into eminence as a politician and lawyer. His feeling on the subject was
thus expressed at the time: "As for those which we call Brownists,
being, when they were at the most, a very small number of very silly and
base people here and there in corners dispersed, they are now--thanks be
to God--by the good remedies that have been used, suppressed and worn
out, so as there is scarce any news of them." Bacon, doubtless, here
expressed the feeling of all that was respectable in English society.
For not only was it the theory of Brownism intrinsically that the Church
of England was a false church, an institution of anti-christ, from which
all Christians were bound to separate themselves; but the scurrilities
against the bishops that had been vented anonymously by some particular
nest of Brownists, or their allies, in the famous series of _Martin
Marprelate Tracts_ (1589), had disgusted and enraged many who would have
tolerated moderate Nonconformity.
With respect to the theory of church government called Independency or
Congregationalism, the state of the case in 1640 may be thus summed up:
There was an unknown amount of traditional affection for the theory,
even where it could not be articulately stated, in the native and
popular antiprelacy of England itself. This vague and diffused
Independency had also a few champions in known Separatist ministers, who
had managed to remain in England through all difficulties, and perhaps
it had well-wishers in a private opinionist or two, like John Goodwin,
regularly in orders in the Church of England; but the effective mass of
English-born Independency lay wholly without the bounds of England,
partly in little curdlings of Separatists or Semiseparatists among the
English exiles in some of the towns of Holland, but chiefly, and in most
assured completeness both of bulk and of detail, in the incipient
transatlantic commonwealth of New England.
One thing, however, was certain all the while. These two effective
aggregations of English-born Independency beyond the bounds of
England--the small Dutch scattering and the massive American
extension--were not dissociated from England, had not learned to be
foreign to her, but were in correspondence with her, in constant survey
of her concerns, and attached to her by such homeward yearnings that, on
the least opportunity, the least signal given, they would leap back upon
her shores.
The opportunity came, and the signal was given, in November, 1640, when
the Long Parliament met. It was as if England then proclaimed to all her
exiles for opinion, "Ye need be exiles no more." Accordingly, between
that date and the meeting of the Westminster Assembly in July, 1643, we
have the interesting phenomenon of a return of some of the conspicuous
representatives of Independency both from Holland and from New England.
The necessity of an ecclesiastical synod or convocation, to coöperate
with the Parliament, had been long felt. Among the articles of the Grand
Remonstrance of December, 1641, had been one desiring a convention of "a
general synod of the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious divines
of this island, assisted by some from foreign parts," to consider of all
things relating to the Church and report thereon to Parliament. It is
clear, from the wording of this article, that it was contemplated that
the synod should contain representatives from the Presbyterian Church of
Scotland. Indeed, by that time, the establishment of a uniformity of
doctrine, discipline, and worship between the churches of England and
Scotland was the fixed idea of those who chiefly desired a synod. There
had been express communications on the subject between the leading
English Puritan ministers and the chiefs of the Scottish Kirk.
Henderson[35] had strongly taken the matter to heart, and in connection
with it he had made a "notable motion" in the Scottish General Assembly
of August, 1641. Might it not be well, he had urged, that the Scottish
Church should employ itself in "drawing up a confession of faith, a
catechism, a directory for all the parts of the public worship, and a
platform of government, wherein possibly England and we might agree"?
Henderson's notion was that, if such an authoritative exposition of the
whole theory and practice of the Kirk of Scotland could be drawn up for
the study of the English, and especially if care were taken in it not to
be ultra-Scottish in mere minutiæ, the effect would be to facilitate the
religious union of the two nations. The Scottish assembly, at any rate,
had warmly entertained the notion, and had deputed the difficult and
delicate work to Henderson himself. Henderson, however, had, on more
mature thoughts, abandoned the project. He had done so for reasons
creditable to his considerateness and good-sense. It had occurred to him
that the English might like to think out the details of their church
reformation for themselves, that it might do more harm than good to
thrust an elaborated Scottish system upon them as a perfection already
consummate, and that it might even be becoming in the Scots to hold
themselves prepared, in the interests of the conformity they desired, to
gravitate toward what might be the English conclusions on nonessential
points. At all events, he had come to see that the work was too great
for the responsibility of any one man. Possibly, too, he knew by that
time (April, 1642) that a general synod of English divines would very
soon be called.
