Part I. pp. 3-6.]

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THE LIFE OF JOHN MILTON:

NARRATED IN CONNEXION WITH THE POLITICAL,

ECCLESIASTICAL, AND LITERARY HISTORY OF HIS TIME.

VOL. III. 1643-1649.

BY DAVID MASSON, M.A., LL.D.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

JULY 1643--MARCH 1643-4.

_HISTORY_:--FIRST EIGHT MONTHS OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY: CIVIL

WAR AND THE LONG PARLIAMENT CONTINUED.

_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON STILL IN ALDERSGATE STREET: HIS MARRIAGE

MISFORTUNE: HIS FIRST DIVORCE TREATISE.

CHAP.

I. The Westminster Assembly in Session--The Solemn League and Covenant:

Scottish Commissioners in the Assembly--Debates on Church-Government:

_Apologetical Narration_ of the Independents--Parliamentary

Proceedings--Scottish Auxiliary Army in England

II. Milton unhappy in his Marriage: His First Divorce Tract: Two Editions

of it

BOOK II.

MARCH 1644-MARCH 1645.

_HISTORY_:--THE YEAR OF MARSTON MOOR: CIVIL WAR, LONG PARLIAMENT,

AND WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY CONTINUED--STRUGGLE OF INDEPENDENCY WITH

PRESBYTERIANISM: TOLERATION CONTROVERSY: ENGLISH SECTS AND SECTARIES--

PRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT VOTED--NEW MODEL OF THE ARMY.

_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON AMONG THE SECTARIES: HIS SECOND DIVORCE PAMPHLET,

_TRACT ON EDUCATION_, _AREOPAGITICA_, _TETRACHORDON_, AND _COLISTERION_.

CHAP.

I. Inactivity of the Scottish Auxiliaries--Spread of Independency and

Multiplication of Sects--Visitation of the University of Cambridge--

Battle of Marston Moor--Fortnight's Vacation of the Westminster Assembly

(July 23-August 7, 1644),--Principle of Toleration and State of the

Toleration Controversy: Synopsis of English Sects and Sectaries in 1644.-

-Resumption of Assembly's Proceedings: Denunciation of Picked Sectaries

and Heretics--Cromwell's Interference for Independency: Accommodation

Order of Parliament--Presbyterian Settlement voted--Essex beaten and the

War flagging: Self-denying Ordinance and New Model of the Army--

Parliamentary Vengeances: Death of Laud

II. Milton among the Sectaries, and in a "World of Disesteem": Story of

Mrs. Attaway--Samuel Hantlib, John Durie, and John Amos Comenius: Schemes

of a Reformed Education, and Project of a London University--Milton's

_Tract on Education_, and Method with his Pupils--His Second Divorce

Tract, or Compilation from Bucer--Mr. Herbert Palmer's Attack on Milton

from the Pulpit--Milton and the Stationers' Company: Their Accusation of

him in a Petition to the Commons--His _Areopagitica_, or Speech for

the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing--Anger of the Stationers, and their

Complaint against Milton to the Lords: Consequence of the Complaint--The

Divorce Question continued: Publication of Mr. Herbert Palmer's Sermon,

and farther Attacks on Milton by Prynne, Dr. Featley, and an Anonymous

Pamphleteer--_Tetrachordon_ and _Colasterion_: Their Replies to

the Assailants.

BOOK III.

APRIL 1645-AUGUST 1646.

_HISTORY_:--SIXTEEN MONTHS OF THE NEW MODEL, AND OF THE LONG

PARLIAMENT AND WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY CONTINUED.--BATTLE OF NASEBY AND ITS

CONSEQUENCES: EPISODE OF MONTROSE IN SCOTLAND: FLIGHT OF THE KING TO THE

SCOTS AND CONCLUSION OF THE CIVIL WAR.--PROGRESS OF THE TOLERATION

CONTROVERSY AND OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND THE

INDEPENDENTS.--LONDON AND LANCASHIRE PRESBYTERIANIZED.

_BIOGRAPHY_:--RETURN OF MILTON'S WIFE: HIS REMOVAL FROM ALDERSGATE

STREET TO BARBICAN: FIRST EDITION OF HIS POEMS: THREE MORE SONNETS:

CONTINUED PRESBYTERIAN ATTACKS ON MILTON: HIS RETALIATION: TROUBLES OF

THE POWELL FAMILY.

CHAP.

I. Composition of the New Model, and View of the Work lying before it--

First Actions of the New Model--Cromwell retained in Command: Battle of

Naseby: Other Successes of the New Model--Poor Performance of the

Scottish Auxiliary Army--Episode of Montrose in Scotland--Fag-end of the

War in England, and Flight of the King to the Scots--Fallen and Risen

Stars.

II. Work in Parliament and the Westminster Assembly during the Sixteen

Months of the New Model--The two continued Church Controversies--

Independency and Sectarianism in the New Model: Toleration Controversy

continued: Cromwell's part in it: Lilburne and other Pamphleteers: Sion

College and the Corporation of London: Success of the Presbyterians in

Parliament--Presbyterian Frame of Church Government completed: Details of

the Arrangement--The Recruiting of the Commons: Eminent Recruiters--

Effects of the Recruiting: Alliance of Independency and Erastianism:

Check given to the Presbyterians: Westminster Assembly rebuked and

curbed--Negotiations round the King at Newcastle--Threatened Rupture

between the Scots and the English: Argyle's Visit to London: The Nineteen

Propositions--Parliament and the Assembly reconciled: Presbyterianizing

of London and Lancashire: Death of Alexander Henderson.

III. Effects of Milton's _Areopagitica_--His Intention of another

Marriage: His Wife's Return and Reconciliation with him--Removal from

Aldersgate Street to Barbican--First Edition of Milton's Collected Poems:

Humphrey Moseley the Bookseller--Two Divorce Sonnets and Sonnet to Henry

Lawes--Continued Presbyterian Attacks on Milton: His Anti-Presbyterian

Sonnet of Reply--Surrender of Oxford: Condition of the Powell Family--The

Powells in London: More Family Perplexities: Birth of Milton's first

Child.

BOOK IV.

AUGUST 1646--JANUARY 1648-9.

_HISTORY_:--THE LAST TWO YEARS AND A HALF OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I.:--

I. HIS CONTINUED CAPTIVITY WITH THE SCOTS AT NEWCASTLE, AND FAILURE OF

HIS NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PRESBYTERIANS;

II. HIS CAPTIVITY AT HOLMBY HOUSE, AND THE QUARREL BETWEEN THE ENGLISH

PARLIAMENT AND THE ENGLISH ARMY;

III. HIS CAPTIVITY WITH THE ENGLISH ARMY, AND THEIR PROPOSALS TO HIM;

IV. HIS CAPTIVITY IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT, AND THE SECOND CIVIL WAR;

V. HIS TRIAL AND DOOM.

_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON IN BARBICAN AND IN HIGH HOLBORN.--PRIVATE AND

PUBLIC ANXIETIES: ODE TO ROUS, TWO MORE SONNETS, AND TRANSLATION OF NINE

PSALMS: OTHER WORKS IN PROGRESS: LETTERS TO AND FROM CARLO DATI.

CHAP.

I. Charles in his Captivity First Stage of the Captivity: Still with the

Scots at Newcastle: Aug. 1646--Jan. 1646-7.--Balancings of Charles

between the Presbyterians and the Independents--His Negotiations in the

Presbyterian direction: The Hamiltons his Agents among the Scots--His

Attempt to negotiate with the Independents: Will Murray in London--

Interferences of the Queen from France: Davenant's Mission to Newcastle--

The Nineteen Propositions unanswered: A Personal Treaty offered--

Difficulties between the Scots and the English Parliament--Their

Adjustment: Departure of the Scots from England, and Cession of Charles

to the English--Westminster Assembly Business, and Progress of the

Presbyterian Settlement

Second Stage of the Captivity: At Holmby House: Feb. 1646-7--June 1647.--

The King's Manner of Life at Holmby--New Omens in his favour from the

Relations of Parliament to its own Army--Proposals to disband the Army

and reconstruct part of it for service in Ireland--Summary of Irish

Affairs since 1641--Army's Anger at the Proposal to disband it--View of

the State of the Army: Medley of Religious Opinions in it. Passion for

Toleration: Prevalence of Democratic Tendencies: The Levellers--

Determination of the Presbyterians for the Policy of Disbandment, and

Votes in Parliament to that effect--Resistance of the Army: Petitions and

Remonstrances from the Officers and Men: Regimental Agitators--Cromwell's

Efforts at Accommodation: Fairfax's Order for a General Rendezvous--

Cromwell's Adhesion to the Army--The Rendezvous at Newmarket, and Joyce's

Abduction of the King from Holmby--Westminster Assembly Business: First

Provincial Synod of London: Proceedings for the Purgation of Oxford

University

Third Stage of the Captivity: The King with the Army: June-Nov. 1647.--

Effects of Joyce's Abduction of the King--Movements of the Army: their

Denunciation of Eleven of the Presbyterian Leaders: Parliamentary Alarms

and Concessions--Presbyterian Phrenzy of the London Populace: Parliament

mobbed, and Presbyterian Votes carried by Mob-law: Flight of the two

Speakers and their Adherents: Restoration of the Eleven--March of the

Army upon London: Military Occupation of the City: The Mob quelled,

Parliament reinstated, and the Eleven expelled--Generous Treatment of the

King by the Army: His Conferences with Fairfax, Cromwell, and Ireton--The

Army's _Heads of Proposals_, and Comparison of the same with the

_Nineteen Propositions_ of the Parliament--The King at Hampton Court,

still demurring privately over the _Heads of Proposals_, but playing them

off publicly against the _Nineteen Propositions:_ Army at Putney--

Cromwell's Motion for a Recast of the _Nineteen Propositions_ and Re-

application to the King on that Basis: Consequences of the Compromise--

Intrigues at Hampton Court: Influence of the Scottish Commissioners

there: King immoveable--Impatience of the Army at Putney: Cromwell under

Suspicion: New Activity of the Agitatorships: Growth of Levelling

Doctrines among the Soldiers: _Agreement of the People_--Cromwell breaks

utterly with the King: Meetings of the Army Officers at Putney: Proposed

Concordat between the Army and Parliament--The King's Escape to the Isle

of Wight

Fourth Stage of the Captivity: In the Isle of Wight: Nov. 1647-Nov.

1648.--Carisbrooke Castle, and the King's Letters thence--Parliament's

New Method of the _Four Bills_--Indignation of the Scots: their

Complaints of Breach of the Covenant--Army Rendezvous at Ware:

Suppression of a Mutiny of Levellers by Cromwell, and Establishment of

the Concordat with Parliament--Parliamentary Commissioners in the Isle of

Wight: Scottish Commissioners also there: the King's Rejection of the

Four Bills--Firmness of Parliament: their Resolutions of No Farther

Addresses to the King: Severance of the Scottish Alliance--_The

Engagement_, or Secret Treaty between Charles and the Scots in the Isle

of Wight--Stricter guard of the King in Carisbrooke Castle: His Habits in

his Imprisonment--First Rumours of _The Scottish Engagement_: Royalist

Programme of a SECOND CIVIL WAR--Beginnings of THE SECOND CIVIL WAR:

Royalist Risings: Cromwell in Wales: Fairfax in the Southeast: Siege of

Colchester--Revolt of the Fleet: Commotion among the Royalist Exiles

abroad: Holland's attempted Rising in Surrey--Invasion of England by

Hamilton's Scottish Army: Arrival of the Prince of Wales off the

Southeast Coast: Blockade of the Thames--Consternation of the Londoners:

Faintheartedness of Parliament: New Hopes of the Presbyterians: their

Ordinance against Heresies and Blasphemies: their Leanings to the King:

Independents in a struggling minority: Charge of Treason against Cromwell

in his absence--The Three Days' Battle of Preston and utter Defeat of the

Scots by Cromwell: Surrender of Colchester to Fairfax: Return of the

Prince of Wales to Holland: Virtual End of THE SECOND CIVIL WAR--

Parliamentary Treaty with the King at Newport: Unsatisfactory Results--

Protests against the Treaty by the Independents--Disgust of the Army with

the Treaty: Revocation of their Concordat with Parliament, and Resolution

to seize the Political Mastery: Formation of a Republican Party--

Petitions for Justice on the King: The _Grand Army Remonstrance_--

Cromwell in Scotland: Restoration of the Argyle Government there:

Cromwell at Pontefract: His Letter to Hammond--The King removed from the

Isle of Wight to Hurst Castle--The Army again in possession of London

II. Troubles in the Barbican Household: Christopher Milton's Composition

Suit: Mr. Powell's Composition Suit: Death of Mr. Powell: His Will: Death

of Milton's Father--Sonnet XIV. and Ode to John Rous--Italian

Reminiscences: Lost Letters from Carlo Dati of Florence: Milton's Reply

to the last of them--Pedagogy in the Barbican: List of Milton's known

Pupils: Lady Ranelagh--Educational Reform still a Question: Hartlib

again: The Invisible College: Young Robert Boyle and William Petty--

Removal from Barbican to High Holborn--Meditations and Occupations in the

House in High Holborn: Milton's Sympathies with the Army Chiefs and the

Expectant Republicans--Still under the Ban of the Presbyterians:

Testimony of the London Ministers against Heresies and Blasphemies:

Milton in the Black List--Another Letter from Carlo Dati: Translation of

Nine Psalms from the Hebrew--Milton through the Second Civil War: His

personal Interest in it, and Delight in the Army's Triumph: His Sonnet to

Fairfax--Birth of Milton's Second Child: Another Letter from Carlo Dati

III. The Two Houses in the Grasp of the Army: Final Efforts for the King:

Pride's Purge and its Consequences--The King brought from Hurst Castle to

Windsor: Ordinance for his Trial passed by the Commons alone:

Constitution of the Court--The Trial in Westminster Hall: Incidents of

the Seven successive Days: The Sentence--Last Three Days of Charles's

Life: His Execution and Burial

BOOK I.

JULY 1643--MARCH 1643-4.

_HISTORY_:--FIRST EIGHT MONTHS OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY: CIVIL

WAR AND THE LONG PARLIAMENT CONTINUED.

_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON STILL IN ALDERSGATE STREET: HIS MARRIAGE

MISFORTUNE: HIS FIRST DIVORCE TREATISE.

CHAPTER I

THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY IN SESSION--THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT:

SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS IN THE ASSEMBLY--DEBATES ON CHURCH-GOVERNMENT:

_APOLOGETICAL NARRATION_ OF THE INDEPENDENTS--PARLIAMENTARY

PROCEEDINGS--SCOTTISH AUXILIARY ARMY IN ENGLAND.

The Westminster Assembly held its first formal meeting in Henry the

Seventh's Chapel on Saturday, July 1, 1643, after the impressive opening

ceremonial of a sermon preached before a great congregation in the Abbey

Church by the appointed Prolocutor, Dr. Twisse, on the text John xiv. 18,

"_I will not leave you comfortless_!" About 69 of the members were

present at that first meeting, many who attended afterwards not having

yet come up from the country. Among the 69 were the few of "the Episcopal

persuasion" who afterwards dropped off; and these were conspicuous by

their canonical dresses among the bulk of the members in all sorts of

plain Puritan suits. The average attendance subsequently seems to have

been from 60 to 80. The place of meeting for some time continued to be

King Henry the Seventh's Chapel; but this was changed, when the weather

grew colder, for the celebrated Jerusalem Chamber, also in the close

vicinity of the Houses of Parliament. [Footnote: The Ordinance of

Parliament authorizing the change of the place of meeting to the

Jerusalem Chamber is dated Sept. 23, 1643 see Lords Journals for that

day] None but members of the Assembly were allowed to be present, and

there was no deviation from this rule except on the very rarest occasions

and by special authority from Parliament. The Assembly sat commonly from

nine in the morning till one or two P.M. The Prolocutor sat at one end of

the room on a raised chair; his two Assessors were near him; and a table

ran through the whole length of the room, at one end of which sat the

Scribes, close to the Prolocutor, while the members were seated in tiers

at the sides and other end. The forms of debate and voting were very much

those of the House of Commons. Besides the meetings of the Assembly as

such, there were afternoon meetings of Committees for the preparation of

business for the Assembly. There were three such chief Standing

Committees, to one or other of which every member belonged. [Footnote:

Lightfoot's Notes of Assembly Works (ed. 1824), Vol. XIII, pp. 4, 5; and

Baillie, II. 107-109]

FIRST BUSINESS OF THE ASSEMBLY: REVISION OF THE ARTICLES.

Not till Thursday, July 6, or indeed Saturday, July 8, was the Assembly

constituted for actual business. On the first of these days the

Regulations which had been drawn up by the two Houses of Parliament for

the procedure of the Assembly were duly received; and on the second all

the members of Assembly present took the solemn Protestation which had

been settled for them by the Commons with the concurrence of the Lords.

It was in these terms: "I, A. B., do seriously and solemnly protest, in

the presence of Almighty God, that in this Assembly, wherein I am a

member, I will not maintain anything in matters of Doctrine but what I

think in my conscience to be truth, or 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." So sworn, the members were ready for their first work.

That also had been rigidly prescribed for them by Parliament. On July 5

the Commons had ruled and the Lords had agreed "that the Assembly, in

their beginning, in the first place shall take the ten first Articles of

the Church of England into their consideration, to vindicate them from

all false doctrine and heresy." In other words, it was the pleasure of

Parliament that the first business of the Assembly should consist in a

revision and amendment of the Thirty-nine Articles, and that, by way of a

commencement in this business, or specimen to Parliament of the manner in

which it might be done, they were to confine themselves at first to the

first Ten of the Articles. Accordingly, the Assembly at once addressed

themselves to this business. It was with a view to it that they first

adopted that machinery of Committees which was to be employed

subsequently, with so much effect, in all the deliberations. The Divines

of the Assembly were distributed, in the order in which their names stood

in the Ordinance calling the Assembly, into three Committees for

preparatory revision of the said Articles in such a manner that the whole

Assembly might more clearly exercise its final judgment on them; while a

fourth Committee, in which the lay-members were included, was to assist

the others by procuring the most correct copies of the text of the

Articles. To the first revising Committee, of which Dr. Burges was

appointed chairman, were entrusted the first four Articles; to the

second, of which Dr. Stanton was chairman, the fifth, sixth, and seventh

Articles; and to the third, which had Mr. Gibbon for chairman, the

eighth, ninth, and tenth.

Imagine the Assembly collectively in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, and its

Committees distributively there or in other places of meeting, busy day

after day, through the rest of the hot month of July, and then into

August, over its appointed revision of the Articles. "_I. Of Faith in

the Holy Trinity; II. Of the Word, or Son of God, which was made very

Man; III. Of the going down of Christ into Hell; IV. Of the Resurrection

of Christ; V. Of the Holy Ghost; VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy

Scriptures for Salvation; VII. Of the Old Testament; VIII. Of the Three

Creeds; IX. Of Original or Birth Sin; X. Of Free Will_;" imagine the

Articles under these headings discussed successively, sentence by

sentence and clause by clause, most of the sentences and clauses allowed

to pass without change as perfectly satisfactory, but here and there at

intervals a phrase modified or omitted, or a slight addition made, so as

to bring the meaning more sharply into accord with the letter of

Scripture or the Calvinistic system of doctrine. Such mere imagination of

the general process will suffice, and it is unnecessary to take account

of the actual changes proposed in the phraseology of particular Articles.

For, in fact, these first weeks of the Assembly's pains over the Articles

of the Church were to be labour wasted. Before the end of August, and

while they were still probing through the first Ten Articles, events had

taken such a course that the Assembly was called upon to co-operate with

the Parliament in matters of greater urgency.

THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT: SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS TO THE ASSEMBLY.

The war, which had been on the whole in the King's favour hitherto, was

going more and more against Parliament. In the north, Lord Fairfax had

been beaten at Atherston Moor by the Earl of Newcastle (June 30); Sir

William Waller, the hitherto unconquered, had been beaten twice in the

south-west (at Lansdowne, July 5, and at Roundway Down, July 13); the

Queen, coming from the north, had joined the King in his quarters, amid

great rejoicing, after their seventeen months of separation; and Bristol,

inefficiently defended by Nathaniel Fiennes, was on the point of yielding

to Prince Rupert. It was time, in short, to do what it had long been in

the mind of Parliament to do--call in once more the aid of the Scots.

On this the Parliament had already resolved. As it was judged likely,

however, that the Scots would listen more readily to the application for

armed aid if it were accompanied with some distinct proof of a desire for

"uniformity of religion" between the two kingdoms, the Assembly was

required to assist Parliament in pleading with the Scots. The Scottish

Convention of Estates was then sitting (it had met, by express call, June

22); and the Scottish General Assembly was to meet on the 2nd of August.

Let there be Commissioners from both the English Parliament and the

Westminster Assembly to these two bodies; let the Assembly write letters

to the Scottish Assembly, backing the political application with

religious arguments; let every exertion be made to secure a new alliance

with the Scottish nation! Accordingly, while the Assembly was pursuing

its revision of the Articles, or occupying itself with such incidental

matters as the appointment of ministers to preach before the two Houses,

and the recommendation of a Fast Day extraordinary in London, their

thoughts, like those of Parliament, were chiefly fixed on the issue of

their joint embassy to Edinburgh. [Footnote: Lightfoot's Notes for July

1643; and my MS. chronology of events]

The Scots had foreseen the application. Three courses were before them.

They might remain neutral; they might interfere as "redders," or

mediators between the King and the English Parliament; or they might

openly side with the Parliament and help it in the war. Great efforts had

been made by the King to induce the Scots to the first course. [Footnote:

Burnet's Dukes of Hamilton (ed. 52), pp. 279-298] Five or six of the

Scottish noblemen who were with the King at Oxford had been sent back

among their countrymen to labour for this end. All in vain. It had become

clear to Argyle, Loudoun, Warriston, and the other Scottish leaders, that

neutrality would be ruinous. Things were in this state when the

Commissioners from the English Parliament and the Westminster Assembly

arrived in Edinburgh (Aug. 7). The Scottish Convention of Estates was

then still sitting; and the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk, with

Alexander Henderson again its Moderator (the third time he had been

raised to this Presidency), was in the middle of its annual fortnight or

so of Scottish ecclesiastical business--one item of the business this

time being, I find, "the late extraordinar multiplying of witches,"

especially in Fifeshire. Both the Convention and the Assembly had been

anxiously waiting for the English Commissioners, and were delighted when

they arrived. They were six in all--Sir William Armyn, Sir Harry Vane the

younger, Mr. Hatcher, and Mr. Darley, from the Parliament; and Stephen

Marshall and Philip Nye from the Westminster Divines. And what moving

letters they brought with them--official letters from the Parliament and

the Westminster Assembly to the Scottish Convention of Estates and

General Assembly, and also a more private letter signed by about seventy

English Divines! And how the Scots were impressed by the letters! The

private letter of the seventy Divines in especial was "so lamentable"

that, when it was read in the General Assembly, "it drew tears from

many." And how all were struck by the ability and gravity of young Sir

Harry Vane, and liked him and Stephen Marshall, but did not take so much

to Mr. Nye, because of his known Independency! In short, in conferences

between the English Commissioners and Commissioners appointed by the

Scottish Convention and General Assembly to meet them, it was all

arranged. There was, indeed, still some lingering question at first among

the Scottish leaders whether it might not do to "go as redders or friends

to both, without siding altogether with the Parliament;" but Warriston

alone "did show the vanity of that notion and the impossibility of it."

And so Vane and the other Commissioners could write to England that their

mission had been successful, and that the armed aid of the Scottish

nation might be expected.

Ay, but there was a special condition. The Commissioners had come to

treat about "Scottish assistance to Parliament and a uniformity of

religion," and it was the prospect held out in the second phrase that

most reconciled the Scots to all that was involved in the first. The

extension of Scottish Presbyterianism over all England and Ireland, or,

at all events, the union of the two kingdoms in some common form of

Church-government not essentially differing from Scottish

Presbyterianism--for that object the Scots _would_ strike in; for

that object they _would_ shed their blood, as fellow-soldiers with

Englishmen, in the fields of England! Now the English Commissioners, like

wary men, and probably in accordance with their instructions, would fain

have avoided any too definite a pledging of England to a particular

ecclesiastical future. Nye, in especial, as an Independent, must have

desired to avoid this; and Vane, as a man who did not know how far from

his present opinions continued reasoning might carry him, may have felt

with Nye. Hence, on the religious question, they tried to get off with

generalities. If there were a league between the two kingdoms for their

civil liberties, would not a uniformity in Church matters naturally

follow? But this was not quite satisfactory to the Scottish

Commissioners. "The English were for a civil league, we for a religious

covenant," says Baillie; and the event has made the sentence memorable

historically. Let England and Scotland unite first in subscribing one and

the same document, swearing one and the same oath, which should base

their alliance on a certain amount of mutual engagement in the matter of

Religion! To such oaths of mutual allegiance the Scots, among themselves,

had long been accustomed. They called them "Covenants." This agency of

"Covenanting" had been a grand agency in Scottish History. Was not the

present liberation of Scotland, the destruction of Episcopacy root and

branch within its borders, the result of the "National Covenant" sworn to

only five years and a half ago--that Covenant being but the renewal, with

slight additions, of a document which had done not unimportant work in a

former age? Why not have another Covenant for the present emergency--not

that National or purely Scottish Covenant, but a Covenant expressly

framed for the new purpose, and fit to be a religious pact between the

two kingdoms? So argued the Scots with the English Commissioners; and,

that the English Commissioners might see what was meant, Alexander

Henderson, who was probably the author of the idea, and to whom, at any

rate, the preparation of any extremely important document was always

entrusted, produced a draft of the proposed Covenant. The English

Commissioners did not altogether like this draft; but, after a good deal

of discussion, and apparently some suggestions from Vane tending to

vagueness in the religious part and greater prominence of the civil, the

draft was modified into a shape in which it was agreed to unanimously. On

the 17th of August it was reported by Henderson to the General Assembly,

and passed there not only unanimously and with applause, but with a most

unusual show of emotion among old and young; and on the same day it

passed the Scottish Convention. "This seems to be a new period and crise

of the most great affair," writes Baillie, recording these facts.

[Footnote: Acts of Scottish General Assembly of 1644; Baillie's Letters,

II. 81-90; Burnet's Hamiltons, 298-307.]

Baillie was right. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, as Henderson's amended

document of August 1643 was called (not the same thing at all, it is to

be remembered, as the SCOTTISH NATIONAL COVENANT of 1638, though

generally confounded therewith), became a most potent instrument in

England. This, however, could not be foreseen at first. It remained to be

seen whether the English Parliament would adopt the document which had

been agreed to by their Commissioners in Edinburgh. In the faith that

they would, or that they might be induced to do so, the Scottish General

Assembly, before its rising (Aug. 19), not only sent cordial and

sympathetic answers to the letters received from the Parliament and the

Westminster Divines, but also complied with that request of the

Parliament which desired the nomination of some Scottish ministers to be

members of the Westminster Assembly. The ministers nominated were

Henderson, Mr. Robert Douglas, Baillie, Mr. Samuel Rutherford, and Mr.

George Gillespie; but it was thought right, if only to accustom the

English to the principle of lay-eldership, to associate with these

ministers the Earl of Cassilis, Lord Maitland, and Johnstone of

Warriston. Of the eight Commissioners so appointed three were to be a

quorum. Accordingly, Henderson, Gillespie, and Lord Maitland sailed for

London at once (Aug. 30), leaving the others to follow more at leisure.

[Footnote: Acts of Scottish Assembly of 1643; and Baillie's Letters, II.

96-98.]

When Henderson reached London, he found his "Covenant" the universal

topic. The Parliament had lost no time in referring the document to the

Westminster Divines for their consideration; and there had been three or

four days of debate over it in that Assembly (Aug. 28 and onwards). Some

members, especially Dr. Cornelius Burges, took exceptions. On the whole,

however, the feeling of the Assembly decidedly was that the Covenant was

a splendid invention, might be adopted with a few verbal changes, and

might lead to fine results. This was reported to Parliament Aug. 31; and

Dr. Burges, continuing in his captiousness against this judgment of the

Assembly, found himself in disgrace. The two Houses then proceeded to

examine the Covenant for themselves. They also proposed some

modifications of the document, and referred it back, with these, to the

Assembly (Sept. 14). The arrival of Henderson and his two colleagues at

this nick of time accelerated the conclusion. On the 15th of September,

when they first appeared among the Westminster Divines, and Henderson

first opened his mouth in the Assembly and expounded the whole subject of

the relations between the two kingdoms, all opposition came to an end.

The document passed, with only the modifications that had already seemed

reasonable, and to which the Scots Commissioners had assented; and,

"after all was done, "Mr. Prolocutor, at the desire of the Assembly, gave

thanks "to God for the sweet concurrence of us in the Covenant." The

words are Lightfoot's; who adds that, to make the joy complete, Dr.

Burges came in radiant and repentant, expressing his complete

satisfaction now with the Covenant, and begging to be forgiven.

[Footnote: Burges had actually been suspended by Parliament from being a

member of the Assembly for his contumacy in this affair, Sept. 2, 1643;

but he was restored on his own humble petition, Sept. 15, the very day of

his repentant reappearance in the Assembly. He had already on that day

been called in before the Commons and had explained "that it was very

true he had unhappily taken exception to some things in the Covenant,"

but that "he hears there had been a review of this Covenant," and such an

alteration "as will give him satisfaction." See Commons Journals of the

two dates named.] The Covenant having thus been finally adjusted, the two

Houses of Parliament were swift in enacting it. On the 21st of September,

they ordered that it should be printed and published, and subscribed and

sworn to by the whole English realm; and, on Monday the 25th, to set the

example, there was a solemn meeting of the members of the two Houses and

of the Divines of the Assembly in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, at

which 220 of the Commons and all the Divines then present swore to the

new pact, and signed it with their names.--This was but the beginning.

The Covenant was thenceforth the Shibboleth of Parliamentarianism. In

London first, and then gradually through England, in towns, parishes, and

parish churches, wherever Parliament prevailed, all had to sign it or

swear to it if they would be considered friends to the cause of

Parliament and allowed action and standing-room as true Englishmen.

Oliver Cromwell, as a member of the House of Commons, signed it--if not

among the 220 of the Commons who signed it originally on the 25th of

September (at which time there is proof that he was absent from London),

at least in due course; and Milton must have signed it, as a London

householder. But, in fact, the signing went on for months and months, the

Royal Proclamation from Oxford forbidding the Covenant (Oct. 9) only

increasing the zeal for it. From Sept. 1643, onwards for some years, the

test of being a Parliamentarian in England was "Have you signed the

Covenant?" and the test of willingness to _become_ a Parliamentarian, and

of fitness to be forgiven for past malignancy or lukewarmness, was "Will

you _now_ sign the Covenant?" Such was the strange fortune of the hurried

paper drawn up by Henderson's pen in some room in the High Street of

Edinburgh.--In Scotland, it need hardly be said, the Covenant was sworn

to with alacrity. As the document was, in its very nature, a pact between

the two kingdoms, proposed by the Scots, it was useless for them to swear

until they had seen whether the English would accept the pact. But, as

soon as it was known in Scotland that the Covenant had been adopted by

the English and that the swearing in England had begun, the Scots did

their part. There was some little grumbling at first over the verbal

changes that had been made by the English in the text of the Covenant;

but this ceased, and it was even agreed that the changes were for the

better. Accordingly, on the 13th of October, 1643, most of the Scottish

nobles in Edinburgh, including 18 of the Privy Council, swore solemnly to

the Covenant in one of the city churches; and from that day on, for weeks

and months, there was a general swearing to the Covenant by the whole

people of Scotland, as by the Parliamentarians in England, district by

district, and parish by parish. Thus the Scots came now to have two

Covenants. There was their own _National Scottish Covenant_, peculiar to

themselves; and there was the _Solemn League and Covenant_, in which they

were joined with the English Parliamentarians. [Footnote: Lightfoot,

XIII. 10-16; Baillie, II. 98, 99, and 102; Neal, III. 65-70; Stevenson,

515, 516; Parl. Hist. III. 172-174; Carlyle's Cromwell (ed. 1857), I.

137, 138.]

And what was this _Solemn League and Covenant_, the device of

Henderson and the Scots for linking the Scottish and English nations in a

permanent civil and religious alliance? The document is not nearly

Henderson at his best, and it has not the deep ring, the fervour and

fierceness, of the old Scottish Covenant. For its purpose, however, it

was efficient enough, and not so very illiberal either, the necessity of

such a league being allowed, and the time and other things considered.

Here are the essential parts:--

We, Noblemen, Barons, Knights, Gentlemen, Citizens, Burgesses, Ministers

of the Gospel, arid Commons of all sorts, in the Kingdoms of England,

Scotland, and Ireland ... 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 common enemies; [also] the

Information of Religion in the Kingdoms 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 we 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 Worship and Catechising, that we and our

posterity 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 (_i.e._ Church-government by

Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and Commissaries, Deans, Deans

and Chapters, Archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical Officers

depending on that Hierarchy), Superstition, Heresy, Schism, Profaneness,

and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the

power of godliness; 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.

III. We shall with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy, in our

several vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to

preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties

of the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person

and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and

Liberties of the Kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our

consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to

diminish his Majesty's just power and greatness.

IV. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all

such as have been or shall be Incendiaries, Malignants, or evil

Instruments, by hindering the Information of Religion, dividing the King

from his People, or one of the Kingdoms from another, or making any

faction or parties among the People contrary to the League and Covenant;

that they may be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment

as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve, or the supreme

judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively, or others having power from

them for that effect, shall judge convenient.

V. And, whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms,

denied in former times to our progenitors, is by the good Providence of

God granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both

Parliaments, we shall, each one of us, according to our places and

interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm Peace and

Union to all posterity, and that justice may be done upon the wilful

opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article.

VI. We shall also, according to our places and callings, in this common

cause of Religion, Liberty, and Peace of the Kingdoms, assist and defend

all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and

pursuing thereof, and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly,

by whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror, to be divided and

withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make

defection to the contrary part, or give ourselves to a detestable

indifferency and neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the

glory of God, the good of the Kingdoms, and the honour of the King; but

shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein

against all opposition, and promote the same according to our power

against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are not able

ourselves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known, that it

may be timely prevented or removed: all which we shall do as in the sight

of God... [Footnote: Rushworth, V. 478-9, and Lords Journals, Sept. 18,

1643.--"Not so very illiberal either," I have said of the League and

Covenant in the text; and reader of the Second Article, pledging to

"endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy, Superstition, Heresy,

Schism, Profaneness," will naturally demur. This Article, however, was

but a repetition of what all, of both nations, who might sign the

Covenant, including the English Parliament, were, by past actions and

resolutions, already pledged to, neck-deep or more. The illiberality is

to be charged not upon this particular League and Covenant, but upon the

entire British mind of the time, with individual theorists excepted. It

belonged to the Royalists equally with the Parliamentarians; the only

difference being that the objects for "extirpation" in _their_

policy were and had been the Calvinisms and Presbyterianisms that were

now exulting in the power of counter-extirpation.--The most important

Article of the six is the First, pledging to a recognition and defence of

the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and to an endeavour after a

Reformation of Religion in England and Ireland "according to the Word of

God," with a view to uniformity in the three Kingdoms. The insertion of

the caution "according to the word of God" is said to have been owing to

Vane, who did not want to pre-commit the English too much to exact

Scottish Presbytery. The few other changes made by the English Parliament

and Westminster Assembly in Henderson's original Edinburgh draft of the

Covenant may be traced by a diligent reader in the proceedings of the

Lords and Commons on this subject as recorded in their Journals between

Aug. 31 and Sept. 15. The parenthetical definition of Prelacy in Art. II.

was a suggestion of the Assembly's; the bringing in of Ireland into the

Covenant seems to have been a notion of the Commons.]

Ono effect of the Solemn League and Covenant was to clear away from the

Westminster Assembly the few Anglicans who had till then tried to hang on

to it. Dr. Featley alone, of this party, persisted in keeping his place

for some time longer; but, on the discovery that he was acting as a spy

in the King's interest and corresponding with Usher, he was expelled by

the Parliament, sequestrated from his livings, and committed to prison

(Sept. 30). On the other hand, the Assembly had now an accession of

strength in the Commissioners deputed to it from the Kirk of Scotland.

Two of these, Mr. Douglas and the Earl of Cassilis, never made their

appearance; but the other six duly took their places, though not all at

once. They were admitted by warrant of the Parliament, entitling them "to

be present and to debate upon occasion"; but, as Commissioners from the

Church of another nation, they declined being considered "members" in the

ordinary sense. Practically, however, this was a mere formality; and the

reader has now therefore to add to the list of the Assembly the following

Scotchmen:--

DIVINES.

ALEXANDER HENDERSON: since 1639 one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and

since 1640 Rector of the University of Edinburgh (annually re-elected).

_ætat._ 60.--As Henderson has appeared again and again in this

History, I have only to add here that my researches have more and more

convinced me that he was, all in all, one of the ablest and best men of

his age in Britain, and the greatest, the wisest, and most liberal, of

the Scottish Presbyterians. They had all to consult him; in every strait

and conflict he had to be appealed to, and came in at the last as the man

of supereminent composure, comprehensiveness, and breadth of brow.

Although the Scottish Presbyterian rule was that no churchman should have

authority in State affair's, it had to be practically waived in his case:

he was a Cabinet Minister without office. The tradition in Scotland is

perfectly just which recollects him as the second founder of the Reformed

Church in that part of the island, its greatest man after Knox. Such is

the tradition; and yet you may look in Encyclopædias and such-like works

of reference published of late years in Scotland, and not find

Henderson's name. The less wonder that he has never received justice in

general British History! I undertake, however, that any free-minded

English historian, investigating the course of even specially English

History from 1638 to 1646, will dig up the Scottish Henderson for himself

and see reason to admire him.--Henderson, it will be remembered, had been

in London, on the Anglo-Scottish business, before. But his stay then had

been for but seven months (Nov. 1640-June 1641). Now, as Scottish

Commissioner to the Westminster Assembly, he was to remain in England for

the best part of three years (Aug. 1643--Aug. 1646). It was the easier

for him to give this service to English Parliamentarianism because he was

an unmarried man. His Edinburgh congregation and Edinburgh University had

to endure his absence as well as they could. Letters between Edinburgh

and London could go and come by sea in ten or twelve days.

GEORGE GILLESPIE: one of the ministers of Edinburgh (formerly minister of

the parish of Wemyss in Fifeshire): _ætat._ 3l.--He had flashed into

notice in Scotland in 1637, when he was only four-and-twenty years of

ago. He was then but tutor in the household of the Earl of Cassilis; but

he had written "_A Dispute against the English--Popish Ceremonies

obtruded upon the Church of Scotland_;" and the publication of this

treatise, happening opportunely in the crisis of the Scottish revolt

against Laud's novelties, attracted immediate attention to him, and

caused him to be regarded as one of the young hopes of Scottish

Presbyterianism. Hence his appointment to the parish of Wemyss (1638);

and hence his previous mission to London, in company with Henderson,

Baillie, and Blair (1640-41). Returning from that mission, he had been

translated from Wemyss to Edinburgh; but hardly had he settled in

Edinburgh when he was again sent off to London on this new business. His

wife and family joined him in London. He took a very active part in the

business of the Assembly. He died in 1648, soon after his return to

Scotland, aged only 35, leaving various writings besides his first one.

Among these were Notes of the Proceedings of the Assembly, chiefly during

1644. They were first published from the MSS. in 1846.

ROBERT BAILLIE: Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow

(formerly minister of Kilwinning in Ayrshire): _ætat._ 4l.--Baillie

also had been on the former Scottish Commission to London; and it way

sorely against his will that he was appointed on this second one. He

followed Henderson and Gillespie in November 1643, leaving his wife and

family in Glasgow. He also remained fully three years in London,

attending the Assembly punctually, but not speaking much. Fortunately,

however, he kept up his habit of jotting down in his note-books and his

correspondence all he saw and heard, Baillie's _Letters and Journals_

(first properly edited by Mr. David Laing in 1842) are among the most

graphic books of contemporary memoir to be found in any language. His

faculty of narration in his pithy native Scotch is nothing short of

genius. Whenever we have an account from Baillie of anything he saw or

was present at, it is worth all other accounts put together for accuracy

and vividness. So in his account of Stratford's trial; and so in his

account of his first impressions of the Westminster Assembly.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD: one of the ministers of St. Andrews, and also

Professor of Divinity in the University there (formerly minister of

Anwoth, Kirkcudbright): _ætat_. 43.--Of him, as of the others, we

have had to take note before. Much of his celebrity in Scottish

ecclesiastical history and in the history of Scottish theology had yet to

be acquired; but for sixteen years he had been known as one of the most

fervid spirits and most popular preachers in all Scotland. In what mood

he accepted his commission to the Westminster Assembly may be judged from

a private letter of his from St. Andrews, Oct. 20, 1643. "My heart

beareth me witness," he there says, "and the Lord who is greater knoweth,

my faith was never prouder than to be a common rough barrowman in Anwoth,

and that I could not look at the honour of being ane mason to lay the

foundations for many generations, and to build the waste places of Sion

in another kingdom, or to have ane hand in the carved work in the cedar

and almug trees in that new Temple." He went to London along with Baillie

in November 1643, his wife and family either accompanying him or

following him. He also remained in London three years or more, burying

two of his children there. He was a much more frequent speaker in the

Assembly than Baillie.

LAY COMMISSIONERS.

JOHN, LORD MAITLAND (eldest son of the Earl of Lauderdale), _ætat_.

27.--This young nobleman, who had a long and strange career before him,

was now one of the most zealous of the Scottish Covenanters, and was

selected by the Scottish Kirk, as one of the lay-elders to be sent to the

Westminster Assembly, on account of his great ability and learning. He

accompanied Henderson and Gillespie, and took his place in the Assembly

in August 1645; and, from his first arrival in London, he was much

courted by the Parliamentary leaders. Baillie and the rest were proud of

their young noble. This was hardly, however, on account of his personal

appearance; for he was a large-bodied young fellow, red-haired, of

boisterous demeanour, and with a tongue too big for his mouth, so that he

spluttered and frothed when he spoke. Ah! could the Scots but have

foreseen, could the young fellow himself but have foreseen, what years

would bring about!

SIR ARCHIBALD JOHNSTONE OF WARRISTON, Knt.: one of the Judges of the

Scottish Court of Session (hence by courtesy "Lord Warriston"'): _ætat.

circ_. 35.--He had been, as we know, a leader among the Scottish

Covenanters since 1637, and his knighthood and judgeship, conferred on

him by the King in Edinburgh in 1641, had been the reluctant recognition

of his activity during the four preceding years.--Beside Henderson and

Argyle there is no man of the Scottish Presbyterians of that time more

worthy of mark than Warriston. He had prodigious powers of work,

requiring but three hours of sleep out of the twenty-four: and he was

mutually crafty and long-headed, always ready with lawyer-like

expedients. Bishop Burnet, who was his nephew, adds, "He went into very

high notions of lengthened devotions, in which he continued many hours a

day: he would often pray in his family two hours at a time, and had an

unexhausted copiousness that way. What thought soever struck his fancy

during these effusions, he looked on it as an answer of prayer, and was

wholly determined by it." Such descriptions, and even parts of his own

correspondence, might picture him as a kind of fanatical Machiavelli; but

he seems to have been much liked and trusted by all who knew him.

