekday, and being told that
one Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there, he gave a boy twopence to
hold his horse, saying, 'He was resolved to hear the tinker prate;' and
so went into the church to hear him. But God met with him there by his
ministry, so that He came out much changed, and would, by his goodwill,
hear none but the tinker for a long time after, he himself becoming
a very eminent preacher in that county afterwards. This story," the
writer adds, "I know to be true, having many a time discoursed with the
man, and therefore I could not but set it down as a singular instance
of the power of God that accompanied his ministry."
[Sidenote: _Baptists._]
The Baptists became numerous under the Commonwealth.[235] Numbers of
members were admitted to their Churches, and these Churches formed
themselves into associations. At the meetings which were consequently
held, questions relating to order, worship, and discipline came
under discussion. Disputes arose respecting what is termed "open"
and "strict" membership--in other words, respecting the question,
whether individuals not adopting Baptist views were proper persons for
membership in Baptist Churches.[236] A controversy also sprung up as
to the propriety of hearing the Gospel as it was preached by ministers
who had not been baptized, according to the Baptist idea, and also with
respect to the practice of joining in psalmody with those who were
unbaptized.[237]
Nonconformists in Wales previous to the outbreak of the civil wars,
and for some years afterwards, are said to have been Congregational
Pædobaptists. The formation of the first Antipædobaptist Church in the
principality is ascribed to the year 1649. Vavasour Powell--who has
appeared in these pages in connection with the Fifth Monarchy men--and
who had been from about the year 1640 an indefatigable preacher of the
Gospel amongst his fellow-countrymen--for he was a Welshman--adopted
Antipædobaptist views in the midst of his missionary career; and after
that change he may be presumed to have advocated his newly-adopted
opinion. But he does not appear to have been at all a bigoted man, or
to have sought the establishment of Churches upon the strict communion
principle.[238] After the year 1649, a few more Baptist congregations
were gathered, and a small association of four of these met in the town
of Carmarthen in the year 1651, when questions were mooted touching the
practice of singing psalms, and the laying on of hands in the office of
ordination.[239]
In Ireland, Baptist opinions spread, and Churches were planted in
several cities and towns within that island. Cromwell's soldiers,
including some who were Baptists, preached in Scotland,[240] and a
chaplain of Fairfax's publicly disputed with a Scotch minister upon
the question whether infant baptism was grounded on the Word of
God.[241] The famous Colonel Lilburne was a Baptist, and in the north
he zealously propagated his own distinctive principles. The Scotch
Presbytery soon declared against "the new dippers."[242]
There has been occasion to notice more than once the existence of
two classes of Independents--the one entertaining broader views of
toleration than did the other, and, at the same time, more closely
approximating to modern voluntaries than did some of their brethren.
There must have been a similar difference amongst Baptists. The
distinction comes before us again. Owen and Goodwin did not object
to State support, nor do we discover in the writings of any of the
chief Independents of the Commonwealth an exposition and defence
of the voluntary principle. We have seen that several Independents
and Baptists were parochial incumbents. Ministers, however, of
both denominations, especially of the latter, at that time held no
benefices. This might not arise always from conscientious scruples
respecting an establishment, but it is probable that in many cases it
did so.
[Sidenote: _Baptists._]
The larger section of the Baptist ministers and Churches stood outside
the pale of Cromwell's establishment, and probably, in general, they
preferred that position. The well-known Hanserd Knollys, a Cambridge
graduate, after resigning a living, and gathering a Baptist Church,
would only accept the free contributions of his hearers, eking out
his subsistence by school-keeping. The Fifth Monarchy Anabaptists
distinctly and boldly opposed tithes, and protested against all
State endowments. John Canne, in his "Second Voice from the Temple,
to the Higher Powers," 1653, violently inveighs against a national
ministry, as "essentially derived from the Pope," and after pointing
to Presbyterians and Independents, as those who "do appear most for
tithe;" archly adds, "yet the truth is, neither of them, by the law of
the land, have any title to it; for they are not such incumbents or
ecclesiastical persons as the law allows."[243]
The most united and consistent opponents of both State alliance and
State allowance were the people called Quakers, and other mystic sects
who took up their position altogether outside of Cromwell's Broad
Church.
To them we shall pay attention in a subsequent chapter, but, in the
meanwhile, it is necessary that we should supply some account of
the state of the Universities, and also point out the position of
Episcopalians in reference to the Establishment.
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