Actually, in April, 1642, just when Henderson gave up the business as
too great for one man's strength, the English House of Commons were
making arrangements for a synod of divines. On the 19th of that month it
was ordered by the House, in pursuance of previous resolutions on the
subject, "that the names of such divines as shall be thought fit to be
consulted with concerning the matter of the Church be brought in
to-morrow morning," the understood rule being that the knights and
burgesses of each English county should name to the House _two_ divines,
and those of each Welsh county _one_ divine, for approval. Accordingly,
on the 20th, the names were given in; on that day the divines proposed
for nine of the English counties were approved of in pairs; and on
following days the rest of the English counties--London and the two
universities coming in for separate representation--were gone over,
pretty much in their alphabetical order, the Welsh counties and the
Channel islands coming last, till, on April 25th, the tale of the
divines "thought fit to be consulted with" was complete. It included one
hundred two divines, generally from the counties for which they were
severally named; but by no means always so, for in not a few cases the
knights and burgesses of distant counties nominated divines living in
London or near it.
In almost all cases the divines named by the knights and burgesses for
their several counties were approved of by the House unanimously; but a
vote was taken on the eligibility of one of the divines named for
Yorkshire, and he was carried by a bare majority of one hundred three to
ninety-nine, and exceptions having been taken on the 25th to the two
appointed for Cumberland on the 20th, their appointment was cancelled
and others were substituted. On the same day on which the list of
divines was completed, a committee of twenty-seven members of the House,
including Hampden, Selden, and Lord Falkland, was appointed "to consider
of the readiest way to put in execution the resolutions of this House in
consulting with such divines as they have named." The result was that on
May 9th there was brought in a "bill for calling an assembly of godly
and learned divines to be consulted with by the Parliament, for the
settling of the government and liturgy of the Church, and for the
vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the Church of England from
false aspersions and interpretations." On that day the bill was read
twice in the Commons and committed; and on the 19th it was read a third
time and passed. The Lords, having then taken the bill into
consideration, proposed (May 26, 1642) the addition of _fourteen_
divines of their own choice to those named by the Commons; and, the
Commons having agreed to this amendment, the bill passed both Houses,
June 1st, and waited only the King's assent. It was intended that the
assembly should meet the next month.
The King had other things to do at that moment than assent to a bill for
an assembly of divines. He was at York, gathering his forces for the
civil war; and by the time when it was expected the assembly should have
been at work the civil war had begun. Nevertheless, the Parliament
persevered in their design. Twice again, while the war was in its first
stage, bills were introduced to the same effect as that which had been
stopped. Bill the second for calling an assembly of divines was in
October, and bill the third in December, 1642. In these bills the two
houses kept to the one hundred sixteen divines agreed upon under the
first bill, with--as far as I have been able to trace the matter through
their journals--only one deletion, two substitutions, and three proposed
additions.
Still, by the stress of the war, the assembly was postponed. At last,
hopeless of a bill that should pass in the regular way by the King's
consent, the houses resorted, in this as in other things, to their
peremptory plan of ordinance by their own authority. On May 13, 1643, an
ordinance for calling an assembly was introduced in the Commons; which
ordinance, after due going and coming between the two Houses, came to
maturity June 12th, when it was entered at full length in the Lords
Journals. "Whereas, among the infinite blessings of Almighty God upon
this nation"--so runs the preamble of the ordinance--"none is, or can
be, more dear to us than the purity of our religion; and forasmuch as
many things yet remain in the discipline, liturgy, and government of the
Church which necessarily require a more perfect reformation: and whereas
it has been declared and resolved, by the Lords and Commons assembled in
parliament, that the present church government by archbishops, bishops,
their chancellors, commissaries, deans, deans and chapters,
arch-deacons, and other ecclesiastical officers depending on the
hierarchy, is evil, and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdom,
and a great impediment to reformation and growth of religion, and very
prejudicial to the state and government of this kingdom, and that
therefore they are resolved the same shall be taken away, and that such
a government shall be settled in the Church as may be agreeable to God's
Holy Word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church
at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other
reformed churches abroad. Be it therefore ordained," etc.