Baillie, for instance, addresses him familiarly and heartily as

"Archibald" in his more private letters. He had much of his career still

before him.--His judgeship and other business in Edinburgh prevented him

from going to London along with the other Commissioners; but he took his

place in the Westminster Assembly Feb. 1, 1643-4, and was for some time

afterwards in England.

[Besides Lord Maitland and Lord Warriston, there were admitted into the

Westminster Assembly from time to time other Scottish lay-commissioners,

either to make up for the absence of the Earl of Cassilis originally

appointed, or for other reasons. Thus in September 1643, when Henderson,

Gillespie, and Lord Maitland took their places, ROBERT MALDRUM, a

confidential agent of the Scots in London, was admitted along with them;

and the EARL OF LOUDOUN, LORD BALMERINO and even ARGYLE himself, sat in

the Assembly at various times subsequently.]

Every respect was paid to the Scottish Commissioners in London. They had

Worcester House in the City assigned, or rather re-assigned, them for a

residence, with St. Antholin's church again made over to them for their

preachings; [Footnote: Memoir of Baillie, by David Laing, in Baillie's

Letters and Journals, p. li. In Cunningham's "London," and else where,

Worcester House in the Strand, on the site of the present Beaufort

Buildings, afterwards Lord Clarendon's house is mad the residence of the

Scottish Commissioners; but Mr. Laing points out that it was Worcester

House or Worcester Place in the City, which had been the mansion of John

Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.] and they had a special bench of honour in

the Assembly. And from that bench, day after day, week after week, month

after month, they laboured to direct the Assembly, and, to a great

extent, did direct it. For, as the mainly Presbyterian character and

composition of the Assembly at its first meeting had been the result of

the influence of Scottish example and of continued Scottish action in

England for a year or two, so it was to Henderson's Covenant, and to the

presence of the Scottish Commissioners in London, that the Assembly,

while yet in its infancy, was indebted (if it was a debt) for a new

impulse or twist in the strict Presbyterian direction. English

Presbyterianism might be willing, but it was vague and uninformed;

whereas here, in the Scottish Commissioners, were men who knew all about

Presbyterianism, had every detail of it at their fingers' ends, had

studied it nearly all their lives, and had worked it practically for five

years. What a boon to England to be able to borrow for a year or two such

a group of Scottish instructors! It was as if a crowd of Volunteers,

right-minded and willing to learn, had secured a few highly-recommended

regulars to be their drill-sergeants.

DEBATES IN THE ASSEMBLY: PRESBYTERIANISM AND INDEPENDENCY: THE

_APOLOGETIC NARRATION_ OF THE INDEPENDENTS.

It was not till October 12, 1643, that the real debating in the Assembly

began. Till then they had been occupied with matters in which they could

be pretty nearly of one mind, including their revision of the Thirty-nine

Articles. In that business, where we left them at the Tenth Article

(_antè_, p. 6), they had crawled on through five Articles more: viz.-

"_XI. Of Justification by Faith_"; "_XII. Of Good Works_"; "_XIII. Of

Works before Justification_"; "_XIV. Of Works of Supererogation_"; "_XV.

Of Christ alone without Sin_"; and on the 12th of October they were busy

over Article XVI. "_Of Sin after Baptism._" But on that day they received

an order from the two Houses (and Scottish influence is here visible) to

leave for the present their revision of the Thirty-nine Articles, and

proceed at once to the stiffer questions of the new form of Church-

government and the new Directory of Worship for England. [Footnote:

Lightfoot's Notes, p. 17.] Of these questions the Assembly chose the

first to begin with. On what a sea of troubles they were then launched!

(1) CHURCH OFFICERS AND OFFICES.--Under this heading alone they had

debates extending over nearly three months (Oct. 1643--Jan. 1643-4), and

labouring successively through such topics as these--Christ's Priesthood,

Prophetship, and Kingship, with the nature of his Headship over the

Church; the Church officers under Christ mentioned in Scripture

(Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Doctors or Teachers, Bishops or Overseers,

Presbyters or Elders, Deacons, and Widows), with the nature of their

functions respectively, and the proper discrimination between those of

them that were extraordinary and temporary and those that were to be

ordinary and permanent in the Church; the settling therefrom of the

officers properly belonging to each modern Christian congregation, and

especially whether there should be ruling lay-elders along with the

pastor or minister, and, if so, what should be their exact duties.

Gradually, in the course of this long discussion, carried on day after

day in the slowest syllogistic way, the differences of the Independents

and the Erastians from the Presbyterian majority of the Assembly came

out. On the question of lay-eldership, indeed, there was a more extensive

contest. Such English Presbyterians as Mr. Vines, Mr. Palmer, and Mr.

Gataker, joined with the Erastian Divines, Lightfoot and Coleman, and

with the Independents, in wholly or partially opposing lay-eldership,

against the advocacy of their brethren, Marshall, Calamy, Newcomen, Young

(four of the Smectymnuans), Seaman, Herle, Walker, Whitaker and others,

hacked by the Scottish Commissioners. On the whole, however, the votes

were decidedly in favour of the Scottish Presbyterian arrangement of

church offices. Henderson occasionally waived a point for the sake of

accommodation.

(2) ORDINATION:--This subject and its adjuncts occupied the Assembly

during some fourteen sittings in January 1643-4. Ordination having been

defined to be "the solemn setting apart of a person to some public church

office," it was voted, not without opposition, that such ordination is

always to be continued in the church, and consequently that there should

not be promiscuous preaching by all and sundry, but only preaching by

authorized persons. But then who were to ordain? What were to be the

qualifications for being ordained to the pastoral office? How far were

the congregations or parishioners to have a voice in the election of

their pastors? What was to be the ceremonial of ordination? On these

points, or on some of them, the Independents fought stoutly, being

carefully on their guard against anything that might endanger their main

principle of the completeness of every congregation of believers within

itself. Selden also interposed with perturbing Erastian arguments. On the

whole, however, in this matter also the drift of the Assembly was as the

Presbyterians wished. While it was agreed that "in extraordinary cases

something extraordinary may be done until a settled order can be had," it

was voted that even in such cases there should be a "keeping as near as

possibly may be to the rule;" which rule was indicated, so far at least,

by the resolution that "preaching Presbyters may ordain," or that Bishops

are not required for the act. But, before this subject of Ordination

could be carried farther, it melted into a larger one.

(3) PRESBYTERIAL GOVERNMENT OR CONGREGATIONALISM:--This controversy,

which had been underlying the whole course of the previous debating,

emerged in express terms before the end of January 1643-4. Then began the

real tug of the verbal war. It is unnecessary to enumerate all the items

of the controversy. The battle was essentially between two principles of

church-organization. Was every individual assembly, or association of

Christians (it might be of hundreds of persons, or it might be of as few

as seven persons, voluntarily drawn together), to be an independent

ecclesiastical organism, entitled to elect its own pastor and other

officers, and to exercise the powers of admonition and excommunication

within itself--any action of surrounding congregations upon it being an

action of mere observation and criticism, and not of power or

jurisdiction; and no authority to belong to meetings of the office-

bearers of congregations of the same city or neighbourhood, or to general

synods of office-bearers, however useful for various purposes such

occasional meetings and synods might be? This was what the Independents

maintained; and to this the Presbyterians vehemently said Nay. It was not

desirable, they said in the first place, that congregations themselves

should be mere gatherings of Christians drawn together by chance

affinities. That would be to put an end to the parochial system, with all

the advantages of orderliness and effective administration that belonged

to it. Let every congregation consist, as heretofore, mainly of the

inhabitants of one parish or definitely marked ecclesiastical territory.

Then let there be a strict inter-connectedness of all these parochial

congregations over the whole land by means of an ascending series of

church-judicatories. Let the congregations of the same town or district

be connected by a Presbyterial Court, consisting of the assembled

ministers and the ruling lay-elders of all the congregations,

periodically reviewing the proceedings of the said congregations

individually, or hearing appeals from them; and let these Presbyteries or

Presbyterial Courts be in like manner under the authority and review of

Synods, embracing many Presbyteries within their bounds, and, finally, of

National Assemblies of the whole Church. Fierce and hot waxed the war

between the two systems. Much turned on the practice of the apostolic

churches or primitive Christian communities of Jerusalem Ephesus,

Antioch, Corinth, &c., as it could be gathered from various passages of

Scripture: and great was the display of learning, Hebraic and

Hellenistic, over these passages on both sides. Goodwin as the chief

speaker for the Independents; but he was aided by Nye, Burroughs, Bridge,

and Simpson; and Selden struck in, if not directly for Congregationalism,

at least so as to perplex the Presbyterians. On the other side Marshall

and the other Smectymnuans were conspicuous, with Vines, Seaman, Burges,

Palmer, Herle, and Whitaker. Henderson looked on and assisted when

required. But no one on this side was more energetic than Henderson's

young colleague, Gillespie. His countryman Baillie was in raptures with

him, and in writing to Scotland and to Holland could not praise him

enough. "Of a truth" he says in one letter, "there is no man whose parts

in a public debate I do so admire. He has studied so accurately all the

points that ever yet came to our Assembly, he has got so ready, so

assured, so solid a way of public debating, that, however there be in the

Assembly divers very excellent men, yet, in my poor judgment, there is

not one who speaks more rationally and to the point than that brave youth

has done ever." On one occasion Gillespie, on a question of sheer

learning, dared to grapple even with the great Selden, and with such

effect, according to tradition (Scottish!), that even Selden reeled. And

so on and on, from January 1643-4, through February, March, and April,

the debate proceeded, and there seemed to be no likely end to it. For,

though Congregationalism was maintained but by a small knot of men in the

Assembly, they fought man fully, inch by inch, and there were various

reasons why the majority, instead of overwhelming them by a conclusive

vote or two, allowed them to struggle on. For one thing, though Baillie

thought there was a "woful longsomeness" in the slow English forms of

debating at such a time, it was felt by the English members that, in so

important a business as the settling of a new constitution for the

National Church, hurry would be unbecoming. But, besides this, the

Assembly was not a body legislating in its own right. It had been called

only to advise the Parliament; and, though its deliberations were with

closed doors, was not all that it did from day to day pretty well known,

not only in Parliament, but in London and throughout the country? Might

not the little knot of Independents fighting within the Assembly

represent an amount of opinion out of doors too large to be trifled with?

[Footnote: In Lightfoot's Notes of the Assembly and Gillespie's similar

Notes, the proceedings which I have endeavoured to summarize in this

paragraph and the two preceding may be traced in detail--Lightfoot's

Notes traversing, with great minuteness, the whole of the time under

notice; and Gillespie's beginning at Feb. 2, 1643-4. Prefixed to

Gillespie's Notes, as edited by Meek in 1846, there is, however, a very

useful set of official minutes of the proceedings from Oct. 17, 1643,

onwards, by the Scribes of the Assembly; which may be compared with

Lightfoot's more extensive jottings. There are excellent and luminous

notices of the Assembly's proceedings during most of the time indicated

in Baillie, II. 106-174. Neal is very confused in his account of the

Assembly, and does not seem to have studied its proceedings well. In

Hetherington's _History of the Westminster Assembly_ there is a

fairish popular account, compiled from Lightfoot and Gillespie, but

charged with the author's strong personal Presbyterianism. The

traditional part of the story of Gillespie's fight with Selden (which had

come down, I believe, through the careful Scottish Church antiquary,

Wodrow) is given by Mr. Hetherington in his History of the Assembly, but

more fully and interestingly in his Memoir of Gillespie, prefixed to

Meek's Edition of Gillespie's Notes.]

None knew this better than the little knot of Independents in the

Assembly itself. They had already acted on the knowledge. Foreseeing that

the determination of the great question in the Assembly would inevitably

be against them, they had taken the precaution, before the question came

on in its final form, to record an appeal from the Assembly to Parliament

and public opinion. This they had done in a so-called _Apologetical

Narration_, presented to Parliament, and published and put in

circulation not later than the beginning of January 1643-4. [Footnote: I

find it registered at Stationers' Hall, Dec. 30, 1643.] It is a tract of

some thirty quarto pages, signed openly by the five writers--Thomas

Goodwin, Sidrach Simpson, Philip Nye, Jeremiah Burroughs, and William

Bridge. Having explained first that they had been in no haste to press

their peculiar opinions, and would have preferred to disclose them

gradually, but that recent experience had left them no option but to

appeal to Parliament as "the supreme judicatory of this kingdom," and

"the most sacred refuge and asylum for mistaken and misjudged innocence,"

they proceed to a historical sketch of their doings while they had been

in Holland, and an exposition of their differences from their

Presbyterian brethren. Three principles of practical conduct, they say,

had taken firm hold of them--_first_, that their supreme rule in

church-matters, out of themselves, should be the pattern of the primitive

or apostolic churches; _secondly_, that they would not bind themselves

by their present judgment in any matter against a possible future change

of judgment; and, _thirdly_, that they would study accommodation, as

far as they could, to the judgments of others. Acting on these

principles, but foreseeing the condemnation of their Congregationalism by

the Assembly, they hoped at least that the issue would be so regulated

finally by Parliament that they might not be driven into exile again, but

might be permitted "to continue in their native country, with the

enjoyment of the ordinances of Christ, and an indulgence in some lesser

differences," so long as they continued peaceable subjects. [Footnote:

Neal, III. 131-133, _Narration_ itself, also Hanbury's _Historical

Memorials relating to the Independents_, Vol. II. (1841), pp. 221-

230.]

This appeal to Cæsar by the five leading Independents had by no means

pleased the rest of the Assembly. Though they acknowledged the great

ability and even the moderation of the dissentients, they thought it an

unfriendly stroke of policy on their part to have thus sheltered

themselves by anticipation under the power outside. But, indeed, it was

more than a stroke of personal policy. The five knew that they were

speaking not for themselves only, but for all that might adhere to them.

Their act reminded the Assembly of what was otherwise becoming apparent--

to wit, that the Assembly was after all but an imperfect representation

of contemporary English opinion. It was an ark floating on a troubled

sea, with its doors and windows well pitched, and perhaps with Noah on

board, but not all Noah's family, and certainly not specimens of all the

living creatures, even of non-episcopal kinds, that were to survive into

the new order of things. What if, on the subsidence of the waters, the

survivors in this ark should find themselves confronted with another

population, which, having survived somehow on chance spars and rafts,

must be included in the new community, and yet would insist that

questions should be kept open in that community that had been settled by

votes passed within the ark? That such was likely to be the case the

Presbyterians already had proof.

What, then, were they to do? In the first place, as they believed Noah to

be within _their_ ark, they were to trust to his power, and the

veneration that would be accorded to him, when he should re-emerge. In

other words, they were to press on the Presbyterian theory in the

Assembly, allowing "the Five Dissenting Brethren," as they were now

called, the most prolix liberty of speech and reasoning, but always

beating them in the final vote so as to secure a thoroughly Presbyterian

report to Parliament at the last. But, in the second place, as the

Independents had appealed to public opinion against such a contingency,

it was necessary not only to carry Presbyterianism within the Assembly,

but also to argue for it out of doors. Hence, through the year 1644,

among the shoals of pamphlets that came from the London press (including

Fast-day Sermons, Sermons before the Lords and Commons, &c., by the most

eminent members of Assembly) there were not a few pleas for Presbytery,

intended to counteract the effects of the _Apologetical Narration_

and other pleas for Congregationalism. Rutherford's _Temperate Plea for

Paul's Presbytery in Scotland, or Modest Dispute touching Independency of

particular Congregations_, and the same author's _Peaceable Plea for the

Government of the Church of Scotland_, had preceded the _Apologetical

Narration_; but the express answers to the _Narration_ were numerous. One

of the most celebrated of these was a pamphlet entitled _Some

Observations and Annotations upon the Apologetical Narration,_ addressed

to the Parliament and the Assembly by a writer who signs himself merely

"A. S.," but is known to have been a certain Dr. Adam Steuart, a Scot

residing in London, but who soon afterwards received a call to Leyden. To

this pamphlet there were replies on the part of the Independents,

especially one entitled _M. S. to A. S._ (a title changed in a second

edition into "_A Reply of Two of the Brethren to A.S._"); again "A.S."

responded; and so the controversy went on, pamphlets thickening on

pamphlets. [Footnote: Lowndes's Bibl. Manual, by Bohn, Article "Steuart,

Adam;" Baillie, II. 216; and Hanbury's _Hist. Memorials relating to the

Independents_, II. 251 _et seq._, and 341 _et seq._, where there are full

accounts of the pamphlets, with extracts.]

PROCEEDINGS OF PARLIAMENT TO FEB. 1643-4: STATE OF THE WAR: THE SCOTTISH

AUXILIARY ARMY.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding this ominous difference in the Assembly on the

great question of Church-government, all parties in the Assembly were co-

operating harmoniously with each other and with Parliament in other

important items of the general "Reformation" which was in progress. The

chief of these items may be grouped under headings:--

_Simplification of Church Service, and Suppression of unpopular Rites

and Symbols_.--This process, which had been going on naturally from

the beginning of the Parliament, and more violently and riotously in some

places since the beginning of the war, had been accelerated by recent

Parliamentary enactments. Thus, in May 1643, just when Milton was

preparing to leave London on his marriage holiday, there had been a

tearing down, by authority, with the sound of trumpets and amid the

huzzas of the citizens, of Cheapside Cross, Charing Cross, and other such

street-monuments of too Popish make. At the same time the anti-

Sabbatarian "Book of Sports" had been publicly burnt. Then followed (Aug.

27) an ordinance for removing out of churches all "superstitious images,

crucifixes, altars," &c.; the effect of which for the next few months was

a more or less rough visitation of pickaxing, chipping, and chiselling in

all the parish-churches within the Parliament's bounds that had not

already been Puritanized by private effort. Then, again, on the 20th of

November, the House of Commons recommended to the consideration of the

Assembly a new English Version of the Psalms, which had been recently

executed, and put into print, by the much-respected member for Truro, Mr.

Francis Rous. Ought not Sternhold and Hopkins's Version to be disused

among other lumber; and, if so, might not Rous's Version be adopted

instead, for use in churches? It would be a merited compliment and also a

source of private profit to the veteran Puritan--whom the Parliament, at

any rate, were about to appoint to the Provostship of Eton College (worth

800_l_ a year and more), instead of the Malignant, Dr. Stewart, then

with his Majesty. The Assembly did actually take up Rous's Psalter, his

friends pressing it on the old gentleman's account, but others not

thinking it good enough; and we find Baillie regretting, Scot-like, when

the subject was first brought up, that he had not with him a copy of

another version of the Psalms then in MS., by his friend and countryman,

Sir William Mure of Rowallan. This version he liked best of any he had

seen, and thought decidedly better than Rous's; and; if he had had a

copy, he might have been able to do his friend a good turn! [Footnote:

Common Journals, Nov. 20, 1643; Baillie, II. 101 (and note), and 120-121.

Baillie, at the very time he was privately wishing he had his friend

Rowallan's Psalms to pit against Rous's, was becoming acquainted with

Rous; to whom in a month or two he dedicated a sermon of his preached

before the Commons. He there calls Rous his "much honoured friend."

Rowallan's Psalms remain in MS. to this day; but specimens of them have

been published. See Baillie's Letters, pp. 535-6 of Appendix, Vol. III.;

where there is an interesting and curious history of English Versions of

the Psalms, by the editor, Mr. David Laing.] The adoption of Rous's

Psalter was not immediately voted by the Assembly, but lay over along

with the general business of the new Directory for Worship. In this

business too they were making some private progress in Committee, though

retarded by the debates on Church-government; and there was every

likelihood of substantial agreement here. Independents and Erastians were

pretty sure to agree with Presbyterians on the subjects of the Liturgy,

Sabbath-observance, abolition of Festival-days, and the recommendation of

a plain and Puritan church-service generally. There were significant

proofs of this. Actually on Christmas-day 1643 (who would have thought

it?) the Lords and Commons met for business as usual, thus showing the

example of contempt of the great holiday--all the more to the delight of

the Scottish Commissioners, and of the zealous Puritans of the Assembly

and the City, because the Assembly was still weak-hearted enough as a

whole to adjourn for that day. It was the Scottish Commissioners, indeed,

that had contrived this rebuke to the weaker spirits. And within a week

or two thereafter there was this farther Puritan triumph--also the

contrivance of the Scottish Commissioners through their friends in

Parliament,--that the use of the Liturgy was discontinued in the two

Houses, in favour of extempore prayers by Divines appointed for the duty

by the Assembly. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 120 and 130.]

_Ejection of Scandalous and Malignant Ministers_.--A somewhat

wholesale process, described in such terms by the winning side, had been

going on, everywhere within the sway of Parliament, for several months.

It was part, indeed, of a more general process, for the sequestration to

the use of Parliament of the estates of notorious Delinquents of all

kinds, which had been the subject of various Parliamentary ordinances.

[Footnote: Commons Journals from March 1612-3 onwards. For sequence of

proceedings and dates, see Index to Journals, Vol III. _sub cocc._

"Delinquents." See also the main sequestrating ordinances (March 31 and

Aug. 19, 1643) in Scobell's collection.] By these ordinances a machinery

for the work of sequestration had been established, consisting of a

central committee in London, and of committees in all the accessible

counties. The special application of this machinery to clerical

delinquents had come about gradually. From the very beginning of the

Parliament (Nov. 1640) there had been a grand Committee of the Commons,

of which Mr. White, member for Southwark, was chairman, for inquiring

into the scandalous immoralities of the clergy, and an acting Sub-

committee, of which Mr. White also was chairman, for considering how

scandalous ministers might be removed, and real preaching ministers put

in their places. By the action of these committees month after month--

receiving and duly investigating complaints brought against clergymen,

either of scandalous lives or of notoriously Laudian opinions and

practices--a very large number of clergymen had been placed on the black

books, and some actually ejected, before the commencement of the war.

But, after the war began, sharper action became necessary. For now the

Parliament had to provide for what were called "the plundered ministers"

--_i.e._ for those Puritan ministers who, driven from their parsonages

in various parts of the country by the King's soldiers, had to flock into

London, with their families, for refuge and subsistence. A special

Committee of the Commons had been appointed (Dec. 1642) to devise ways

and means for the relief of these "godly and well-affected ministers;"

and, as was natural, the proceedings of this Committee had become inter-

wound with those of the Committee for the ejection of scandalous

ministers--Mr. White at the head of the whole agency. And so, in the

Commons, we hear ultimately of such determinations as these respecting

"scandalous ministers:"--July 3,1643: "Ordinance to be prepared to enable

the Committees (for sequestration) in the several counties to sequester

their livings;"--July 27: "the Committee for plundered Ministers to

consider of informations against them and to put them to the proof;"--

Sept. 6: "Deputy Lieutenants and Committees in the counties empowered to

examine witnesses against them." The result was the beginning of that

"great and general purgation of the clergy in the Parliament's quarters"

about which there was such an outcry among the Royalists at the time, and

which, after having been a rankling memory in the High Church heart for

seventy years, became the main text of Walker's famous folio of 1714 on

"The Sufferings of the Clergy of the Church of England in the Grand

Rebellion." According to that book, and to Royalist tradition, it was a

ruthless persecution and spoliation of all the best, the most venerable,

and the most learned of the clergy of England. Fuller, however, writing

at the time, and corroborated by Baxter, represents the facts more

fairly. Not a few of the clergy first ejected, he admits, were really men

of scandalous private character, and were turned out expressly on that

account; others, who were turned out for what was called their "false

doctrine," or obstinate adherence to that Arminian theology and

ceremonial of worship which the nation had condemned, might regard

themselves as simply suffering in their turn what Puritan ministers had

suffered abundantly enough under the rule of Laud; and, if gradually the

sequestration extended itself beyond these two categories of "scandalous

ministers" and "ministers of unsound faith," and swept in among

"malignants" generally, or those whose only fault was that they were

prominent adherents to the King, what was that but one of the harsh

natural vengeances of a civil war? At the beginning of the purgation, at

all events, Parliament professed carefulness and even leniency in its

choice of victims. A fifth of the income of every ejected minister was

reserved to his wife and family; and, in order that the public, and even

the Royalists, might judge of the equity with which Parliament had

proceeded in so odious a business, Mr. White, the chairman of the

committees on clerical delinquency, put forth in print (Nov. 19, 1643)

his "First Century of Scandalous Malignant Priests," or statement of the

cases of one hundred of the sequestered clergy, chiefly in London and the

adjacent counties, with the reasons of their ejection. At the time when

Mr. White (thenceforward known as "Century White") put forth this

pamphlet, the number of the ejected must have already considerably

exceeded one hundred, or perhaps even three hundred; and, as the war went

on, and sequestration became more and more co-extensive with

"malignancy," the number swelled till, as is calculated, some 1,500 or

1,600 clergymen in all, or about a sixth part of the total clergy of

England, were thrown out of their livings. [Footnote: Commons Journals of

dates July 3, July 27, and Sept. 6, 1643; White's _First Century_,

Fuller's Church History (ed. 1842), III. 458, 460; Neal's Puritans, III.

23-34. Sec also Hallam's Const. Hist. (10th ed.), II. 164-166.]

_Filling up of Vacant Livings by the appointment of New

Ministers_.--For the sequestered livings there were, of course,

numerous candidates. Not only were there the "plundered" Puritan

ministers, most of them congregated in London, to be provided for; but

there were the young Divinity scholars growing up, for whom, even in a

state of war, or at least for such of them as took the side of

Parliament, it was necessary to find employment. Obviously, however, some

order or method had to be adopted in the exercise of the large patronage

of vacant livings which had thus come suddenly into the hands of

Parliament. The plundered ministers could not be thrust promiscuously, or

by mere lottery, into such livings as were vacant. They had all,

certainly, the qualification of being already ordained; but there were

different sorts of persons among them, and some with very little to

recommend them except their distress. It was essential that there should

be some examination or re-examination of all such petitioners for new

livings, in order that the unfit should not be appointed, and that the

others might be provided for according to their degrees of fitness.

Accordingly, at the request of the two Houses, the Westminster Assembly

(Oct. 1643) appointed two-and-twenty of its Divines to be a committee for

examining and reporting on the qualifications of all such petitioners for

livings as might be referred to it by Parliament. About the same time a

provisional arrangement was made for the more difficult matter of

ordaining new candidates for the Ministry. The whole question of

Ordination having yet to be argued and settled in the Assembly (see

_antè_, p. 20), it was felt on all hands that some temporary

arrangement was imperative. Accordingly, by the advice of the Assembly,

the whole business of deciding who were fit to be ordained, and of duly

ordaining such, was entrusted by Parliament to certain committees or

associations of godly ministers, themselves already ordained, appointed

for certain centres and districts. The chief Ordaining Committee was, of

course, that for London and the country round. This committee, to which

was assigned not only the ordination of new ministers for its important

district, but also the ordination of all chaplains for the army and navy,

consisted of twenty-three associated Presbyters (ten Divines of the

Assembly and thirteen parish-ministers of London not in the Assembly), of

whom seven were to be a quorum. Whosoever, not already ordained, should

presume to preach publicly or otherwise exercise the ministerial office

without having been ordained by this association, or one of the others,

or at least without a certificate of having been approved by the

Examining Committee of the Assembly, was to be reported to Parliament for

censure and punishment. The London Divines were enjoined to be careful

whom they admitted into their pulpits. In short, it was the object of

both the Parliament and the Assembly to proclaim their determination

that, while the question of Church-government was being considered, some

decent rule of practical order should be carefully observed, and England

should not be allowed to lapse, as the loyalists were giving out, into a

mere anarchy of ranters, preaching cobblers, and every fool his own

parson. [Footnote: Neal, III. 88-90, and 138-141.]

_Visitation of the University of Cambridge_.--While the scandalous

and malignant among the parish clergy were being sequestered and ejected,

it was not to be expected that Parliament would spare the Universities.

Oxford, for the present, was beyond reach; but Cambridge was within

reach. Was it to be endured that, while the town of Cambridge was the

very centre of the Associated Eastern Counties, the most zealously

Parliamentarian region in all England, the University should be a

fortress of malignancy, with many of its Heads of Houses and Fellows

notoriously disaffected to Parliament, and showing their disaffection by

sermons, publications from the University press, continuance of the

forbidden usages and symbolisms in the College chapels, and such other

acts of contumacy? For a long time Parliament had been asking itself this

question. As early as June 10, 1643, the subject of "some effectual means

of reforming" the University of Cambridge, "purging it from all abuses,

innovations, and superstitions," and dealing with conspicuous malignants

in it, had been under discussion in the Commons. There had been a

reluctance, however, to proceed too rapidly, or so as to incur the

Royalist reproaches of "invasion of University rights" and "ruin of a

great seat of learning." Hence, whatever dealings with the University had

been necessary had been left very much to the discretion of the ordinary

agencies representing Parliament in the Associated Counties, at the head

of which, since Aug. 1643, had been the Earl of Manchester. There was

even a Parliamentary ordinance (Jan. 6, 1643-4) explaining that, whatever

sequestration there might be of the revenues of individual delinquents in

the University, every regard was to be paid to the property of the

University as such, and not an atom of _it_ should be alienated. By

this time, however, it was felt that the malignancy of the University

must be dealt with more expressly. Accordingly, on the 22nd of January

there was passed "an Ordinance for regulating the University of Cambridge

and for removing of scandalous Ministers in the several Associate

Counties." By this ordinance it was provided that, "whereas many

complaints are made by the well-affected inhabitants of the associated

counties of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hertford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, and

Lincoln, that the service of the Parliament is retarded, the enemy

strengthened, the people's souls starved, and their minds diverted from

any care of God's cause, by their idle, ill-affected and scandalous

clergy of the University of Cambridge and the Associated Counties" and

whereas "many that would give evidence against such scandalous ministers

are not able to travel to London," therefore the Earl of Manchester

should be commissioned to take the necessary steps in the University and

the Counties themselves. He was to appoint Committees who were to have

"power to call before them all Provosts, Masters, and Fellows of

Colleges, all students and members of the University, and all ministers

in any county of the Association, and all schoolmasters;" and, after due

inquiry by these Committees, he was to have power "to eject such as he

shall judge unfit from their places, and to sequester their estates,

means and revenues, and to place other fitting persons in their room,

such as shall be approved of by the Assembly of Divines." A very

important ordinance, as we shall see in due time. [Footnote: Commons

Journals, June 10, 1643, and Jan. 20, 1643-4; Lords Journals, Jan. 6 and

Jan. 22, 1643-4; and Neal, III. 105-107.]

The reader need hardly be reminded by what authority all these acts and

changes in the system of England were decreed and carried into effect.

Since the beginning of the war the government of England, except where

the King's troops were in possession, had been in the two Houses of

Parliament sitting at Westminster; but since July 1643 it may be said

rather to have been in these two Houses of Parliament _with_ the

Assembly of Divines. What the reader requires, however, to be reminded of

is the smallness numerically of this governing body. The House of Lords,

in particular, though still retaining all its nominal dignity and keeping

up all its stately forms, was a mere shred of its former self. About 29

or 30 persons, out of the total Peerage of England, as we reckoned (Vol.

II. pp. 430-31), had avowed themselves Parliamentarians; so that, had all

these been present, the House of Lords would have been but a very small

gathering. But, as a certain number even of these were always absent on

military duty or on other occasions, it was seldom that more than 14 or

15 Peers were present in the House around Lord Grey of Wark on the

woolsack as elected Speaker. Sometimes, when the business was merely

formal, the number sank to 4 or 5; and I do not think the Lords Journals

register, during the whole time with which we are now concerned, a larger

attendance than 22. That was the number present on the 22nd of January,

1643-4, when the ordinance for visiting Cambridge University was passed.

[Footnote: As the Lords Journals give the names of the Peers present each

day, very accurate information on this subject is obtainable from them.]

In the Commons, of course, the attendance was much larger. When a "whip"

was necessary, between 200 and 300 could be got together. Thus on the

25th of September, 1643, which was the day of inaugurating the Covenant,

220 were present; and on the above-mentioned 22nd of January, 1643-4--an

important day for various reasons--as many as 280 made their appearance,

while it was calculated that 100 were absent in the Parliamentary

service. [Footnote: Parl. Hist. III. 199.] Usually, however, the

attendance was much less numerous. On a vote taken Nov. 26, 1643, the

division showed 59 against 58, or 117 present; and this appears to be

rather above the mark of the attendance in general.--On the whole, one

may say that the business of the nation in the interest of Parliament was

carried on habitually during those important months by some 12 or 15

Parliamentarian Peers, and some 100 Commoners, keeping up the forms of

the two Houses, and having for their assessors, and in part for their

spurs and tutors, the 60 or 80 Puritan Divines who sat close at hand in

the Jerusalem Chamber.

Was all this to last? Whether it was to last or not depended not a little

on the conduct of the Parliament itself, but greatly more on the conduct

of the generals and armies that held up its banners in various parts of

England. And how, since our last glimpses of the state of the war in the

dark month of Hampden's death and the month following that (June and July

1643), had the war been going on? Much as before. What do we see? A siege

here and a siege there, a skirmish here and a skirmish there, ending

sometimes for the Parliament, but as often for the King; amid all these

sieges and skirmishes no battle of any magnitude, save the first Battle

of Newbery (Sept. 20, 1643), where Lord Falkland, weary of his life, was

slain, and also the Royalist Earls of Carnarvon and Sunderland, but

otherwise the damage to the King was inconsiderable; Essex still heavy

and solemn, an excellent man, but a woful commander-in-chief; little Sir

William Waller still the favourite and set up against Essex, but

confidence in him somewhat shaken by his recent defeats; the Fairfaxes in

the north, and others in other parts, doing at best but respectably;

Cromwell, it is true, a marked man and always successful wherever he

appeared, but appearing yet only as Colonel Cromwell! "For the present

the Parliament side is running down the brae," wrote the sagacious

Baillie, Sept. 22, 1643; and again, more pithily, Dec. 7, "They may tig-

tag on this way this twelvemonth." The only remedy, Baillie thought--the

only thing that would change the sluggish "tig-tagging" of Essex and the

English into something like what a war should be--was the expected

coming-in of the Scots. For this event the English Parliamentarians also

longed vehemently. "All things are expected from God and the Scots" is

Baillie's description of the feeling in London in the winter of 1643-4.

For, though the bringing in of a Scottish force auxiliary to the English

army had been arranged for in the autumn--though it was for that end that

the English Parliament had sent Commissioners to Edinburgh, had accepted

Henderson's "Solemn League and Covenant," and had admitted Scottish

Commissioners into the Westminster Assembly--yet the completing of the

negotiations, and the getting together and equipping of the Scottish army

for its southward march, had been a work of time. About Christmas 1643 it

was understood that the Scots were in readiness to march; but the precise

time when they might be expected to cross the border was yet in anxious

conjecture. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 83, 99, 104-5, and 114-15.]

It was an unusually severe winter, cold and snowy. The Londoners, in

especial, deprived of their coal from Newcastle, felt it severely.

Baillie particularly mentions the comfortable hangings of the Jerusalem

Chamber, and the good fire kept burning in it, as "some dainties in

London" at that date, and duly appreciated by the members of the

Assembly. [Footnote: Ibid. II. 106.] Among the printed broad-sheets of

the time that were hawked about London, I have seen one entitled

"_Artificial Fire; or, Coal for Rich and Poor: this being the offer of

an excellent new Invention_." The invention consists of a proposal to

the Londoners of a cheap substitute for coal, devised by a "Mr. Richard

Gesling, Ingineer, late deceased." Mr. Gesling's idea was that, if you

take brickdust, mortar, sawdust, or the like, and make up pasteballs

thereof mingled with the dust of sea-coal or Scotch coal, and with

stable-litter, you will have a fuel much more economical than coal

itself. But, though this is the practical proposal of the fly-sheet, its

main interest lies in its lamentation over the lack of the normal fuel.

"Some fine-nosed city dames," it says, "used to tell their husbands, 'O

husband! we shall never be well, we nor our children, whilst we live in

the smell of this city's sea-coal smoke! Pray, a country-house for our

health, that we may get out of this sea-coal smell!' But how many of

these fine-nosed dames now cry, 'Would to God we had sea-coal! Oh! the

want of fire undoes us! O the sweet sea-coal fires we used to have! how

we want them now: no fire to your sea-coal!'... This for the rich: a

word for the poor! The great want of fuel for fire makes many a poor

creature cast about how to pass over this cold winter to come; but,

finding small redress for so cruel an enemy as the cold makes, some turn

thieves that never stole before--steal posts, seats, benches from doors,

rails, nay, the very stocks that should punish them; and all to keep the

cold winter away." [Footnote: Folio sheet dated 1644 (_i.e._ winter

of 1643-4), in British Museum Library: Press-mark, 669, f.]--If on no

other account than the prospect of a re-opening of the coal-traffic

between Newcastle and London, what joy among the Londoners when the news

came that, on Friday the 19th of January, 1643-4, the expected Scottish

army had entered England by Berwick! They had entered it, toiling through

deep snow, 21,500 strong, and were already--God be praised!--spreading

themselves over the winter-white fields of the very region where the coal

lay black underground. At their head who but old Field-marshall Leslie,

now Earl of Leven, Scottish commander-in-chief for the third time, and

tolerably well acquainted already with the North of England? Second in

command to him, as Lieutenant-general of the Foot, was William Baillie,

of Letham, in this post for the second time; and the Major-general, with

command of the horse was David Leslie, a third Gustavus-Adolphus man,

and, though a namesake of the commander-in-chief, only distantly related

to him. The marquis of Argyle accompanied the invaders, nominally as

Colonel of a troop of horse; and among the other colonels of foot or

horse were the Earls of Cassilis, Lindsay, Loudoun, Buccleugh,

Dunfermline, Lothian, Marischal, Eglinton, and Dalhousie. The expenses of

the army, averaging 1,000_l._ per diem (6_d._ a day for each

common foot-soldier, 8_d._ for a horse-soldier, and so on upwards)

were, by agreement, to be charged to England. [Footnote: Rushw. V. 604-7;

Parl. Hist. III. 200, 201; Baillie, II. 100 and 137.]

The condition on which the Scots had consented thus to aid the English

Parliament must not be forgotten. It was the agreement of the two nations

in one and the same religious Covenant. In all the negotiations that had

been going on between London and Edinburgh, the Scots had always assumed

the fulfilment of this condition on the part of the English. And, so far,

we have seen, it had already been fulfilled. Since September 1643, when

Henderson's Covenant had first been proposed to the English Parliament

and the Westminster Assembly, and the Commons and the Westminster Divines

had set the example by swearing to it collectively in one of the London

churches, "the Covenant" had been a phrase familiar to the English mouth.

In all the miscellaneous activity of the Parliament for the detection and

disabling of "Malignants," there had been no instrument more effective or

more commonly used. There were other tests and oaths by which the

"malignants" might be distinguished from the "well-affected"; but the

taking or not taking of the Solemn League and Covenant was the test

paramount. Wherever the Parliament had power it had been in operation.

Since December 20, for example, it had been the law that no one could be

a Common Councilman of the City of London who had not subscribed to the

Covenant. Still, in this matter of subscription to the Covenant, the

English, both as the larger nation and as the less accustomed to

Covenants, had remained considerably in arrear of the Scots; and, when

the Scots actually did make their appearance in England, there was a

sudden refreshing of the memory of the English Parliament on the subject,

and a sudden exertion to make up the arrears. "The Scots are among us on

the supposition that we have all taken the Covenant; and lo! we have not

yet all taken it," was virtually the exclamation of the Parliament.

Accordingly, that all might be brought in, that there might be no escape,

and that there might remain to all time coming a vast register of the

names of the Englishmen then living who had entered into this solemn

league with their Scottish neighbours, there was passed, on the 5th of

February, 1643-4, a new and conclusive ordinance on the subject. By this

ordinance it was enacted that true copies of the Covenant should be sent

to the Earl of Essex and other commanders of the army, and to all

governors of towns, &c., to the intent that it might be sworn to by every

man in the army; also that copies should be sent into all the counties,

so that they should punctually reach every parish and every parish-

minister--the instructions being that every minister should, the next

Lord's day after the certified copy of the Covenant reached him, read it

aloud to his congregation, discourse and exhort upon it, and then tender

it to all present, who should swear to it with uplifted hands, and

afterwards sign it with their names or marks. All men over eighteen years

of age, whether householders or lodgers, were to take it in the parishes

in which they were resident; and the names of all refusing, whether

ministers or laymen, were to be reported. [Footnote: See Ordinance in

Lords Journals, Feb. 5, 1643-4.] Nay, by an arrangement about the same

time, the action of the Covenant was made to extend to English subjects

abroad. Notwithstanding all this stringency, there is reason to believe

that not a few soldiers in the army, and not a few ministers and others,

contrived, in one way or another, to avoid the Covenant, without being

called to account for the neglect. Where a minister otherwise

unexceptionable, or an officer or soldier of known zeal and efficiency,

had scruples of conscience against signing, the authorities, both civil

and military, appear in many places to have exercised a discretion and

winked at disobedience or procrastination.--The case of the Earl of

Bridgewater may here be of some interest, on its own account, and as

illustrating what went on generally. The Earl, known to us so long as

"the Earl of Milton's _Comus_" had been living in retirement as an

invalid during the war, his wishes on the whole being doubtless with the

King, but his circumstances obliging him to keep on fair terms with the

Parliament. The test of the Covenant seems to have sorely perplexed the

poor Peer. "He says some things in the Covenant his heart goes along with

them, and other things are doubtful to him; and therefore desires some

time to consider of it." Such was the report to the Lords, Wednesday Feb.

7, 1643-4, by the Earls of Rutland and Bolingbroke, who had been

appointed to deal with him and other absent Peers in the matter. "He

shall have time till Friday morning next," was the entry ordered to be

made. On the Friday named there is no mention of the subject in the Lords

Journals; but on Saturday the 10th Lords Rutland and Bolingbroke were

able to report that it was all right. Two days had convinced the Earl

that signing would be best for him. [Footnote: Lords Journals of dates

cited.]

Besides this universal imposition of the Covenant by Parliamentary

ordinance upon all who had hitherto neglected to take it, there was

another immediate effect of the presence of the Scots in England. The two

nations being now in arms for the same cause, the fortunes of each nation

depending largely on the conduct of the other, and the two national

armies indeed having to co-operate strategically, there required to be

some common directing power, intermediate between the English Parliament

in Westminster and the Scottish Estates in Edinburgh, representing both,

and acting for both in all matters of military concern. The Scots, on

their part, had made provision accordingly. Besides appointing a

stationary Committee of the Estates to manage matters from Edinburgh, and

another Committee to be with the Scottish army as a kind of Council to

the Earl of Leven, they had nominated (Jan. 9, 1643-4) a Special

Commission of four persons to go to London with full powers to represent

the views and interests of Scotland in the enterprise in which it was now

conjoined with England. These were--the EARL OF LOUDOUN, High Chancellor

of Scotland; LORD MAITLAND (already in London as Scottish Commissioner to

the Westminster Assembly); SIR ARCHIBALD JOHNSTONE OF WARRISTON (due in

London at any rate as a Commissioner to the Assembly); and MR. ROBERT

BARCLAY, Provost of Irvine in Ayrshire. These Commissioners having

presented their Commission to the English Parliament, Feb. 5, the

Parliament were moved to appoint some of its trustiest men from the two

Houses to be an English Committee of Consultation with the Scottish

Commissioners, and in fact to form, along with them, a joint "Committee

of the Two Kingdoms." Such an institution was not at all to the taste of

Lord General Essex, inasmuch as it trenched on his powers as commander-

in-chief. Some opposition was therefore offered. On the whole, however,

the argument that the two kingdoms ought to be "joined in their counsels

as well as in their forces" proved overpowering; and on the 16th of

February an ordinance was passed appointing the following persons (7

Peers and 14 Commoners) to be a Committee for the purpose named--the EARL

OF NORTHUMBERLAND, the EARL OF ESSEX, the EARL OF WARWICK, the EARL OF

MANCHESTER, VISCOUNT SAYE AND SELE, LORD WHARTON, LORD EGBERTS, WILLIAM

PIERREPOINT, SIR HENRY VANE, Senr., SIR PHILIP STAPLETON, SIR WILLIAM

WALLER, SIR GILBERT GERRARD, SIR WILLIAM ARMYN, SIR ARTHUR HASELRIG, SIR

HENRY VANE, Junr., JOHN CREWE, ROBERT WALLOP, OLIVER ST. JOHN, SAMUEL

BROWNE, JOHN GLYNN, and OLIVER CROMWELL. Six were to be a quorum, always

in the proportion of one Lord to two Commoners, and of the Scottish

Commissioners meeting with them two were to be a quorum. There can be no

doubt that the object was that the management of the war should be less

in Essex's hands that it had been. [Footnote: Lords Journals of dates

Feb. 5 and 16, 1643-4; and Baillie, II. 141, 142]

The name of JOHN PYM may have been looked for in the Committee. Alas! no

longer need his name be looked for among the living in this History. He

had died on the 8th of December, 1643, when the Scots were expected in

England, but had not yet arrived. He was buried magnificently in

Westminster Abbey, all the Lords and Commons attending, and Stephen

Marshall preaching the funeral sermon. England had lost "King Pym," her

greatest Parliamentary man. No one precisely like him was left. But,

indeed, he had done his work to the full; and, had he lived longer, he

might have been loved the less! [Footnote: Rushworth V. 376; Parl. Hist.

III. 186-7; and Baillie, II. 118.]

CHAPTER II.

MILTON UNHAPPY IN HIS MARRIAGE: HIS FIRST DIVORCE TRACT: TWO EDITIONS OF

IT.

We left Milton in his house in Aldersgate Street in or about 1643,

waiting for the promised return of his recently-wedded wife at

Michaelmas, and meanwhile comfortable enough, with his books, his pupils,

and the quiet companionship of his old father. We are now seven or eight

months beyond that point in our general History. What had happened in the

Aldersgate household in the interval? A tremendous thing had happened.

Milton had come to desire a divorce from his wife, and had written and

published a Tract on Divorce, partly in the interest of his own private

case, but really also with a view to suggest to the mind of England, then

likely to be receptive of new ideas, certain thoughts on the whole

subject of the English law of Marriage which had resulted from reflection

on his own experience. Here is the story:--

"Michaelmas [Sept. 29, 1643] being come," says Phillips, "and no news of

his wife's return, he sent for her by letter, and, receiving no answer,

sent several other letters, which were also unanswered; so that at last

he despatched down a foot-messenger [to Forest Hill] with a letter,

desiring her return. But the messenger came back not only without an

answer, at least a satisfactory one, but, to the best of my remembrance,

reported that he was dismissed with some sort of contempt. This

proceeding, in all probability, was grounded upon no other cause but

this--viz.: that, the family being generally addicted to the Cavalier

party, as they called it, and some of them possibly engaged in the King's

service, who by this time had his head-quarters at Oxford and was in some

prospect of success, they began to repent them of having matched the

eldest daughter of the family to a person so contrary to them in opinion,

and thought it would be a blot on their escutcheon whenever that Court

should come to flourish again. However, it so incensed our author that he

thought it would be dishonourable ever to receive her again, after such a

repulse; so that he forthwith prepared to fortify himself with arguments

for such a resolution, and accordingly wrote," &c. Here Phillips goes on

to enumerate Milton's various Divorce Tracts, the first of which in order

of time was his _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. Aubrey

corroborates Phillips, but has little on the subject but what he may have

picked up from gossip. "She was a ... Royalist, and went to her mother

near Oxford: he sent for her after some time, and I think his servant was

evilly entreated,"--such are Aubrey's brief notes of the facts; after

which come his own reflections on the rupture: "Two opinions do not well

on the same bolster;" and "What man, especially contemplative, would like

to have a young wife environed and stormed by the sons of Mars, and those

of the enemy party?" Finally Wood, in his _Fasti_, does little more

than repeat Aubrey: "Though he sent divers pressing invitations, yet he

could not prevail upon her to come back;" whereupon "he, being not able

to bear this abuse, did therefore, upon consideration, after he had

consulted many eminent authors, write the said book of Divorce, with

intentions to be separated from her." [Footnote: Phillips's Memoir;

Aubrey's Lives; and Wood's Fasti Oxon. I. 482-3.]

On all grounds Phillips's authority is the best. And yet there are

difficulties in his account. According to that account, it was the non-

return of Milton's wife at or about Michaelmas (Sept. 29) 1643, and not

only her non-return then, but her obstinate and repeated refusal to

return after that date, and the insulting conduct of her family to the

messenger he finally sent to urge her return, that roused Milton's

indignation, put the thought of divorce into his mind, and induced him to

write his first Divorce Tract. If so, the tract could hardly have been

ready till some weeks after Michaelmas 1643--say, till about Christmas of

the same year. There is proof, however (and I do not think it has been

observed before), that Milton's first Divorce Tract was already published

and in circulation two months _before_ the Michaelmas in question.

The proof is not, where we might expect it, in the books of the

Stationers' Company; for the Tract, like all Milton's previous pamphlets,

was published by him, rather defiantly, without the required legal

formalities of licence and registration. But there is a precious copy of

it in Thomason's great collection of pamphlets, called "the King's

Pamphlets," in the British Museum. The title in that copy is as follows:

"_The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, Restor'd, to the good of both

Sexes, from the Bondage of Canon Law and other mistakes, to Christian

Freedom, guided by the Rule of Charity; wherein also many places of

Scripture have recovered their long-lost meaning: seasonable to be now

thought on in the Reformation intended._" Underneath this title there

follows on the title-page the quotation "Matth. xiii. 52. Every Scribe

instructed to the Kingdome of Heav'n is like the Maister of a house which

bringeth out of his treasurie things old and new;" and at the foot of the

title-page is the legend "_London, Printed by T. P. and M. S. in

Goldsmiths' Alley_: 1643." [Footnote: Copy in British Museum Library

Press mark, 12. G.F. 17 119.] This printed legend alone would all but

determine the publication to have been prior to Christmas 1643; but the

question is set at rest by a manuscript note on the title-page, "_Aug.

1st_." The note was put there by, or by the direction of, the

collector, Thomason, to indicate the day on which the copy came into his

hands, and is to be relied on implicitly. The Tract, it will be observed,

was anonymous; but the words "_Written by J. Milton_," penned on the

title-page by the same hand that penned the date "_Aug. 1st_," show

that the authorship was no secret from the all-prying Thomason. In short,

on evidence absolutely conclusive, Milton's first Divorce Tract was in

print and on sale in London on the 1st of August, 1643, or two months

before Phillips's fatal Michaelmas. [Footnote: This may be the place for

a word or two about the collector of those Pamphlets in the British

Museum among which I have had so frequently to range for the purposes of

this work, and to which, like other inquiries into English History from

1610 to 1660, I owe more items of information than I can count.--George

Thomason was a London bookseller of the Civil War time; his place of

business being the "Rose and Crown" in St. Paul's Churchyard. He was of

Royalist sympathies; but his hobby was to collect impartially all the

pamphlets, broad-sheets, &c., that teemed from the press on both sides,

and not only those that teemed from the English press, but also all

published abroad that bore on current English questions. He began this

labour in 1641, and pursued it indefatigably till after the Restoration;

so that, at his death in or about 1666, he left a collection of about

33,000 pamphlets, &c. on English affairs, published between 1638 and

1662. The making of this collection had been the delight of his life; it

had been his anxiety that no single tract, or printed scrap of any

interest, should escape him. When he began to collect in 1641, he had

taken pains to obtain copies of publications of the immediately preceding

years; and after that his work had been facilitated by the notoriety of

his passion for collecting. Booksellers and authors (Milton for one) seem

occasionally to have sent copies of their pamphlets to Thomason. "Exact

care hath been taken," he himself tells us in the Introduction to a MS.

catalogue of his treasures, "that the very day is written upon most of

them that they came out;" and this care of his has fixed the dates of

many publications that would else have been unknown or but vaguely

known.--For farther particulars of this interesting person, an account of

the shifts to which he was put to save his collection from the chances of

Parliamentarian pillage, and a history of the fortunes of his collection

till it came to be part of the Library of King George III., and so of the

British Museum, see Edwards's _Memoirs of Libraries_ (1859), Vol. I

pp, 456-460.--I may add that I have seen a pencil jotting in Thomason's

hand on one of the fly-leaves of his collection as fresh and legible,

after 220 years, as if it had been written yesterday.]

One of two suppositions therefore:--(1.) If Phillips is right in his

statement that Milton's first Divorce Tract was caused by the obstinate

refusal of his wife to return to him, and the insulting conduct of her

family in detaining her and laughing at his letters and messages, then

Phillips's dates in the whole matter of the marriage must be a little

wrong. "About Whitsuntide it was (May 21, 1643) that my uncle left us in

Aldersgate Street, on what turned out to be his marriage journey; in

about a month's time he returned, bringing his wife, and some of her

relations, with him (June 1643); the relations stayed about a week,

during which there was much feasting and merriment; for about a month

after they were gone the newly-married wife remained with my uncle; but

then (late in July or early in August 1643), tired of a philosophical

life, and pining for the society of home, she contrived a request from

her family to have her with them during the rest of the summer--to which

my uncle consented, on the understanding that she was to come hack about

Michaelmas (Sept. 29, 1643)." Such, re-expressed in words for the nonce,

is Phillips's account as we have already given it. But, as the Divorce

Tract was published August 1, 1643, it is clear that, if the cause of

that Tract was the persistent, protracted, and contemptuous absence of

his wife, then Phillips's memory must have been at fault, and he must

have somewhat post-dated the marriage itself. The marriage in that case

must have been before Whitsuntide 1643; and the return of the wife to her

relations, her refusal to come hack, and Milton's chagrin and anger so

occasioned, must have been matters not of after Michaelmas 1643, but of

at least a month or two before the August of that year. This is quite a

tenable supposition; for there are other inaccuracies in Phillips, and

the register of the place and date of Milton's marriage with Mary Powell

has not been found. (2) On the whole, however, Phillips's recollections

about the marriage are so circumstantial, and there is such a likelihood

of their being true, that, until contradictory records shall be produced,

it seems right to accept his dating. But then his explanation of the

cause of his uncle's speculations about divorce must be wrong. The cause

in that case cannot have been the obstinate refusal of his wife to

return; for the Divorce Tract must have been written and ready for the

press while she was still with him in the Aldersgate Street house (July

1643), and it was actually out (Aug. 1) before she can have reached her

father's house at Forest Hill on her granted two months of leave till

Michaelmas. What are we to make of this discrepancy? One is puzzled. That

a man should have occupied himself on a Tract on Divorce ere his

honeymoon was well over--should have written it perseveringly day after

day within sound of his newly-wedded wife's footsteps and the very rustle

of her dress on the stairs or in the neighbouring room--is a notion all

but dreadful. And yet to some such notion, if Phillips's dating is

correct, we seem to be shut up. But, if so, more is involved than

Phillips knew. The cause of Milton's thoughts about divorce, in that

case, must have been the agony of a deadly discovery of his wife's utter

unfitness for him when as yet she had not been two months his wife. It

must have been the unutterable pain of the dis-illusioned bridegroom, the

gnawing sense of his irretrievable mistake, The vision must then pass

before our minds of scenes in the Aldersgate Street house, the reverse of

the happily connubial, _before_ that sudden departure of the bride

back to her father's home, and leading to that incident perhaps rather

violently. One seems to hear the sound of differences, of conflicting

opinions about this and that, of weeping girlish wilfulness opposed to

steady and perhaps too austere prohibitions. "Well, then, I will go back

to my mother: I am sure I wish I had never----": "Go": And so the parting

may have come about, not wholly by her arrangement, but harshly and with

some quarrel on his part. There are not wanting subsequent facts that

might lend a plausibility to this version of the story. [Footnote:

Milton's mother-in-law, having occasion, seven years afterwards (1651),

to advert to her daughter's return home so soon after her marriage,

distinctly attributed it to Milton himself. The words are, "He having

turned away his wife heretofore for a long space upon some other

occasion." I do not think Mrs. Powell was a very accurate lady, and she

had no fondness for Milton; but the words seem to imply more than a mere

passive consent of Milton to his wife's proposal to revisit her family.]

Yet it is the other that one would wish to be true, and that would fit in

most naturally with the facts as a whole. That version is that Milton,

good-naturedly and perhaps taken by surprise, allowed his wife to go home

for two months at her own request, or the request of her relatives,

before he had been three months married, and that it was the insult of

her nonreturn that revealed to him his mistake in her, and drove him into

his speculations about divorce. Only, then, we repeat, Phillips's dating

of the marriage and its incidents requires amendment.

In any case the first edition of Milton's _Doctrine and Discipline of

Divorce_ was out in London on the 1st of August, 1643. [Footnote: The

supposition is always open that, by some oversight, Thomason misdated his

copy, putting "Aug." for a much later month. But this is the unlikeliest

thing of all.] It was a pamphlet of forty-eight small quarto pages, with

an extra page supplying two omitted passages. The text was printed

continuously, without division into chapters; at the end.

Both in matter and in manner the Tract was one of the boldest that had

ever been submitted to the reading of England. Its thesis is laid down

near the beginning in these terms: "_That indisposition, unfitness, or

contrarity of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable,

hindering and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugal

society, which are solace and peace, is a greater reason of divorce than

natural frigidity, especially if there be no children, and that there be

mutual consent._" This thesis Milton sets himself to argue in all

sorts of ways--from natural reason and expediency; from the Scripture

doctrine of marriage as it might be gathered from the Mosaic Law and the

right interpretation of texts in the Old and New Testaments,

notwithstanding one or two individual texts (like that of Matth. v. 31,

32) that had been hackneyed and misunderstood by mere literalists; and

from opinions or indications of opinion on the subject that might be

found in the works of some of the Protestant Reformers, and other eminent

writers. His conclusion was that the notion of the indissolubility of

marriage, or even the modified law of England and of other countries,

authorizing divorce only for certain gross reasons, were mere relics of

superstitious tradition, the concoction of the Canonists and

Sacramentalists in the ages of sacerdotal tyranny, unworthy of more

enlarged views of justice and liberty, and a canker and cause of

incalculable misery in the heart of modern society. Again and again he

indicates his consciousness that in announcing this conclusion, and

trying to rouse his fellow-countrymen to the necessity of at once

including a revision of the Marriage Law in the general Reformation then

in progress, he is performing a great public service. Thus, at the very

opening: "By which [the precedent of certain liberal hints on the subject

by Hugo Grotius], and mine own apprehension of what public duty each man

owes, I conceive myself exhorted among the rest to communicate such

thoughts as I have, and offer them now, in this general labour of

Reformation, to the candid view both of Church and Magistrate; especially

because I see it the hope of good men that those irregular and

unspiritual courts have spun their utmost date in this land, and some

better course must now be constituted. He, therefore, that by adventuring

shall be so happy as with success to ease and set free the minds of

ingenuous and apprehensive men from this needless thraldom; he that can

prove it lawful and just to claim the performance of a fit and matchable

conversation no less essential to the prime scope of marriage than the

gift of bodily conjunction, or else to have an equal plea of divorce as

well as for that corporal deficiency; he that can but lend us the clue

that winds out this labyrinth of servitude to such a reasonable and

expedient liberty as this--deserves to be reckoned among the public

benefactors of civil and human life, above the inventors of wine and

oil." [Footnote: This passage is from the first edition; it is not nearly

so full in the second.] As such a benefactor, such a champion of a

neglected truth and a suppressed human liberty, the anonymous writer

offers himself. He knows that he stands alone at present, but he trusts

to the power of demonstration addressed to the mind of England, then

newly awakened and examining all institutions to their roots.

There is not a word of avowed reference to his own case throughout; and

yet from first to last we are aware of young Mary Powell in the

background. Inability for "fit and matchable conversation": this is that

supreme fault in a wife on which the descant is from first to last, and

from which, when it is plainly ingrained and unamendable, the right of

divorce is maintained to be, by the law of God and all civil reason, the

due deliverance. Hopeless intellectual and spiritual incompatibility

between husband and wife: it is on this, though not in these exact words,

that Milton harps again and again as in his view the clearest

invalidation of marriage, the frustration of the noblest and most divine

ends of the institution; an essentially worse frustration, he dares to

say in one place, than even that conjugal infidelity which "a gross and

boorish opinion, how common soever," would alone resent or recognise. It

is marvellous with what richness of varying language he paints to the

reader the horrible condition of a man tied for life to a woman with whom

he can hold no rational or worthy conversation. "A familiar and co-

inhabiting mischief"; "spite of antipathy to fudge together and combine

as they may, to their unspeakable weariness and despair of all sociable

delight"; "a luckless and helpless matrimony"; "the unfitness and

effectiveness of an unconjugal mind"; "a worse condition than the

loneliest single life"; "unconversing inability of mind"; "a mute and

spiritless mate"; "that melancholy despair which we see in many wedded

persons"; "a polluting sadness and perpetual distemper"; "ill-twisted

wedlock"; "the disturbance of her unhelpful and unfit society"; "one that

must be hated with a most operative hatred"; "forsaken and yet

continually dwelt with and accompanied"; "a powerful reluctance and

recoil of nature on either side, blasting all the content of their mutual

society"; "a violence to the reverend secret of nature"; "to force a

mixture of minds that cannot unite"; "two incoherent and uncombining

dispositions"; "the undoing or the disheartening of his life"; "the

superstitious and impossible performance of an ill-driven bargain";

"bound fast to an uncomplying discord of nature, or, as it oft happens,

to an image of earth and phlegm"; "shut up together, the one with a

mischosen mate, the other in a mistaken calling"; "committing two

ensnared souls inevitably to kindle one another, not with the fire of

love, but with a hatred irreconcilable, who, were they severed, would be

straight friends in any other relation"; "two carcases chained

unnaturally together, or, as it may happen, a living soul bound to a dead

corpse"; "enough to abase the mettle of a generous spirit and sink him to

a low and vulgar pitch of endeavour in all his actions": such are a few

specimens of the phrases with which the tract abounds. [Footnote: Some of

the phrases quoted occur in passages added in the second edition; but it

is not worth while to distinguish those. Most of the phrases, and those

of the same, occur in the third edition.] But one passage may be quoted

entire:--

"But some are ready to object that the disposition ought seriously to be

considered before. But let them know again that, for all the wariness can

be used, it may yet befall a discreet man to be mistaken in his choice,

and we have plenty of examples. The soberest and best-governed men are

least practised in these affairs; and who knows not that the bashful

muteness of a virgin may oft-times hide all the unliveliness and natural

sloth which is really unfit for conversation? Nor is there that freedom

of access granted or presumed as may suffice to a perfect discerning till

too late; and, where any indisposition is suspected, what more usual than

the persuasion of friends that acquaintance, as it increases, will amend

all? And, lastly, it is not strange though many who have spent their

youth chastely are in some things not so quick-sighted while they haste

too eagerly to light the nuptial torch: nor is it therefore that for a

modest error a man should forfeit so great a happiness, and no charitable

means to release him; since they who have lived most loosely, by reason

of their bold accustoming, prove most successful in their matches,

because their wild affections, unsettling at will, have been as so many

divorces to teach them experience; whenas the sober man, honouring the

appearance of modesty, and hoping well of every social virtue under that

veil, may easily chance to meet ... often with a mind to all other due

conversation inaccessible, and to all the more estimable and superior

purposes of matrimony useless and almost lifeless; and what a solace,

what a fit help, such a consort would be through the whole life of a man

is less pain to conjecture than to have experience."

Oh! and is it come to this? Then, as now, nothing so common as that such

mischances of marriage, heard of by the world, and the rather if

published by the sufferers or one of them, should be received only as

excellent amusement for people round about. It is as if the one thing

intrinsically and unceasingly comic in the world, for most people, were

the fact that it consists of man and woman, as if the institution on

which human society is built and by which the succession of earth's

generations is maintained, were the one only subject, with most people,

for nothing else than laughter. Even now perhaps our disposition to

jocosity on this subject, not sufficiently entertained by incidents of

our own day, will range back to that case of Milton and Mary Powell two

hundred and twenty-eight years ago, and join in the gossip which it then

began to circulate through the town. In the lobby of the House of Commons

it must have been heard of: it may have given a relish to the street-talk

of reverend Presbyterian gentlemen talking home together from the

Assembly "Only a month or two married; his wife gone home again; and now,

instead of proper reticence about what can't he helped, all this

hullaballoo of a new doctrine about Divorce! Just like him!" This and

such-like is what we seem to overhear; this and such-like is what Milton

did overhear; not much more than this and such-like are most of us

prepared to say even now when we read the story. And yet the story is

surely worth more. One fails to see, after all, that it yields only

matter for jest and the repetition of commonplaces. What are the facts?

Two human beings, long dead and gone, but then alive and with the,

expectation of many years of life before them, had hardly been banded

together in church when they found, or thought they found, that their

union was for their mutual misery. The one was a poor country-girl in her

teens, ruing the fate to which she had committed herself, but with no

weapons for her relief but her tears, her terror, and the mitigation of

refuge in her father's house. _Her_ case is to be pitied; shame if

it is _not_! The other was a man extraordinary--so extraordinary

that even now we try to follow him in fancy in his walks through the

London streets, and any bit of old wall his arm may have touched is a

sacred antiquity, and we regard the series of thoughts that was in his

mind through any month, or series of months, as something of prime

interest in the spirit of the past, a prize that we would give gold to

recover. Well, here was one series of thoughts that was in this man's

mind for months and months, and that left effects, indeed, to his life's

end. He was moody in his house; he walked moodily in the streets; we can

hear him muttering to himself, we can see his teeth clenched. Morning and

evening, day after day, he is in a great despair. And why? Because he has

made the most fatal mistake a man can make, and is gazing on, morning and

evening, day after day, into the consequences. Lo! into that life which

he had hoped to make worthy of the God who gave it, a pattern life, a

great poem within hose azure fitness other poems should arise to spin

their gleaming courses--into this life what had he imported? Not the

solace and bliss of a kindred soul's society, which had been his intent

and dream; but a darkness, a disturbance, a marring melancholy, a daily

and hourly debasement, a coinhabiting mischief! It was enough, he says,

to drive a man "at last, through murmuring and despair, to thoughts of

Atheism." But was there no remedy? Ah! in the very power of putting this

question lay the advantage of the strong man over the weak Oxfordshire

girl. He could reason, he could delve into the subject, he could revolve

it intellectually. What if the plight in which he found himself were no

necessary and irremediable evil? What if the permanence of marriage once

contracted between two persons utterly unsuitable for each other were no

decree of God, no real requirement of religion or of social well-being,

but a mere superstitious and fallacious tradition, a stupid and

pernicious convention among men? Once on this track, there was light for

Milton. Out of his own private mishap there came the suggestion of a

great enterprise. He would thunder, if not the mishap itself, at least

its public significance, out upon the world. He would rouse his

countrymen on the whole subject of the Law of Marriage. Who knew but his

voice might be heard? Who knew but that, were it loud enough, there would

be a response of assent from the whole land, and his new idea of Divorce,

albeit the proclamation of only one man, might be carried, with other

things, in the current Reformation? There ran a touch of this sanguine

temper, this faith that any ideal might easily be made actual, through

all Milton's life; and it appeared now most conspicuously. His idea, he

was aware, was new; but only let his demonstration be sufficiently

thorough, only let him succeed in disturbing the existing apathy and

setting the thoughts of the nation astir on the subject, "and then,"

what?--"then I doubt not but with one gentle stroking to wipe away ten

thousand tears out of the life of men." [Footnote: This phrase is in one

of the inserted passages in the second edition.] Alas! after the

hurricane of two hundred years the tear-drops still hang, multitudinous

as ever, amid the leaves of that poor forest!

"Just like him" I have imagined to have been a comment on this new

appearance of Milton by some gossip of the day who may have known a

little of him personally. Really, though not as intended, the comment

would have been just. This whole action of Milton, consequent on his

unhappy marriage, was deeply characteristic. And yet there was perhaps no

one then living from whom such a course of action could less have been

expected. From all that we know of the youth and early manhood of Milton,

we should certainly have predicted of him, with whatever heterodoxy in

other matters, yet a life-long orthodoxy on the subject of marriage.

Think of him as we have seen him heretofore, the glorious youth,

cherishing every high ethical idealism, walking as in an ether of moral

violet, disdaining customary vice, building up his character consciously

on the principle that he who would be strong or great had best be

immaculate. Think of him as the author of _Comus_; or think of him

as he had described himself some years later in one of his Italian

Sonnets:--

"Young, gentle-natured, and a simple wooer,

Since from myself I stand in doubt to fly,

Lady, to thee my heart's poor gift would I

Offer devoutly: and, by tokens sure,

I know it faithful, fearless, constant, pure,

In its conceptions graceful, good, and high.

When the world roars, and flames the startled sky,

In its own adamant it rests secure,

As free from chance and malice ever found,

And fears and hopes that vulgar minds confuse,

As it is loyal to each manly thing

And to the sounding lyre and to the Muse.

Only in that part is it not so sound

Where Love hath set in it his cureless sting."

When he wrote thus, to what did he look forward, and to what might others

have looked forward for him? A career, it was probable, of speculative

dissent from his contemporaries in many things, and of undaunted courage

in the vindication of such dissent, but hardly of dissent from the

established moralities of the marriage-institution. Had he been happily

married, had he found himself united at last to one such as his dreams

had figured, who so likely to have persevered fondly in the traditional

doctrine of marriage, to have maintained the mystic sanctity and the

necessary permanence of the marriage-bond, and to have launched

denunciations against all who dared to tamper with this article of the

established ethics? But, as it had chanced otherwise, it was not the less

characteristic that he himself had been the audacious questioner, the

champion of a heresy. Driven by his own experience to investigate, his

speculative boldness had brought him at once to a conclusion the novelty

of which would have made others hesitate, but had no terrors for him. For

(and here was his difference from most men, here was what may be called a

Miltonic peculiarity) he would take no benefit from such private

dispensation as a man might pass for his own relief in such a case, his

neighbours winking at it so long as he did not disturb the forum. He

_would_ disturb the forum! What "Milton" did should be done openly,

should be avowed, should be lawful! Others, circumstanced as he now was,

might, if they liked--and there were examples all round, and especially

in that Bohemian world of wits and men of letters with which he might be

classed, though he abjured the brotherhood--others might, if they liked,

adopt a policy of silence and acquiescence, hypocritically bowing to

their fate, but taking out their protest in secret consolations! No such

policy for him! The word "illicit" and his name should never be brought

into conjunction! Whatever _he_ did should be according to a rule of

right, clear to his own conscience, and held aloft in his hand under the

whole roof of Heaven! And, if such a rule, ratified between himself and

Heaven, should chance to conflict with one of the moralities of the

existing code of men, there was but one course for him. He would assail

the so-called "morality"; he would blast it out of the beliefs of men; he

would perform for his fellows the service of their liberation, along with

himself, from a useless and irrational thraldom! Or, if that work should

prove too hard and toilsome, at least he should have published his own

rule in opposition to the general superstition, and should walk on, as he

had resolved always to walk, unabashed in the daylight.

It was in August 1643, as we have seen, that Milton put forth anonymously

his _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. From that time, on through

the rest of the autumn of 1643 and the winter of 1643-4, we are to fancy

him in his house in Aldersgate Street, with his father and his pupils for

his companions, and his thoughts much occupied, like those of other

Englishmen, with the course of public events. On the whole, the

Parliament had no greater admirer than Milton; and there were particular

men in the Parliament that were after his own heart. From the Westminster

Assembly, too, he seems to have expected good. So far as he had formed

views as to the desirable form of Church-government for England, these

views, as we have seen (Vol. II. pp. 376-382), might be described as an

expectant Presbyterianism, not positively fixed and determined at all

points, but kept conveniently fluid. Accordingly, his sympathies, at

first, may well have been with the Presbyterians of the Assembly; among

whom he could reckon, at any rate, his old tutor Young, and his other

friends and fellow-labourers in the Smectymnuan controversy. Or, if some

things among the tenets of the small Independent minority had begun to

gain upon him, he seems still, through the winter of 1643-4, to have

looked forward to some compromise that should be acceptable to England

and yet tend to that conformity between the two kingdoms which the Scots

desired, and to the furtherance of which they had pledged England by

Henderson's international League and Covenant. At all events, Milton did,

some time after September 1643, subscribe to this League and Covenant

with the rest of his Parliamentarian countrymen. There are words of his

own which vouch the fact. [Footnote: In the dedication to Parliament of

his _Tetrachordon_, published March 1644-5, he uses these words,

"That which I saw and was partaker of, your vows and solemn covenants."]

A moody time though the autumn of 1643 and the winter of 1643-4 must have

been for Milton, there was some relaxation for him in society more

general than that of his wife-deserted household. "Our author," says

Phillips, "now as it were a single man again, made it his chief diversion

now and then in an evening to visit the Lady Margaret Ley, daughter to

the--Ley, Earl of Marlborough, Lord High Treasurer of England, and

President of the Privy Council to King James the First. This lady, being

a woman of great wit and ingenuity, had a particular honour for him, and

took much delight in his company; as likewise her husband, Captain

Hobson, a very accomplished gentleman." Phillips seems to be sufficiently

accurate in this account, but a few details may be added:--

A man still well-remembered in England, though he had been dead fifteen

years, was James Ley, first Earl of Marlborough, he had attained to that

dignity only in his old age, having advanced to it through a long

previous career. Born about 1552, the younger son of a Wiltshire squire,

he had passed from Oxford to the study of law at Lincoln's Inn, and had

attained to high eminence in his profession before the death of

Elizabeth. Emerging from her reign, aged about fifty, he had been

appointed by James to an Irish Chief Judgeship (1604); then brought back

to England, knighted (1609), baroneted (1620), and made Chief Justice of

the Court of King's Bench (1621); and finally raised by the same King to

the great office of Lord High Treasurer of England, and to a peerage with

the title of Baron Ley of Ley in Devonshire (1624). In recognition of his

long services, Charles, in the first year of his reign (Feb. 5, 1626-7),

had created for him, when he was almost seventy-four years of age, the

Earldom of Marlborough in his native Wiltshire. While thus promoting him,

however, Charles appears not to have found him a minister such as he and

Buckingham wanted. He had accordingly removed him from the High

Treasurership in 1628, on the ground of his old age, but in reality to

make way for the more compliant Lord Weston, and had shelved him into the

less important office of Lord President of the Council. He had died at

Lincoln's Inn, March 14, 1628-9, exactly four days after that ominous

dissolution of Charles's third Parliament which announced his

determination to have done with Parliaments and begin the reign of

"Thorough." The death of the old peer at such a juncture had apparently

the less been forgotten by reason of a tradition that the political

anxieties of the juncture had had something to do with it. Now, at all

events, in the days of the Long Parliament and the Civil War, there was

still some respectful recollection of the old Earl of Marlborough as one

of the best-liked ministers of James's reign and of the first years of

Charles's. "He was a person of great gravity, ability, and integrity;

and, as the Caspian Sea is observed neither to ebb nor flow, so his mind

did not rise or fall, but continued the same constancy in all

conditions." The words are Fuller's, and they probably express the

character of the Earl that had come down among his countrymen. [Footnote:

Dugdale's Baronage (1676), Vol. II. pp. 451, 452; Wood's Athenæ, II. 441,

443; Clar. Hist. (one vol. ed. 1843), p. 20; Fuller's Worthies,

_Wiltshire_ (ed. 1840), III. 328-9.]

The Earl had been three times married; but he had left a family only by

his first wife--Mary, daughter of John Petty, of Stoke-Talmage, co.

Oxon., Esq. Eleven children had been the issue of this marriage:--to wit

(according to Dugdale), "three sons--_Henry, James_, and _William_; and

eight daughters--_Elizabeth_, married to Morice Carant, of Looner, in

com. Somers., Esq.; _Anne_, to Sir Walter Long, of Draycot-Cerne, in com.

Wilts., Knight; _Mary_, to Richard Erisy, of Erisy, in com. Cornw., Esq.;

_Dionysia_, to John Harington, of Kelneyton, in com. Somers., Esq.;

_Margaret_, to ... Hobson, of ... in the Isle of Wight, Esq.; _Hesther_,

to Arthur Fuller, of Bradfield, in com. Hertf., Esq.; _Martha_, died

unmarried; and _Phoebe_, to ... Biggs, of Hurst, in com. Berks., Esq."

[Footnote: Dugdale, _vt. supra_.] All these children, it would appear,

had been born, and most of them married and settled in life, before their

father's promotion to the peerage, and while he was yet only James Ley,

or Sir James Ley, the eminent lawyer. Indeed, his promotion to the

Earldom in his old age had been, in part, a compliment to his third wife-

-Jane, daughter of Lord Butler of Bramfield, whose mother was a sister of

the Duke of Buckingham; and it had been specially provided, in the patent

of the Earldom, that it should descend, by preference, to his heirs by

that lady. That lady having failed, however, to produce heirs, the

benefits of the Earldom had reverted to the Earl's family by his first

wife, Mary Petty. His eldest son by that wife, Henry Ley, had,

accordingly, succeeded him in the title. But this Henry, second Earl of

Marlborough, had died in 1638; and the actual Earl at the time with which

we are now concerned (1643) was _his_ son, James, a youth of only some

three-and-twenty years, but already serving as a general officer of

artillery in the army of the King. He seems, indeed, to have been one of

the finest young fellows on that side; and he had a career before him

which was to entitle him, at his death in 1665, to this notice in a

summary of his character by Clarendon: "He was a man of wonderful parts

in all kinds of learning, which he took more delight in than his title."

[Footnote: Clar. Life, ed. 184 p. 1141.] For the present, however, it is

with the good ladies his aunts, the surviving daughters of the first

Earl, that we have to do; or rather only with the fifth of them--the Lady

Margaret Ley, the friend of Milton. The husbands of at least two of her

sisters (Long of Wilts., and Erisy of Cornwall) being among the

Parliamentarians of the Long Parliament, it can hardly be doubted that

this lady's husband--Dugdale's "... Hobson of ... in the Isle of Wight,

Esq.," and Phillips's "Captain Hobson, a very accomplished gentleman"--

was also a Parliamentarian, though of less wealth and note, and not in

Parliament. Otherwise, Lady Margaret's house in London could hardly have

been one of Milton's evening resorts. What kind of "Captaincy" her

husband held, compatible with his being domiciled in London in 1643-4, it

might be difficult now to ascertain. Suffice it that he _was_ so

domiciled, and that his wife could receive guests not merely as Mrs.

Hobson, "a woman of great wit and ingenuity," but as Lady Margaret Ley,

the daughter of a well-remembered Earl.

It is not from Phillips alone that we hear of Milton's friendship with

the Lady Margaret. Milton has himself commemorated it in one of his

Sonnets:--

"TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY.

Daughter to that good Earl, once President

Of England's Council and her Treasury,

Who lived in both unstained by gold or fee,

And left them both, more in himself content,

Till the sad breaking of that Parliament

Broke him, as that dishonest victory

At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,

Killed with report that old man eloquent:

Though later born than to have known the days

Wherein your father flourished, yet by you,

Madam, methinks I see him living yet;

So well your words his noble virtues praise

That all both judge you to relate them true

And to possess them, honoured Margaret."

The "old man eloquent" is Isocrates, the Athenian orator, whose

patriotism made him refuse to survive the defeat of the Athenians and

Thebans by Philip of Macedon at Chæroncia, This comparison of the lady's

father to the famous Greek is perhaps the most poetical turn in the

Sonnet. For the rest, it tells us something about the lady herself. She

must have been somewhat, if not considerably, older than Milton; for,

though Milton had been twenty years old at the time of the good Earl's

death, and might therefore well remember his Treasurership and Presidency

of the Council, he speaks of knowing the days wherein the old peer had

flourished chiefly through the Lady Margaret's talk about him and them.

Her conversation, it would therefore seem, ran much upon her father and

his private and political virtues; and Milton listened respectfully,

seeing much in the lady herself of what she praised in her sire. Perhaps

Milton would talk to her freely in return of his own concerns. The Lady

Margaret Ley, and her husband, Captain Hobson, were probably in his

confidence on the subject of his marriage misfortune. The Sonnet was

unquestionably written in 1643 or 1644. [Footnote: It was printed in the

first or 1645 edition of Milton's Poems, and it is placed last in the

series of Sonnets there contained. The draft of it in the Cambridge Book

of Milton's MSS. is in Milton's own hand--the title "To the Lady Margaret

Ley" being likewise his hand.]

A younger and unmarried lady must then also have been among Milton's

acquaintances. How else can we account for this other Sonnet?

"Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth

Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,

And with those few art eminently seen

That labour up the hill of heavenly truth,

The better part, with Mary and with Ruth,

Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,

And at thy glowing virtues fret their spleen,

No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.

Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends

To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,

And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure

Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends

Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,

Hast gained thy entrance, Virgin wise and pure."

This Sonnet, to which the heading "_To a Virtuous Young Lady_" is

now prefixed in the editions of Milton, had no such heading prefixed in

his own copy. [Footnote: In the Cambridge MSS. there is a draft in

Milton's own hand immediately before the draft of the Sonnet to Lady

Margaret Ley. In the edition of 1645 the Sonnet was printed in the same

order and without a heading. In the MS. draft there are several erasures

and corrections. Thus Milton had originally written "_blooming

virtue_" in as if with reference to the personal appearance of the

young lady; but in the margin he substitutes the present reading,

"_growing virtues_."] Who the young lady was that so won upon Milton

at this critical time, and seemed to him so superior to the more

commonplace of her sex, we are left uninformed. There is a conjecture on

the subject, which may afterwards appear. It is clear, meanwhile, that

the poor absent Mary Powell may have suffered not only from her own

defects, but also from the opportunity of some such contrast.

The Divorce subject continued to occupy Milton. His tract had been

rapidly bought, and had caused a sensation. Through the cold winter of

1643-4, while the Parliament and the Assembly were busy, and the

auxiliary Scottish army was expected, a good many people had leisure to

read the strange production, or at least to look into it, and be properly

shocked. It seems to have been about this time, for example, that James

Howell, the letter-writer, came, upon a copy. Or rather the copy must

have come upon him; for the poor man, now past fifty years of age, and

ousted from his clerkship to the Privy Council, was in the Fleet Prison

for debt, and dependent for his subsistence there on translations,

dedications and poems to friends, and all sorts of literary odds and

ends. [Footnote: Wood's Ath. III. 745, and Cunningham's London Article

_Fleet Prison_.] In one of his rambling pieces, afterwards published

in the form of Letters, mostly without dates, and addressed to friends

from feigned places, he thus gives what I take to be his impression of

Milton's tract when it first reached him in the Fleet: "But that opinion

of a poor shallow-brained puppy, who, upon any cause of dissatisfaction,

would have men to have a privilege to change their wives, or to repudiate

them, deserves to be hissed at rather than confuted; for nothing can tend

more to usher in all confusion and beggary throughout the world:

therefore that wiseacre deserves," &c. [Footnote: Howell's Familiar

Letters Book IV, Letter 7, addressed "To Sir Edward Spencer, knight," (pp

453-457 of edit. 1754.) The letter is dated "Lond. 24 Jan.," no year

given; but the dates are worthless, being afterthoughts, when the Letters

were published in successive batches.] As Mr. Howell's own notions about

marriage and its moralities were of the lightest and easiest, his severe

virtuousness here is peculiarly representative. More interesting on its

own account is the opinion of another contemporary--no other than

Milton's late antagonist Bishop Hall. In Hall's _Cases of Conscience_

(not published till 1649) he thus describes the impression which Milton's

Divorce pamphlet had made upon him when he first read it in its anonymous

form: "I have heard too much of, and once saw, a licentious pamphlet,

thrown abroad in these lawless times in the defence and encouragement of

Divorces (not to be sued out; that solemnity needed not; but) to be

arbitrarily given by the disliking husband to the displeasing and unquiet

wife, upon this ground principally, That marriage was instituted for the

help and comfort of man: where, therefore, the match proves such as that

the wife doth but pull down aside, and, by her innate peevishness and

either sullen or pettish and froward disposition, bring rather discontent

to her husband, the end of marriage being hereby frustrate, why should it

not, saith he, be in the husband's power, after some unprevailing means

of reclamation attempted, to procure his own peace by casting off this

clog, and to provide for his own peace and contentment in a fitter match?

Woe is me! to what a pass is the world conic that a Christian, pretending

to Information, should dare to tender so loose a project to the public! I

must seriously profess that, when I first did cast my eyes upon the front

of the book, I supposed some great wit meant to try his skill in the

maintenance of this so wild and improbable a paradox; but, ere I could

run over some of those too well-penned pages, I found the author was in

earnest, and meant seriously to contribute this piece of good counsel, in

way of reformation, to the wise and seasonable care of superiors. I

cannot but blush for our age wherein so bold a motion hath been, amongst

others, admitted to the light. What will all the Christian Churches

through the world, to whose notice these lines shall come, think of our

woeful degeneration, &c."? [Footnote: Hall's Works (edit. 1837), VII.

467.] Hall, it will be seen, had noted the literary ability of the

pamphlet, while amazed by its doctrine.

Neither Howell's nor Bishop Hall's opinion can have reached the author of

the pamphlet till long after the date now in view. But other opinions to

the same effect had been reaching him. Especially, it seems, the pamphlet

had caused a fluttering among the London clergy. The consequence had best

be told by himself. "God, it seems, intended to prove me, whether I

durst alone take up a rightful cause against a world of disesteem, and

found I durst. My name I did not publish, as not willing it should sway

the reader either for me or against me. But, when I was told that the

style (which what it ails to be so soon distinguishable I cannot tell)

was known by most men, and that some of the clergy began to inveigh and

exclaim on what I was credibly informed they had not read, I look it then

for my proper season both to show a name that could easily contemn such

an indiscreet kind of censure, and to reinforce the question with a more

accurate diligence, that, if any of them would be so good as to leave

railing, and to let us hear so much of his learning and Christian wisdom

as will be strictly demanded of him in his answering to this problem,

care was had he should not spend his preparations against a nameless

pamphlet." [Footnote: This passage, fitting in here with chronological

exactness, occurs in Milton's _Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning

Divorce_, published in July 1644.] In other words, he resolved to abandon

the anonymous. His pamphlet, easily traced to him from the first by its

Miltonic style, had been sold out, or nearly so; people generally, but

clergymen especially, were saying harsh things about it, and about him as

its author; but some of these critics, he authentically knew, had never

read the pamphlet, and others were making a point of the fact that it had

appeared without its author's name. Well, there should be an end of

that! He would put forth a second edition of the pamphlet, and avow the

authorship! And this he would do rather because, since the publication of

the first edition, he had been looking farther into the literature of the

question, and could now fortify his own reasoned opinion with authorities

he had been but dimly aware of, or had altogether overlooked.