What is ordained is that one hundred forty-nine persons, enumerated by
name in the ordinance--ten of them being members of the Lords House,
twenty members of the Commons House, and the other one hundred nineteen
mainly the divines that had already been fixed upon, most of them a year
before--shall meet on July 1st next in King Henry VII's chapel at
Westminster; and that these persons, and such others as shall be added
to them by Parliament from time to time, shall have power to continue
their sittings as long as Parliament may see fit, and "to confer and
treat among themselves of _such matters and things_ concerning the
liturgy, discipline, and government of the Church of England, or the
vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the same from all false
aspersions and misconstructions, _as shall be proposed by either or both
houses of Parliament, and no other_." The words in Italics are
important. The assembly was not to be an independent national council
ranging at its will and settling things by its own authority. It was to
be a body advising Parliament on matters referred to it, and on these
alone, and its conclusions were to have no validity until they should be
reported to Parliament and confirmed there.
Forty members of the assembly were to constitute a quorum, and the
proceedings were not to be divulged without consent of Parliament. Four
shillings a day were to be allowed to each clerical member for his
expenses, with immunity for non-residence in his parish or any neglect
of his ordinary duties that might be entailed by his presence at
Westminster. William Twisse, D.D., of Newbury, was to be prolocutor, or
chairman, of the assembly; and he was to have two "assessors," to supply
his place in case of necessary absence. There were to be two "scribes,"
who should be divines, but not members of the assembly, to take minutes
of the proceedings.
Every member of the assembly, on his first entrance, was to make solemn
protestation that he would not maintain anything but what he believed to
be the truth; no resolution on any question was to be come to on the
same day on which it was first propounded; whatever any speaker
maintained to be necessary he was to prove out of the Scriptures; all
decisions of the major part of the assembly were to be reported to
Parliament as the decisions of the assembly; but the dissents of
individual members were to be duly registered, if they required it, and
also reported to Parliament. The Lords wanted to regulate also that no
long speeches should be permitted in the assembly, so that matters might
not be carried by "impertinent flourishes"; but the Commons, for reasons
that are not far to seek, did not agree to this regulation.
Notwithstanding a royal proclamation from Oxford, dated June 22d,
forbidding the assembly and threatening consequences, the first meeting
duly took place on the day appointed--Saturday, July 1, 1643; and from
that date till February 22, 1648-1649, or for more than five years and a
half, the Westminster Assembly is to be borne in mind as a power of
institution in the English realm, existing side by side with the Long
Parliament, and in constant conference and coöperation with it. The
number of its sittings during these five years and a half was one
thousand one hundred sixty-three in all; which is at the rate of about
four sittings every week for the whole time. The earliest years of the
assembly were the most important. All in all, it was an assembly which
left remarkable and permanent effects in the British islands, and the
history of which ought to be more interesting, in some homely respects,
to Britons now, than the history of the Council of Basel, the Council of
Trent, or any other of the great ecclesiastical councils, more ancient
and ecumenical, about which we hear so much.
Such was the famous Westminster Assembly, called together by the
Parliament of England to consider the entire state of the country in
matters of religion. The business intrusted to it was vast and complex.
It was to revise and redefine the national creed, after its long lapse
into so-called Arminianism and semi-popish error, and to advise also as
to the new system of church government and the new forms of worship that
should come in place of rejected episcopacy and the condemned liturgy.