Accordingly, on the 2nd of February, 1643-4, there did come forth a

second edition of Milton's first Divorce Tract, with this new title:

"_The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Restor'd to the good of both

Sexes, from the bondage of Canon Law, and other mistakes, to the true

meaning of Scripture in the Law and Gospel compar'd. Wherein are set down

the bad consequences of abolishing or condemning of Sin, that which the

Law of God allowes, and Christ abolisht not. Now the second time revis'd

and much augmented. In Two Books: to the Parliament of England with the

Assembly. The Author J.M._" Underneath this title, the text Matth

xiii. 52 is repeated from the title-page of the first edition; with this

new text added, Prov. xviii. 13: "He that answereth a matter before he

heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." Then follows the imprint,

"_London, Imprinted in the yeare_ 1644." In the copy in the British

Museum which is my authority, the collector Thomason has put his pen

through the final figure 4, and has annexed, in ink, the date "Feb. 2,

1643." [Footnote: Brit, Mus. Press-mark, 12. E.e. 5/141.] This fixes the

exact date of publication as above, Feb. 2, 1643-4.

This second edition is a great enlargement and improvement of the first.

The 48 small quarto pages of the first swell into 88 pages; the text is

divided into Two Books, each of which is subdivided into Chapters, with

carefully-worded headings; and, on the whole, the treatise is made more

inviting in appearance. The bold Introductory Letter, addressed "_To

the Parliament of England, with the Assembly_," consists of six pages,

and is signed not with the mere initials "J.M." which appear on the

title-page, but fully "John Milton." The additions in the text consist

sometimes of a few words inserted, sometimes of expansions of mere

passages of the first edition into two or three pages: in the Second Book

they attain to still larger dimensions, so that much of that Book is

totally new matter. Thus Chapters I., II., and III., of this Book,

forming ten pages, come in lieu of a single paragraph of two pages in the

first edition; Chapters IV., V., VI., and VII., forming together six

pages, are substituted for about a single page of the first edition; and

Chapter XXI., consisting of nearly five pages, is an expansion of about a

page and a half in the first edition. The additions and expansions appear

to have been made on various principles. Sometimes one can see that a

passage has been added for the mere poetic enrichment of the text, and to

prove that the hand that was writing was not that of a musty polemic, but

of an artist, at home in splendours. There is a striking instance in

point in Chap. VI. of Book I., where there is interpolated a gratuitously

gorgeous myth or fable, which may be entitled _Eros and Anteros,_ or

_Love and Its Reciprocation_. The passage is characteristic and may

be quoted:--

Marriage is a covenant the very being whereof consists, not in a forced

cohabitation, and counterfeit performance of duties, but in unfeigned

love and peace. And of matrimonial love no doubt but that was chiefly

meant which by the ancient sages was thus parabled: That Love, if he be

not twin-born, yet hath a brother wondrous like him, called Anteros; whom

while he seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many false and

feigning desires that wander singly up and down in his likeness. By them

in their borrowed garb Love, though not wholly blind as poets wrong him,

yet having but one eye, as being born an archer aiming, and that eye not

the quickest in this dark region here below, which is not Love's proper

sphere, partly out of the simplicity and credulity which is native to

him, often deceived, embraces and consorts him with these obvious and

suborned striplings, as if they were his Mother's own sons, for so he

thinks them while they subtly keep themselves most on his blind side.

But, after a while, as his manner is, when, soaring up into the high

tower of his Apogæum, above the shadows of the Earth, he darts out the

direct rays of his then most piercing eyesight upon the impostures and

trim disguises that were used with him, and discerns that this is not his

genuine brother, as he imagined, he has no longer the power to hold

fellowship with such a personated mate. For straight his arrows loose

their golden heads and shed their purple feathers; his silken braids

untwine and slip their knots; and that original and fiery virtue given

him by Fate all on a sudden goes out and leaves him undeified and

despoiled of all his force; till, finding Anteros at last, he kindles and

repairs the almost faded ammunition of his Deity by the reflection of a

coequal and homogeneal fire. Thus mine author sung it to me; and, by the

leave of those who would be counted the only grave ones, this is no mere

amatorious novel (though to be wise and skilful in these matters men

heretofore of greatest name in virtue have esteemed it one of the highest

arcs that human contemplation circling upwards can make from the glassy

sea whereon she stands); but this is a serious and deep verity, showing

us that Love in Marriage cannot live nor subsist unless it be mutual.

Unless more is meant than meets the eye by _Anteros_ here in

Milton's own case, this interpolation [Footnote: The manner of the

interpolation is so curious that it deserves a note. Milton, perceiving

that such a poetic Fable might be objected to as fitter for a "mere

amatorious novel" than for a controversial treatise, insinuates an

apology for its introduction. The apology is that some of the wisest and

greatest men had allowed the use on occasion of those "highest arcs that

human contemplation, circling upwards, can make from the glassy sea

whereon she stands." In this phrase Milton furnished his critics with a

weapon which they might have used against himself. Even now the most

general objection to his prose writings would be that they contain too

many of those gratuitous grandeurs, those upward arcs and circlings from

the glassy sea. But, in fact, he had his own theory of prose-writing as

of other things, and it was not Addison's, nor any other that has been

common since.] was for literary effect only. Very frequently, however,

the additions are of new reasonings, or farther interpretations of

Scripture. Above all, we have in the second edition the results of

Milton's ranging in the literature of the question since he had published

the first. In that first edition he had been able to make some reference

to Hugo Grotius, having fortunately at the last moment come upon some

notes of Grotius on Matth. v. which he thought reasonable. But since then

he had lighted on a more thorough-going authority on his side in one of

the German theologians of the Reformation period--Paul Fagius (1504-

1550). "I had learnt," he says, "that Paulus Fagius, one of the chief

divines in Germany, sent for by Frederic the Palatine to reform his

dominion, and after that invited hither in King Edward's days to be

Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, was of the same opinion touching

Divorce which these men so lavishly traduced in me. What I found I

inserted where fittest place was, thinking sure they would respect so

grave an author, at least to the moderating of their odious inferences."

[Footnote: This explanation, referring to the second edition of the

_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, does not occur in that

treatise itself, but in the _Judgment of Martin Bucer_, published

some months afterwards.] Accordingly, in the second edition,

considerable use is made of Fagius, as well as of Grotius, while, as

before, other theologians of historical note--Calvin, Beza, Pareus (1548-

1622), Perkins (1558-1602), Rivetus (1572-1651)--are respectfully cited,

sometimes as furnishing a favourable hint, but sometimes as requiring

reply and correction. Not the least interesting perhaps of the added

passages is this in the last chapter: "That all this is true [_i.e._

that Divorce is not to be restricted by Law] whoso desires to know at

large with least pains, and expects not here overlong rehearsals of that

which is by others already judiciously gathered, let him hasten to be

acquainted with that noble volume written by our learned Selden, '_Of

the Law of Nature and of Nations_;' a work more useful and more worthy

to be perused, whosoever studies to be a great man in wisdom, equity and

justice, than all those Decretals and sumless Sums which the Pontifical

clerks have doted on." The particular work of Selden's here referred to

is his folio, _De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam

Hebræorum_, published in 1640. His work more expressly on Divorce,

entitled _Uxor Hebraica, sive De Nuptiis ac Divortiis_, did not

appear till 1646--_i.e._ it _followed_ Milton's publications on

the subject, and in the main backed the opinion they had propounded. It

seems to me not improbable that in 1643-4, when Milton paid Selden the

compliment we have quoted, he had just made Selden's personal

acquaintance. Selden was then in his sixtieth year; Milton in his thirty-

sixth.

After the description given of the second edition of the _Doctrine and

Discipline of Divorce_ and its differences from the first, it seems

necessary to quote only some passages from Milton's opening address in it

to the Parliament and the Westminster Assembly:--

... Error supports Custom, Custom countenances Error; and these two

between them would persecute and chase away all truth and solid wisdom

out of human life, were it not that God, rather than man, once in many

ages, calls together the prudent and religious counsels of men deputed to

repress the encroachments, and to work off the inveterate blots and

obscurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle insinuating of Error and

Custom: who, with the numerous and vulgar train of their followers, make

it their chief design to envy and cry down the industry of free

reasoning, under the terms of "humour" and "innovation"; as if the womb

of teeming Truth were to be closed up if she presume to bring forth aught

that sorts not with their unchewed notions and suppositions. Against

which notorious injury and abuse of man's free soul to testify, and

oppose the utmost that study and true labour can attain, heretofore the

incitement of men reputed grave hath led me among others; and now the

duty and the right of an instructed Christian calls me through the chance

of good or evil report to be the sole advocate of a discountenanced

truth: a high enterprise, Lords and Commons, a high enterprise and a

hard, and such as every seventh son of a seventh son does not venture

on.... You it concerns chiefly, worthies in Parliament, on whom, as on

our deliverers, all our grievances and cares, by the merit of your

eminence and fortitude, are devolved: me it concerns next, having with

much labour and diligence first found out, or at least with a fearless

and communicative candour first published to the manifest good of

Christendom, that which, calling to witness everything mortal and

immortal, I believe unfeignedly to be true.... Mark then, Judges and

Lawgivers, and ye whose office it is to be our teachers, for I will now

utter a doctrine, if ever any other, though neglected or not understood,

yet of great and powerful importance to the governing of mankind. He who

wisely would restrain the reasonable soul of man within due bounds must

first himself know perfectly how far the territory and dominion extends

of just and honest liberty. As little must he offer to bind that which

God hath loosened as to loosen that which He hath bound. The ignorance

and mistake of this high point hath heaped up one huge half of all the

misery that hath been since Adam. In the Gospel we shall read a

supercilious crew of Masters, whose holiness, or rather whose evil eye,

grieving that God should be so facile to man, was to set straiter limits

to obedience than God had set, to enslave the dignity of Man, to put a

garrison upon his neck of empty and over-dignified precepts: and we shall

read our Saviour never more grieved and troubled than to meet with such a

peevish madness among men against their own freedom. How can we expect

him to be less offended with us, when much of the same folly shall be

found yet remaining where it least ought, to the perishing of thousands?

The greatest burden in the world is Superstition, not only of ceremonies

in the Church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home. What greater

weakening, what more subtle stratagem against our Christian warfare,

when, besides the gross body of real transgressions to encounter, we

shall be terrified by a vain and shadowy menacing of faults that are not!

When things indifferent shall be set to overfront us, under the banners

of Sin, what wonder if we be routed, and, by this art of our Adversary,

fall into the subjection of worst and deadliest offences! The

superstition of the Papist is "Touch not, taste not!" when God bids both;

and ours is "Part not, separate not!" when God and Charity both permits

and commands. "Let all your things be done with charity," saith St. Paul;

and his Master saith "She is the fulfilling of the Law." Yet now a civil,

an indifferent, a sometime dissuaded Law of Marriage must be forced upon

us to fulfil, not only without Charity, but against her. No place in

Heaven or Earth, except Hell, where Charity may not enter; yet Marriage,

the ordinance of our solace and contentment, the remedy of our

loneliness, will not admit now either of Charity or Mercy to come in and

mediate or pacify the fierceness of this gentle ordinance, the unremedied

loneliness of this remedy. Advise ye well, Supreme Senate, if charity be

thus excluded and expulsed, how ye will defend the untainted honour of

your own actions and proceedings. He who marries intends as little to

conspire his own ruin as he that swears allegiance; and, as a whole

people is in proportion to an ill Government, so is one man to an ill

marriage.... Whatever else ye can enact will scarce concern a third part

of the British name; but the benefit and good of this your magnanimous

example [should they restore liberty of Divorce] will easily spread far

beyond the banks of Tweed and the Norman Isles. It would not be the first

nor the second time, since our ancient Druids, by whom this Island as the

cathedral of philosophy to France, left off their Pagan rites, that

England hath had this honour vouchsafed from Heaven--to give out

reformation to the world. Who was it but our English Constantine that

baptized the Roman Empire? Who but the Northumbrian Willibrod and

Winifrid of Devon, with their followers, were the first Apostles of

Germany? Who but Alcuin and Wicklif, our countrymen, opened the eyes of

Europe, the one in Arts, the other in Religion? Let not England forget

her precedence of teaching nations how to live....

Milton's idea of the greatness of his enterprise, it will be seen from

these passages, had grown and grown the more he had brooded on it. What

if in this Doctrine of Divorce he were to be the discoverer or restorer

of a new liberty, not for England alone, but actually for all

Christendom? Meanwhile what opposition he would have to face, what storms

of scurrilous jest and severer calumny! Might it not have been better to

have written his treatise in Latin? This thought had occurred to him. "It

might perhaps more fitly have been written in another tongue; and I had

done so, but that the esteem I have for my country's judgment, and the

love I bear to my native language, to seive it first with what I

endeavour, made me speak it thus ere I assay the verdict of outlandish

readers." Yet there might have been a propriety, he feels, in addressing

such an argument in the first place only to the learned.

And what, after all, and in precise practical form, _was_ this

tremendous proposition of Milton respecting Divorce? Reduced out of large

and cloudy terms, it was simply this,--that marriage, as it respected the

continued union of the two married persons, was a thing with which Law

had nothing whatever to do; that the two persons who had contracted a

marriage were the sole judges of its convenience, and, if they did not

suit each other, might part by their own act, and be free again; at all

events, that for husbands the Mosaic Law on the subject was still in

force: viz. (Deut. xxiv. 1) "When a man hath taken a wife and married

her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he

hath found some uncleanness in her [interpreted as including any moral or

intellectual incompatibility, any unfitness whatever], then let him write

her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of

his house." Milton avoids as much as possible such reductions of his

proposition to harsh practical form, and would have disowned such brief

popular summaries of his doctrine as _Divorce at pleasure_, or

_Divorce at the Husband's pleasure_; but, in reality, it came to

this. The husband, in modern times, had still, he maintained, the old

Mosaic right of giving his wife a "bill of divorcement," if she did not

satisfy him, and sending her back to her father's house. The right was a

purely personal one. Friends, indeed, might interfere with their good

offices; nay it would be fitting, and perhaps necessary, that there

should be a solemn formality "in presence of the minister and other grave

selected elders," who should admonish the man of the seriousness of the

step he was about to take. But, if he persisted in taking it--if "he

shall have protested, on the faith of the eternal Gospel and the hope he

has of a happy resurrection, that otherwise than thus he cannot do, and

thinks himself and this his case not contained in that prohibition of

divorce which Christ pronounced (Matth. v. 31-32), the matter not being

of malice, but of nature, and so not capable of reconciling"--then the

Church had done her part to the full, and the man was to be left to his

own liberty. This passage, proposing a kind of public oath on the man's

part, as a formality to be required in every case of dissolution of

marriage, occurs near the end of the treatise in both editions; and it

indicates, I think, Milton's recoil from any rough or free and easy

version of his doctrine, and his desire to temper it as much as he could.

Essentially, however, the proposal mattered little. The husband was still

left sole judge of his wife's fitness or unfitness for him, and whether

he should exercise his right of putting her away was a matter finally for

his private conscience.

With reference to Milton's own case, it is worth observing that the

causes of divorce on which he still rings the changes throughout the

second edition of his treatise, as throughout the first, are the

unmatchableness of dispositions, the unfitness of the wife for rational

conversation, her intellectual and moral insufficiency or perverseness.

There is no word of _desertion_. I cannot but think that this

confirms the view that it was not the absence of Milton's wife that

caused his dissatisfaction with his marriage, but that the

dissatisfaction preceded the absence and had helped to occasion it.

Narration, rather than criticism, is my business in this work; and we

have not yet done with Milton's Divorce speculation. At this point,

however, I may venture on three remarks:--

(1.) What is most noticeable in Milton, underneath his whole conduct

here, as in so many other matters, is his intellectual courage. Among men

of thought there are, I should say, two grades of honesty. There is

passive honesty, or the honesty of never saying, or appearing to say,

what one does _not_ think; and it is a rare and high merit to have

attained to this. But there is the greater honesty of always saying, or

indeed asserting and proclaiming, whatever one _does_ think. The

proportion of those who have disciplined themselves to this positive or

aggressive honesty, and are at the same time socially sufferable by

reason of the importance of what they have to say, has always been

wonderfully small in the world. Now, Milton was one of this band of

intellectual Ironsides. Even within the band itself he belonged to the

extremest section. For he dared to question not only the speculative

dogmas and political traditions of his time, which others round him were

questioning, but even some of the established "moralities," which few of

them were questioning. It is not at all uncommon for men the most free-

thinking in matters of religious belief to be immoveably and even

fanatically orthodox in their allegiance to all customary moralities.

They abide by tradition, and think with the multitude, in ethical

questions, if in nothing, else. But on Milton, it appears from his

Address to the Parliament and the Assembly, there had dawned the idea

that, as there had come down in the bosom of society misbeliefs in

science, imperfect views of theology, and conventions of political

tyranny, so there had come down things even worse, in the form of

cobwebbed sacramentalisms and sanctities for private life, factitious

restrictions of individual liberty pretending themselves to be Christian

rules of holiness. Among the greatest burdens and impediments in man's

life, he says, were such pseudo-moralities, such "imaginary and scarecrow

sins," vaunting themselves as suckers and corollaries from the Ten

Commandments. This was a daring track to be upon, but Milton was upon it.

He did not believe that the world had arrived at a final and perfect

system of morals, any more than at a perfect system of science. He

believed the established ethical customs of men to be subject to revision

by enlarged and progressive reason, and modifiable from age to age,

equally with their theories of cosmology, their philosophical creeds, or

anything else. There was no terror for him in that old and ever-repeated

outcry about "sapping the foundations of society." He believed that the

foundations of society had taken, and would still take, a great deal of

"sapping," without detriment to the superstructure. He believed that, as

we may read in Herodotus of ancient communities established on all sorts

of principles, or even whim-principles, and yet managing to get on, and

as these crude polities had been succeeded by other and better ones, to

the latest known in the world, so these last need not look to be

permanent. Of a tendency to this state of feeling Milton had given

evidences from early youth; but I do not think I am wrong in fixing on

the year 1643 as the time when it became chronic, nor in tracing the

sudden enlargement of it then beyond its former bounds to the wrench in

his life caused by his unhappy marriage. At all events, henceforward

throughout his career we shall see the continuous action of this now

avowed Miltonism among others. We shall see him henceforward continually

acting on the principle that, in addition to the real sins forbidden to

man by an eternal law of right and wrong, revealed in his own conscience

and authenticated by the Bible (for Milton did believe in such an eternal

law, and, however it is to be reconciled with what we have just been

saying, was a transcendental or _a priori_ moralist at his heart's

core), the field of human endeavour was overstrewn by a multiplicity of

mere "scarecrow sins," one's duty in respect of which was simply to march

up to them, one after another, and pluck them up, every stick of them

individually, with its stuck-on old hat and all its waving tatters.

(2.) One notes in Milton's first Divorce Tract, as in much else of his

controversial writing, a preference for the theoretical over what may be

called the practical style of argument. The neglect of practical details

in his reasoning throughout this particular Tract amounts to what might

be called greenness or innocence. What are the questions with which an

opponent of the "practical" type would have immediately tried to pose

Milton, or which such an one would now object to his doctrine? No one can

miss them. In a case where divorce is desired by the man only, what is to

become of the divorced wife? Is not the damage of her prospects by the

fact that she has once been married, if but for a month, something to be

taken into account? It is not in marriage as it may be in other

partnerships. The poor girl that has been once married returns to her

father or her friends an article of suddenly diminished value in the

general estimation. What provision is to be made for this? Then, should

there be children, what are to be the arrangements? Or again, suppose the

case, under the new Divorce Law, of a man who has a weakness for a

succession of wives--a private Henry the Eighth. He marries No. 1, and,

after a while, on the plea that he does not find that she suits him, he

gives her a bill of divorcement; No. 2 comes and is treated in like

manner; and so on, till the brutal rascal, undeniably free from all legal

censure, may be living in the centre of a perfect solar system of his

discarded wives, moving in nearer or farther orbits round him, according

to the times when they were thrown off, and each with her one or two

satellites of little darlings! To be sure, there is the public oath

which, it is supposed, might have to be taken in every case of divorce;

but what would such a blackguard care for any number of such oaths?

Besides, you put it to him by his oath to declare that in his conscience

he believes the incompatibility between himself and his wife to be

radical and irremediable, and that he does not find that he comes within

Christ's meaning in that famous passage of the Sermon on the Mount in

which he Christianized the Mosaic Law of Divorce. What does such a fellow

know of Christ's meaning? He will swear, and according to your new Law he

need only swear, according to his own standard of fitness; which may be

that variety is a _sine quâ non_ for him, or that No. 2 is intolerable

when No. 3 is on the horizon. How, in the terms of the new Law, is such

licence to sheer libertinism to be avoided? These and other such

questions are suggested here not as necessarily fatal to Milton's

doctrine: in fact, in certain countries, since Milton's time, the most

thorough practical consideration of them has not impeded modifications of

the Marriage Law in the direction heralded by Milton. They are suggested

as indicating Milton's rapidity, his impatience, or, if we choose so to

call it, his dauntless faith in ideas and first principles. It is

remarkable how little, in his first Divorce Tract, he troubles himself

with the anticipation of such-like objections of the practical kind. The

reason may partly be that, in his own case, some of them, if not all,

were irrelevant. There were no children in his case to complicate the

affair; Mary Powell was probably as willing to part from him as he to

part from Mary Powell; and, if she were to relapse into Mary Powell again

and he to be free as before, the social expense of their two or three

months' mismatch would hardly be appreciable! Doubtless, however, Milton

foresaw many of the practical objections. He foresaw cases, that would be

sure to arise under the new law, much more complicated than that of

himself and Mary Powell. That he did not discuss such cases may have,

therefore, been partly the policy of a controversialist, resolved to

establish his main principle in the first place, and leaving the details

of practical adjustment for a future time or for other heads. On the

whole, however, the inattention to those practical details which would

have formed so much of the matter of most men's reasonings on the same

subject was very characteristic.

(3.) My last remark is that Milton, in his tract, writes wholly from the

man's point of view, and in the man's interest, with a strange oblivion

of the woman's. The Tract is wholly a plea for the right of a man to give

his wife a bill of divorcement and send her home to her father. There is

no distinct word about any counterpart right for a woman who has married

an unsuitable husband to give him a bill of divorcement and send him back

to his mother. On the whole subject of the woman's interests in the

affair Milton is suspiciously silent. There is, indeed, one passage, in

Chap. XV. of the Tract, bearing on the question; and it is very curious.

Beza and Paræus, it seems, had argued that the Mosaic right of

divorcement given to the man had been intended rather as a merciful

release for afflicted wives than as a privilege for the man himself. On

this opinion Milton thinks it necessary to comment. He partly maintains

that, if true, it would strengthen his argument for the restoration of

the right of divorce to husbands; but partly he protests against its

truth. "If divorce wore granted," he says, "not for men, but to release

afflicted wives, certainly it is not only a dispensation, but a most

merciful law; and why it should not yet be in force, being wholly as

needful, I know not what can be in cause but senseless cruelty. But yet

to say divorce was granted for relief of wives, rather than for husbands,

is but weakly conjectured, and is manifest the extreme shift of a huddled

exposition ... Palpably uxorious! Who can be ignorant that woman was

created for man, and not man for woman, and that a husband may be injured

as insufferably in marriage as a wife. What an injury is it after wedlock

not to be beloved, what to be slighted, what to be contended with in

point of house-rule who shall be the head, not for any parity of wisdom

(for that were something reasonable), but out of a female pride! 'I

suffer not,' saith Saint Paul, 'the woman to usurp authority over the

man.' If the Apostle could not suffer it, into what mould is he mortified

that can? Solomon saith that 'a bad wife is to her husband as rottenness

to his bones, a continual dropping: better dwell in a corner of the

house-top, or in the wilderness, than with such a one: whoso hideth her

hideth the wind, and one of the four mischiefs that the earth cannot

bear.' If the Spirit of God wrote such aggravations as these, and, as it

may be guessed by these similitudes, counsels the man rather to divorce

than to live with such a colleague, and yet, on the other side, expresses

nothing of the wife's suffering with a bad husband, is it not most likely

that God in his Law had more pity towards man thus wedlocked than towards

the woman that was created for another?" [Footnote: This passage occurs

in the second edition. There is but the germ of it in the first sentence,

"If Divorce were granted ... senseless cruelty." The inference is that

Milton, when he wrote the first edition, was rather pleased with the idea

of Beza and Paræus that divorce had been given for the relief of the

wife, and that his dissatisfaction with the idea, as promoting the woman

too much at the man's expense, came afterwards.] Here was doctrine with a

vengeance. Man being the superior being, and therefore with the greater

capacity of being pained or injured, God had pitied him, if unhappily

married, more than the woman similarly situated. For him, therefore, and

not for the woman, there had been provided the right of divorce! This is

not positively asserted, but it seems to be implied. The woman's relief,

in the case of a marriage unhappy for her, consisted apparently,

according to Milton, not in her power to cut the knot, but in the

likelihood that her husband, finding the marriage unhappy also for him,

would desire for his own sake to cut the knot, or might be driven by her

management to that extremity. In short, we have here, as another

consequence of Milton's unfortunate marriage, the beginning of that

peculiarly stern form of the notion of woman's natural and essential

inferiority to man which ran with visible effects through his whole

subsequent life. If not his ideal of woman, at least his estimate of what

was to be expected from actual women, and what was on the average to be

accorded to them, had been permanently lowered by a bad first experience.

All this while, what of the poor girl whose hard fate it was to occasion

this experience in the life of a man too grandly and sternly her

superior? One is bound to think also of her, and to remember, in so

thinking, how young she was at the time when her offended husband first

theorized his feeling of her defects, and published his theorizings, with

her image and memory, though not with her name, involved in them, to the

talkative world. She had not been seventeen years and a half old when she

had married Milton; she was of exactly that age when she left him, and

the first edition of his Divorce Treatise was ready; she was just

eighteen when the second and fuller edition appeared. Surely, but for

that fatal visit back to Forest Hill, contrived by her or her relatives,

matters would have righted themselves. As it was, things could not be

worse. Restored to her father's house at Forest Hill, amid her unmarried

brothers and sisters, and all the familiar objects from which she had

parted so recently on going to London, the young bride had, doubtless,

_her_ little pamphlets to publish in that narrow but sympathising

circle. In particular, her grievances would be poured into the confiding

ears of her mother. That lady, as we can see, at once takes the lead in

the case. Never with her will shall her daughter go back to that dreadful

man in Aldersgate Street! Mr. Powell acquiesces; brothers and sisters

acquiesce; Oxford Royalism near at hand acquiesces, so far as it is

consulted; the bride herself acquiesces, happy enough again in the

routine of home, or perhaps beginning to join bashfully again in such

gaieties of officers' balls, and the like, as the proximity of the King's

quarters to Forest Hill made inevitable. And is not the King's cause on

the whole prospering, and is not that in itself another reason for being

at least in no hurry to make it up with Milton? What if it never be made

up with him? It is some time since his letters to Forest Hill by the

carrier ceased entirely, and since the foot-messenger he sent down

expressly all the way from London with his final letter was met at the

gate by Mrs. Powell and told her mind in terms which were doubtless duly

reported. And now, they hear, he is going about London as usual, and

visiting at Lady Margaret Ley's, and giving his own version of his

marriage story, and even printing Tracts in favour of Divorce! People

generally, they say, are not agreeing with him on that subject; but there

is at least one respectable English family that _is_ tempted to

agree with him and to wish him all success!

BOOK II.

MARCH 1644-MARCH 1645.

_HISTORY_:--THE YEAR OF MARSTON MOOR: CIVIL WAR, LONG PARLIAMENT,

AND WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY CONTINUED--STRUGGLE OF INDEPENDENCY WITH

PRESBYTERIANISM: TOLERATION CONTROVERSY: ENGLISH SECTS AND SECTARIES--

PRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT VOTED--NEW MODEL OF THE ARMY.

_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON AMONG THE SECTARIES: HIS SECOND DIVORCE

PAMPHLET, _TRACT ON EDUCATION_, _AREOPAGITICA TETRACHORDON_,

AND _COLASTERION_.

CHAPTER I.

INACTIVITY OF THE SCOTTISH AUXILIARIES--SPREAD OF INDEPENDENCY AND

MULTIPLICATION OF SECTS--VISITATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE--

BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR--FORTNIGHT'S VACATION OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY

(JULY 23-AUGUST 7, 1644).--PRINCIPLE OF TOLERATION AND STATE OF THE

TOLERATION CONTROVERSY: SYNOPSIS OF ENGLISH SECTS AND SECTARIES IN 1644.-

-RESUMPTION OF ASSEMBLY'S PROCEEDINGS: DENUNCIATION OF PICKED SECTARIES

AND HERETICS--CROMWELL'S INTERFERENCE FOR INDEPENDENCY: ACCOMMODATION

ORDER OF PARLIAMENT--PRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT VOTED--ESSEX BEATEN AND THE

WAR FLAGGING: SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE AND NEW MODEL OF THE ARMY--

PARLIAMENTARY VENGEANCES.

The English Parliamentarians hoped great things from the Scottish

auxiliary army. The Royalists, on the other hand, were both angry and

alarmed. In anticipation, indeed, of the coming-in of the Scots, the King

had ventured on a very questionable step. He had summoned what may be

called an ANTI-PARLIAMENT to meet him at Oxford on the 22nd of January

1643-4, to consist of all members who had been expelled from the two

Houses in Westminster, and all that might be willing, in the new crisis,

to withdraw from those rebellious Houses. On the appointed day,

accordingly, there had rallied round the King at Oxford 49 Peers and 141

Commoners; which was not a bad show against the 22 Peers and 280

Commoners who met on the same day in the two Houses at Westminster. But

little else resulted from the convocation of the ANTI-PARLIAMENT. In

fact, many who had gone to it had done so with a view to negotiations for

peace. Such negotiations were at least talked of. In addition to vehement

denunciations of the doings of the Parliament, there were some abortive

attempts at friendly intercourse. All which having failed, the ANTI-

PARLIAMENT was prorogued April 16, 1644, after having sat nearly three

months. Parliaments, even when they were loyalist Parliaments, were not

the agencies that Charles found pleasantest. He trusted rather to the

arbitrament of the field.

INACTIVITY OF THE SCOTTISH AUXILIARY ARMY: SPREAD OF INDEPENDENCY IN

ENGLAND: MULTIPLICATION OF SECTS.

No sudden blow was struck by the Scots. They had fastened themselves, in

proper military fashion, on the north of England, and their presence

there was useful; but that was all. It was a great disappointment to

Baillie. He had expected that the appearance of his dear countrymen in

England would put an end to the mere military "tig-tagging," as he had

called it, of Essex and Waller, and quicken immediately the tramp of

affairs. His belief all along had been that what was needed in England

was an importation of Scottish impetuousness to animate the heavy

English, and teach them the northern trick of carrying all things at the

double with a hurrah and a yell. It was a sore affliction, therefore, to

the good man that, from January 1643-4, on through February, March,

April, May, and even June, the 21,000 Scots under Leslie should be in

England, and yet be stirring so little. Instead of fighting their way

southwards into the heart of the country, they were still squatting in

the Northumbrian coal-region, and sticking there, not without some bad

behaviour and disorder. Doubtless, it was all right in strategy, and

Leslie knew what he was about; but oh, that it could have been otherwise!

For of what use a great Scottish victory would have been at that time to

the cause of Presbyterianism? Faster, more massively, more resistlessly

than all the argumentations of Henderson, Gillespie, and Rutherford,

aided by those of the Smectymnuans, with Vines, Palmer, Burges, and the

rest of the English Presbyterians, such a victory would have crushed down

the contentiousness of the Five Dissenting Brethren, and swept the

propositions of complete Scottish Presbytery through the Westminster

Assembly. Parliament, receiving these propositions, would have passed

them with alacrity; and what could the English nation have done but

acquiesce? But, alas! as things were! The Five Dissenting Brethren and

the other "thraward wits" in the Assembly could still persevere in their

struggle with the Presbyterian majority, debating every proposition that

implied a surrender of Congregationalism, and conscious that in so

impeding a Presbyterian settlement they were pleasing a growing body of

their fellow-countrymen. What, though London was staunchly and all but

universally Presbyterian? Throughout the country, and, above all, in the

Army, the case was different. The inactivity of the Scots was affording

time for the spirit of Independency to spread, and was giving rise to

awkward questions. It began actually to be said of the Westminster

Assembly, that it "did cry down the truth with votes, and was an Anti-

Christian meeting which would erect a Presbytery worse than Bishops." In

the Army especially such Anti-Presbyterian sentiments, and questionings

of the infallibility of the Scots, had become rife. "The Independents

have so managed matters," writes Baillie, April 26, "that of the officers

and sojers in Manchester's army, certainly also in the General's

(Essex's), and, as I hear, in Waller's likewise, more than two parts are

for them, and these of the far most resolute and confident men for the

Parliament party." As regarded Essex's army and Waller's, Baillie

afterwards found reason to think that this was a great exaggeration; but

it appears to have been true enough respecting Manchester's. By that time

there was no doubt either who was at the head of these Army Independents.

It was Cromwell--now no longer mere "Colonel Cromwell," but "Lieutenant-

general Cromwell," second in command in the Associated Counties under

Manchester. As early as April 2 Baillie speaks of him as "the great

Independent." With such a man to look up to, and with patrons also in the

two Houses of Parliament, little wonder that the Independents in the Army

began to feel themselves strong, and to regard the drift of the

Westminster Assembly and the Londoners towards an absolute

Presbyterianism as a movement innocent enough while it consisted in talk

only, but to be watched carefully and disowned in due time.

All might be retrieved, however! What hope there might yet be in a great

Scottish success! With this idea Baillie still hugged himself. "We are

exceeding sad and ashamed," he had written, April 19, "that our army, so

much talked of, has done as yet nothing at all." But again, May 9, "We

trust God will arise, and do something by our Scots army. We are

afflicted that, after so long time, we have gotten no hit of our enemy;

we hope God will put away that shame. Waller, Manchester, Fairfax, and

all, gets victories; but Leslie, from whom all was expected, as yet has

had his hands bound. God, we hope, will loose them, and send us matter of

praise also." The victories of Waller, Manchester, and Fairfax, here

referred to by Baillie, had been nothing very considerable--mere fights

in their several districts, heard of at the time, but counting for little

now in the history of the war; but they contrasted favourably with what

could be told of the Scots. What was that? It was that they had summoned

Newcastle to surrender, but had advanced beyond that town, leaving it

untaken. When Baillie wrote the last-quoted passage, however, they were

more hopefully astir. Fairfax, with his northern-English force, had

joined them at Tadcaster in Yorkshire; the Earl of Manchester had been

summoned northwards to add what strength he could bring from the

Associated Counties; and the enterprise on which the three conjoined

forces were to be engaged--the Scots, Fairfax's men, and Manchester's--

was the siege of York. It was a great business on all grounds; and on

this amongst others, that the Marquis of Newcastle was shut up in the

city. Might not the Scots retrieve their character in this business? It

was Baillie's fervent prayer. But a dreadful doubt had occurred to him.

What if the Scots, mixed as they now were with the English

Parliamentarian soldiers before York, and in contact with the

Independents among them under Manchester and Cromwell, should themselves

catch the prevailing distemper? Writing, May 19, to his friend Mr. Blair,

a chaplain in the Scottish army, Baillie gives him a warning hint on the

subject. "We hear," he says, "that their horse and yours are conjoined,

and that occasions may fall out wherein more of them may join to you. We

all conceive that our silly simple lads are in great danger of being

infected by their company; and, if that pest enter in our army, we fear

it may spread." [Footnote: Baillie, Vol. II. from p. 128 to p. 197.]

Here there must come in an explanation:--The Army-Independency which was

alarming the Presbyterians, and of which they regarded Cromwell as the

head, was a thing of much larger dimensions, and much more composite

nature, than the mild Independency of Messrs. Goodwin, Burroughs, Nye,

Simpson, and Bridge, within the Westminster Assembly. The Independency of

these five Divines consisted simply in their courageous assertion of the

Congregationalist principle of church-organization in the midst of the

overwhelming Presbyterianism around them, and in their claim that, should

their reasonings for Congregationalism prove in vain, and should the

Presbyterian system be established in England, there should be at all

events "an indulgence" under that system, for themselves and their

adherents, "in some lesser differences." The "lesser differences" for

which they thus prospectively craved an indulgence had not been

specifically stated; but it is pretty clear that they were not, to any

great extent, differences of theological belief, but were rather those

differences which would arise from the conscientious perseverance of a

minority in Congregationalist practices after a Presbyterian rule had

been established nationally. "You know that we do not differ from you in

theological doctrines" is what the Five Dissenting Brethren virtually

said to the Presbyterians; "your teaching is our teaching, and what you

call errors we call errors: our difference lies wholly, or all but

wholly, in the fact that _we_ hold every particular congregation of

Christians to be a church within itself, whereas _you_ maintain the

interconnectedness of congregations, and the right of courts of office-

bearers from many congregations to review and control what passes within

each: now, as you, being undoubtedly in the majority, are about to

establish Presbytery in England, but as we cannot in conscience abandon

our Congregationalism, could you not manage at least to allow in the new

national system such a toleration of Congregationalist practices as would

satisfy us, the minority, and prevent us from going again into exile?"

Such was the Independency of the Dissenting Five in the Westminster

Assembly. But, as we know, from our previous survey of the history of

Independency in England, in Holland, and in America, the word

"Independency" had come to have a much larger meaning than that in which

it had originated. It had come to mean not merely the principle of

Congregationalism, or the Independency of Congregations, but also all

that had in fact arisen from the action of that principle, in England,

Holland, or America, in the shape of miscellaneous dissent and

heterodoxy. It had come to mean the Congregationalist principle

_plus_ all its known or conceivable consequences. From policy it was

in this wide sense that the Presbyterians had begun to use the term

Independency. "You are certainly Independents," the Presbyterians of the

Assembly virtually said to Messrs Goodwin, Burroughs, and the rest of the

Five; "but you are the best specimens of a class of which the varieties

are legion: were all Independency such as yours, and were Independency to

end with you, we might see our way to such a toleration as you demand--

which, on personal grounds, we should like to do: but the principle of

Congregationalism has already generated on the earth--in England, in

Holland, and in America--opinions beyond yours, and some heresies at

which even you stand aghast; and it is of these, as well as of you, that

we are bound to think when we are asked to tolerate Independency." Now it

was of this larger and more terrible Independency that the Presbyterians

had begun to see signs in the Parliamentary Army and through England

generally. In other words, sects and sectaries of all sorts and sizes had

begun to be heard of--some only transmissions or re-manifestations of

oddities of old English Puritanism, others importations from Holland and

New England, and others products of the new ferment of the English mind

caused by the Civil War itself. In especial, it was believed,

_Anabaptists_ and _Antinomians_ had begun to abound. Now, though, in

politeness, the Presbyterians were willing occasionally to distinguish

between the orthodox Independents and the miscellaneous Sectaries, yet,

as the Congregationalist principle, which was the essence of

Independency, was credited with the mischief of having generated all the

sects, and as it was for this Congregationalist principle that toleration

was demanded, it was quite as common to huddle all the Sects and the

orthodox Congregationalists together under the one name of Independents.

Nor could the Congregationalists of the Assembly very well object to

this. True, they might disown the errors and extravagancies of the sects,

and declare that they themselves were as little in sympathy with them as

the Presbyterians. They might also argue, as indeed they anxiously did,

that due uniformity in the essentials of Christian belief and practice

would be as easily maintained in a community organized ecclesiastically

on the Congregationalist principle as in one organized in the

Presbyterian mariner. Still, in arguing so, they must have had some

latitude of view as to the amount of uniformity desirable. If every

congregation were to be independent within itself, and if moreover

congregations might be formed on the principle of elective affinities, or

the concourse of like-minded atoms, it was difficult to see why

Congregationalism should not be expected to evolve sects, and why

therefore this progressive evolution of sects should not be accepted as a

law of religious life. Had not the Five Independents of the Assembly

avowed it as one of their principles that they would not be too sure that

the opinions they now held would remain always unchanged? Reserving this

liberty of going farther for themselves, how could they refuse toleration

for those who had already gone farther? Claiming for themselves a

toleration in all such differences as did not affect their character as

good subjects, they could not but extend the benefit of the same plea to

at least a proportion of the Sectaries. But to what proportion? Where was

toleration to stop? At what point, in the course of religious dissent,

did a man become a "bad subject?" To these questions no definite answers

were given by the Five Dissentients of the Assembly; but they could not

but entertain the questions. Hence their Independency, though mild and

moderate so far as they were themselves concerned, was really in organic

connexion with the larger Independency that had begun to manifest itself

in the Army and elsewhere. "The Congregationalist principle and Liberty

of Religious Difference to a certain extent," said the Independents of

the Assembly. "Yes, Liberty of Religious Difference!" said the Army

Independents, simplifying the formula.

Throughout the first half of 1644, therefore, we are to think of the

Presbyterian majority in the Westminster Assembly as not only fighting

against the Independency or Congregationalism proper which was

represented within the walls of the Assembly by men whom they could not

but respect, though complaining of their obstinacy, but also bent on

saving England from that more lax or general Independency, nameable as

Army-Independency, which they saw rife through the land, and which

included toleration not merely of Congregationalism, but also of

Anabaptism, Antinomianism, and other nondescript heresies. Baillie's

groanings in spirit over the multiplication of the sectaries, and the

growth of the Toleration notion, are positively affecting. "Sundry

officers and soldiers in the army," he writes, April 2, "has fallen from

their way [_i.e._ from Independency proper] to Antinomianism and

Anabaptism." Again, later in the same month, "The number and evil humour

of the Antinomians and Anabaptists doth increase;" and more fully, on the

19th, "They [the Independents] over all the land are making up a faction

to their own way, the far most part whereof is fallen off to Anabaptism

and Antinomianism: sundry also to worse, if worse needs be--the mortality

of the soul, the denial of angels and devils; and cast off all

sacraments; and many blasphemous things. All these are from New England."

By May 9 he had begun to despair of the English altogether: "The humour

of this people is very various and inclinable to singularities, to differ

from all the world, and one from another, and shortly from themselves: no

people had so much need of a Presbytery." According to Baillie, it was

precisely owing to the absence of a well-organized Presbyterian system in

England that all those wild growths of opinion had been possible; and,

while they increased the difficulty of establishing Presbyterianism in

England, they were the best demonstration of its necessity. Therefore, he

would not despair. There was yet a faint hope that the Independent

Divines in the Assembly might be made ashamed of the tag-rag of

Anabaptists, Antinomians, and what not, that hung to their skirts, and so

might be brought to an accommodation with the Presbyterians. But, failing

that, the Presbyterians must stand firm, must face Independency and all

its belongings both in Parliament and in the Army, and try at length to

beat them down.--Of course, Baillie and his Scottish brethren were doing

their best to assist the English Presbyterians in this labour. Anti-

Toleration pamphlets had appeared, and more were in preparation. But help

was particularly desired from the Reformed Churches abroad, and most

particularly from Holland. Had not Holland nursed this very Independency

which was troubling England, and was not the example of Holland the

greatest argument with the Independents and others for a toleration of

sects? Representing all this to his correspondent, William Spang,

Scottish preacher at Campvere, Baillie urges him again and again to do

what he can to get any eminent Dutch divines of his acquaintance to write

treatises against Independency, Heresy, and Toleration. He names several

such, as likely to do this great service if duly importuned. There could

be no more helpful service to England--except one! Oh if there could yet

be a great Scottish victory on English soil! _That_ would be worth

all the pamphlets in the world! [Footnote: Baillie, II. 146, 157, 168,

177, 179, 181, 183-4, 191-2, 197, &c.--Several manifestoes against

Independency, such as Baillie wanted, did come, in due time, from Divines

in Holland and elsewhere on the Continent, and were much made of by the

Presbyterians of the Assembly, and put in circulation through England.]

VISITATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE: BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR.

Notwithstanding all this anarchy of ecclesiastical opinion, the practical

or political mastery of affairs remained in the hands of Parliament, and

was firmly exercised by Parliament in a direction satisfactory to the

Westminster Assembly as a whole. For, whatever might be the ultimate

settlement between Independency and Presbyterianism, there was a certain

general course of "Reformation" to which meanwhile all were pledged,

Independents and Sectaries no less than Presbyterians; and on this course

all could advance unanimously, even while battling with each other on the

ecclesiastical questions which the Independents desired to keep open. For

example, during those very months of 1644 in which Independency had been

taking such increased dimensions, there had been fully executed that

great Visitation and purgation of the University of Cambridge which had

been entrusted to the Earl of Manchester by Parliamentary Ordinance in

January.

The Earl, going to Cambridge in person in February 1643-4, with his two

chaplains, Messrs. Ashe and Good, had been engaged in the work through

the months of March and April, summoning refractory Heads of Colleges and

Fellows before him, examining complaints against them, and putting them

in most cases to the test of the Covenant. The result, when complete

(which it was not till 1645), was the ejection, on one ground or another,

of about one half of the _Fellows_ of the various Colleges of

Cambridge collectively, and of eleven out of the sixteen _Heads of

Houses_, and the appointment of persons of Parliamentarian principles

to the places thus made vacant.--Of the crowd of those who were turned

out of Cambridge _Fellowships_, and the crowd of those who were put

in to succeed them, we can take no account in this History. Yet a process

which presents us with the vision of about 150 rueful outgoers from

comfortable livelihoods in one University, met at the doors by as many

radiant comers-in, can have been no unimportant incident, even in a

national revolution. What became of all the rueful outgoers is a question

that might interest us yet. It interested Fuller ten years after the

event. Even then he could give no other answer, he said, than that

proverbial one which the survivors of Nicias's unfortunate expedition

against the Sicilians used to give at Athens when they were asked about

the fate of such or such a comrade who had never returned, [Greek: "E

tethnæken hæ didaskei grammata"] "He is either dead or teaching a school

somewhere." Schoolmastering, according to Fuller, was the refuge of most

of the ejected Cambridge Fellows of 1644-5.--More conspicuous persons,

and with resources that probably exempted them from the prospect of so

painful a fate, were the ejected _Heads of Houses_. Most of these

were ejected at once in March and April 1644; and, apart from our

acquired interest in Cambridge University, there are reasons for

remembering them individually, and noting those who came in their

places:--Of the sixteen Heads of Houses, it is to be premised, one--Dr.

Richard Love, of Bennet or Corpus Christi--was a member of the Assembly,

and therefore all right; while four others managed, by taking the

Covenant, or by other "wary compliance" during the Visitation, to stay

in. Among these four, it does not surprise us to learn, was Dr. Thomas

Bainbrigge of Christ's, Milton's old _durus magister_, with whom he

had had that never-forgotten tiff in his under-graduateship (Vol. I. pp.

135-141); the others were Dr. Eden of Trinity Hall, Dr. Rainbow of

Magdalen, and Dr. Batchcroft of Caius. The ejections were as follows:--

TRINITY COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. THOMAS CUMBER (_ob._ 1654);

Master put in, Mr. THOMAS HILL, one of the Assembly Divines.

ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. WILLIAM BEALE (died at Madrid,

1651); Master put in, Mr. JOHN ARROWSMITH, one of the Assembly Divines.

EMANUEL COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. RICHARD HOLDSWORTH (_ob._

1649); Master put in, Dr. ANTHONY TUCKNEY, one of the Assembly Divines.

QUEEN'S COLLEGE:--There was a complete sweep of this College, not a

Fellow or Foundationer of any kind being left. President ejected, Dr.

EDWARD MARTIN (survived the Restoration and was made Dean of Ely);

President put in, Mr. HERBERT PALMER, one of the Assembly Divines.

CLARE HALL:--Master ejected, Dr. THOMAS PASKE (survived the Restoration

and had his reward); Master put in, RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D., afterwards the

celebrated author of the "Intellectual System." He was of Somersetshire

birth, and, though now only 27 years of age, had acquired a high

Cambridge reputation, as Fellow and Tutor of Emanuel College, where he

had been educated.

PETERHOUSE:--Master ejected, Dr. JOHN COSINS (already under the ban of

Parliament and a refugee in France: he survived the Restoration and

became Bishop of Durham); Master put in, Mr. LAZARUS SEAMAN, one of the

Assembly Divines.

PEMBROKE COLLEGE;--Master ejected, Dr. BENJAMIN LANEY (survived the

Restoration and held several Bishoprics in succession); Master put in,

Mr. RICHARD VINES, one of the Assembly Divines.

KING'S COLLEGE;--Provost ejected, Dr. SAMUEL COLLINS (see Vol. I. pp. 92,

93); Provost put in, Mr. BENJAMIN WHICHCOT, _ætat._ 34. He had been

a Fellow of Emanuel College, and was a friend of Cudworth's. A

peculiarity in his case was that he was dispensed from taking the

Covenant on his appointment, and succeeded, by his interest with the

ruling powers, in obtaining a like dispensation for most of the Fellows

of the College. He survived the Restoration, conformed then, and is still

remembered as one of the chiefs of the English Latitudinarians.

SIDNEY-SUSSEX COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. SAMUEL WARD (see Vol. I. p.

95); Master put in, Mr. RICHARD MINSHULL, a Fellow of the College,

regularly elected to the Mastership by the other Fellows. He survived the

Restoration, conformed then, and retained the Mastership till his death.

JESUS COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. RICHARD STERNE (great-grandfather of

Laurence Sterne, the novelist). He was a strong Laudian and Royalist, and

had already been in prison on that account. He lived in retirement till

the Restoration; after which he was made successively Bishop of Chester,

and (1664) Archbishop of York. Master put in, Mr. THOMAS YOUNG, one of

the Assembly Divines, Milton's old preceptor, and the chief of the

"Smectymnuans." It was a special compliment to Young that he, not an

English University man at all, but a naturalized Scot, had been chosen

for a Cambridge Mastership.

CATHERINE HALL:--Master ejected (not till 1645, however, and then on a

fresh occasion), Dr. RALPH BROWNRIGGE, nominal Bishop of Exeter since

1642 (_ob._ 1659); Master put in, Mr. WILLIAM SPURSTOW, one of the

Assembly Divines, and one of the "Smectymnuans." [Footnote: Authorities

for this account of Manchester's Visitation of Cambridge and its results

are Fuller's History of the University of Cambridge (edit 1340), pp. 233-

239, and Neal's Puritans, III. 107-119.]

Thus began, in 1644, a new era in the history of Cambridge University,

which extended to the Restoration. Episcopalian principles were

discharged out of the government of the University; and, under the five

retained Masters and the eleven new ones, there was inaugurated a system

of rule and teaching in accordance, more or less in the different

Colleges, with the ascendant State-policy of the Puritans. With the

exception of Cudworth, Whichcot, and Minshull, it will have been noted,

all the newly-appointed Masters were members of the Westminster Assembly,

and leading men among the Presbyterian majority of that body. They do not

appear to have ceased attendance on the Assembly in consequence of their

appointments, but only to have divided their time thenceforward as well

as they could between the Assembly and Cambridge. It is also to be noted

that some of them, including Thomas Young, retained their former livings

along with their new Masterships. [Footnote: The following is a note

furnished to Mr. David Laing by the Rev. John Struthers of Prestonpans,

one of an acting Committee recently appointed by the Church of Scotland

for transcribing and editing the original Minutes of the Westminster

Assembly, preserved in Dr. William's Library, London:--"1643-4, March

15.--A letter read from the Earl of Manchester, stating that he cast out

Drs. Beale, Cosins, Sterne, Martin, Laney, masters, from their

Masterships in Cambridge University, and, subject to the Assembly's

approval, nominated Mr. Palmer, Mr. Arrowsmith, Mr. Vines, Mr. Seaman,

and Mr. Young in their places. The Assembly offered their

congratulations, but desired that their brethren should meanwhile not be

withdrawn from the Assembly." Mr. Struthers adds that, though Dr.

Lightfoot, in his Notes of the Assembly, states that Mr. Vines and Mr.

Young desired to be excused from the new appointments, there is no notice

of any such declinature in the MS. minutes.--See _Biographical Notices

of Thomas Young, S.T.D., Vicar of Stowmarket, Suffolk_, by Mr. David

Laing (Edin. 1870), p. 39.--These accurate and valuable "Notices" of a

man who figures so interestingly in Milton's Biography had not appeared

till Vol. II. of this work was quite printed, or they might have saved me

some research for that volume as well as for its predecessor. Prefixed to

them Mr. Laing gives a portrait of Young, after a photograph taken from

the original picture long preserved in the Vicarage of Stowmarket, but

now in the possession of H. C. Mathew, Esq. of Felixstow, near Ipswich.

The portrait represents Young with hair not at all of the short Puritan

cut, but long, and flowing fully on both sides to his shoulders; and the

face is really fine, with handsome features, and a rich and mild look.

Another interesting insertion in Mr. Laing's little volume is a facsimile

of Young's handwriting, from a Latin inscription in a presentation copy

of his _Dies Dominica_, still extant. The hand is neat and careful;

and, what is rather curious, it has a resemblance to Milton's.] There

were similar instances of retention of livings among those appointed to

Fellowships, and to other offices throughout the country under the

patronage of the Parliament. The excuse was the dearth for the time of

fully qualified ministers of the right Parliamentarian strain; but the

fact did not escape comment. Was Plurality one of the very few

institutions of Prelacy which Presbyterian godliness was willing to

preserve?

Fresh from his energetic Visitation of Cambridge, the Earl of Manchester

was away, as we have seen, in May 1644, with his Lieutenant-general,

Cromwell, to add the force of the Associated Eastern Counties to the

forces of the Scots and Fairfax, then about to besiege the Marquis of

Newcastle in York. The joint forces, numbering some 25,000 men in all,

were hopefully conducting the siege when the approach of Prince Rupert

out of Lancashire, with a Royalist army of over 20,000, compelled them to

raise it, in order to oppose him (June 30). He avoided them, relieved

York, and then, having added the Marquis's garrison to his own force,

risked all for a great victory. The result was the BATTLE OF MARSTON

MOOR, about seven miles to the west of York, fought on the evening of

July 2, 1644. It was "the bloodiest battle of the whole war," the number

actually slain on the field on both sides in three hours being no fewer

than 4,150. But of these by far the most were on the King's side, and the

battle was a disastrous rout for that side, and a victory for the

Parliamentarians incalculably greater than any they had yet had. Rupert,

with a shred of his army, escaped southwards; the Marquis of Newcastle,

making his way to the sea-coast, embarked for the Continent, with his two

sons, his brother Sir Charles Cavendish, General King, Lord Fauconberg,

the Earl of Carnwath, Bishop Bramhall, and about eighty other Royalists

of distinction, and was no more seen in England till the Restoration.

York surrendered to the victors, July 5; and, save that Newcastle and

some other towns remained to be taken, the whole North of England was

lost to the King and brought within the sway of Parliament. Seldom had

there been such consequences from a battle of three hours. [Footnote:

Clar. Hist. 490-492; Parl. Hist. III. 277, 278; Carlyle's Cromwell, I.

151-154; Markham's Fairfax, 151-178, for a detailed modern account.]

When the news of the battle reached London (July 5), there was nothing

but joy. Within a few days, however, the joy passed into a question

between the Independents and the Presbyterians, or at least the Scots

among them. Which part of the conjoint army had behaved best in the

battle, and to which general did the chief honours of the day belong?

Glad would Baillie have been to welcome Marston Moor as at last that

great success of the Scots for which he had been longing and praying. No

such pleasure could he have. More and more, as detailed accounts of the

battle arrived, it became clear that the Scots could claim only a little

of the merit of the victory--that the mass of them had behaved rather

ill; that the luck or the generalship of Field-marshal Leven had deserted

him, and he had been carried far away in a ruck of fugitives; and that,

in fact, with the exception of David Leslie, the Scottish Major-general,

who really did good service, no Scot in command had shown much head, or

been of any considerable use, at Marston Moor. But, worse and worse for

Baillie's feelings, not only did it appear that the victory had been

gained by the English of the joint army rather than by the Scottish

contingent, but gradually the rumour was confirmed, which had been first

borne to London on the wings of the wind, that the Englishman by whose

conduct, if by that of any one man, the fate of the battle had been

decided, was Lieutenant-general Cromwell. "The left wing, which I

commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all

the Prince's horse. God gave them as stubble to our swords. We charged

their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged." These

sentences of Cromwell's own, written on the third day after the battle in

a letter to his brother-in-law, Colonel Valentine Walton, are his private

statement of the truth which became public. In vain it was represented in

London that Cromwell's paramount prowess in the battle was a fiction of

himself and the Independents; in vain did the Presbyterians try to

distribute the merit among Fairfax, David Leslie, and Major-general

Crawford--another Scot, not in the Scottish contingent, but serving in

Manchester's army as next in command under Cromwell, and already known as

representing Presbyterianism in that army in opposition to Cromwell's

Independency; in vain did this Crawford, when he came to London,

asseverate that Cromwell, having been slightly wounded in the neck, had

retired before the crisis, and that the real work in Cromwell's part of

the battle had devolved on David Leslie and himself. It was a comfort to

Baillie to believe all this; but London was persuaded otherwise. For

London and for all England Cromwell stood forth as the hero of Marston

Moor. The victory to which Baillie had looked forward as a triumph for

Presbyterianism had been gained mainly by the "great Independent" of the

English army, and went to the credit of Independency. [Footnote: Baillie,

II. 201, 203-4, 209, and 211; Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 152-3 and 146-150;

Fuller's Worthies, _Yorkshire_; Holles's Memoirs (1699), 15-17.]

Three weeks after the battle of Marston Moor (July 23, 1644) the

Westminster Assembly, with permission of Parliament, adjourned for a

fortnight's vacation. We will share this vacation, and make it the

opportunity for some farther inquiry, on our own account, into the two

subjects which were of paramount interest at that moment. They were the

subjects, if I may so say, that had for some time past been chalked up on

the black board for the consideration of all England, and to the

discussion of which the Assembly and the Parliament were to address

themselves with fresh fervour when the Assembly came together again after

their vacation. These were:--

I. The Principle of Toleration.

II. The English Sects and Sectaries.

THE PRINCIPLE OF TOLERATION: STATE OF THE TOLERATION CONTROVERSY IN 1644.

The history of the modern idea of TOLERATION could be written completely

only after a larger amount of minute and special research than I am able

here to bestow on the subject. Who shall say in the heads of what stray

and solitary men, scattered through Europe in the sixteenth century,

_nantes rari in gurgite vasto_, some form of the idea, as a purely

speculative conception, may have been lodged? Hallam finds it in the

"Utopia" of Sir Thomas More (1480-1535), and in the harangues of the

Chancellor l'Hospital of France (1505-1573); [Footnote: Hallam's Const.

Hist. (10th edit.), T. 122, Note.] and there may have been others. But

the history of the idea, as a practical or political notion, lies within

a more precise range. Out of what within Europe in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries was the practical form of the idea bred? Out of

pain, out of suffering, out of persecution: not pain inflicted constantly

on one and the same section of men, or on any two opposed sections

alternately; but pain revolving, pain circulated, pain distributed till

the whole round of the compass of sects had felt it in turn, and the only

principle of its prevention gradually dawned on the common consciousness!

In every persecuted cause, honestly conducted, there was a throe towards

the birth of this great principle. Every persecuted cause claimed at

least a toleration for itself from the established power; and so, by a

kind of accumulation, the cause that had been last persecuted had more of

a tendency to toleration in it, and became practically more tolerant,

than the others. This, I think, might be proved. The Church of England

was more tolerant than the Church of Rome, and Scottish Presbyterianism

or Scottish Puritanism was more tolerant (though the reverse is usually

asserted) than the Church of England prior to 1640. Not to the Church of

England, however, nor to Scottish Presbyterianism, nor to English

Puritanism at large, does the honour of the first perception of the full

principle of Liberty of Conscience, and its first assertion in English

speech, belong. That honour has to be assigned, I believe, to the

Independents generally, and to the Baptists in particular.

The principle of religious liberty is almost logically bound up with the

theory of the Independency of particular churches. Every particular

church being a voluntary concourse of like-minded atoms, able to declare

themselves converts or true Christians, it follows that the world, or

civil society, whether called heathen or professedly Christian, is only

the otherwise regulated medium or material in which these voluntary

concourses or whirls take place. It follows that there must be large

expanses or interspaces of the general material always unabsorbed into

the voluntary concourses, and that for the secular power, which governs

the general medium, to try to stimulate the concourses, or to bring all

into them, or to control any part of the procedure of each or any of

them, would be a mingling of elements that are incompatible, of necessary

worldly order with the spiritual kingdom of Christ. And so it was

maintained, against the Roman Catholics, and against the Confessions of

all the various established Protestant Churches, that there could be, and

ought to be, no Imperial or National Church. This being the principle of

some of the early Protestant movements that went beyond Luther,

Zuinglius, or Calvin, and perplexed these Reformers, little wonder that

flashes of the fullest doctrine of Liberty of Conscience should be found

among the records of those movements, whether on the Continent or in

England.[Footnote: See notices of such flashes, among English Baptists of

the reign of Henry VIII., and among the continental Anabaptists, in Mr.

Edward Bean Underhill's "Historical Introduction" to the Reprint of Old

Tracts on _Liberty of Conscience_ by the "Hanserd Knollys Society"

(1846). Mr. Underhill writes as a zealous Baptist, but with judgment and

research.] Little wonder, either, that the principle of Toleration should

be discernible in the writings of Robert Brown, the father of the crude

English Independency of Elizabeth's reign. [Footnote: Baillie

(_Dissuasive_, Part I. 31) expressly makes it a reproach against

Brown that he held the Toleration doctrine.]

But it is one thing to hold a principle vaguely or latently as implicated

in a principle already avowed, and another thing to extricate the implied

principle and kindle it, as on the top of a lighthouse, on its own

account. It is found, accordingly, that the early English Separatists

collectively were much slower in this matter than Brown himself had been.

They wanted toleration for themselves, and perhaps a general mildness in

the administration of religious affairs; but they could not rid

themselves of the notion, held alike by all the established churches,

whether Prelatic or Presbyterian, that it is the duty of the prince, or

the civil power, in every state to promote true religion and suppress

false. Passages which we have already had occasion to quote (Vol. II.

569, 570) from the writings of Barrowe, Greenwood, and even of the

liberal Robinson, the father of Congregationalism proper, prove beyond

all dispute that these chiefs of the Separatists and Semi-Separatists who

followed Brown in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and in the reign

of James had not worked out Toleration into a perfect or definite tenet.

They did want something that they called a Toleration; but it was a

limited and ill-defined Toleration.--There was, however, _one_ body

or band of Separatists in James's reign who had pushed farther ahead, and

grasped the idea of Liberty of Conscience at its very utmost. Strangely

enough, as it may seem at first sight, they were the Separatists of the

most intense and schismatic type then known, the least conciliatory in

their relations to other churches and communions. They were the poor and

despised Anglo-Dutch Anabaptists who called John Smyth (Vol. II. 539,540)

their leader. In a Confession, or Declaration of Faith, put forth in 1611

by the English Baptists in Amsterdam, just after the death of Smyth, this

article occurs: "The magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or

matters of conscience, nor compel men to this or that form of religion;

because Christ is the King and Lawgiver of the Church and Conscience." It

is believed that this is the first expression of the absolute principle

of Liberty of Conscience in the public articles of any body of

Christians. Contact with the Dutch Arminians may have helped Smyth's

people to a perception of it; and it certainly did not please the English

Pædobaptist Independents of Holland when it appeared among them.

Robinson, for example, objected to it, as he was bound to do by the views

of the civil magistrate's power which he maintained. He attributed the

invention of such an article to the common inability of ignorant men to

distinguish between the use of an ordinance and its abuse. In other

words, he thought the remnant of Smyth's Baptists had been rather silly

in leaping to the conclusion that, because there had been much abuse of

the interference of the civil power in matters of religion, and it had

led to all sorts of horrors, there was nothing left but to set up the

principle of absolute non-interference.

The principle of the Anglo-Dutch Baptists, with the same exact difference

between the Baptists and the rest of the Independents on the Toleration

point, was imported into England. It is supposed that the person who had

the chief hand in drawing up the Confession of the English Baptists of

Amsterdam, after Smyth's death, was Smyth's successor in the Baptist

ministry there, Thomas Helwisse (Vol. II. 540-544). Now, this Helwisse,

returning to England shortly after 1611, drew round him, as we saw, the

first congregation of General or Arminian Baptists in London; and this

obscure Baptist congregation seems to have become the depositary for all

England of the absolute principle of Liberty of Conscience expressed in

the Amsterdam Confession, as distinct from the more stinted principle

advocated by the general body of the Independents. Not only did

Helwisse's folk differ from the Independents generally on the subject of

Infant Baptism and Dipping; they differed also on the power of the

magistrate in matters of belief and conscience. It was, in short, from

their little dingy meeting-house, somewhere in Old London, that there

flashed out, first in England, the absolute doctrine of Religious

Liberty. "_Religious Peace: or, A Plea for Liberty of Conscience_"

is the title of a little tract first printed in 1614, and presented to

King James and the English Parliament, by "Leonard Busher, citizen of

London." This Leonard Busher, there is reason to believe, was a member of

Helwisse's congregation; and we learn from the tract itself that he was a

poor man, labouring for his subsistence, who had had his share of

persecution. He had probably been one of Smyth's Amsterdam flock who had

returned with Helwisse. The tract is, certainly, the earliest known

English publication in which full liberty of conscience is openly

advocated. It cannot be read now without a throb. The style is simple and

rather helpless; but one comes on some touching passages. Thus:--

"May it please your Majesty and Parliament to understand that by fire and

sword to constrain princes and peoples to receive that one true religion

of the Gospel is wholly against the mind and merciful law of Christ."

"Persecution is a work well pleasing to all false prophets and bishops,

but it is contrary to the mind of Christ, who came not to judge and

destroy men's lives, but to save them. And, though some men and women

believe not at the first hour, yet may they at the eleventh hour, if they

be not persecuted to death before. And no king nor bishop can or is able

to command faith. That is the gift of God, who worketh in us both the

will and the deed of his own good pleasure. Set him not a day, therefore,

in which, if his creature hear not and believe not, you will imprison and

burn him.... As kings and bishops cannot command the wind, so they

cannot command faith; and, as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so is

every man that is born of the Spirit. You may force men to church against

their consciences, but they will believe as they did before when they

come there."

"Kings and magistrates are to rule temporal affairs by the swords of

their temporal kingdoms, and bishops and ministers are to rule spiritual

affairs by the word and Spirit of God, the sword of Christ's temporal

kingdom, and not to intermeddle one with another's authority, office, and

function."

"I read that Jews, Christians, and Turks are tolerated in Constantinople,

and yet are peaceable, though so contrary the one to the other. If this

be so, how much more ought Christians not to force one another to

religion! And how much more ought Christians to tolerate Christians,

whenas the Turks do tolerate them! Shall we be less merciful than the

Turks? or shall we learn the Turks to persecute 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."

Busher's tract of 1614 was not the only utterance in the same strain that

came from Helwisse's conventicle of London Baptists. In 1615 there

appeared in print "_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 testifie his allegeance by the oath appointed by Law._" The

author, or one of the authors, of this Dialogue, which is even more

explicit in some respects than Busher's tract, is pretty clearly

ascertained to have been John Murton, Helwisse's assistant (Vol. II.

544,581). Helwisse himself is not heard of after 1614, and appears to

have died about that time. But his Baptist congregation maintained itself

in London side by side with Jacob's congregation of Independents,

established in 1616 (Vol. II. 544). As if to signalize still farther the

discrepancy of the two sets of Sectaries on the Toleration point, there

was put forth, as we saw, in that very year, by Jacob and the

Independents, a Confession of Faith, containing this article: "We believe

that we, and all true visible churches, ought to be overseen and kept in

good order and peace, and ought to be governed, under Christ, both

supremely and also subordinately, by the civil magistrate; yea, in causes

of religion, when need is."

The year 1616 was the year of Shakespeare's death. Who that has read his

Sonnet LXVI. can doubt that he had carried in his mind while alive some

profound and peculiar form of the idea of Toleration? In Bacon's brain,

too, one may detect some smothered tenet of the kind; and even in the

talk of the shambling King James himself there had been such occasional

spurts about Liberty of Conscience that, though he had burnt two of his

subjects for Arianism, Helwisse's poor people were fain, as we have just

seen, to cite "His Majesty's many testimonies" for the Toleration they

craved. And yet not to any such celebrity as the king, the philosopher,

or the poet, had the task of vindicating for England the idea of Liberty

of Conscience been practically appointed. To all intents and purposes

that honour had fallen to two of the most extreme and despised sects of

the Puritans. The despised Independents, or semi-Separatists of the

school of Robinson and Jacob, and the still more despised Baptists, or

thorough Separatists of the school of Smyth and Helwisse, were groping

for the pearl between them; and, what is strangest at first sight, it was

the more intensely Separatist of these two sects that was groping with

most success. How is this to be explained? Partly it may have been that

the Baptists were the sect that had been most persecuted--that they were

the ultimate sect, in the English world, in respect of the necessary

qualification of pain and suffering accumulated in their own experience,

while the Hobinsonian Independents might rank as only the penultimate

sect in this respect. But there is a deeper reason. Paradoxical as the

statement may seem, there was a logical connexion between the extreme

Separatism of the Baptists, the tightness and exclusiveness of their own

terms of communion, and their passion for religious freedom, This

requires elucidation:--It was on the subject of the Baptism of Infants

that the ordinary Congregationalists and the Baptist Congregationalists

most evidently stood aloof from each other. There had been vehement

controversies between them on the subject. Independent congregations had

ejected and excommunicated such of their members as had taken to the

doctrine of Antipædobaptism; and Smyth's rigid Baptists, in turn, would

not hold communion with Pædobaptist Independents. We are apt now to dwell

on the narrow-mindedness, the unseemliness, of those bickerings of the

two sects over the one doctrine on which they differed. It is to be

observed, however, that even here they illustrated their faith in the

principle which was the essence of their common Congregationalism: to

wit, that the true security for sound faith and good government in the

Church of Christ lay in the power lodged in every particular congregation

of judging who were fit to belong to it, and of constant spiritual

supervision of each of the members of it by all, so that the erring might

be admonished, and the unfit ejected. It was the supreme virtue, the all-

sufficient efficacy, of this power of merely spiritual censure, as it

might be exercised by congregations or particular churches, each within

itself, that both sects were continually trying to demonstrate to

Prelatists and Presbyterians. Their very argument was that truth and

piety would prosper best in a system of Church-government which trusted

all to the vigilance of the members of every particular congregation over

each other, their reasonings among themselves, their practice of mutual

admonition, and, in last resort, their power of excommunicating the

unworthy. Hence perhaps even the excess of the controversial activity of

the two sects against each other, and the frequency of their mutual

excommunications, are not without a favourable significance. Here,

however, it was the Baptists, rather than the Independents collectively,

that had pushed their theory of the all-sufficiency of congregational

censure to its finest issue. To both sects the world or civil society

presented itself as a medium in which there might be Christian vortices,

concourses of true Christian souls, that should constitute, when numbered

together and catalogued unerringly in the books of heaven, the Church or

Kingdom of Jesus. To both sects it seemed a thing to be striven for that

as much of civil society as possible should be brought into these

vortices or concourses; nay, the aspiration of both was that the whole

world should be Christianized. But, looking about them, they knew, in

fact, that the vortices or concourses did and could involve but a small

proportion of the society in which they occurred. They knew that there

must be large tracts of unbelief, profanity, and false worship in every

so-called Christian nation, left utterly unaffected by any of the true

associations of Christ's real people; besides the huge wilderness of

heathenism and idolatry lying all round in the dark lands of the world.

It was on the platform of this contemplation that the Independents

generally and the Baptist section of them had parted company. The

Independents generally held that it was the duty of the civil power in a

State to promote the formation of churches in that State, and to see, in

some general way, that the churches formed were not wrong in doctrine or

in practice. They held that the civil authority might lawfully compel all

its subjects to some sort of hearing of the Gospel with a view to their

belonging to churches or congregations, and might even assist the

preacher by some whip of penalties on those who remained obstinate after

a due amount of hearing. They held, in fact, that every State is bound to

use its power towards Christianizing all its subjects, and may also

institute missions for the propagation of true Christianity in idolatrous

or heathen lands. To all this the Baptists, or some of their leaders, had

learnt to oppose an emphatic "No." They held that the world, or civil

society, and the Church of Christ, were distinct and immiscible. They

held that the sword of the Temporal Power must never, under any

circumstances, aid the sword of the Spirit. They held that the formation

of churches in any State must be a process of the purest spontaneity.

They held that, while every person in a civilized State is a subject of

that State in all matters of civil order, it ought to be at the option of

that person, and of those with whom he or she might voluntarily consort,

to determine whether he or she should superadd to this general character

of subject the farther character of being a Christian and a member of

some particular church. The churches formed spontaneously in any State

were to be self-subsisting associations of like-minded units, believing

and worshiping, arid inflicting spiritual censures among themselves,

without State-interference; and Christianity was to propagate itself

throughout the world by its own spiritual might and the missionary zeal

of apostolic individuals. [Footnote: Among my authorities for this sketch

of the history of the idea of Toleration as far as 1616, I ought to

mention Hanbury's _Historical Memorials relating to the

Independents_, Vol. I., and more particularly Chapters XIII,--XV.;

Fletcher's _History of Independency in England_ (1848), Vol. III.,

Chapters I. and II.; and the Reprint of Old Tracts on _Liberty of

Conscience_ by the Hanserd Knollys (Baptist) Society, with the

Introductory Notices there prefixed to Busher's tract and Murton's by Mr.

Edward Bean Underhill.]

From 1616 onwards this Baptist form of the idea of Liberty of Conscience

had been slumbering somewhere in the English heart. Even through the

dreadful time of the Laudian terrorism it might be possible for research

to discover half-stifled expressions of it. Other and less extreme forms

of the Toleration idea, however, were making themselves heard. Holland

had worked out the speculation, or was working it out, through the

struggle of her own Arminians for equal rights with the prevailing

Calvinists; and it was the singular honour of that country to have, at

all events, been the first in Europe to exhibit something like a

practical solution of the problem, by the refuge and freedom of worship

it afforded to the religious outcasts of other nations. Then among the

so-called Latitudinarian Divines of the Church of England--Hales,

Chillingworth, and their associates--there is evidence of the growth,

even while their friend Laud was in power, of an idea or sentiment of

Toleration which might have made that Prelate pause and wonder. Not, of

course, the Baptist idea; but one which might have had a greater chance

practically in the then existing conditions of English life. Might there

not be a Toleration _with_ an Established or State Church? While it

might be the duty of the civil magistrate, or at least a State-

convenience, to set up one Church as the Church of the nation, and so to

afford to all the subjects the means of instruction in that theology and

of participation in that worship which the State thought the best, might

not State-interference with religion stop there, and might not those who

refused to conform be permitted to hold their conventicles freely outside

the Established Church, and to believe and worship in their own way? Some

such idea of Toleration, but still with perplexing limitations as to the

_amount_ of deviation that should be tolerated, was, I believe, the

idea that had dawned on the minds of men like the loveable Hales and the

hardy Chillingworth. It is much the sort of Toleration that accredits

itself to the average British mind yet. But how greatly the history of

the Church of England might have been altered had such a Toleration been

then adopted by the Church itself! As it was, it remained the half-

uttered _irenicon_ of a few speculative spirits. Nowhere on earth

prior to 1640, unless it were in Holland, was Toleration in any effective

form whatsoever anything more than the dream of a few poor persecuted

sectaries or deep private thinkers. Less even than in the Church of

England is there a trace of the idea in the Scottish Presbyterianism that

had then re-established itself, or in the English Presbyterianism that

longed to establish itself. Scottish Presbyterianism might indeed plead,

and it did plead, that it was so satisfactory a system, kept the souls of

its subjects in such a strong grip, and yet without needing to resort,

except in extreme cases, to any very penal procedure, that wherever

_it_ existed Toleration would be unnecessary, inasmuch as there

would be preciously little error to tolerate. Personally, I believe,

Henderson was as moderate and tolerant a man as any British ecclesiastic

of his time. In no Church where he bore rule could there, by possibility,

have been any approach to the tetchy repressiveness, or the callous

indifference to suffering for the sake of conscience, that characterized

the English Church-rule of Laud. But Henderson, though the best of the

Presbyterians, was still, _par excellence,_ a Presbyterian; and

therefore the Toleration that lay in his disposition had not translated

itself into a theoretical principle. As for the English Presbyterians,

what _they_ wanted was toleration for themselves, or the liberty of

being in the English Church, or in England out of the Church, without

conforming; or, if some of them went farther, what _they_ wanted was

the substitution of Presbytery for Prelacy as the system established with

the right to be intolerant. Finally, even in the New England colonies,

where Congregationalism was the rule, there were not only spiritual

censures and excommunications of heretics, but whippings, banishments,

and other punishments of them, by the civil power. [Footnote: Hallam's

account of the rise and progress of the Toleration idea in England (Hist,

of Europe, 6th ed. II. 442, &c.) is very unsatisfactory. He actually

makes Jeremy Taylor's "Liberty of Prophesying" (1647), the first

substantial assertion of Liberty of Conscience in England--an injustice

to a score or two of preceding champions of it, and to one or two entire

corporate denominations.]

And so we arrive at 1640. Then, immediately after the meeting of the Long

Parliament, Toleration rushed into the air. Everywhere the word

"Toleration" was heard, and with all varieties of meanings. A certain

boom of the general principle runs through Milton's Anti-Episcopal

pamphlets, and through other pamphlets on the same side. But this is not

all. The principle was expressly argued in certain pamphlets set forth in

the interest of the Independents and the Sectaries generally, and it was

argued so well that the Presbyterians caught the alarm, foresaw the

coming battle between them and the Independents on this subject of

Toleration, and declared themselves Anti-Tolerationists by anticipation.

It was in May 1641, for example, that Henry Burton published his

anonymous pamphlet called _The Protestation Protested_ (Vol. II.

591-2). The main purpose of the pamphlet was to propound Independency in

its extreme Brownist form, as refusing any National or State Church

whatever; but, on the supposition that this theory was too much in

advance of the opinion of the time, and that some National Church must

inevitably be set up, a toleration of dissent from that Church was prayed

for. "The Parliament now being about a Reformation," wrote Burton, "what

government shall be set up in this National Church, the Lord strengthen

and direct the Parliament in so great and glorious a work. But let it be

what it will, so as still a due respect be paid to those congregations

and churches which desire an exemption, and liberty of enjoying Christ's

ordinances in such purity as a National Church is not capable of." This

is the Toleration principle as it had been transmitted among the

Independents generally, or perhaps it is an advance on that. Such as it

was, however, Burton's plea for Toleration roused vehement opposition. It

was attacked ferociously, as we saw, by an anonymous Episcopal

antagonist, believed to be Bishop Hall (Vol. II. p. 593). It was attacked

also by Presbyterians, and notably by their champion, Mr. Thomas Edwards,

in his maiden pamphlet called "_Reasons against the Independent

Government of particular Congregations_" (Vol. II. p. 594). But

Edwards did not go unpunished. His pamphlet drew upon him that thrashing

from the lady-Brownist, Katharine Chidley, which the reader may remember

(Vol. II. p. 595). This brave old lady's idea of Toleration outwent even

Burton's, and corresponded more with that absolute idea of Toleration

which had been worked out among the Baptists. For example, Edwards having

upbraided the Independents with the fact that their Toleration principle

had broken down even in their own Paradise of New England, what is Mrs.

Chidley's answer? "If they have banished any out of their Patents that

were neither disturbers of the peace of the land, nor the worship

practised in the land, I am persuaded it was their weakness, and I hope

they will never attempt to do the like." Clearly, from whomsoever in 1641

the Parliament and the people of England heard a stinted doctrine of

Toleration, they heard the full doctrine from Mrs. Chidley. The

Parliament, however, was very slow to be convinced. Petitions of

Independent congregations for toleration to themselves were coolly

received and neglected; the Presbyterians more and more saw the

importance of making Anti-Toleration their rallying dogma; more and more

the call to be wary against this insidious notion of Toleration rang

through the pulpits of England and Scotland. [Footnote: Hanbury's

_Historical Memorials relating to the Independents_, Vol. II. pp.

68-ll7; where ample extracts from the pamphlets mentioned in this

paragraph are given. Fletcher gives a good selection of them in his

_History of Independency_, Vol. III. Chap. VI.]

The debates in 1643 and 1644 between the five Independent or Dissenting

Brethren of the Westminster Assembly and the Presbyterian majority of the

Assembly brought on a new stage of the Toleration controversy. A notion

which might be scorned or ridiculed while it was lurking in Anabaptist

conventicles, or ventilated by a she-Brownist like Mrs. Chidley, or by

poor old Mr. Burton of Friday Street, could compel a hearing when

maintained by men so respectable as Messrs. Goodwin, Burroughs, Bridge,

Simpson, and Nye, whom the Parliament itself had sent into the Assembly.

The demand for Toleration which these men addressed to the Parliament in

their famous _Apologetical Narration_ of January 1643-4 gave sudden

dignity and precision to what till then had been vulgar and vague. It put

the question in this form, "What amount of Nonconformity is to be allowed

in the new Presbyterian Church which is to be the National Church of

England?"; and it distinctly intimated that on the answer to this

question it would depend whether the Apologists and their adherents could

remain in England or should be driven again into exile. Care must be

taken, however, not to credit the Apologists at this period with any

notion of absolute or universal Toleration. They were far behind Mrs.

Chidley or the old Baptists in their views. They were as yet but learners

in the school of Toleration. Indulgence for _themselves_ "in some

lesser differences," and perhaps also for some of the more reputable of

the other sects in _their_ different "lesser differences," was the

sum of their published demand. They too, no less than the Presbyterians,

professed disgust at the extravagances of the Sectaries. It was not so

much, therefore, the Toleration expressly claimed by the Five Dissenting

Brethren for themselves, as the larger Toleration to which it would

inevitably lead, that the Presbyterians continued to oppose and denounce.

As far as the Five Brethren and other such respectable Dissentients were

concerned, the Presbyterians would have stretched a point. They would

have made arrangements. They would have patted the Five Dissenting

Brethren on the back, and said, "It shall be made easy for _you_; we

will yield all the accommodation _you_ can possibly need; only don't

call it Toleration." The Dissenting Brethren were honest enough and

clear-headed enough not to be content with this personal compliment. Nor,

in fact, could the policy have been successful. For there were now

champions of the larger Toleration with voices that resounded through the

land and were heard over those of the Five Apologists. Precisely that

middle of the year 1644 at which we have stopped in our narrative was the

time when the principle of absolute Liberty of Conscience was proclaimed,

for the benefit of all opinions whatsoever, in tones that could never

more be silenced.

About the middle of 1644 there appeared in London at least three

pamphlets or books in the same strain. One of these, "_The Compassionate

Samaritan unbinding the Conscience_," need be remembered by its name

only; but the other two must be associated with their authors. One bore

the striking title "_The Bloudy Tenent_ [i. e. _Bloody Tenet] of

Persecution for cause of Conscience, discussed in a Conference between

Truth and Peace_," (pp. 247); the other bore, in its first edition, the

simple title, "_M. S. to A.S._," and, in its second edition, in the same

year, this fuller title "_A Reply of Two of the Brethren to A.S., &c.;

with a Plea for Liberty of Conscience for the Apologists' Church-way,

against the Cavils of the said A. S_." Though both were anonymous, the

authors were known at the time. The author of the first was that

Americanized Welshman, ROGER WILLIAMS, whose strange previous career,

from his first arrival in New England in 1631, on to his settlement among

the Narraganset Bay Indians in 1638, and his subsequent vagaries of

opinion and of action, has already been sketched (Vol. II. 560-563, and

600-602). He had been over in England, it will be remembered, since June

1643, in the capacity of envoy or commissioner from the Rhode Island

people, to obtain a charter for erecting Rhode Island and the adjacent

Providence Plantation into a distinct and independent colony. He had been

going about England a good deal, but had been mostly in London, in the

society of the younger Vane, and in frequent contact with other leading

men in Parliament and in the Westminster Assembly. The _Bloody Tenent_

was an expression, in printed form, of opinions he had been ventilating

frankly enough in conversation, and was intended as a parting-gift to

England before his return to America. The title must have at once

attracted attention to it and given it an advantage over the other tract.

The author of that other tract was our other well-known friend Mr. JOHN

GOODWIN, Vicar of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, whom the Presbyterians

had put in their black books as an Arminian, Socinian, and what not (Vol.

II. 582-584). Goodwill's piece may have been out first, for it is heard

of as in circulation in May 1644, while Williams's book is not heard of,

I think, till June or July. But, on all grounds, Williams deserves the

priority. [Footnote: For statements in this paragraph authorities are--

_Apologetic Narration_ (1644); Hanbury's Historical Memorials, II. 341

_et seq._; Reprint of _The Bloody Tenent_ by the Hanserd Knollys Society

(1848), with Mr. Underhill's "Biographical Introduction," pp. xxiii.-iv.;

Jackson's _Life of John Goodwin_, p. 114 _et seq._; Baillie's Letters,

II. 180,181, and 211, 212, and Commons Journals, Aug. 9, 1644.]

Well may the Americans be proud of Roger Williams. His _Bloody

Tenent_ is of a piece with all his previous career. It is a rapid,

hurried book, written, as it tells us, during the author's stay in

England, "in change of rooms and corners, yea sometimes in variety of

strange houses, sometimes in the fields in the midst of travel." One

particularly notes the frequent "&c." in its sentences, as if much

crowded on the writer's mind from moment to moment which he could

indicate only by a contraction. But there is dash in the book, the

keenest earnestness and evidence of a mind made up, and every now and

then a mystic softness and richness of pity, yearning towards a

voluptuous imagery like that of the Song of Solomon. The plan is

straggling. First there is a list of twelve positions which the book

proves, or heads under which its contents may be distributed. Then there

is an address or dedication to "the Right Honourable Both Houses of the

High Court of Parliament," followed by a separate address "To every

Courteous Reader." Then there comes a copy of" Scriptures and Reasons

written long since by a Witness of Jesus Christ, close prisoner in

Newgate, against Persecution in cause of Conscience"--in fact, an extract

from a tract on Liberty of Conscience by Murton, or some other London

Baptist, in 1620. A copy of those Scriptures and Reasons against

Persecution had, it seems, been submitted in 1635 to Mr. Cotton of Boston

for his consideration; and Mr. Cotton had drawn up a Reply, defending

from Scripture, past universal practice, and the authority of Calvin,

Beza, and others of the Reformers, the right of the civil magistrate to

prosecute and punish religious error. This Reply of Cotton's in favour of

persecution is printed at length by Williams; and the first part of the

real body of his own book consists of a Dialogue between Truth and Peace

over the doctrine which so respectable a New England minister had thus

espoused. When this Dialogue is over; there ensues a second Dialogue of

Truth and Peace over another New England document in which the same

"bloody tenet" of persecution had been defended-to wit a certain "Model

of Church and Civil Power" drawn up by some New England ministers in

concert, and in which Mr. Cotton had had a hand, though Mr. Richard

Mather appears to have been the chief author. [Footnote: Some particulars

in this description of the treatise are from Mr. Underhill's Introduction

to the Hanserd Knolly's Society's Reprint of it, but the description in

the main is from the _Bloody Treatment_ itself.]