For it was still, be it remembered, the universal notion among English
politicians that there must be a national church, and that no man,
woman, or child within the land should be permitted to be out of the
pale of that church. It was still the notion that it was possible to
frame a certain number of propositions respecting God, heaven, angels,
hell, devils, the creation of the universe, the soul of man, sin and its
remedy, a life beyond death, and all the other most tremendous subjects
of human contemplation, that should be absolutely true, or at least so
just and sure a compendium of truth that the nation must be tied up to
it, and it would be wrong to allow any man, woman, or child, subject to
the law of England, to be astray from it in any item. This was the
notion, and those one hundred forty-nine persons were appointed to frame
the all-important propositions, or find them out by a due revision of
the old articles, and to report to Parliament on that subject, as well
as on the subjects of church organization and forms of worship.
The appointment, among the original one hundred forty-nine or one
hundred fifty members of assembly, of such persons as Archbishop Usher,
Bishops Brownrigge and Westfield, Featley, Hacket, Hammond, Holdsworth,
Morley, Nicolson, Saunderson, and Samuel Ward--all of them defenders of
an episcopacy of some kind--seems hardly reconcilable with the very
terms of the ordinance calling the assembly. That ordinance implied that
episcopacy was condemned and done with, and it convoked the assembly for
the express purpose of considering, among other things, what should be
put in its stead. It may have been thought, however, that it would
impart a more liberal and eclectic character to the assembly to send a
sprinkling of known Anglicans into it; or it may have been thought right
to give some of the most respected of these an opportunity of retrieving
themselves by acquiescing in what they could not prevent. As it chanced,
however, the refusal of most of these to appear in the assembly at all,
and the all but immediate dropping-off of the one or two who did appear
at first, saved the assembly much trouble. It became thus a compact
body, fit for its work, and in the main of one mind and way of thinking
on some of the problems submitted to it.
In respect of theological doctrine, for example, the assembly, as it was
then left, was practically unanimous. They were, almost to a man,
Calvinists, or anti-Arminians, pledged by their antecedents to such a
revision of the articles as should make the national creed more
distinctly Calvinistic than before. Moreover, they were agreed as to
their method for determining doctrine. It was to be the rigid
application of the Protestant principle that the Bible is the sole rule
of faith. The careful interpretation of Scripture--_i.e._, the
collecting on any occasion of discussion of all the texts in the Old and
New Testaments bearing on the point discussed, and the examination of
these texts singly and in their connection and in the original tongues
when necessary, so as to ascertain their exact sense--this was the
understood rule with them all. Learning was, indeed, in demand, and the
chief scholars, especially the chief Hebraists and rabbinists, of the
assembly, were much looked up to: there might be references also to the
fathers and to councils; no kind of historical lore but would be
welcome: only all must subserve the one purpose of interpreting
Scripture; and fathers, councils, and whatnot, could be cited, not as
authorities, but only as witnesses. This understanding as to the
determination of doctrine by the Bible alone, accompanied as it was by a
nearly unanimous preconviction that it was the Calvinistic body of
doctrines alone that could be reasoned out of the Bible, was to keep the
assembly, I repeat, pretty much together from the first in matters of
creed and theology. For perplexing questions as to the extent and limits
of the inspiration of the Bible had not yet publicly arisen to
invalidate the accepted method.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Alexander Henderson, the Scottish ecclesiastic and diplomatist, was
at this time most prominent among the Presbyterian leaders.
MASANIELLO'S REVOLT AT NAPLES
A.D. 1647
ALFRED VON REUMONT
Among the various popular insurrections of which Naples has
been the scene, the most memorable in violence and in effective
results is that which Masaniello headed. Naples, with Sicily,
was then subject to Spain, and a Spanish viceroy governed
there. Popular discontent had already shown itself in tumults.
These were provoked by various acts of oppression, but
especially by burdensome taxation and the draining of the
province of men for the Spanish service.
At the same time Naples was subject to French intrigue. It was
the aim of Cardinal Mazarin, the successor of Richelieu as
prime minister of France, to seize the rich Spanish
possessions, Naples and Sicily. He foresaw the coming
insurrection, and prepared to take advantage of it. Although
his schemes added to the Neapolitan complications, he was not
to profit by them as he hoped.
Finally, in Naples the half-smothered spirit of revolt broke
out when Spain imposed a duty on fruits, raising the cost of
productions upon which the majority of the people depended for
subsistence.
Reumont, whose mastery in the field of Italian history is well
known, brings out in full light the circumstances and
consequences of Masaniello's rising.
In May, 1647, a rebellion broke out in Palermo among the lower class of
people, which the viceroy, Don Pedro Fajardo Marquis de Los Veles, was
not in a condition to resist. The constant increase of the taxes on
articles of food, which, especially in the manner in which they were
then raised, were the most felt and the most burdensome kind of taxation
for the people, excited a tumult which lasted for many months,
occasioned serious dissensions between the nobility and the people, and
was only subdued by a mixture of firmness and clemency on the part of
the Cardinal Trivulzio, the successor of Los Veles. The news of the
disturbances in Sicily reached Naples, when everything there was ripe
for an insurrection, which had for a long time been fermenting, and
agitating men's minds.
On all sides the threatening indications increased. Notices posted upon
the walls announced that the people of Naples would follow the example
of the inhabitants of Palermo if the _gabelles_ were not taken off,
especially the fruit tax, which pressed the hardest upon the populace;
the better the season was, the more the poor felt themselves debarred
from the enjoyment of a cheap and cooling food. The Viceroy was stopped
by a troop of people as he was going to mass at the Church of Santa
Maria del Carmine; he extricated himself from his difficulty as well as
he could, laid the blame on the nobility who had ordered the tax, and
promised what he never intended to perform. The associations of nobles
assembled, but they could not agree. Some were of opinion that the tax
should be kept, because the change would interfere with their pecuniary
interests; others because the money asked for by the government could
not otherwise be procured.
Notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances the Duke of Arcos, the
Spanish Viceroy of Naples, allowed most of the Spanish and German troops
to march into Lombardy; he was deliberating how to meet the attack of
the French in the North of Italy without considering that he was
stripping the country of armed forces at a moment when the continuance
of the Spanish rule was more than ever in jeopardy.
On the great market-place at Naples, the scene of so many tragedies and
so many disturbances, stood a miserable cottage, with nothing to
distinguish it from the others but the name and arms of Charles V, which
were placed on the front wall. Here a poor fisherman lived, Tommaso
Aniello, generally called by the abbreviated name of Masaniello. His
father, Francesco or Cicco, came from the coast of Amalfi, and had
married in 1620 Antonia Gargano, a Neapolitan woman.
In the Vico Rotto, by the great market, which is only inhabited by the
poorest people, and where the pestilence began in the year 1656, four
months later, the son was born who was destined to act so remarkable a
part. Tommaso Aniello was baptized in the parish church of Sta.
Catherina in Foro on June 20, 1620. On April 25, 1641, he married
Bernardina Pisa, a maiden from the neighborhood of that town. Their
poverty was so great that often Masaniello could not even follow up his
trade of a fisherman, but earned a scanty livelihood by selling paper
for the fish to be carried in. He was of middle height, well made and
active; his brilliant dark, black eyes and his sunburnt face contrasted
singularly with his long, curly, fair hair hanging down his back. Thus
his cheerful, lively conversation agreed but little with his grave
countenance. His dress was that of a fisherman, but as he is, in
general, considered a remarkable person--whatever may be thought of the
part he performed--so he understood, in spite of the meanness of his
attire, by his arrangement and his choice of colors, to give it a
peculiarity that stamped it in the memory of his contemporaries. The
life of this remarkable man--a nine-days' history--clearly shows us that
he possessed wonderful presence of mind and a spirit that knew not fear.