The texture of Williams's treatise, it will be thus seen, is loose and

composite. But a singular unity of purpose and spirit runs through it.

Here is the opening of the first Dialogue:--

_Truth_. In what dark corner of the world, sweet Peace, are we two

met? How hath this present evil world banished me from all the coasts and

corners of it! And how hath the righteous God in judgment taken thee from

the earth: Rev. vi. 4.

_Peace_. It is lamentably true, blessed Truth: the foundations of

the world have long been out of course; the gates of Earth and Hell have

conspired together to intercept our joyful meeting and our holy kisses.

With what a wearied, tired wing have I flown over nations, kingdoms,

cities, towns, to find out precious Truth!

_Truth_. The like inquiries in my flights and travels have I made

for Peace, and still am told she hath left the Earth and fled to Heaven.

_Peace_. Dear Truth, what is the Earth but a dungeon of darkness,

where Truth is not?

_Truth_. And what is the Peace thereof but a fleeting dream, thine

ape and counterfeit?

_Peace_. Oh! where is the promise of the God of Heaven, that

Righteousness and Peace shall kiss each other?

_Truth_. Patience, sweet Peace! These Heavens and Earth are growing

old, and shall be changed like a garment: Psalm cii. They shall melt

away, and be burnt up with all the works that are therein; and the Most

High Eternal Creator shall gloriously create new Heavens and new Earth,

wherein dwells righteousness: 2 Pet. iii. Our kisses then shall have

their endless date of pure and sweetest joys. Till then both thou and I

must hope, and wait, and bear the fury of the Dragon's wrath, whose

monstrous lies and furies shall with himself be cast into the lake of

fire, the second death: Rev. xx.

_Peace_. Most precious Truth, thou knowest we are both pursued and

laid for. Mine heart is full of sighs, mine eyes with tears. Where can I

better vent my full oppressed bosom than into thine, whose faithful lips

may for these few hours revive my drooping, wandering spirits, and here

begin to wipe tears from mine eyes, and the eyes of my dearest children.

_Truth_. Sweet daughter of the God of peace, begin.

And so Truth and Peace hold their long discourse, evolving very much that

doctrine of the absolute Liberty of Conscience, as derivable from, or

radically identical with, the idea of the utter distinctness of the

Church of Christ from the world or civil society, which had been

propounded first by the Brownists and Baptists, and had come down as a

tradition from them. But it is evolved by Williams more boldly and

passionately than by any before him. There is a fine union throughout of

warmth of personal Christian feeling with intellectual resoluteness in

accepting every possible consequence of his main principle. Here are a

few phrases from the marginal summaries which give the substance of the

Dialogue, page after page:--"The Church and civil State confusedly made

all one"; "The civil magistrates bound to preserve the bodies of their

subjects, and not to destroy them for conscience sake"; "The civil sword

may make a nation of hypocrites and anti-Christians, but not one

Christian"; "Evil is always evil, yet permission of it may in case be

good"; "Christ Jesus the deepest politician that ever was, and yet he

commands a toleration of anti-Christians"; "Seducing teachers, either

Pagan, Jewish, Turkish, or anti-Christian, may yet be obedient subjects

to the civil laws"; "Christ's lilies may flourish in his Church,

notwithstanding the abundance of weeds in the world permitted"; "The

absolute sufficiency of the sword of the Spirit"; "A National Church not

instituted by Christ Jesus"; "The civil commonweal and the spiritual

commonweal, the Church, not inconsistent, though independent the one on

the other"; "Forcing of men to godliness or God's worship the greatest

cause of breach of civil peace"; "Master of a family under the Gospel not

charged to force all under him from their consciences to his"; "Few

magistrates, few men, spiritually and Christianly good: yet divers sorts

of goodness, natural, artificial, civil, &c."; "Persons may with less sin

be forced to marry whom they cannot love than to worship where they

cannot believe"; "Christ Jesus never appointed a maintenance of ministers

from the unconverted and unbelieving: [but] they that compel men to hear

compel men also to pay for their hearing and conversion"; "The civil

power owes _three_ things to the true Church of Christ--(l)

Approbation, (2) Submission [i.e. interpreted in the text to be personal

submission of the civil magistrate to church-membership, if he himself

believes], (3) Protection"; "The civil magistrate owes _two_ things

to false worshippers--(1) Permission, (2) Protection."--Whoever has read

this string of phrases possesses the marrow of Williams's treatise. At

the end of it there is an interesting discussion of the question whether

only church-members, or "godly persons in a particular church-estate,"

ought to be eligible to be magistrates. To Williams, who was a pure

democrat in politics, and was founding the new State of Rhode Island on

the basis of the equal suffrages of all the colonists, this was an

important practical question. He decides it with great good sense, and

clearly in the negative. Without denying that the appointment of godly

persons to civil offices was a thing to be prayed for, and, wherever

possible, peaceably endeavoured, he points out that the principle that

only Christian persons should be entrusted with civil rule is practically

preposterous. Five-sixths of the world had never heard of Christ, and yet

there were lawful enough civil states in those parts of the world. Then,

in a Christian monarchy, what a convulsion, what a throwing away of the

benefits of hereditary succession, if it had to be inquired, whenever the

throne became vacant, whether the next heir was of the right sort

religiously. Finally, in any Christian colony or town, would it not be a

turning of everything upside down, and a premium upon hypocrisy, to make

church-membership a necessary qualification for magistracy, and so, when

a magistrate lapsed into what was thought religious error, and had to be

excommunicated by his church, to have to turn him out of his civil office

also?

Williams, it is to be remembered, had held these views while he was yet

only a Congregationalist generally, and before he had become a Baptist.

Though he found them among the Baptists, therefore, he may be said to

have recovered them for Independency at large, and to have been the first

to impregnate modern "Independency" with them through and through. Nay,

as he had himself gone out of the camp of the mere Baptist

Congregationalists when he published his treatise,--as he had begun to

question whether there was any true Visible Church in the world at all,

any perfect pastorate in any nation, anything else under the sun of a

Christian kind than a chance-medley of various preaching and effort into

which God might sooner or later send new shafts of light and direction

from heaven--in the view of all this, Williams has to be regarded as the

father of a speculation that cannot be contained within the name of

Independency, even at its broadest. If we were forced to adopt a modern

designation for him, we should call him. the father of all that, since

his time, has figured, anywhere in Great Britain, or in the United

States, or in the British Colonies, under the name of _Voluntaryism_.

This involves a restriction on the one hand. Since his time, there has

been an abundance of speculation in the world as to the true duties and

limits of the power of a State even in civil matters; and the prevailing

effect of these speculations has been to hand over more and more of the

care of human well-being and human destinies, in everything whatsoever,

to the liberty of individuals, the pressure of their competing desires,

and their powers of voluntary association, and so to reduce the function

of the magistrate or any power of corporate rule to a thing becoming

small by degrees and beautifully less. Of late, this tendency, victorious

already in many matters, has tried to assert itself in the question of

Education. It has been maintained that there should be no attention on

the part of the State to the education of the citizens, but that, in the

matter of learning to read and write and of all farther learning or

mental training, the individuals horn into a community should be left to

their hereditary chances, the discretion or kindness of those about them,

and their own power of gradually finding out what they need, and buying

it or begging it. Now with this direction of modern speculation the

intentions of Roger Williams had nothing to do. He was a democrat in

politics, and, as such, he might have gone on to new definitions of what,

in secular matters, should be left to the individual, and what should be

still regulated by the majority; but what these definitions would have

been must be left to inference from the records of his farther political

life in Rhode Island. Respecting Schools and Universities he did, indeed,

hold that they were not to be regarded as the nurseries of a clergy, the

appendages of a Church, or the depositaries and supports of any religious

creed. "For any depending of the Church of Christ on such schools," he

wrote, "I find not a tittle in the Testament of Christ Jesus." He would

certainly, therefore, have been for no expenditure of public money on the

_religious_ education of the young, and he would have been for the

extraction of all theological teaching out of existing schools and

universities. But he "honoured schools," he says," for tongues and arts,"

and I have found no trace in him of a notion that State support of

schools and universities for such secular learning is illegitimate. His

_Voluntaryism_, so far as it was declared, or, I believe, intended, was

wholly Voluntaryism in the matter of Church and Religion. In that sphere,

however, his Voluntaryism was absolute, and went as far as anything

calling itself Voluntaryism that has since been heard of in the English-

speaking world.

Williams's _Bloody Tenent_, as I have said, was his parting gift to the

English nation before his return to America. It was out in June or July

1644; and in September of the same year Williams, after a stay of about

fifteen months in and near London, was on his way back to New England. He

had succeeded in the immediate object of his mission. For, during his

stay in England, the management of the Colonies, till then in the hands

of Commissioners under the Crown, was transferred (Nov. 2, 1643) to a

Parliamentary Commission of Lords and Commoners, at the head of which was

the Earl of Warwick as Lord High Admiral, and among the members of which

were Lord Saye and Sele, Pym, the younger Vane, Sir Arthur Haselrig, and

Oliver Cromwell. Before such Commissioners, with Vane as his personal

friend. Williams had had little difficulty in making out his case; and he

had obtained from them a Patent, dated March 14, 1643-4, associating "the

towns of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport," into one body-politic by

the name of "the Incorporation of Providence Plantations in Narraganset

Bay in New England." This Patent gave a _carte blanche_ to the colonists

to settle their own form of government by voluntary consent, or vote,

among themselves; and, having it in his pocket, Williams might hope, on

his return to America, to set up, in the polity of Rhode Island and its

adjacencies, such an example of complete civil democracy combined with

absolute religious individualism as the world had never yet seen. The

_Bloody Tenent_ might be left in England as an exposition of his theory

in the sphere of Religion until this practical Transatlantic example of

it should be ready! He had shrewdly taken care, however, to have the

Patent in his pocket before issuing the _Bloody Tenent_. Had that book

been out first, he might have had some difficulty in obtaining the Patent

even from such Commissioners for the Colonies as he had to deal with.

Possibly, however, they granted it with full knowledge of Williams, and

were willing, through him, to try a bolder experiment in the American

wilds than it was possible to promote or to announce in England.

[Footnote: Palfrey's New England, I. 633-4, and II. 215; and Gammell's

Life of Williams, 119, 120.]

While we have been so long with Roger Williams, his colleague in the

Toleration heresy, John Goodwill, has been waiting. He was fifty-one

years of age, or six or seven years older than Williams. Rather late in

life, he had begun to find himself a much-abused man in London. For,

though he had sided with the Parliamentarians zealously from the first,

and had even, it appears, taken the Covenant, [Footnote: That Goodwin had

taken the Covenant appears from words of his own in a tract of 1646

quoted in Fletcher's Hist, of Independency, IV. 47.] his theology was

thought to be lax, [Footnote: The suspicion of Goodwin's Socinianism was

as early as November 1613, when he got into trouble with the Assembly on

that and other grounds (see Baillie's Letters, II. III, and Lightfoot's

Notes, Nov. 8 and 9, 1643).] and the interpretation he was putting on the

Covenant was not the common one. He thought that the oath to seek

"reformation of religion" and to "endeavour to bring the Church of God in

the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity," did not

necessarily imply acceptance of the Presbyterian system which the

Assembly were bent upon bringing in. Therefore, when the Five Dissenting

Brethren of the Assembly appealed to Parliament in their _Apologetical

Narration_, they found a champion outside in Goodwin. His championship

took the form of that answer to "A. S." (_i.e._ the Scotsman, Adam

Steuart, author of the first printed attack on the _Apologetic

Narration_) which we have mentioned as appearing with the brief title _M.

S. to A. S._, and again, in a second edition, with the fuller title _A

Reply of Two of the Brethren to A. S., &c.; with A Plea for Liberty of

Conscience, &c_. As the second title implies, Goodwill had associates in

the work; but it was principally his, and the part on Toleration wholly

his. So far as the tract concerns itself with the question between

Presbytery and Congregationalism, Goodwin avows himself a

Congregationalist. And yet he was not at one in all points with the five

Assembly-men. "I know I am looked upon," he afterwards wrote, "by reason

partly of my writings, partly of my practice, as a man very deeply

engaged for the Independents' cause against Presbytery. But the truth is,

I am neither so whole for the former, nor yet against the latter, as I

am, I believe, generally voted in the thoughts of men to be." [Footnote:

Quoted, from the Preface to Goodwin's _Anapologesiastes Anapologias_, by

Fletcher, IV. 46.] This was written in 1616; but even in 1644 he fought

so much for his own hand that the Independents of the Assembly may have

but half liked his partnership. His Toleration doctrine, at all events,

though uttered in their behalf, was too strong doctrine even for them.

Hear what Baillie writes to his friend Spang, at Campvere, in Holland,

just after the appearance of Goodwin's tract for the Independents: "_M.S.

against A.S._, is John Goodwin of Coleman Street: he names you expressly,

and professes to censure the letter of Zeeland. He is a bitter enemy to

Presbytery, and is openly for a full liberty of conscience of all sects,

even Turks, Jews, Papists, and all to be more openly tolerate than with

you [_i.e._ than even in Holland]." [Footnote: Baillie, II. 180, 181.

Goodwin's mention of Spang, referred to by Baillie, is as follows:--

"There is a Scottish Church, of which one Spang is a very busy agent, at

Trevere [Campvere]... whence the Letter [_i.e._ the Zeeland Letter in

favour of Presbytery] came."] Baillie's representation of Goodwin's

Toleration doctrine is fair enough. It is not so deep, so exceptionless,

and so transcendentally reasoned as Roger Williams's; and indeed there

was none of the sap and mystic richness of nature in Goodwin that we find

in Williams, but chiefly clear courage, and strong cool sense. For most

practical purposes, however, Goodwin's Toleration was thorough. He was

for tolerating not merely the orthodox Congregationalists and such more

heterodox sects as might be thought respectable, but all religions,

sects, and schisms whatsoever, if only the professors of them were

otherwise peaceable in the State. Not, of course, that they were not to

be reasoned with and proved false publicly; or that heretics in

congregations were not to be admonished, and, if obdurate,

excommunicated; or that a whole church tainted with a great heresy ought

not to be put under a ban by all other churches, and communion with it

renounced. All this was assumed in the theory of Church-Independency

which was common to Goodwin and Williams. True, Williams, now that he had

passed beyond the Baptists and saw no true Church anywhere on earth, must

have begun to doubt also the efficacy and validity of even spiritual

censures, as exercised by the so-called churches, to regard as a mere

agency of troublesome moonshine that incessant watchfulness of each

other's errors on which Independency relied, and so to luxuriate in a

mood of large charity, sighing over all, and hoping more from prayer and

longing and pious well-doing all round than from censures and

disputations. To Goodwin, on the other hand, troubled with no such

visionary ideas, and fully convinced that a very good model of a Church

had been set up in Coleman Street, the right and efficacy of disputation

against error, and of ministerial vigilance against error in particular

churches, seemed more important, or at least more worth insisting on in a

public plea for Toleration. Williams and Goodwill did not differ

theoretically, but only practically, over this item in the exposition of

their doctrine. The sole difference, of theoretical import, was that

Goodwin, in dwelling on the duty of disputation by Christian ministers

against false religions and dangerous opinions in society round about

them, and of vigilance against minor heresies in their own congregations,

talked vaguely of a right on the part of the civil magistrate to admonish

ministers in this respect should they be negligent or forgetful of their

duty. This, as we know, would have grated on Williams. Perhaps, however,

Goodwin, even here, was only throwing a sop to Cerberus. At all events,

he comes out finally a thorough Tolerationist. Whatever minister or

magistrate may do towards confuting and diminishing error, there is a

point at which they must both stop. There is not to be a suppression of

false religions, sects and schisms, by fining, imprisoning,

disfranchising, banishment, death, or any civil punishment whatsoever;

and, when it comes to that, they are all to be tolerated. [Footnote:

Jackson's Life of Goodwin. pp. 110, 117; Hanbury's Memorials, II. 341-

365.]

We are now prepared to classify the various forms in which the Toleration

Doctrine was urged on the English mind in the year 1644. There were three

grades of the doctrine:--

I. _Absolute Liberty of Conscience, and No National Church, or State-

interference with Religion, of any kind whatsoever._ This was, in

fact, more than Toleration, and Toleration is hardly the fit name for it.

The advocates of this idea were Roger Williams, perhaps the Baptists

generally, also Burton in a certain way; but, above all, Roger Williams.

He did not think there could be Liberty of Conscience, in the perfect and

absolute sense, where there was a National Church, even if free dissent

were allowed from that Church. For, by the establishment of a Church, he

held, a substantial worldly premium was put on certain religious beliefs,

and an advantage conferred on a portion of the community at the expense

of all; and to be compelled to pay for, or even to acknowledge

politically, a Church which one did not approve, was in itself

inconsistent with true Liberty of Conscience, whatever freedom of

nonconformity might be left to individuals. Accordingly, if Roger

Williams, at that crisis, had been a statesman of England, instead of a

mere commissioner from an infant colony in America, his advice would have

been in this strain:--"It is agreed that the Episcopal or Prelatic

Church, called hitherto the Reformed Church of England, is no longer to

exist. That is settled; and the question is, What Church Reformation

shall there now be? My answer is sweeping and simple. Let there be no

National Church, no Church of England, at all, of any kind or form

whatsoever. Let England henceforth be a civil State only, in which

Christianity shall take care of itself, and all forms of Christianity and

all other religions shall have equal rights to protection by the police.

Confiscate for the use of the State all the existing revenues of the

defunct Church and its belongings, giving such compensation for life-

interests therein as may seem reasonable; but create no new Church, nor

stump of a Church, round which new interests may gather. Do not even

implicate the State so far in the future of Religion as to indicate to

the subjects any form of Church as esteemed the best, or any range of

option among Churches as presumably the safest. Leave the formation and

the sustentation of Christ's Church in the English realm, and everywhere

else, entirely to the unseen power of the Spirit, and the free action of

those whom the Spirit may make its instruments."--For nothing like this

was the Long Parliament, or any other legislature in the world, then

prepared; and Williams knew it. But he had faith in the future of his

speculation. In America, whither he was to carry it back, he hoped to be

able to exhibit it in practice on a small scale in the new colony he was

founding; and there could be no harm, he thought, in leaving the leaven

to ferment in the denser society of England.

II. _Unlimited Toleration round an Established National Church._ So

we may express a form of Tolerationism in which there was a concurrence

of persons, and perhaps of bodies of persons, who yet differed from each

other in the motives for their concurrence. Williams, of course, accepted

this form of Tolerationism, as next best to his own absolute

Voluntaryism, Individualism, and universal Liberty of Conscience. "If

there is to be in England a National or State Church of some kind (which

I think wrong, and so wrong that I will take no part in the debate what

kind of National Church would be best, whether a Prelatic, Presbyterian,

or any other), at least, when you have set up such a Church, let there be

a perfect toleration for all subjects of the realm round about that

Church, no compulsion on any of them to belong to that Church, no pains

and penalties for any profession of belief or disbelief, or any form of

worship or no-worship, out of that Church." These are not Williams's own

words, but they exactly express his meaning; and, in fact, he intended

his _Bloody Tenent_ to be a plea for toleration in this practical

sense, if it should fail in winning people to his higher and more

peculiar idea of real Liberty of Conscience. And a most eloquent plea it

was. He insists again and again on the necessity that there should be no

limits to the toleration of Religious Difference in a state. He argues

expressly that not only orthodox or slightly heterodox dissenters should

have the benefit of such toleration, but all kinds of dissentients

without exception, Papists, Jews, Mohammedans, Pagans, or Infidels. He

knew what a hard battle lie was fighting. "I confess I have little hope,"

he said, "till those flames are over, that this discourse against the

doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience should pass current, I

say not amongst the wolves and lions, but even amongst the sheep of

Christ themselves. Yet, _liberavi animam meam_: I have not hid

within my breast my soul's belief." He trusted, doubtless, that his

treatise might have some effect, if not for its highest purpose, at least

as a practical plea for unlimited toleration round the new National

Church of England that was to be. And here most of the Baptists were in

the same predicament with Williams. They would have preferred no National

Church at all; but, as there was to be a National Church, they wanted the

amplest toleration round it. Burton also was pretty nearly in the same

category. He too doubted the lawfulness of a State Church of any kind,

but was earnest that, if such must be established, it should not be

coercive. He did not formally demand unlimited toleration, and indeed

conceded something in words to the effect that in cases of "known heresy,

or blasphemy, or idolatry," offenders would have to be "obnoxious to the

Civil Power;" but I rather think that the concession was prudential, and

that his heart did not go with it. I will retain him therefore among the

Unlimited Tolerationists. Far outshining him in this class, however, was

John Goodwin.--Well, but were the advocates of unlimited toleration in

connexion with an Established Church exclusively persons who would have

prevented the formation of such a Church if they could, or doubted its

righteousness and propriety, and who only insisted on Toleration

_with_ such a Church as a practical necessity to which they were

driven? Were there no theorists in that time who positively desired an

Established Church on its own account, and for the general good of the

community, but who had worked out the conclusion that such a Church might

consist, and ought to consist, with universal Religious Toleration, or

the freest liberty of Nonconformity and Dissent? In view of the fact that

this is the theory of Establishments evolved by some of the best

ecclesiastical spirits in our own later times, the question is

interesting. My researches do not enable me to give a very precise answer

to it applicable to the exact year 1644. If there were such theorists,

however, they were, I should say, among those wiser and younger sons of

the Episcopal Church of England who would fain have preserved that

Episcopal Church, but had privately made up their minds that Laud's basis

for that Church was untenable, and that a very different basis must be

substituted. One thinks of Chillingworth, Hales, and the rest of that

"Latitudinarian" brotherhood; one thinks of Jeremy Taylor; one thinks of

the candid Fuller; one thinks even of the Calvinistic Usher.

Chillingworth had died at Chichester, Jan. 30, 1643-4, at the age of

forty-one, an avowed Royalist, and indeed a Royalist prisoner-at-war,

tended on his death-bed by Presbyterians. [Footnote: Wood's Ath. III. 93,

94; and Life of Chillingworth prefixed to the Oxford edition of his

Works.] Whatever hardy cogitations had been in his mind, pointing to a

revived Episcopal Church of England with an ample toleration within it

and round about it, had gone prematurely to the grave. The others were

still alive, also pronounced Royalists, and acting or suffering more or

less on that side; and whatever thoughts they had in the direction under

notice were irrelevant to their immediate duty and opportunities, and had

to wait for utterance at a more convenient season. [Footnote: Yet there

_had_ been one recent utterance of Hales relating to the idea of

Toleration. It was in the form of _A Tract concerning Schism and

Schismatics_, which he had prepared in 1636, partly for the use of his

friend Chillingworth then engaged on his "Religion of Protestants," but

which, in deference to Laud's private objections and remonstrances, he

had kept unpublished. In 1642, when Laud was in prison and the state of

things wholly changed, the Tract was brought out at the Oxford University

Press. It is vague in its conception and expression; but that it is

decidedly in favour of toleration and free inquiry will appear from the

opening sentences: "Heresy and Schism, as they are in common use, are two

theological [Greek: Mosmos], or scarecrows, which they who uphold a party

in religion use to fright away such as, making inquiry into it, are ready

to relinquish and oppose it if it appear either erroneous or suspicious.

For, as Plutarch reports of a painter who, having unskilfully painted a

cock, chased away all cocks and hens, that so the imperfection of his art

might not appear by comparison with nature, so men, willing for ends to

admit of no fancy but their own, endeavour to hinder an inquiry into it,

by way of comparison of somewhat with it, peradventure truer, that so the

deformity of their own might not appear." Wood's Ath. III. 413, 414, and

Tract itself with letter to Laud, Vol. I. pp. 114-144 of "The Works of

the ever memorable Mr. John Hales," Glasgow, 1765.] On the whole,

however, I judge that any such thoughts in their minds (even in Jeremy

Taylor's as yet) fell considerably short of the Unlimited Toleration

advocated by Williams and John Goodwin, and, if they could have been

ascertained and measured, would have referred their owners rather to the

next category than to the present.

III. _A Limited Toleration round an Established National Church._

This would probably have sufficed the thoughtful Anglicans of whom we

have just been speaking. Their ideal probably was a revived Episcopal

Church of England, liberally constituted within itself, and with a

toleration of all respectable forms of Dissent round about itself, but

still with a right reserved for the Civil Power of preventing and

punishing gross errors and schisms. We are more concerned, however, with

another set of Limited Tolerationists, then much more conspicuous in

England. They were those who had given up all thoughts of the retention

of a Prelatic Establishment, and who indeed regarded the deliverance of

England from such an Establishment as the noblest accomplished fact of

the time. What they were anxious about was the nature of the new National

Church, if any, that was to be substituted, and especially the degree of

conformity to that Church that was to be required. The chief

representatives of this state of feeling in its more moderate form were

the Five Independent Divines of the Assembly, Messrs. Thomas Goodwin,

Bridge, Nye, Simpson, and Burroughs. They were not, I think, distinctly

adverse to a National Church on theoretical grounds, as Williams and

Burton were; and probably what they would have liked best would have been

a National Church on the Congregationalist principle, like that of New

England. For, though Congregationalism and a National Establishment of

Religion may seem radically a contradiction in terms, yet in fact the

case had not been quite so in America. There may be a State Church

without public endowments, or rather there may be endowments and

privileges that are not pecuniary. The New England Church, though

consisting of a few scores of congregations, mutually independent, self-

supporting, and scattered stragglingly over an extensive territory, was

really a kind of State Church collectively, inasmuch as the State

required, by rule or by custom, membership of some congregation as a

qualification for suffrage and office, and also kept some watch and

control over the congregations, so as to be sure that none were formed of

a very heretical kind, and that none already formed lapsed into decided

heresy. How had Mr. Cotton of Boston, the great light of the New England

Church, expounded its principle in respect of the power of the civil

magistrate in matters of Religion? "We readily grant you," he had

written, "liberty of conscience is to be granted to men that fear God

indeed, as knowing they will not persist in heresy or turbulent schism

when they are convinced in conscience of the sinfulness thereof. But the

question is whether an heretic, after once or twice admonition, and so

after conviction, or any other scandalous and heinous offender, may be

tolerated, either in the Church without excommunication, or in the

Commonwealth without such punishment as may preserve others from

dangerous and damnable infection." [Footnote: From Cotton's Answer to the

old Tract of "Scriptures and Reasons against Persecution" (see

_antè_, p. 114). The Answer is printed by Williams in his _Bloody

Tenent_: See Hanserd Knollys Society edition (1848), p. 30.]

Clearly, with such a principle, and with all the particulars of practice

which it implied, the Congregationalist Church of New England was, after

all, a State Church, and a pretty strict State Church too. Now, it was

probably such a National Congregationalist Church, but with an allowance

of toleration somewhat larger than Cotton's, that the Five Independents

of the Assembly would have liked to see set up in England. That, however,

being plainly out of the question, and the whole current of dominant

opinion in Parliament and the Assembly being towards a Presbyterian

settlement, what remained for the Five? In the first place, to delay the

Presbyterian settlement as long as they could, and to criticise its

programme at every stage so as to liberalize its provisions as much as

possible; in the second place, to put in a plea for Toleration for

Dissent under the settlement when it should be enacted. They had

performed, and were performing, both duties. They were fighting the

propositions of strict Presbytery inch by inch in the Assembly, if not

with success, at least so as to impede progress; and in their

_Apologetical Narration_ (Jan. 1643-4) they had lodged with

Parliament and the country a demand for Toleration under the coming

Presbytery. What they had thus expressed in print they had continued to

express in speech and in every other possible way. They were, in a

certain sense, the most marked Tolerationists of the time; Toleration was

identified with them. And yet it was but a limited Toleration, a very

limited Toleration, that they demanded. Indulgence for themselves in

Congregationalist practices after Presbytery should be established, and

indulgence for other respectable sects and persons in "lesser

differences:" that was all. Nothing like Williams's or John Goodwill's

toleration: no liberty, or at least none avowedly, for such glaring

heresies as Antinomianism, Socinianism, and Arianism, not to mention open

Infidelity. Here, I believe, they represented the mass of the ordinary

Independents. Whatever more a few strong spirits among the Independents,

and especially among the lay Independents, desired, the mass of them were

content for the present to be Limited Tolerationists.

Such were the three forms of the Toleration Doctrine in England in 1644.

They were of unequal strengths and confusedly mixed, but constituted

together a powerful and growing force of opinion. And what was the

opposition? ANTI-TOLERATION, OR ABSOLUTE AND ENTIRE CONFORMITY OF THE

WHOLE NATION TO THE ONE ESTABLISHED CHURCH: this was the category of the

opposition.

In this category, now that Prelacy was done with, and it was certain that

the new National Church was to be on the Presbyterian model, the

Presbyterians had succeeded the Laudians. As a body, the Presbyterians of

1644 and subsequent years were absolute Anti-Tolerationists. The proofs

are so abundant, collectively they make such an ocean, that it passes

comprehension how the contrary could ever have been asserted. From the

first appearance of the Presbyterians in force after the opening of the

Long Parliament, it was their anxiety to beat down the rising idea of

Toleration; and, after the meeting of the Westminster Assembly, and the

publication of the _Apologetical Narration_ of the Independents, the

one aim of the Presbyterians was to tie Toleration round the neck of

Independency, stuff the two struggling monsters into one sack, and sink

them to the bottom of the sea. In all the Presbyterian literature of the

time,--Baillie's Letters, Rutherford's and Gillespie's Tracts, the

pamphlets of English Presbyterian Divines in the Assembly, the pamphlets

of Prynne, Bastwick, and other miscellaneous Presbyterian

controversialists out of the Assembly,--this antipathy to Toleration,

limited or unlimited, this desire to pinion Independency and Toleration

together in one common death, appears overwhelmingly. Out of scores of

such Presbyterian manifestoes, let us select one, interesting to us for

certain reasons apart.

Of all the Divines in London, not members of the Assembly, none had come

to be better known for his Presbyterian acrimony than the veteran Mr.

Thomas Edwards, of whose maiden pamphlet of 1641, called _Reasons

against the Independent Government_, with Mrs. Chidley's Reply to the

same, we have had occasion to take notice (_antè_, p. 110). The spirited

verbosity, as we called it, of that pamphlet of Edwards had procured him

a reputation among the Presbyterians, which he felt himself bound to

justify by farther efforts. The appearance of the _Apologetical

Narration_ of the Five Independents in Jan. 1643-4 gave him a famous

opportunity. Various answers were at once or quickly published to that

Independent manifesto--not only that by _A. S._ or Adam Steuart (_antè_,

p. 25), but various others. When it became known, however, that Mr.

Edwards also was preparing an Answer, it was expected to beat them all.

There was a flutter of anticipation of it among the Presbyterians; but it

was rather slow in coming. "There is a piece of 26 sheets, of Mr.

Edwards, against the Apologetick Narration, near printed, which will

paint that faction [the Independents] in clearer colours than yet they

have appeared," writes Baillie, June 7, 1644; in a later letter, July 5,

he says it is expected "within two or three days," but "excresced to near

40 sheets;" and it is not till Aug. 7 that he speaks of it as fairly out:

"Mr. Edwards has written a splendid confutation of all the Independents'

Apology." [Footnote: Baillie, II. 190, 201-2, and 215.] In fact, it

appeared in the end of July, just at the time when the Assembly adjourned

for their fortnight's vacation, and almost contemporaneously with John

Goodwin's _M. S. to A. S._ and Williams's _Bloody Tenent_. Baillie's

measure of "sheets" must have been different from ours, or he had been

under some mistake; for the treatise, though long enough, consisted but

of 367 small quarto pages, with this title: "_Antapologia: or, A Full

Answer to the Apologetical Narration of Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr.

Simpson, Mr. Burroughs, Mr. Bridge, members of the Assembly of Divines.

Wherein many of the controversies of these times are handled: viz. [&c.].

Humbly also submitted to the Honourable Houses of Parliament. By Thomas

Edwards, Minister of the Gospel_." [Footnote: Hanbury's Memorials, II.

366. Mr. Hanbury gives a summary of the _Antapologia_ with extracts (366-

385); but I have before me the book itself in a reprint, of 1646, "by

T.R. and E.M. for Ralph Smith, at the signe of the Bible in Cornhill neer

the Royall Exchange." It consists of 259 pages of text, besides

introductory epistle, and table of contents at the end.]

It was a most remarkable treatise, and ran through London at once. For

the style, though slovenly, was fluent and popular, and Edwards, having

plenty of time on his hands, and having a taste for personalities, had

made minute inquiries into the antecedents of the Five Independents in

Holland and in England, and had interwoven the results of these inquiries

with his arguments against Independency itself. The Five, he tells us in

a preliminary epistle, were among his personal acquaintances. "I can

truly speak it," he says, "that this present _Antapologia_ is so far

from being written out of any malice or ill-will to the Apologists that I

love their persons and value them as brethren, yea some of them above

brethren; and, besides that love I bear to them as saints, I have a

personal love, and a particular love of friendship for some of them; and

I can truly speak it, that I writ not this book, nor any part of it, out

of any personal quarrel, old grudge, or former difference (for to this

day there never was any such difference or unkindness passed between us);

but I have writ it with much sorrow, unwillingness, and some kind of

conflict." This explanation was certainly necessary; for Mr. Edwards does

not spare his friends. He tells all he has found out about them; he

quotes their conversations with himself; he gives them the lie direct,

and appeals to their consciences whether he is not right in doing so.

_They_ martyrs! _they_ poor exiles in Holland, and now whining to

Parliament that they would have to go into exile again if Presbyterianism

were established without a Toleration! Why, they had been in clover in

Holland; they had been living there "in safety, plenty, pomp, and ease,"

leaving the genuine Puritans at home to fight it out with Prelacy; and,

after the battle was won, they had slunk back to claim the rewards they

had not earned, to become pets and "grandees" in English society, to

secure good appointments and assume leading parts, and to be elected

members of the venerable Westminster Assembly! They had not even had the

courage to go to New England, though some of them had talked of doing so!

And then their prate of this emigration to New England, which they had

themselves declined, as the greatest undertaking for the sake of pure

Religion, next to Abraham's migration out of his own country, that the

world had ever seen! Why, the emigration to New England was no such great

affair after all! There had been mixed motives in it; all New England

would not make a twentieth part of London; it had but two or three

Divines in it worth naming in the same breath with the worthies of Old

England, and was on the whole but a kind of outlandish mess; the

"Reformation in Church-government and worship" then going on in Old

England would be a wonder "to all generations to come far beyond that of

New England!" But in Holland, where the cowardly Apologists had preferred

to stay, what had they been doing? Quarrelling among themselves, going

into all kinds of conceits, anointing people with oil, and the like;

respecting all which Edwards had obtained from Rotterdam and Arnheim a

budget of information! Then that lie of the Apologists, that they had,

since their return to England, been careful not to press their peculiar

Congregationalist opinions, or endeavour to make a party, but had waited

in patience to see what course affairs would take! Not press their

peculiar opinions--not endeavour to make a party! Why, Mr. Edwards could

aver (and cite dates, places, and witnesses to prove it) that they had

been doing nothing else, since they came to England, than press their

peculiar opinions and endeavour to make a party! "Suffer me to deal

plainly with you: I am persuaded that, setting aside the Jesuits' acting

for themselves and way, you Five have acted for yourselves and way, both

by yourselves and by your instruments, both upon the stage and behind the

curtain, considering circumstances and laying all things together, more

than any five men have done in so short a time this sixty years. And, if

it be not so, whence have come all these swarms and troops of

Independents in Ministry, Armies, City, Country, Gentry, and amongst the

Common People of all sorts, men, women, servants, children?"

So, on and on, Edwards goes, decidedly more readable than most

pamphleteers of the time, because he writes with some spirit, and mixes a

continual pepper of personalities with his arguments against the tenets

of the Independents. With these arguments we shall not meddle. Their

purpose was to hold up "a true glass to behold the faces of Presbytery

and Independency in, with the beauty, order, strength, of the one, and

the deformity, disorder, and weakness of the other." In other words, the

pamphlet is a digest of everything that could be said against

Independency and in favour of Presbyterianism. But the grand tenet of

Presbyterianism in which Mr. Edwards revels with most delight, and which

he exhibits as the distinguishing honour of that system, and its fitness

beyond any other for grappling with the impiety of men in general and the

disorderliness of that age in particular, is its uncompromising Anti-

Toleration. Throughout the whole pamphlet there runs a vein of

declamation to this effect; and at the close some twenty pages are

expressly devoted to the subject, in connexion with that claim for a

Limited Toleration which the Apologists had advanced. Eight Reasons are

stated and expounded why there should not be even this Limited

Toleration, why even Congregationalist opinions and practice should not

be tolerated in England. It would be against the rule of Scripture as to

the duty of the civil magistrate; it would be against the Solemn League

and Covenant; it would be against the very nature of a national

Reformation, for "a Reformation, and a Toleration are diametrically

opposite;" it would be "against the judgment of the greatest lights in

the Church, both ancient and modern;" it would be an invitation and

temptation to error and "an occasion of many falling who otherwise never

would;" &c. &c. Wherever Presbytery and strict Anti-Toleration had

prevailed since the Reformation had there not been a marvellous

orderliness and freedom from error and heresy? All over the map of Europe

would it not be found that error and heresy had been rank precisely in

proportion to the deviation of a country from Presbytery or to the

relaxation of its grasp where it was nominally professed? What, in

particular, had made Scotland the country it was, pure in faith, united

in action, and with a Church "terrible as an army with banners"? What but

Presbytery and Anti-Toleration? O then let Presbytery and Anti-Toleration

reign in England as well! And, while they were proceeding to the great

work of establishing Presbytery, let them beware of such an inconsistency

as granting the least promise beforehand of a Toleration! On this point

Mr. Edwards addresses the Parliament in his own name, telling them that

Toleration is the device of the Devil. "I humbly beseech the Parliament,"

he says, "seriously to consider the depths of Satan in this design of a

Toleration; how this is now his last plot and design, and by it would

undermine and frustrate the whole work of Reformation intended. 'Tis his

masterpiece for England; and, for effecting it, he comes and moves, not

in Prelates and Bishops, not in furious Anabaptists, &c., but in holy

men, excellent preachers; moderate and fair men, not for a toleration of

heresies and gross opinions, but an 'allowance of a latitude to some

lesser differences with peaceableness.' This is _Candidus ille Diabolus_

[that White Devil], as Luther speaks, and _meridianus Diabolus_ [mid-day

Devil], as Johannes Gersonius and Beza express it, coming under the

merits of much suffering and well-deserving, clad in the white garments

of innocency and holiness. In a word, could the Devil effect a

Toleration, he would think he had gained well by the Reformation and made

a good exchange of the Hierarchy to have a Toleration for it. I am

confident of it, upon serious thoughts, and long searching into this

point of the evils and mischief of a Toleration, that, if the Devil had

his choice whether the Hierarchy, Ceremonies, and Liturgy should be

established in this kingdom, or a Toleration granted, he would choose and

prefer a Toleration before them."

Did Mr. Thomas Edwards in all this represent the whole body of the

Presbyterians of his time? I am afraid he did. In _his_ very sense,

with the same vehemency, and to the same extent, they were all Anti-

Tolerationists.

Was there no exception? Had no one Presbyterian of that day worked out,

in the interest of Presbytery, a conclusion corresponding to that which

we have seen reason to think some of the wiser Anglicans then within the

Royalist lines were quietly working out in the interest of Episcopacy, in

case Episcopacy should ever again have a chance? Was no one Presbyterian

prepared to come forth with the proposal of a Toleration in England,

either limited or unlimited, round an Established National Church on the

Presbyterian model? That there may not have been some such person among

those Erastian laymen who favoured Presbytery on the whole for general

and political reasons, one would not assert positively. None such,

however, is distinctly in historical view; and it is certain that among

the real or dominant Presbyterians, the _jure divino_ Presbyterians,

English or Scottish, there was no one upon whom the idea in question had

clearly dawned or who dared to divulge it. Perhaps it was the belief in

the absolute _jus divinum_ of Presbytery that made the idea impossible to

them. Yet why should it have been impossible in consistency even with

that belief? It may be _jure divino_ that the square on the hypothenuse

of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the

sides, that he is a blockhead who believes otherwise, and that a

permanent apparatus should be set up in every land for teaching this

mathematical faith; and yet it may be equally _jure divino_ that no one

shall be compelled to avail himself of that apparatus, or be punished for

doubting or denying the proposition. But the Presbyterians of 1644 did

not so refine or argue. They stood stoutly to the necessary identity of

Presbyterianism and absolute Anti-Toleration. And so Presbyterianism

missed the most magnificent opportunity she has had in her history. Had

her offer to England been "Presbytery with a Toleration," who knows what

a different shaping subsequent events might have assumed? What if

Henderson, in whose natural disposition one sees more of room and

aptitude for the idea than in that of any other Presbyterian leader, had

actually become possessed with the idea and had proclaimed it? Would he

have carried the mass of the Presbyterians with him? or would they have

deposed him from the leadership? It is useless to inquire. The idea never

occurred even to Henderson; and that it did not occur to him constituted

his unfitness for leadership, out of Scotland, in the complex crisis

which had at last arrived, and was the one weakness of his career near

its close.

MULTIPLICATION OF HERESIES: SYNOPSIS OF ENGLISH SECTS AND SECTARIES IN

1644.

It was all very well, the Presbyterians argued, to propound the principle

of Toleration in the abstract. Would its advocates be so good as to think

of its operation in the concrete? The society of England was no longer

composed merely of the traditional PAPISTS, PRELATISTS, PRESBYTERIANS,

and CONGREGATIONALISTS or ORTHODOX INDEPENDENTS. Beyond these last,

though sheltering themselves under the unfortunate principle of Church-

Independency, there was now a vast chaos of SECTS and SECTARIES, some of

them maintaining the most dangerous and damnable heresies and

blasphemies! Would the Tolerationists, and especially the Limited

Tolerationists, take a survey of this chaos, and consider how their

principle of Toleration would work when applied to _its_ ghastly

bulk and variety?

This matter, of the extraordinary multiplication of Sects and Heresies in

England, had been in constant public discussion since the opening of the

Long Parliament. It had figured constantly in messages and declarations

of the King; who had first charged the fact of the sudden appearance and

boldness of the Sects and Sectaries to the abrogation of his Kingly

prerogative and Episcopal government by the Parliament, and had then

attributed the origin of the Civil War to the lawless machinations of

these same Sects and Sectaries. It had figured no less, though with very

different interpretations and comments, in the proceedings and appeals of

the Parliament. Now, however, the SECTS and SECTARIES had become the

objects of a more purely scientific curiosity. Without a survey and study

of _them_ as well as of the PAPISTS, the PRELATISTS, the PRESBYTERIANS,

and the ORTHODOX INDEPENDENTS, there could, it was argued, be no complete

Natural History of Religious Opinion in England in the year 1644. The

Presbyterians, for reasons of their own, were earnest for such a survey

and study; and they recommended it ironically to the Orthodox

Independents in their character of Tolerationists. Not the less did the

Presbyterians, with some Prelatists among them, undertake it themselves.-

-Coming after these authorities, and availing myself of their inquiries,

but with other authorities to aid me, and as much of fresh investigation,

and of criticism of my authorities, as I can add, I shall attempt what,

even for our own forgetful and self-engrossed time, ought to be a not

uninteresting portion of the history of bygone English opinion.

This is a case in which the authorities should be mentioned formally at

the outset. They are numerous. They include the Lords and Commons

Journals, Lightfoot's Notes of the Assembly, Baillie's Letters, Pamphlets

of the time _passim_, and even the Registers of the Stationers'

Company. Certain particular publications, however (all of the year 1645

or the years immediately following), are of pre-eminent interest, as

being attempts at a more or less complete survey of the huge medley or

tumult of opinions on religious subjects that had by that time arisen in

English society, with some classification of its elements.

The reader will remember Dr. DANIEL FEATLEY, Rector of Lambeth and Acton,

the veteran Calvinist who had persisted in attending the Assembly in

spite of his disapproval of the Covenant and his adhesion to the theory

of a modified Episcopacy, but who had at length (Sept. 30, 1643) been

ejected for misdemeanour. His misdemeanour had consisted in maintaining a

correspondence with Usher, reflecting on the Assembly and the Parliament,

and divulging secrets in the King's interest. For this he had not only

been ejected from the Assembly by the Commons, and sequestered from his

two livings, but also committed to custody in "the Lord Petre's house in

Aldersgate Street," then used by Parliament as a prison for such

culprits. To beguile his leisure here, he had occupied himself in

revising his notes of a dispute he had held, in Oct. 1642, with a

Conventicle of Anabaptists in Southwark, where he had knocked over a

certain "Scotchman" and one or two other speakers for the Conventicle.

But this revision of his notes of that debate had suggested various

extensions and additions; so that, in fact, he had written in prison a

complete exposure of Anabaptism. It was ready in January 1644-5, and was

published with this title: "_The Dippers Dipt; or, The Anabaptists Duck'd

and Plung'd over Head and Ears_," &c. It is a virulent tractate of about

186 pages, reciting the extravagances and enormities attributed to the

German Anabaptists, and trying to involve the English Baptists in the

odium of such an original, but containing also notices of the English

Baptists themselves, and their varieties and ramifications. It became at

once popular, and passed through several editions. [Footnote: Commons

Journals, Sept. 30 and Oct 3, 1613; Wood's Athenæ, III. 156 _et seq._;

and Featley's Epistle Dedicatory to his treatise. The copy of the

treatise before me at present is one of the sixth edition, published in

1651, six years after the authors death. It contains a portrait of

Featley by W. Marshall, and, among other illustrations, a coarse _ad

captandum_ print by the same engraver, exhibiting the "dipping" of men

and women naked together in a river.]

A well-known personage in London, of humbler pretensions than Featley,

was a certain EPHRAIM PAGET (or PAGIT), commonly called "Old Father

Ephraim," who had been parson of the church of St. Edmund in Lombard

Street since 1601, and might therefore have seen, and been seen by,

Shakespeare. Besides other trifles, he had published, in 1635, a book

called "_Christianographia_" or a descriptive enumeration of the

various sorts of Christians in the world out of the pale of the Roman

Catholic Church. Perhaps because he had thus acquired a fondness for the

statistics of religious denominations, it occurred to him to write, by

way of sequel, a "_Heresiography; or, A Description of the Hereticks

and Sectaries of these latter times_." It was published in 1645, soon

after Featley's book, from which it borrows hints and phrases. There is

an Epistle Dedicatory to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of

London, very senile in its syntax and punctuation, and containing this

touching appeal: "I have lived among you almost a jubilee, and seen your

great care and provision to keep the city free from infection, in the

shutting up the sick and in carrying them to your pest-houses, in setting

warders to keep the whole from the sick, in making of fires and perfuming

the streets, in resorting to your churches, in pouring out your prayers

to Almighty God, with fasting and alms, to be propitious to you. The

plague of Heresy is greater, and you are now in more danger than when you

buried five thousand a week." Then, after an Epistle to the Reader,

signed "Old Ephraim Pagit," there follows the body of the treatise in

about 160 pages. The Anabaptists are taken first, and occupy 55 pages;

but a great many other sects are subsequently described, some in a few

pages, some in a single paragraph. There is an engraved title-page to the

volume, containing small caricatures of six of the chief sorts of

Sectaries--Anabaptism being represented by one plump naked fellow dipping

another, much plumper, who is reluctantly stooping down on all fours. The

book, like Featley's, seems to have sold rapidly. In the third edition of

it, however, published in 1646, there is a postscript in which the poor

old man tells us that it had cost him much trouble. The sectaries among

his own parishioners had quarrelled with him on account of it, and

refused to pay him his tithes; nay, as he walked in the streets, he was

hooted at and reviled, and somebody had actually affirmed "Doctor

Featley's devil to be transmigrated into Old Ephraim Paget." This seems

to have cut him to the quick, though he avows his sense of inferiority in

learning to the great Doctor. In short, we can see Father Ephraim as a

good old silly body, of whom people made fun. [Footnote: Wood's Athenæ,

III. 210 _et seq._; and Paget's own treatise.]

Another writer against the Sectaries was the inexhaustible WILLIAM

PRYNNE,

That grand scripturient paper-spiller,

That endless, needless, margin-filler,

So strangely tossed from post to pillar.

There was, indeed, something preternatural in the persistent vitality and

industry of this man. Only forty years of age when the Long Parliament

released him from his second imprisonment and restored him to society, a

ghoul-like creature with a scarred and mutilated face, hiding the loss of

his twice-cropped ears under a woollen cowl or nightcap, and mostly

sitting alone among his books and papers in his chamber in Lincoln's Inn,

taking no regular meals, but occasionally munching bread and refreshing

himself with ale, he had at once resumed his polemical habits and mixed

himself up as a pamphleteer with all that was going on. As many as thirty

fresh publications, to be added to the two-and-twenty or thereabouts

already out in his name, had come from his pen between 1640 and 1645,

bringing him through about one-fourth part of the series of some 200

books and pamphlets that were to form the long ink-track of his total

life. In these recent pamphlets of his he had appeared as a strenuous

Parliamentary Presbyterian, an advocate of the Scottish Presbyterianism

which was being urged in the Assembly, but with more of Erastianism in

his views than might have pleased most of his fellow-Presbyterians. No

man more violent against Independency of all sorts, and the idea of

Toleration. And so, after various other pamphlets against Independency in

general, and this or that Independent in particular, there came from him,

in July 1645, [Footnote: Date from my notes from Stationer's Registers.]

a quarto of about 50 pages, with this title: "_A Fresh Discovery of some

Prodigious new Wandering-Blazing-Stars and Firebrands, styling themselves

New Lights, firing our Church and State into new Combustions._" The

pamphlet was dedicated to Parliament; and its purpose was to exhibit all

the monstrous things that lay in the bosom of what called itself

Independency. Hence "Independency" is used by Prynne as a common name for

all the varieties of Sectarians as well as for the Congregationalists

proper; and his plan is to shock the public and rouse Parliament to

action, by giving a collection of specimens, culled from pamphlets of the

day, of the "scurrilous, scandalous, and seditious" views put forth, with

impunity hitherto, by some of the "Anabaptistical Independent Sectaries

and new-lighted Firebrands," Accordingly his tract contains a jumble of

the most wild and extravagant sayings against the Assembly, the Scots,

and the Parliament itself, that Prynne could pick out from the

contemporary pamphlets of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries.[Footnote:

Wood's Athenæ, III. 844 _et seq._; Aubrey's Lives (for a notice of

Prynne's habits); and the _Fresh Discovery_ itself. The edition before me

is the second, dated 1646, and swollen by added matter at the end to over

80 pages.]

Much cleverer and more spirited than Featley, old Ephraim Paget, or

Prynne, as a describer and opponent of the Sectaries, was our friend, Mr.

Thomas Edwards, of the _Antapologia_ (_antè_, pp. 130-135). That

"splendid confutation" of Independency and Tolerationism had so increased

Mr. Edwards's fame that the Presbyterians of London had erected a weekly

lectureship for him at Christ Church in the heart of the City, that he

might "handle these questions and nothing else before all that would come

to hear." Thus encouraged, he ranged beyond Independency proper, and

employed himself in collecting information respecting the English

Sectaries generally; and in about eighteen months, or before the end of

1645, he had ready a treatise (his third in order) entitled "_Gangræna:

or, a Catalogue and Discovery of many of the Errors, Heresies,

Blasphemies, and Pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this time_."

This treatise, consisting of more than 60 pages, he dedicated to

Parliament, in an Epistle of twelve pages, hinting at the remissness of

Parliament in its dealings with the Sectaries up to that time, and

reminding it of its duty. There is all Edwards's fluency of language in

the pamphlet, and some real literary talent; so that not only was

Edwards's _Gangræna_ a popular Presbyterian book at the time, but it is

still valued by bibliographers and antiquarians. As it has come down to

us, however, it is not a pamphlet merely, but a concretion of pamphlets.

For it was enlarged by the author, in the course of 1646, to eight or

nine times its original bulk, by the addition of a Second Part and then a

Third Part, containing "New and Farther Discoveries" of the Sectaries,

and their opinions and practices. This was because Mr. Edwards had

solicited fresh information from all quarters, and it was poured in upon

him superabundantly by Presbyterian correspondents. The First Part, as

the skimming of the cream by Mr. Edwards himself, is perhaps the richest

essentially. The others consist mainly of verifications and additional

details, rumours, and anecdotes. Altogether, the Three Parts of Edwards's

_Gangræna_ are a curious Presbyterian repertory of facts and scandals

respecting the English Independents and Sectaries in and shortly after

the year of Marston Moor. The impression which they leave of Mr. Edwards

personally is that he was a fluent, rancorous, indefatigable,

inquisitorial, and, on the whole, nasty, kind of Christian. [Footnote:

Wood's Fasti, I. 413; Baillie's Letters, II. 180, 193, 201, 215, 251: and

_Gangræna_ itself--the copy of which before me consists of the third

edition of Parts I. and II. (1646) and the first edition of Part III,

(1646) bound in two volumes.]

With Featley, Paget, Prynne, and Edwards, as authorities full of detail,

though also full of prejudice on the subject of the English Sects and

Sectaries of 1644, we may finally name Baillie. We name him now, however,

not on account of his "Letters," but on account of two publications of

his dealing expressly with this subject. One of these, published in

November 1645, in a quarto of 252 pages, was his "_Dissuasive from the

Errours of the Time: wherein the Tenets of the Principall Sects,

especially of the Independents, are drawn together in one Map, for the

most part in the words of their own Authors_;" the other, published in

December 1646, in about 180 pages quarto, and intended as a Second Part

of the "Dissuasive," was entitled "_Anabaptism, the True Fountain of

Independency, Brownisme, Antinomy, &c_." In both publications, but

especially in the former, we see Baillie's characteristic merits. He

writes, of course, polemically and with strong Presbyterian prejudice;

but in clearness of arrangement and statement he is greatly superior to

either the senile Paget, or the fluent and credulous Edwards. His

_Dissuasive_, indeed, is, in its way, a really instructive

book.[Footnote: Both the _Dissuasive_ and its continuation were published

in London (by "Samuel Gellebrand at the Brazen Serpent in Paul's

Churchyard"), and dedicated to "The Right Honourable the Earle of

Lauderdaile, Lord Metellane"--_i.e._ to Baillie's Scottish colleague in

the Assembly, Lord Maitland, then become Earl of Lauderdale.]

The information from these and other sources may be summed up, from the

Presbyterian point of view, under two headings, as follows:--

I. MISCELLANEOUS BLASPHEMIES AND ENTHUSIASMS.--The very air of England,

it seemed, was full of such. There had broken loose a spirit of inquiry,

a spirit of profanity and scoffing, and a spirit of religious ecstasy and

dreaming; and the three spirits together were producing a perfect Babel

of strange sayings, fancies, and speculations. From a catalogue of no

fewer than 176 miscellaneous "errors, heresies, and blasphemies"

collected by Edwards, and which he professes to give as nearly as

possible in the very words in which they had been broached by their

authors in print, or in public or private discourse, take the following

samples:--

"That the Scriptures are a dead letter, and no more to be credited than

the writings of men."

"That the holy writings and sayings of Moses and the Prophets, of Christ

and his Apostles, and the proper names, persons, and things contained

therein, are allegories."

"That the Scriptures of the Old Testament do not concern nor bind

Christians" (in which belief, says Edwards, some Sectaries had ceased to

read the Old Testament, or to bind it with the New).

"That right Reason is the rule of Faith."

"That God is the author not of those actions alone in and with which sin

is, but of the very pravity, ataxy, atomy, irregularity, and sinfulness

itself, which is in them."

"That the magistrate may not punish for blasphemies, nor for denying the

Scriptures, nor For denying that there is a God."

"That the soul dies with the body, and all things shall have an end, but

God only."

"That there is but one Person in the Divine Nature."

"That Jesus Christ is not very God: no otherwise may he be called the Son

of God but as he was man."

"That we did look for great matters from one crucified at Jerusalem 1600

years ago, but that does us no good; it must be a Christ formed in us:

Christ came into the world to live 32 years, and do nothing else that he

[Thomas Webb, of London, ætat. 20] knew."

"That the Heathen who never heard of Christ by the Word have the Gospel,

for every creature, as the sun, moon, and stars, preach the Gospel to

men."

"That Christ shall come and live again upon the earth, and for a thousand

years reign visibly as an earthly monarch over all the world."

"That the least truth is of more worth than Jesus Christ himself."

"That the Spirit of God dwells not nor works in any; it is but our

conceits and mistakes to think so; 'tis no spirit that works but our

own."

"That a man baptized with the Holy Ghost knows all things even as God

knows all things; which point is a deep mystery and great ocean, where

there is no casting anchor, nor sounding the bottom."

"That, if a man by the Spirit knew himself to be in the state of grace,

though he did commit murder or drunkenness, God did see no sin in him."

"That the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to no man."

"That the moral law is of no use at all to believers."

"That there ought to be no fasting days under the Gospel."

"That the soul of man is mortal as the soul of a beast, and dies with the

body."

"That Heaven is empty of the Saints till the resurrection of the dead."

"That there is no resurrection at all of the bodies of men after this

life, nor no Heaven nor Hell after this life, nor no Devils."

"That there shall be in the last day a resurrection from the dead of all

the brute creatures, all beasts and birds that ever lived upon the

earth."

"That many Christians in those days have more knowledge than the

Apostles."

"That there ought to be in these times no making or building of churches,

nor use of church-ordinances; but waiting for a church, being in a

readiness upon all occasions to take knowledge of any passenger, of any

opinion or tenet whatsoever: the Saints, as pilgrims, do wander as in a

temple of smoke, not able to find Religion, and therefore should not

plant it by gathering or building a pretended supposed House."

"That, in points of Religion, even in the Articles of Faith and

principles of Religion, there's nothing certainly to be believed and

built on; only that all men ought to have liberty of conscience and

liberty of prophesying."

"That 'tis as lawful to baptize a cat, or a dog, or a chicken, as to

baptize the infants of believers."

"That the calling and making of ministers are not _jure divino_, but

a minister comes to be so as a merchant, bookseller, carter, and such

like."

"That all settled certain maintenance for ministers of the Gospel is

unlawful."

"That all days are alike to Christians, and they are bound no more to the

observation of the Lord's day, or first day of the week, than of any

other."

"That 'tis lawful for women to preach; and why should they not, having

gifts as well as men?" ("And some of them," adds Edwards, "do actually

preach, having great resort to them.")

"That there is no need of humane learning, nor of reading authors, for

preachers; but all books and learning must go down: it comes from the

want of the Spirit that men writ such great volumes."

"That 'tis unlawful to preach at all, sent or not sent, but only thus: a

man may preach as a waiting disciple, _i.e._ Christians may not

preach in a way of positive asserting and declaring things, but all they

may do is to confer, reason together, and dispute out things."

"That all singing of Psalms is unlawful."

"That the gift of miracles is not ceased in these times."

"That all the earth is the Saints', and there ought to be a community of

goods."

"That 'tis unlawful to fight at all, or to kill any man, yea to kill any

of the creatures for our use, as a chicken, or on any other occasion."

[Footnote: _Gangræna_, Part I. pp. 15-31.]

From this little enumeration it will be seen that we have not, even in

the nineteenth century, advanced so far as perhaps we had thought beyond

English notions of the seventeenth. But there must be added a

recollection of the scurrilities against the Covenant, the Assembly as a

body, its chief Presbyterian members, and the whole Scottish nation and

its agents. These had not reached their height at the time with which we

are at present concerned (Aug. 1644); so that the richest specimens of

them have to be postponed. But already there were popular jokes about

"Jack Presbyter" the "black coats" of the Assembly, and their four

shillings a day each for doing what nobody wanted; and already a very

rude phrase was in circulation, expressing the growing feeling among the

English Independents and Sectaries that England might have managed her

Reformation better without the aid of the Scots and their Covenant. Had

England come to such a pass, it was asked, that it was necessary to set

up a Synod in her, to be "guided by the Holy Ghost sent in a cloak-bag

from Scotland"? The author of this profanity, according to Prynne, was a

pamphleteer named Henry Robinson. It was, in fact, an old joke,

originally applied to one of the Councils of the Catholic Church; and

Robinson had stolen it. [Footnote: Prynne's _Fresh Discovery_, p.27

and p.9; and _Gangræna_, Part I. p.32]

II. RECOGNISED SECTS AND THEIR LEADERS.--In the general welter or anarchy

of opinion there were, of course, vortices round particular centres,

forming sects that either had, or might receive, definite names. Edwards,

when systematizing his chaos of miscellaneous errors and blasphemies,

apportions them among sixteen recognisable sorts of Sectaries; but old

Ephraim Paget, who had preceded Edwards had been much more hazy. By

jumbling the English Sectaries with all he could recollect of the German

Sectaries of the Reformation and all he could hear of the Sects of New

England, he had made his list of Sects and subdivisions of Sects mount up

to two or three scores. Using Edwards and old Ephraim, with hints from

Featley, Prynne, and Baillie, but trying to ascertain the facts for

ourselves, we venture on the following synoptical view of English Sects

and Sectaries in 1644-5:--

BAPTISTS, OR ANABAPTISTS:--These were by far the most numerous of the

Sectaries. Their enemies (Featley, Paget, Edwards, Baillie, &c.) were

fond of tracing them to the anarchical German Anabaptists of the

Reformation; but they themselves claimed a higher origin. They

maintained, as Baptists do still, that in the primitive or Apostolic

Church the only baptism practised or heard of was that of adult

believers, and that the form of the rite for such was immersion in water;

and they maintained farther that the Baptism of Infants was one of those

corruptions of Christianity against which there had been a continued

protest by pure and forward spirits in different countries, in ages prior

to Luther's Reformation, including some of the English Wycliffites,

although the protest may have been repeated in a louder manner, and with

wild admixtures, by the German Anabaptists who gave Luther so much

trouble. Without going back, however, upon the Wycliffites, or even on

the Anabaptists that were scattered through England in the reigns of

Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, one may date the Baptists

as we have now to do with them from the reign of James.----The first

London congregation of _General Baptists_, or Baptists who favoured

an Arminian theology, had been formed, as we have seen (Vol. II. p. 544),

in 1611 out of the wrecks of John Smyth's English congregation of

Amsterdam or Leyden, brought back into their native land by Smyth's

successor Thomas Helwisse, assisted by John Murton. Although there are

traces of this congregation for several years after that date, it seems

to have melted away, or to have been crushed into extinction by the

persecution of its members individually; so that the Baptists of whom we

hear as existing in London, or dispersed through England, after the

opening of the Long Parliament, appear to have been rather of the kind

known as _Particular Baptists_, holding a Calvinistic theology, and

generated out of the Independent congregations that had been established

in London and elsewhere after Helwisse's and on different principles

(Vol. II. pp. 544 and 585). In some of these congregations, including

that taught by a certain very popular Samuel Howe, called "Cobbler Howe"

from his trade, who died in prison and excommunicated some time before

1640, Pædobaptism appears to have become an open question, on which the

members agreed to differ among themselves. On the whole, however, the

tendency was to the secession of Antipædobaptists from congregations of

ordinary Independents, and to the formation of the seceders into distinct

societies. Thus we hear of a Baptist congregation in Wapping formed in

1633 by a John Spilsbury, with whom were afterwards associated William

Kiffin and Thomas Wilson; of another formed in Crutched Friars in 1639 by

Mr. Green, Paul Hobson, and Captain Spencer; and of a third, formed in

Fleet Street, in 1640, by the afterwards famous Praise-God Barebone:

these three congregations being all detachments from Henry Jacob's

original Independent congregation of 1616 during the ministries of his

successors, Lathorp and Henry Jessey. In spite of much persecution,

continued even after the Long Parliament met, the Baptists of these

congregations propagated their opinions with such zeal that by 1644 the

sect had attained considerably larger dimensions. In that year they

counted seven leading congregations in London, and forty-seven in the

rest of England; besides which they had many adherents in the Army.

Although all sorts of impieties were attributed to them on hearsay, they

differed in reality from the Independents mainly on the one subject of

Baptism. They objected to the baptism of infants, and they thought

immersion, or dipping under water, the proper mode of baptism: except in

these points, and what they might involve, they were substantially at one

with the Congregationalists, This they made clear by the publication, in

1644, of a Confession of their Faith in 52 Articles--a document which, by

its orthodoxy in all essential matters, seems to have shamed the more

candid of their opponents. Even Featley was struck by it, and called it

"a little ratsbane in a great quantity of sugar," and became somewhat

more civil in consequence. It was signed for the seven Baptist

congregations of London by these seven couples of persons--Thomas Gunn

and John Mabbit; John Spilsbury and Samuel Richardson; Paul Hobson and

Thomas Goare; Benjamin Cox and Thomas Kilcop; Thomas Munden and George

Tipping; William Kiffin and Thomas Patience; Hanserd Knollys (Vol. II.

557 and 586) and Thomas Holmes. These fourteen, accordingly, with Praise-

God Barebone, were in 1644 the Baptist leaders or chief Baptist preachers

in London. We hear, however, of other Baptist preachers and pamphleteers

--John Tombes, B.D. (accounted the most learned champion of the sect, and

its intellectual head), Francis Cornwall, M.A., Henry Jessey, M.A. (a

convert to baptism at last), William Dell, M.A., Henry Denne, Edward

Barber, Vavasour Powell, John Sims, Andrew Wyke, Christopher Blackwood,

Samuel Oates, &c. Several of these leading Baptists--such as Tombes,

Cornwall, Jessey, Cox, and Denne--were University men, who had taken

orders regularly; one or two, such as Patience and Knollys, had been

preachers in New England; but some were laymen who had recently assumed

the preaching office, or been called to it by congregations, on account

of their natural gifts. The Presbyterians laid great stress on the

illiteracy of some of the Baptist preachers and their mean origin.

Barebone was a leather-seller in Fleet Street; and, according to Edwards

or his informants, Paul Hobson was a tailor from Buckinghamshire, who had

become a captain in the Parliamentary Army; Kiffin had been servant to a

brewer; Oates was a young weaver; and so on. The information may be

correct in some cases, but is to be received with general caution; as

also Edwards's stories of the extravagant practices of the Baptists in

their conventicles and at their river-dippings. Any story of the kind was

welcome to Edwards, especially if it made a scandal out of some dipping

of women-converts by a Baptist preacher. Baillie, who took more trouble

in sifting his information, and who distinctly allows that the

Anabaptists, like other people, ought to have the benefit of the

principle "Let no error be charged upon any man which he truly

disclaims," and that the errors of some of the sect ought not to be

charged upon all, yet maintains that the Confession of the seven Baptist

Churches of London was but an imperfect and ambiguous declaration of the

opinions of the English Baptists. He attributes to them collectively the

following tenets, in addition to those of mere Antipædobaptism and rigid

Separatism:--"They put all church-power in the hand of the people;" "They

give the power of preaching and celebrating the sacraments to any of

their gifted members, out of all office;" "All churches must be

demolished: they are glad of so large and public a preaching place as

they can purchase, but of a steeple-house they must not hear;" "All

tithes and all set stipends are unlawful; their preachers must work with

their own hands, and may not go in black clothes." According to Baillie,

also, the Baptists outwent even the Brownists in the power in church

matters they gave to women. There were many women-preachers among them;

of whom a Mrs. Attaway, "the mistress of all the she-preachers in Coleman

Street," was the chief. [Footnote: Crosby's _History of the English

Baptists_ (1738), Vol. I. pp. 215-382; Ivimey's _Baptists_, I. 113 _et

seq._; Featley's _Dippers Dipt_, and _Animadversions on the Anabaptists'

Confession_; _Gangræna passim_; Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. p. 47

_et seq._; Neal's Puritans, III. 147-152, with Toulmin's Supplement to

that Vol., 517-530. The Confession of the Baptists is given in Neal;

Appendix to the whole work; also in Crosby, Appendix to Vol. I]

OLD BROWNISTS:--By this name may be called certain adherents of that

vehement Independency, more extreme than mere Congregationalism, which

had been propagated in Elizabeth's reign by Robert Brown himself. Brown's

writings, we learn from Baillie, had totally disappeared in England; so

that the so-called _Brownists_ can hardly have been his direct

disciples, but must have been persons who had arrived at some of his

opinions over again for themselves. Briefly, without being Baptists, they

were more violent Separatists, more fierce in their rejection of the

discipline, worship, and ordination of the Church of England than the

Independents proper. Henry Burton, minister of Friday Street church, now

between fifty and sixty years of age, was one of the chief of them, and

his _Protestation Protested_ (Vol. II. 591-2) may be regarded as a

manifesto of their views. Even the Independents of the Assembly disowned

these views. Mr. Nye had said of the book that "there was in that book

gross Brownism which he nor his brethren no way agreed with him in;" and

Edwards had heard stories of queer goings-on in Mr. Burton's church, and

his quarrel with "a butcher and some others of his church" about

prophesying. Among the Brownists, besides Burton, Edwards names

prominently "Katherine Chidley, an old Brownist, and her son, a young

Brownist, a pragmatical fellow," who preached in London, and occasionally

went on circuit into the country. Edwards characterizes Mrs. Chidley as

"a brazen-faced audacious old woman;" but we know the motive. He had not

forgotten the thrashing in print he had received from Mrs. Chidley in

1641 (Vol. II. 595). [Footnote: Paget's _Heresiography_, pp. 55-82 (a

great deal about the Brownists; but with next to no real information);

Edwards's _Gangræna_, Part I. pp. 62-64 and Part III. 242-248 (gossip

about Burton); and Part III. 170, 171 (about Chidley); Baillie's Letters,

II. 184 and 192; Hanbury's Historical Memorials, II. 108 _et seq._]

ANTINOMIANS:--The origin of this heresy is attributed to Luther

contemporary and fellow townsman, John Agricola, of Eisleben in Saxony

(1492-1566); but the Antinomians of New England, and their chief Mrs.

Hutchinson, had recently been more heard of. The story of poor Mrs.

Hutchinson, the chief of these New England Antinomians, has already been

told by us (Vol. II.371-7), as far as to the beginning of 1643, when we

left her, a widow with a family of children, including a married daughter

and that daughter's husband, beyond the bounds of New England altogether,

and seeking rest for her wearied mind, and a home for her little ones, in

the Dutch plantations somewhere near what is now New York. The sad end

has now to be told. The Indians and the Dutch of those parts were then at

feud; and in September 1643, in an inroad of the Indians into the

plantation where Mrs. Hutchinson was, she and all her family were

murdered, with the exception of a little daughter eight years of age, who

was carried into captivity among the Indians, and not recovered till four

years afterwards. The news of this tragic end of Mrs. Hutchinson had been

brought across the Atlantic, and had added to the interest of pious

horror with which her previous career of heresy in Massachusetts had been

heard of by the orthodox in England. Mrs. Hutchinson and her

Antinomianism, in fact, were already the subjects of a dreadful popular

myth. Here, for example, is old Father Ephraim's account of the New

England Antinomians, as he had compiled it from information received

direct from America:--"Some persons among those that went hence to New

England being freighted with many loose and unsound opinions, which they

durst not here, they there began to vent them ... working first upon

women, traducing godly ministers to be and preach under Covenant of

Works, dropping their baits by little and little and angling yet further

when they saw them take, and fathering their opinions on those of the

best quality in the country; and, by means of Mrs. Hutchinson's double

weekly lecture at Boston, under pretence of repeating Mr. Cotton's

sermons, these opinions were quickly dispersed before authority was

aware." But at length, when the infant church in America had been thus

"almost ruinated," the judgments of God overtook the prime fomenters of

the heresy in a notorious manner. "As, first, Mistress Hutchinson, the

Generalissimo, the high-priestess of the new religion, was delivered at

one time of 30 monstrous births, or thereabouts, much about the number of

her monstrous opinions; some were bigger, some less, none of them having

human shape, but shaped like her opinions: Mistress Dyer also, another of

the same crew, was delivered of a large--" [here follows a minute

description of a feminine monster that would have made the fortune of any

travelling showman, so complexly-horrible was its physiology]. Thus God

punished those monstrous "wretches," But the civil authorities of New

England, as we know, had punished them too. "God put it into the hearts

of the civil magistrates to convent the chief leaders of them; and, after

fruitless admonitions given, they proceeded to sentence: some they

disfranchised, others they excommunicated, and some they banished. A

seditious minister, one Mr. Wheelwright, was one, and Mrs. Hutchinson

another; who, going to plant herself on an island, called Rhode Island,

under the Dutch, where they could not agree, but were miserably divided

into sundry sects, removed from thence to an island called _Hell-

gate_ [_Hebgate_, according to Cotton Mather], where the Indians

set upon her, and slew her and her daughter, and her daughter's husband,

children, and family."--Notwithstanding this dreadful fate of the

Antinomians in America, the heresy had broken out in England. Nothing was

publicly said of the younger Sir Henry Vane in connexion with it; though,

on his return from his Massachusetts governorship, he may have brought

back in his speculative head some of the Hutchinsonian ideas. According

to Paget, the first Antinomian in London had been "one Master John

Eaton," who had been a scholar of his own (_i.e._ at Trinity College,

Oxford), and was afterwards curate of a parish near Aldgate. In fact, as

we learn from Wood, he became a minister in Suffolk, was "accounted by

all the neighbouring ministers a grand Antinomian," and suffered trouble

accordingly. But this Eaton had died in 1641, aged about 66, and leaving

but an Antinomian book or two, including "_The Honeycomb of Free

Justification_;" and the leading Antinomians were new men. One of them

was Mr. John Saltmarsh, a Cambridge graduate, and minister in Kent,

afterwards well-known as an, army-preacher and pamphleteer; another was

"one Randall who preaches about Spittal Yard."--The nature of the

Antinomian doctrines, "opening such a fair and easy way to heaven," made

them very popular, it appears, in London and elsewhere. Many ran after

their preachers, "crowding the churches and filling the doors and

windows," for "Oh, it pleaseth people well," adds old Father Ephraim, "to

have heaven and their lusts too." Notwithstanding this imputation, and

illustrative scandals in Edwards, it really appears that Antinomianism

took itself out in high mystic preaching of justification by faith, the

doctrine of assurance, and the privileges of saintship. The wild phrases

that came in such preaching were the chief offence. [Footnote: Cotton

Mather's _Magnalia_, Book VII. p. 19; Palfrey's Hist. of New England, I.

609, Note; Paget, 105-118; Wood's Athenæ, III. 21 (for more about Eaton);

_Gangræna_ in several places, for references to Saltmarsh and Randall.

Baillie in his _Dissuasive_ (pp. 57-64) has much the same story as Paget

about Mrs. Hutchinson and the New England Antinomians, and attributes the

rise of that heresy to the evil influence of Independency.--The idiotic

and disgusting myth of the monstrous _accouchements_ of the two

Antinomian women seems to have found great favour with the orthodox: and

it figures in many pious books of the time and afterwards. It seems

actually to have originated in America, and to have been widely believed

there, while Mrs. Hutchinson was alive; for Cotton Mather, repeating it,

with the most abject good faith, and in great detail, as late as 1702

(_Magnalia_, VII. 20), quotes a letter of Mr. Thomas Hooker, to the

effect that at the very time of one of the diabolic _accouchements_, Mrs.

Dyer's (Oct. 17, 1637), the house in which her and his wife were sitting

was violently shaken, as if by an earthquake, for the space of seven or

eight minutes. Mather also avers that there was an investigation of the

affair by the magistrates at the time.]

FAMILISTS:--Probably because there had been a continental sect of this

name in the sixteenth century, founded by a David George of Delft,

Edwards includes _Familists_ among his leading English sorts of

Sectaries, and Paget devotes ten pages to them. Paget, however, admits

that they were "so close and cunning that ye shall hardly ever find them

out." If there really was such an English sect, their main principle

probably was that every society of Christians should be a kind of family-

party, jolly within itself in confidential love-feasts and exchanges of

sentiment, and letting the general world and its creeds roar around

unquestioned and unheeded. Baillie, however, in an incidental notice of

Familism in the Second Part of his _Dissuasive_, gives a somewhat

different account. It was, according to him, a wild development of

Anabaptism, of which not a few once "counted zealous and gracious" were

suspected--including "a great man, a peer of the land." It had a public

representative in Mr. Randall, who had "for some years preached peaceably

in the Spital" (already mentioned among the Antinomians), and of whom

Baillie had heard that he entertained such ideas as these, though

reserving them probably as esoteric mysteries for the highest class of

the Family of Love--"that all the resurrection and glory which Scripture

promises is past already, and no other coming of Christ to judgment, or

life eternal, is to be expected than what presently in this earth the

saints do enjoy; that the most clear historic passages of Scripture are

mere allegories; that in all things, Angels, Devils, Men, Women, there is

but one spirit and life, which absolutely and essentially is God; that

nothing is everlasting but the life and essence of God which now is in

all creatures;" &c. We should now call this a kind of Pantheism; but

probably it was coupled with that disposition to privacy, and

indifference to creeds and controversies, which has been mentioned as the

peculiarity of Familism. Even the _Familists_, however, it seems,

had their subdivisions. One John Hetherington, a box-maker, had been a

kind of Familist, but had recanted. [Footnote: Paget, 92 102, and

137,138; _Gangræna_, Part I. 13; Baillie's _Dissuasive_ Part

II. pp. 99-104]

MILLENARIES OR CHILIASTS:--"An Heresy," says old Father Ephraim,

"frequent at this time. This sect look for a temporary [temporal] kingdom

of Christ, that must begin presently and last 1,000 years. Of this

opinion are many of our Apocalyptical men, that study more future events

than their present only." This is substantially all we have from Paget.

In fact, however, the Chiliasts or Millenarians were hardly a mere sect.

The expectation of a Millennium near at hand was very prevalent, or was

becoming very prevalent, among the English Divines of the Assembly

itself. "Many of the Divines here," wrote Baillie, September 5, 1645,

"not only Independents, but others, such as Twisse, Marshall, Palmer, and

many more, are express Chiliasts." In his _Dissuasive_, however,

where he devotes an entire chapter to this heresy of Chiliasm, he

attributes the grosser form of the heresy chiefly to the Independents. A

kind of Chiliasm or Millenarianism, he says, had been held by some former

English Divines, including Joseph Meade; but it had been reserved for two

Independents--"Mr. Archer and his colleague at Arnheim, T. G."

(_i.e._ Thomas Goodwin)--to invent new dreams on the subject; and

these had recently been adopted by Mr. Burroughs. The purport of their

doctrine was that in the year 1650, or, at the furthest, 1695, Christ was

to reappear in human form at Jerusalem, destroy the existing fabric of

things in a conflagration, collect the scattered Jews, raise martyrs and

saints from their graves, and begin his glorious reign of a thousand

years. [Footnote: Paget, 136, 137; Baillie's Letters, II. 313, and

_Dissuasive_, 224-252.]

SEEKERS:--"Many have wrangled so long about the Church that at last they

have quite lost it, and go under the name of _Expecters_ and _Seekers_,

and do deny that there is any Church, or any true minister, or any

ordinances; some of them affirm the Church to be in the wilderness, and

they are seeking for it there; others say that it is in the smoke of the

Temple, and that they are groping for it there--where I leave them

praying to God."--So far Old Ephraim; and what he says, combined with one

of Edwards's miscellaneous blasphemies already quoted, enables us to

fancy the _Seekers_. They were people, it seems, who had arrived at the

conclusion that the Supernatural had never yet been featured forth to man

in any propositions or symbols that could be accepted as adequate, and

who were waiting, therefore, for a possible "Church of the Future;"

content, meanwhile, to dwell in a Temple of smoke, or (for there is the

alternative figure) to see visions of the Future Church in the smoke of

the present Temple.--"Mr. Erbury, that lived in Wales," (but had come to

London, and then settled in Ely, whence he made excursions,) and "one

Walwyn, a dangerous man, a strong head," who laboured somewhere else, are

mentioned by Edwards as men avowing themselves in this predicament.

Baillie mentions also one Laurence Clarkson, who had passed from

Anabaptism to Seekerism, and he speaks of Mrs. Attaway, the Baptist

woman-preacher, and Mr. Saltmarsh, the Antinomian, as tending the same

way.----But the chief of the _Seekers_, perhaps the original founder of

the Sect, and certainly the bravest exponent of their principles, was a

person with whom we are already acquainted. "One Mr. Williams," writes

Baillie, June 7, 1644, "has drawn a great number after him to a singular

Independency, denying any true Church in the world, and will have every

man to serve God by himself alone, without any church at all. This man

has made a great and bitter schism lately among the Independents." Again,

on the 23rd of July, Baillie refers to the same person as "my good

acquaintance Mr. Roger Williams, who says there is no church, no

sacraments, no pastors, no church-officers or ordinance, in the world,

nor has been since a few years after the Apostles." In short, the arch-

representative of this new religion of Seekerism on both sides of the

Atlantic was no other than our friend Roger Williams, the Tolerationist

(Vol. II. 560-3, and _antè_, pp. 113-120). Through the variations of this

man's external adventures we have seen the equally singular series of

variations of his mental condition. First an intense Separatist, or

Independent of the most resolute type, but conjoining with this

Separatism a passion for the most absolute liberty of conscience and the

entire dissociation of civil power from matters of religion, then a

Baptist and excommunicated on that account by his former friends in

America, he had latterly, in his solitude at Providence, outgone Baptism

or any known form of Independency, and, still retaining his doctrine of

the most absolute liberty of conscience, had worked himself into that

state of dissatisfaction with all visible church-forms, and of yearning

quest after unattainable truth, for which the name _Seekerism_ was

invented by himself or others. Though he did not propose that preaching

should be abandoned, he had gradually settled in a notion which he thus

expresses: "In the poor small span of my life, I desired to have been a

diligent and constant observer, and have been myself many ways engaged,

in city, in country, in court, in schools, in universities, in churches,

in Old and New England, and yet cannot, in the holy presence of God,

bring in the result of a satisfying discovery that either the begetting

ministry of the apostles or messengers to the nations, or the feeding and

nourishing ministry of pastors and teachers, according to the first

institution of the Lord Jesus, are yet restored or extant." It was while

he was in this stage of his mental history that Williams came over on his

flying visit to England in the matter of the new charter for the Rhode

Island plantations. Some whiff of his strange opinions may have preceded

him; but it must have been mainly by his intercourse with leading

Londoners during his stay in England, which extended over more than a

year (June 1643--Sept. 1644), that he diffused the interest in himself

and his Seekerism which we certainly find existing in 1644. He can have

been no stranger to the chief Divines of the Westminster Assembly.

Baillie, we see, was on speaking terms with him; and it is curious to

note in Baillie's and other references to him the same vein of personal

liking for the man, running through amazement at his heresy, which

characterized the criticisms of him by his New England opponents and

excommunicants. Incidents of his visit, not less interesting now, were

two publications of his in London, his "_Key into the Language of

America_," published in 1643, and his _Bloody Tenent of Persecution_,

published in 1644.--At least the name of the sect of "The Seekers," I may

add, had struck Cromwell himself, and had some fascination for him,

whether on its own account, or from his acquaintance with Williams. "Your

sister Claypole," he wrote to his daughter Mrs. Ireton, some two years

after our present date (Oct. 25,1646), "is, I trust in mercy, exercised

with some perplexed thoughts. She sees her own vanity and carnal mind,

bewailing it: she seeks after (as I hope also) what will satisfy. And

thus to be a Seeker is to be of the best sect next after a Finder; and

such an one shall every faithful humble Seeker be in the end. Happy

Seeker, happy Finder!" [Footnote: Paget, 150; _Gangræna_, Part I. p. 24,

and p. 38; _Dissuasive_, Part II. pp. 96, 97 and Notes; Baillie's

Letters, II. 191-2 and 212; Gammell's _Life of Roger Williams_ (Boston,

1846), and Memoir of Williams, by Edward B. Underhill, prefixed to the

republication of William's _Bloody Tenent of Persecution_, by the

"Hanserd Knollys Society" (1848); Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 212.]

DIVORCERS:--"These I term _Divorcers_" says Old Ephraim, "that would

be quit of their wives for slight occasions;" and he goes on to speak of

MILTON as the representative of the sect. Featley had previously

mentioned Milton's Divorce Tract as one of the proofs of the tendency of

the age to Antinomianism, Familism, and general anarchy; and Edwards and

Baillie followed in the same strain. Milton's Doctrine of Divorce, it

thus appears, had attracted attention, and had perhaps gained some

following. Among the six caricatures of notable sects on the title-page

of Paget's _Heresiography_ is one of "THE DIVORCER"--_i.e._ a man, in an

admonishing attitude, and without his hat, dismissing or pushing away his

wife, who has her hat on, as if ready for a journey, and is putting her

handkerchief to her eyes. We shall have more to say of Milton in this

connexion. [Footnote: Paget, pp. 150, 151, p. 87, and Epistle Dedicatory,

p. 4; Fentley's _Dippers Dipt_, Epistle Dedicatory, p. 3; Edward's

_Gangræna_, Part I. p. 29.]

ANTI-SABBATARIANS, AND TRASKITES:--These sects, though distinct, may be

named together. The _Anti-Sabbatarians_ were those who denied the

obligation of any Lord's Day or Sabbath: they were pretty numerous, but

were distributed through the other sects. The _Traskites_, on the

other hand, denied the obligation of the Christian Sunday or Lord's Day,

but maintained the perpetual obligation of the Jewish Sabbath on the

seventh day of the week. They were the followers of one John Traske, a

poor eccentric who had been well known to Paget, but was now dead, and

remembered only for his heresy, for which he had been whipt, pilloried,

and imprisoned, about 1618. His opinions had been revived more ably in

certain treatises and discourses, published in 1628 and 1632, by

Theophilus Brabourne, a Puritan minister in Norfolk. Both Brabourne and

Traske had been obliged to recant their opinions and return to orthodoxy;

and indeed Traske had done so in a Tract written against himself, though

he again relapsed. Nevertheless the heresy had taken root, and one heard

in 1644 of Traskites or Sabbatarians dispersed through England. The sect

is continued still in the so-called "Seventh Day Baptists." [Footnote:

Paget, pp. 138-141; with more accurate particulars in Cox's _Literature

of the Sabbath Question_, I. 153-5, 157-8, and 162.]

SOUL-SLEEPERS OR MORTALISTS:--Such was the odd name given to a sect, or

supposed sect, represented by the anonymous author of a, Tract called

_Man's Mortality_. The Tract is now very scarce, if not utterly

forgotten; but, as it made a great stir at the time, and as we shall hear

of it and its author rather particularly again in connexion with Milton's

life, I may here give some account of it from a copy which I have managed

to see. The title in full is as follows: "Man's Mortallitie: or a

Treatise wherein 'tis proved, both Theologically and Phylosophically,

that whole Man (as a rationall creature) is a compound wholy mortall,

contrary to that common distinction of Soule and Body; and that the

present going of the Soule into Heaven or Hell is a meer fiction; and

that at the Resurrection is the beginning of our immortallity, and then

actual Condemnation and Salvation, and not before: With all doubtes and

objections answered and resolved both by Scripture and Reason;

discovering the multitude of Blasphemies and Absurdities that arise from

the fancie of the Soule: Also divers other mysteries, as of Heaven, Hell,

Christ's humane residence, the Extent of the Resurrection, the New

Creation, &c.: opened and presented to the tryall of better judgments, By

R. O. Amsterdam: Printed by John Canne, Anno Dom. 1643." In the British

Museum copy, which is the one I have seen, the word "Amsterdam" is erased

by the collector's pen, and "London" substituted, with the date "Jan. 19"

added; whence I infer that, whatever Canne at Amsterdam had to do with

the printing of the tract, it was virtually a London publication, and out

in January, 1643-4. On the title-page is quoted the text Ecclesiastes

iii. 19, thus--"That which befalleth the sonnes of men befalleth Beasts;

even one thing befalleth them all: as the one dyeth so dyeth the other;

yea they have all one breath, so that man hath no preheminence above a

Beast; for all is vanity." This gives so far the key-note to the 57 pages

of matter of the Tract itself. It is a queer mixture of a sort of

physiological reasoning, such as we should now call Materialism, with a

mystical metaphysics, and with odd whimsies of the author's own--such as

that Christ had ascended into the Sun. The leading tenet, however, is

that the notion of a soul, or supernatural and immortal essence, in man,

distinct from his bodily organism, is a sheer delusion, contradicted both

by Scripture and correct physiological thinking, and that from this

notion have arisen all kinds of superstitions and practical mischiefs.

"The most grand and blasphemous heresies that are in the world, the

mystery of iniquity and the kingdom of Antichrist, depend upon it." So

says the Tract itself; and in the first of two pieces of verse prefixed

to it by an admirer, and entitled "To His worthy Friend the Author, upon

his Booke," there occur these lines:--

"The hell-hatched doctrine of th' immortal soul

Discovered makes the hungry Furies howl,

And teare their snakey haire, with grief appaled

To see their error-leading doctrine quailed,

Hell undermined and Purgatory blown

Up in the air."

There are Latin quotations in the Tract; and some of the physiological

arguments by which the author seeks to refute the opinion of "the

Soulites," as he calls them, are rather nauseous. On the whole, were it

not for the appended concession of a Resurrection, or New Creation, and

an Immortality somehow to ensue thence, the doctrine of the Tract might

be described as out-and-out Materialism. Possibly, in spite of the

concession, this is what the author meant to drive at. Among some of his

followers, however, a milder version of his doctrine seems to have been

in favour, not quite denying the existence of a soul, but asserting that

the soul goes into sleep or temporary extinction at death, to be re-

awakened at the Resurrection. [Footnote: Paget, pp. 148, 149; _Gangræna_,

Part I. pp. 22, 23; Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. 99 and 121; but

mainly the Tract cited.]

ARIANS, SOCINIANS, AND OTHER ANTI-TRINITARIANS:--Since 1614, when Legate

and Wightman had been burnt for Arianism (Vol. I. p. 46), this and other

forms of the Anti-Trinitarian heresy had been little heard of in England.

But in the ferment of the Civil War they were reappearing. A Thomas Webb,

a young fellow of twenty years of age, had been shocking people in London

and in country-places by awful expressions against the Trinity; one

Clarke had been, doing the same; one Paul Best had been circulating

manuscripts in which there were "most horrid blasphemies of the Trinity,

of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost;" and John Biddle, of Gloucester, master

of the school there, and of whom, from his career at Oxford, high hopes

had been formed, had begun to be "free of his discourses in a Socinian

direction." Baillie adds Mr. Samuel Richardson, one of the Baptist

ministers of London, to the number of those whose Trinitarianism was

questionable, and charges the Baptists generally with laxity on that

point. In short, there was an alarm of Arianism, and other forms of Anti-

Trinitarianism, as again abroad in England. Mr. Nye, the Independent, had

been heard to say that "to his knowledge the denying of the Divinity of

Christ was a growing opinion, and that there was a company of them met

about Coleman Street, a Welshman being their chief, who held this

opinion." Coleman Street appears, indeed, to have been a very hotbed of

heresy. For here it was that JOHN GOODWIN (Vol. II. 582-4, and

_antè_, pp. 120-122) had his congregation. He had not revealed

himself fully; but the public had had a taste of him in recent pamphlets.

Baillie, on rumour, reports him as a Socinian; and Edwards, who came into

conflict with him in due time, and devotes many consecutive pages of

Billingsgate to him in the Second Part of his _Gangræna_, tells us

that he held "many wicked opinions," being "an Hermaphrodite and a

compound of an Arminian, Socinian, Libertine, Anabaptist, & c." From the

same authority we learn that the Presbyterians had nicknamed him "the

great Red Dragon of Coleman Street." What he really was we have already

seen in part for ourselves, and shall yet see more fully.[Footnote:

Paget, 132--136; _Gangræna_, Part I. pp. 21, 22, 26, 33, Part II 19-

39, and Part III. 111 and 87; Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. p.

98; also Wood's Athenæ, III. 593 (for Biddle); Baillie's Letters, II.

192, and Jackson's _Life of John Goodwin_ (1822), pp. 3 and 14.]

ANTI-SCRIPTURISTS:--"One wicked sect," says Old Ephraim, "denieth the

Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament, and account them as things

of nought; yea, as I am credibly informed, in public congregations they

vent these their damnable opinions." He gives no names; but Edwards

mentions "one Marshal, a bricklayer, a young man, living at Hackney," who

made a mock of the Scriptures in his harangues, and asserted that he

himself "knew the mystery of God in Christ better than St. Paul." A

companion of this Marshal's told the people that "the Scripture was their

golden calf and they danced round it." A Priscilla Miles had been

speaking very shockingly of the Scriptures at Norwich. But the most noted

Anti-Scripturist seems to have been a Clement Wrighter, a Worcester man,

living in London, of whom Edwards gives this terrible character--

"Sometimes a professor of religion and judged to have been godly, who is

now an arch-heretic and fearful apostate, an old wolf, and a subtle man,

who goes about corrupting, and venting his errors; he is often in

Westminster Hall and on the Exchange; he comes into public meetings of

the Sectaries upon occasions of meeting to draw up petitions for the

Parliament or other businesses. This man about seven or eight years ago

(_i.e._ about 1638) fell off from the communion of our churches to

Independency and Brownism; from that he fell to Anabaptism and

Arminianism, and to Mortalism, holding the soul mortal (he is judged to

be the author, or at least to have had a great hand in the Book of the

_Mortality of the Soul_). After that he fell to be Seeker, and is

now an Anti-Scripturist, a Questionist and Sceptick, and I fear an

Atheist." Specimens of his sayings about the Bible are given; and

altogether one has to fancy Wrighter as an oldish man, sneaking about in

public places in London on soft-soled shoes, and with bundles of papers

under his arm. I have seen a little thing printed by him in Feb. 1615-6,

under the title of "_The Sad Case of Clement Writer_," in which he

complains of injustice, to the extent of 1,500_l_., done him by the

late Lord Keeper Coventry and other judges in some suit that had lasted

for twelve years. [Footnote: Paget, 149; _Gangræna_, Part I. pp. 26-

-28; Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. 121.]

SCEPTICS, OR QUESTIONISTS:--They were those who, according to Edwards,

"questioned everything in matters of religion, holding nothing positively

nor certainly, saving the doctrine of pretended liberty of conscience for

all, and liberty of prophesying." Many besides Wrighter had reached this

stage through their anti-Scripturism, and were free-thinkers of the cold

or merely rational order, distinct from the devout and enthusiastic

Seekers. [Footnote: _Gangræna_, Part I. p. 13.]

ATHEISTS:--Although Edwards charitably hints his fear that Mr. Wrighter

had at last sunk into this extreme category, it is remarkable that

neither he nor Paget ventures to reckon _Atheists_ among the

existing Sects. Probably, therefore, there was no body of persons to

whom, with any pretext of plausibility, the name could be applied. But we

are advised of individuals here and there whom their neighbours suspected

of Atheism; and, if Edwards is to be believed, there was alive a certain

John Boggis, an apprentice to an apothecary in London, who, though at

present only a young Anabaptist preacher, and disciple of Captain Hobson,

was to go within a year or two to such unheard-of lengths about Great

Yarmouth that even Wrighter must have disowned him. [Footnote: Ibid. Part

II. 133, 134; and Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. 99.]

Such were the English Sects and Sectaries that had begun to be talked of

in 1644. Not that they were bounded off strictly from each other in

divisions according with their names. On the contrary, they shaded off

into each other; and there were mixtures and combinations of some of

them. Moreover, as the chief of them held by the Congregationalist

principle in some form, and hoped to flourish by taking advantage of that

principle, it was not unusual for Presbyterian writers to include these

along with the Congregationalists proper in the one lax designation of

Independents. At all events, the Sects hung on to the Independents

through that principle of Toleration or Liberty of Conscience which the

Independents had propounded, at first mildly, but with a tendency to less

and less of limitation. All the Sects, less or more, were TOLERATIONISTS;

the heresy of heresies in which they all agreed with each other, and with

the Independents, was LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.

RESUMPTION OF PROCEEDINGS BY THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY: DENUNCIATION OF

PICKED SECTARIES AND HERETICS.

The foregoing survey of English Sects and Sectaries and of the state of

the Toleration Controversy in 1644 has been our employment, the reader

must be reminded, during the fortnight's vacation of the Westminster

Assembly from July 23 to August 7 in that year. Something of the same

kind was the vacation-employment of the members of that Assembly too, and

especially of the Presbyterian majority. For they had been driven out of

their previous calculations by the battle of Marston Moor (July 2). That

battle had been won mainly by Cromwell, the head of the Army-

Independents, and it went to the credit of Independency. All the more

necessary was it for the Presbyterians of the Assembly to bethink

themselves of indirect means of argument against the Independents. The

means were not far to seek. Let this horrible Hydra of Sects, all bred

out of Independency, be dragged into light; and would not respectable

Independency itself stand aghast at her offspring? The word

_Toleration_ had been mumbled cautiously within the Assembly, and

had made itself heard with some larger liking in Parliament, and still

greater applause among the hasty thousands of the Parliamentary soldiers

and the populace! Let it be shown what this monstrous notion really

meant, what herds of strange creatures and shoals even of vermin it would

permit in England; and would England ratify the monstrosity, or the

Independency consociated with it, even for twenty Cromwells, or ten

Marston Moors? So, in the fort-night's vacation, reasoned Messrs.

Marshall, Lightfoot, Calamy, Palmer, Vines, Spurstow, Newcomen, Herle,

Burges, and other English Presbyterians, incited rather than repressed by

the Scottish anxiety of Rutherford, Gillespie, Baillie, and (I am afraid)

Henderson.

Accordingly, when the Assembly resumed its sittings (Wednesday, Aug. 7,

1644), its first work was to fall passionately on the Sects and the arch-

heresy of Toleration. "The first day of our sitting, after our vacance,"

says Baillie, "a number of complaints were given in against the

Anabaptists' and Antinomians' huge increase and insolencies intolerable.

Notwithstanding Mr. Nye's and others' opposition, it was carried that the

Assembly should remonstrate it to the Parliament." [Footnote: Baillie's

Letters, II. 218; corroborated by Lightfoot's Notes on the very day (p.

299).] And they did remonstrate it, without a day's delay. Friday, May 9,

as we learn from the Lords Journals, it was represented to the House of

Lords, through Mr. Marshall, by order of the Assembly, "That they have

been informed of the great growth and increase of Anabaptists and

Antinomians and other Sects; and that some Anabaptists have delivered in

private houses some blasphemous passages and dangerous opinions: They

have acquainted the House of Commons therewith; and, &c." [Footnote:

Lords Journals, Aug. 9, 1644.] Turning to the Commons Journals of the

same day we find, accordingly, a column and a half on the same subject,

with many details. Dr. Burges and Mr. Marshall had appeared before the

Commons on the same errand from the Assembly: had told the Honourable

House that many ministers and gentry all through England had long desired

to petition it "to prevent the spreading opinions of Anabaptism and

Antinomianism;" that they had been persuaded to forbear; but that now

"these men have cast off all affection and are so imbitterated" that

farther forbearance would be wrong, and the Assembly cannot but represent

to the House that "it is high time to suppress them." That the Commons

might not be left in the vague, a Mr. Picot in Guernsey, and a Mr.

Knolles, recently in Cornwall (Hanserd Knollys?), of the Anabaptist sort,

with a Mr. Randall, a Mr. Penrose, and a Mr. Simson, as of a worse sort

still (see Randall among the Antinomians and Familists in our synopsis),

were denounced by name as proper culprits to begin with. What could the

poor House of Commons do? Agreeing with the Lords, they promised to do

what they could. They would take the whole subject into their grave

consideration; they empowered the Committee for Plundered Ministers, with

a certain addition to their number, to arrest and examine the particular

culprits named; and, to prove their heartiness meanwhile, they resolved,

on that very day, "That Mr. White do give order for the public burning of

one Mr. Williams his book, intituled, &c., concerning the Tolerating of

all sorts of Religion." [Footnote: Commons Journals, Aug. 9, 1644.] This

"one Mr. Williams," as the reader will be aware, was Roger Williams, then

on his way back to America; and "his book" was _The Bloody Tenent_.

There must have been much hypocrisy, and much cowardice, in the English

House of Commons on that day. Where was the younger Sir Harry Vane?

Probably he was in the House while they passed the order, and wondering

how far Roger Williams had got on his voyage, and meditatively twirling

his thumbs.

A good stroke of business by the Westminster Assembly in two days after

their vacation! But they followed it up. There were frequent Solemn

Fasts, by Parliamentary order, in those days, when all London was

expected to go to church and listen to sermons by divines from the

Westminster Assembly. Tuesday, the 13th of August, 1644, was one of those

Solemn Fast-days--an "Extraordinary Day of Humiliation;" and the

ministers appointed by the Assembly to preach in chief--_i.e._ to

preach before the two Houses of Parliament, and the Assembly itself, in

St. Margaret's, Westminster--were Mr. Thomas Hill and Mr. Herbert Palmer.

These two gentlemen, it seems, did their duty: They satisfied even

Baillie. "Mr. Palmer and Mr. Hill," he says, "did preach that day to the

Assembly two of the most Scottish and free sermons that ever I heard

anywhere. The way here of all preachers, even the best, has been to speak

before the Parliament with so profound a reverence as truly took all edge

from their exhortations, and made all applications of them toothless and

adulatorious. That style is much changed, however: these two good men

laid well about them, and charged public and Parliamentary sins strictly

on the backs of the guilty." [Footnote: Baillie's Letters, II. 220, 221.]

As the sermons themselves remain in print, we have the means of verifying

Baillie's description. It is quite correct. Not only in the "Epistle

Dedicatory" to his sermon when it was printed did Mr. Hill denounce the

Toleration doctrine, and make a marginal reference to Roger Williams's

"_Bloody Tenent_" as a book not too soon burnt; but in the sermon

itself, the subject of which was the duty of "advancing Temple-work"

(Haggai i. 7, 8), he openly attacked two classes of persons as the chief

"underminers of Temple-work." First, he said, there were those who would

allow nothing to be _jure divino_ in the Church, but held that all

matters of Church-constitution were to be settled by mere prudence and

State-convenience--in other words, the Erastians, _They_ are lectured,

but are let off more easily than the second sort of underminers: viz.

"such who would have a toleration of all ways of Religion in this

Church." Parliament is reminded that all tendency to this way of thinking

is unfaithfulness to the Covenant, and is told that "to set the door so

wide open as to tolerate all religions" would be to "make London an

Amsterdam," and would lead to--in fact, would certainly lead to--

Amsterdamnation! So far Mr. Hill; but Mr. Palmer was even more bold.

Preaching on Psalm xcix. 8, this delicate little creature laid about him

most manfully. Parliament are rebuked for eluding the Covenant, for too

great tenderness in their dealings with delinquents, and for remissness

in the prevention and punishment of false doctrine. They are exhorted to

extirpate heresy and schism, especially Antinomianism and Anabaptism,

and, are warned at some length against the snare of Toleration. "Hearken

not--I earnestly exhort every one that intends to have any regard at all

to his solemn Covenant and oath in this second article--to those that

offer to plead for Tolerations; which I wonder how any one dare write or

speak for as they do that have themselves taken the Covenant, or know

that _you_ have. The arguments that are used in some books, well worthy

to be burnt, plead for Popery, Judaism, Turcism, Paganism, and all manner

of false religions, under pretence of Liberty of Conscience." This is

clearly an allusion to John Goodwin; and in the sequel Mr. Palmer makes

another personal allusion of still greater interest. In order to show

what a social chaos would result from toleration of error on the plea of

Liberty of Conscience, he gives instances of some of the horrible

opinions that would claim the benefit of the plea, and among these he

names Milton's Divorce doctrine, then circulating in a book which the

author had been shameless enough to dedicate openly to Parliament itself.

The particulars will be given, and the passage quoted, in due time; the

fact is enough at present. [Footnote: The title of Hill's sermon is "_The

Season for England's Selfe-Reflection and Advancing Temple-work;

discovered in a Sermon preached to the two Houses of Parliament at

Margaret's, Westminster, Aug. 13, 1614; being an extraordinary day of

Humiliation. By, &c., London: Printed by Richard Cotes, for John Bellamy

and Philerion Stephens_ 1644."--The title of Palmer's is "_The Glasse of

God's Providence towards his Faithful Ones; Held forth in a Sermon,_ &c.

[occasion and date as in Hill's]; _wherein is discovered the great

failings that the best are liable unto, upon which God is provoked

sometimes to take vengeance. The whole is applyed specially to a more

carefull observance of our late Convenant, and particularly against the

ungodly Toleration pleaded for under pretence of Liberty of Conscience.

By, &c., London: Printed by G.M. for Th. Underhill at the Bible in Wood

Street,_ 1644." Neither sermon impresses one now very favourably in

respect of either spirit or ability. I expected Palmer's to be better.]

Not content with direct remonstrance to Parliament on the subject of the

increase of sects and heresies, nor with the power of exhorting it on the

subject through the pulpit, the Presbyterians of the Assembly, I find,

resorted to other agencies. They had great influence in the City, and it

occurred to them, or to some of them, to stir up the Stationers' Company

to activity in the matter. The Stationers, indeed, had a commercial

interest, as well as a religious interest, in the suppression of the

obnoxious books and pamphlets, most of which were published without the

legal formalities of licence and registration. It is without surprise

therefore that we find this entry in the Commons Journals for Saturday,

Aug. 24, 1644: "_Ordered_ that the Petition from the Company of

Stationers be read on Monday morning next," followed by this other as the

minute of the first business (after prayers) at the next sitting,

(Monday, Aug. 26): "The humble Petition of the Company of Stationers,

consisting of Booksellers, Printers, and Bookbinders, was this day read,

and ordered to be referred to the consideration of the Committee for

Printing, to hear all parties and to state the business, and to prepare

an Ordinance upon the whole matter and to bring it in with all convenient

speed; and they are, to this purpose, to peruse the Bill formerly brought

in concerning this matter. They are diligently to inquire out the

authors, printers, and publishers of the Pamphlets against the

Immortality of the Soul and _Concerning Divorce_." It had been

determined, it seems, that Palmer's denunciation of Milton in his sermon

a fortnight before should not be a _brutum fulmen_. To the incident, as

it affected Milton himself, we shall have to refer again. Meanwhile it

belongs to that stage of the action of the Westminster Assembly on

English politics which we are now trying to illustrate.

The Assembly, we have shown, besides still carrying on within itself the

main question between Presbyterianism and Congregationalism, had begun a

wider war against Schism, Sectarianism, the whole miscellany of English

heresies, and especially the all-including heresy of Toleration. They

opened the campaign, by private agreement among themselves, in August

1644; and by the end of that month they had succeeded in rousing

Parliament to some action on the subject, and had directed attention to

at least nine special offenders, deserving to be punished first of all.

These were--the Anabaptists, Picot and Hanserd Knollys; the Antinomians,

Penrose and Simson; the Antinomian and Familist, Randall; the Seeker and

Tolerationist, Roger Williams; the Independent, semi-Socinian, and

Tolerationist, John Goodwin; the Anti-Scripturist and Mortalist, Clement

Wrighter; and Mr. John Milton of Aldersgate Street, author of a Treatise

on Divorce. For, though the Committee of Parliament had been instructed

to inquire out the author of the Divorce Treatise, this was but a form.

The second edition, dedicated to the Parliament and the Assembly, and

with Milton's name to it in full, had been out more than six months. Of

the nine persons mentioned, only Clement Wrighter, the Mortalist (if

indeed the tract on _Man's Mortality_ was from his pen), had to be

found out.

Was there to be no check to this Presbyterian inquisitorship? Whence

could a check come? The few Independents in the Assembly, just because

they were fighting their own particular battle, had to be cautious

against too great an extension of their lines. Not from _them_,

therefore, but from the freer Independency of the Army, which was in fact

by this time a composition of all or many of the sects, could the check

be expected. Thence, in fact, it did come. In short, while the

Presbyterians in London were in the flush of their first success against

the Sectaries and the Tolerationists, in walked Oliver Cromwell.

CROMWELL'S INTERFERENCE FOR TOLERATION: ACCOMMODATION ORDER OF

PARLIAMENT.

Events had been qualifying Cromwell more and more for the task. His

Independency, or let us call it Tolerationism, had been long known. As

early as March 1643-4, when he had just become Lieutenant-general in the

Earl of Manchester's army, he had been resolute in seeing that the

officers and soldiers in that army should not be troubled or kept down

for Anabaptism or the like. This had been the more necessary because the

next in command under him, the Scottish Major-general Crawford, was an

ardent and pragmatic Presbyterian. "Sir," Cromwell had written to

Crawford on one occasion, when an Anabaptist colonel had been put under

disgrace, "the State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of

their opinions; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that

satisfies. I advised you formerly to bear with men of different minds

from yourself: if you had done it when I advised you to it, I think you

would not have had so many stumbling-blocks in your way. It may be you

judge otherwise; but I tell you _my_ mind." [Footnote: Carlyle,

Cromwell (ed. 1857), I. p. 148.] Ever since that time there had been a

vital difference between the Presbyterian Major-general Crawford and his

superior, the Lieutenant-general. Gradually, according to Baillie,

Manchester, who was "a sweet, meek man," and greatly led by Cromwell, had

been brought over more to the Presbyterian way by Crawford's reasonings.

It had come to be a question, in fact, whether Cromwell and comfort or

Crawford and precision should prevail in Manchester's army. Marston Moor

(July 2) had settled that. Cromwell, as the hero of Marston Moor, was not

a man to be farther opposed or thwarted; the Independents, who had mainly

won Marston Moor, were not men to submit longer to Presbyterian

ascendancy in the regulation of the army, or to see their large-faced

English chief pestered and counterworked by a peevish Scot. Yes, but

_was_ Cromwell the hero of Marston Moor, or _had_ Marston Moor

been won mainly by the Independents? These were the questions which

Crawford, ever since the battle, had been trying to keep open. He had

been trying, as we have seen, to keep them open in London, though with

but small success; and in the Army his tongue had, doubtless, been louder

and more troublesome. At last Cromwell made up his mind. Either Crawford

must cease to be Major-general of Manchester's army, or _he_ must cease

to be Lieutenant-general. It was on this business that, in September

1644, he came up to London. There had been letters on the subject before

from both parties in the Army, the Independents pressing for Crawford's

dismissal, and the Presbyterians for retaining him. But now Manchester,

Cromwell, and Crawford had, all three, come up personally to argue the

matter out. Cromwell, it appears, was in one of those moods of

ungovernable obstinacy which always came upon him at the right time. "Our

labour to reconcile them," writes Baillie, "was vain: Cromwell was

peremptor; notwithstanding the kingdom's evident hazard, and the evident

displeasure of our [the Scottish] nation, yet, if Crawford were not

cashiered, his [Cromwell's] colonels would lay down their commissions."

There was a plot in all this, Baillie thought. The real purpose of the

Independents was to bring Manchester out of the clutches of

Presbyterianism, or, if that could not be done, to get him to resign, so

that Cromwell might succeed to the chief command; in which case the

Independents would be able to "counterbalance" the Presbyterians, and

"overawe the Assembly and Parliament both to their ends."--It was a very

proper plot, too, as every day was proving. What was the last news that

had reached London? It was that Essex, the General-in-chief, had been

totally beaten by the King in Cornwall (Sept. 1)--Essex himself obliged

to escape by ship, leaving his army to its fate; the horse, under Sir

William Balfour, to fight their way out by desperate exertion; and the

foot, under Skippon, to think of doing the same, but at last to surrender

miserably. Waller's army, also, was by this time nowhere. It had perished

by gradual desertion. Evidently, it had become a question of some moment

for the Parliamentarians _who_ had won Marston Moor, and _who_ should be

chief in Manchester's army. [Footnote: Baillie's Letters, II. 229, 230;

Rushworth V. 699 _et seq._; Whitlocke (ed. 1853), I. 302, 303; Carlyle's

Cromwell, (ed., 1857), I. 158.]

The special business which had brought Cromwell to London was, in fact,

but a metaphor of the general business then occupying the English nation.

Whether a pragmatical Presbyterian Scot should regulate the discipline of

an English Parliamentarian army, and whether the Westminster Assembly

should establish a Presbyterian Inquisitorship over the whole mind of

England, were but forms of the same question. Little wonder, then, that

Cromwell, finding himself in London on the smaller form of the business,

resolved to move also in the larger. And he did. "This day," writes

Baillie on Friday the 13th of September 1644, "Cromwell has obtained an

Order of the House of Commons to refer to the Committee of both Kingdoms

the accommodation or toleration of the Independents--a high and

unexpected Order!" Three days afterwards Baillie is still full of the

subject. "While Cromwell is here," he says, "the House of Commons,

without the least advertisement to any of us [Scottish Commissioners], or

of the Assembly, passes an Order that the Grand Committee of both Houses,

Assembly, and us, shall consider of the means to unite us and the

Independents, or, if that be found impossible, to see how they may be

tolerate. This has much affected us." On turning to the Commons Journals

we find the actual words of the Order: "_Ordered_, That the Committee of

Lords and Commons appointed to treat with the Commissioners of Scotland

and the Committee of the Assembly do take into consideration the

differences in opinion of the members of the Assembly in point of Church-

government, and do endeavour a union if it be possible; and, in case that

cannot be done, do endeavour the finding out some ways how far tender

consciences, who cannot in all things submit to the common Rule which

shall be established, may be borne with, according to the Word, and as

may stand with the public peace, that so the proceedings of the Assembly

may not be so much retarded." Mr. Solicitor St. John appears as the

reporter of the Order. Cromwell, in fact, had quietly formed a little

phalanx of the right men to carry the thing through. The younger Vane was

one of them. Even Stephen Marshall, the Presbyterian and Smectymnuan, had

to some extent aided in the contrivance, without consulting any of his

brethren of the Assembly.

The Order came upon the Presbyterians like a thunder-clap. For, as they

rightly interpreted, it was nothing less than a design to carry in

Parliament a Toleration-clause to be inserted in the Bill for

establishing Presbytery before that Bill was ready to be drafted. Of this

Baillie and his friends complained bitterly. Was it not unfair to

Presbyterianism thus to anticipate so ostentatiously that there would be

many whom it would not satisfy? Was not this framing of a Toleration-

clause, to be inserted into a Bill before the Bill itself was in being,

like a solicitation to the English people to prefer the clause to the

body of the Bill, and so to continue dubious about Presbytery, instead of

cultivating faith in its merits? So argued Baillie and the Presbyterians.

But, indeed, they saw more behind the Accommodation Order. The Toleration

it sought to provide might seem, from the wording, only a moderate

Toleration in the interest of the Independents of the Assembly and their

immediate adherents. From what Baillie says, one infers that Mr.

Solicitor St. John and Mr. Marshall had been drawing up the Order in this

moderate form, and that Cromwell and Vane would fain have had more. "The

great shot of Cromwell and Vane," says Baillie, "is to have a liberty for

all religions, without any exceptions." And of Vane he distinctly says

that he was "offended with the Solicitor" for putting only differences

about Church-government into the Toleration Ordinance, and not also

differences "about free grace, including liberty to the Antinomians and

to all Sects." At all events, he had recently, in the presence of the

Scottish Commissioners themselves, been reasoning "prolixly, earnestly,

and passionately" for universal Toleration. Probably Cromwell and Vane

were content in the meantime with what the long-headed Solicitor saw he

could pass. It could be stretched when necessary. The form was St.

John's, but the deed was Cromwell's. [Footnote: The authorities for the

interesting facts related in this paragraph which seem to have slipped

out of view of most modern writers on the history of the period are

Baillie, II 226, 229, 231, and 236, 237, and Commons Journal, Sept 13,

1644.]

After the check of this Accommodation Order of Sept. 13, 1644, the

Presbyterians of the Assembly seem to have proceeded somewhat more

temperately. Not that they gave up the fight. Their preachers before

Parliament still followed in the strain of Hill and Palmer. In a Fast-day

Sermon before the two Houses on Sept. 12, the day before the Order, the

Smectymnuan, Matthew Newcomen, had again had a slap at Toleration; on

Sept. 25 Lazarus Seaman was again at it, and actually named in his sermon

four dangerous books for Liberty of Conscience, including Goodwin's and

Williams's--the burning of which lest did not seem enough to the Rabbi,

for "the shell is sometimes thrown into the fire when the kernel is

eaten;" the respected Calamy, also a Smectymnuan, is at it again, Oct.

22, telling the Parliament that, if they do not put down Anabaptism,

Antinomianism, and Tolerationism of all religions, then _they_ are

the Anabaptists, the Antinomians, the Tolerationists; Spurstow, a third

of the Smectymnuans, is not done with it on Nov. 5. [Footnote: My notes

from a volume of the Parliamentary Sermons of 1644, kindly lent me by Mr.

David Laing] In the Assembly itself also the question of heresy,

blasphemy, and their suppression, occasionally turned up. Oct. 17, for

example, there was officially before the Assembly the case of a John

Hart, who had been making a reputation for himself in Surrey by this

hideous joke:--"Who made you? My Lord of Essex.--Who redeemed you? Sir W.

Waller.--Who sanctified and preserved you? My Lord of Warwick." This led

to a conversation in the Assembly on the increase of blasphemy, and to a

new remonstrance to Parliament on the subject.[Footnote: Lightfoot's

Notes at date named] Again, on the 22nd of November, there was a report

to the Assembly of some fresh "damnable blasphemies," more of the

doctrinal kind, and savouring of Mortalism and Clement Wrighter.

[Footnote: Lightfoot's Notes at date named.] Nor had the Assembly agreed

to let even ordinary Anabaptism and Antinomianism alone; for they had

again memorialized Parliament on the subject, and had had a rather

satisfactory response from the Commons, Nov. 15, in the form of a promise

to consider the whole matter, and an order meanwhile that no person

should be permitted to preach unless he were an ordained minister in the

English or some other Reformed Church, or a probationer intending the

ministry and duly licensed by those authorized by Parliament to give such

licence. [Footnote: Commons Journals, Nov. 15, 1644.] On the whole,

however, from September 1644 onwards through October and November, to the

end of the year, there was rather an abatement of the inquisitorial zeal

of the Assembly.

PROGRESS OF THE ASSEMBLY'S MAIN WORK: PRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT VOTED BY

PARLIAMENT.

In those months, indeed, the Assembly was unusually active over its main

work. For, though we have seen chiefly the spray of its miscellaneous

interferences with affairs, it must be remembered that it had been called

together for a vast mass of substantial work, and that it had been

steadily prosecuting that work, in Committees, Sub-committees, and the

daily meetings of the whole body. The work expected by Parliament from

the Assembly consisted of (1) the compilation of a _Confession of Faith_,

or _Articles of Religion_, which should supersede the Thirty-nine

Articles, and be the Creed of the new National Church of England about to

be established; (2) the composition of a _Catechism_ or _Catechisms_,

which should be a manual or manuals for the instruction of the people,

and especially the young, in the theology of the Articles; (3) the

devising of a _Frame of Discipline or Church-government_, to come in lieu

of Episcopacy, and form the constitution of the new National Church; and

(4) the preparation of a _Directory of Worship_, which should supplant

the Liturgy, &c., and settle the methods and forms to be adopted in

worship, and on such occasions as baptisms, marriages, and funerals. Here

was a mass of work which, at the ordinary rate of business in

ecclesiastical councils, might well keep the Assembly together for two or

three years. What amount of progress had they made at the date at which

we have now arrived?

Naturally, on first meeting, they had begun with the business of the new

Articles, or Confession of Faith. The particular form in which, by the

order of Parliament, they had addressed themselves to this business, was

that of a careful revision of the Thirty-nine Articles. With tolerable

unanimity (_antè_, pp. 5, 6 and 18,19), they had gone on in this

labour for three months, or till Oct. 12,1643; by which time they had

Calvinized fifteen of the Articles. [Footnote: Whoever wants to compare

the Westminster Assembly's Calvinized Version of the first fifteen

Articles with the original Articles will find the two sets printed

conveniently in parallel columns in _History of the Westminster

Assembly of Divines_ (1842), published at Philadelphia, U.S., by the

"Presbyterian Board of Publication."] Then, however, they had been

interrupted in this labour. The Scottish League and Covenant having come

into action, and the Scottish Commissioners having become an influence at

the back of the English Parliament, the Assembly had been ordered to

proceed to what seemed the more immediately pressing businesses of the

new Model of Church-government and the new Directory of Worship. The

business of a Confession of Faith thus lying over till it could be

resumed at leisure, the Assembly had, for more than a year, been occupied

with the Church-government question and the Directory. What tough and

tedious work they had had with the Church-government question we have

seen. Still, even in this question they had made progress. Beating the

Congregationalists by vote on proposition after proposition, the

Presbyterian majority had, by the end of October 1644, carried all the

essentials of Presbytery through the Assembly, and referred them

confidently to Parliament. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 232.] Add to this that

a new Directory of Worship had been drawn up. The Congregationalist

Brethren had been far more acquiescent in this business; and, though many

points in it had occasioned minute discussion, the Assembly were able, on

the 2lst of November, to transmit to Parliament, unanimously, a

Directory, in which everything in the shape of Liturgy or Prelatic

ceremonial was disallowed, and certain plain forms, like those of the

Scottish Presbyterian worship, prescribed instead. [Footnote: Baillie,

II. 240 and 242-3] By the end of 1644, therefore, the Westminster

Assembly had substantially acquitted itself of two out of four of the

pieces of work expected from it by Parliament--the _New Directory of

Worship_ and the _New Frame of Church-government_; and it only

remained for Parliament to sanction or reject what the Assembly had

concluded under these two heads. During November and December 1644, and

January 1644-5, accordingly, there was much discussion in both Houses of

all the points of Religion and Church-government which the new Directory

and the new Frame were to settle. The debates of the Houses during these

months, indeed, were very much those of the Assembly over again--the

Lords and Commons, though laymen, examining each proposition and each

clause for themselves, and insisting on proofs from Scripture and the

like. January 1644-5 was the great month. On the 4th of that month an

Ordinance from the Commons passed the Lords, abolishing the use of the

Prayer-book, adopting and confirming the new Westminster Directory, and

ordering it to be printed. On the 23rd of the same month, the following

Resolutions were adopted by the Commons:--

"_Resolved_: That there shall be fixed Congregations--that is, a

certain company of Christians to meet in one Assembly ordinarily for

public worship: when believers multiply to such a number that they cannot

conveniently meet in one place, they shall be divided into distinct and

fixed Congregations, for the better administration of such ordinances as

belong to them, and the discharge of mutual duties.

"_Resolved_: That the ordinary way of dividing Christians into

distinct Congregations, and most expedient for edification, is by the

respective bounds of their dwellings.

"_Resolved_: That the minister and other Church-officers in each

particular Congregation shall join in the government of the Church in

such manner as shall be established by Parliament.

"_Resolved_: That these officers shall meet together at convenient

and set times for the well-ordering of the affairs of that Congregation,

each according to his office.

"_Resolved_: That the ordinances in a particular Congregation are

Prayer, Thanksgiving, and Singing of Psalms; the Word read, though there

follow no immediate explication of what is read; the Word expounded and

applied; Catechising; the Sacraments administered; Collection made for

the Poor; Dismissing of the people with a Blessing.

"_Resolved_: That many particular Congregations shall be under one

Presbyterial government.

"_Resolved_: That the Church be governed by Congregational,

Classical, and Synodical Assemblies, in such manner as shall be

established by Parliament.

"_Resolved_: That Synodical Assemblies shall consist both of

Provincial and National Assemblies."

Dry and simple as these Resolutions look, they were the outcome of

fifteen months of deliberation, and they were of immense significance.

They declared it to be the will of Parliament that England thenceforth

should be a Presbyterian country, like Scotland. Just as Scotland was a

little country, with her 1,000 parishes or so, the inhabitants of each of

which were understood to form a particular congregation, meeting statedly

for worship, and taught and spiritually disciplined by one Minister and

certain other church-officers called Lay Elders, so England was to be a

large country of some 10,000 or 12,000 parishes and parochial

congregations, each after the same fashion. As in Scotland the parishes

or congregations, though mainly managing each its own affairs, were not

independent, but were bound together in groups by the device of

Presbyteries, or periodical courts consisting of the ministers and ruling

elders of a certain number of contiguous parishes meeting to hear appeals

from congregations, and otherwise exercise government, so the ten times

more numerous parishes of England were similarly to be grouped into

Presbyteries or Classes (Classes was the more favourite English term),

each Classis containing some ten or twelve congregations. Thus in London

alone, where there were about 120 parishes, there ought to be about

twelve Classes or Presbyteries. Finally, the Presbyteries were to be

interconnected, and their proceedings supervised, as in, Scotland, by

periodical Synods of the ministers and ruling elders of many

Presbyteries--say of all the Presbyteries of one large shire, or of

several small shires taken as a convenient ecclesiastical district. In

Scotland the practice was for all the ministers and ruling elders within

the bounds of a Provincial Synod to attend the Synod personally; but in

England, on account of her size, the plan of Synods of elected

representatives might be advisable--which, however, would not affect the

principle. In any case, the annual National Assembly of the whole Church,

which, under the new Presbyterian system, would be to England the same

Ecclesiastical Parliament that the General Assembly in Edinburgh was to

Scotland, must necessarily, like that Assembly, be constituted

representatively. Nothing less than all this was implied in the eight

Resolutions of the Commons on Friday, Jan. 23, 1644-5. By an order of

Monday the 27th, however, Mr. Rous, who had been commissioned to report

the Resolutions to the Lords, was instructed to report only four of

them,--the 3rd, the 6th, the 7th, and the 8th. The answer of the Lords on

the following day was "That this House agrees with the House of Commons

in all the Votes now brought up concerning Church-government." In

refraining from sending up all the eight Votes, the Commons appear to

have thought it best not yet positively to determine against the

Congregationalists on one or two points, including that of strict

parochialism. But in the four Votes sent up to the Lords and agreed to by

them, all the essentials of Presbytery were involved; so that from the

28th of January 1644-5 it stood registered in the Acts of Parliament that

England should, be Presbyterianized. [Footnote: Commons and Lords

Journals of dates given.]

At this stage of the proceedings we may leave the Westminster Assembly

for a while. On the 26th of December, Johnstone of Warriston and Mr.

Barclay had left it, in order to be present at the Scottish Convention of

Estates, which was to meet at Edinburgh on the 7th of January; [Footnote:

Baillie, II. 251.] and on the 6th of January Baillie and Gillespie left

it, on a weary horse-journey, in order to be present at the General

Assembly of the Scottish Kirk, which was to meet at the same place on the

22nd. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 250.] Henderson and Rutherford remained in

London. What tidings were carried by the Scottish Commissioners to

Edinburgh of the great things which the Lord had up to that time done for

the cause of Presbytery and true Religion in England may be read to this

day in the records of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish General

Assembly of 1645. Baillie's exulting speech in the Assembly is really

worth reading. [Footnote: It is given in Baillie's Letters, II. 255-257.

But see also Letter of Scottish Commissioners and Letter of Westminster

Assembly to the Scottish General Assembly, both of date Jan. 6, 1645, in

Acts of General Assembly of the Kirk.] Suffice it to say here that there

was great rejoicing in Edinburgh and in all Scotland; that the General

Assembly unanimously ratified the Westminster Directory of Worship (Feb.

3) and the Westminster Frame of Presbyterial government (Feb. 10); and

that the Scottish Parliament (Feb. 6) approved and established, for

Scotland, the Directory already established for England. Let us add that

Baillie had a pleasant holiday, revisited his wife and family in Glasgow,

and would fain have been allowed to remain in his own country

thenceforth. But this could not be. Both he and Gillespie had to obey

orders, and prepare, with sighs, for a return to London in March.

STATE OF THE WAR: SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE AND NEW MODEL.

During the six months the transactions of which, as far as the

Westminster Assembly was concerned, we have thus presented in summary

(Sept. 1644-March 1645), the hurry of more general events in England had

been very marked. Of what use was the preparation of a Presbyterian Form

of Church-government, and a Presbyterian Directory of Worship, for

England, so long as it remained uncertain whether England might not be

once again the King's, and the Parliament under his feet? And, really,

there was this danger. Marston Moor had been a great blow to the King: it

had spoilt his cause in the whole of the North. But Essex's defeat in

Cornwall (Sept. 1) had come as a terrible set-off, In the confidence of

that victory, the King was on the move out of the West back to Oxford

(Sept. 30), sending proclamations before him, and threatening a march

upon London itself. The taking of Newcastle by the Scots under Leven

(Oct. 19) was a return of good fortune for the Parliament at the right

moment; at least it provided the Londoners again with their long-missed

coals. But it had come now to be a contest between the King's main force

and the combined forces of Parliament in the South-English midlands. In

the second Battle of Newbury (Sunday, Oct. 27) the issue was tried--the

Earl of Manchester's army, with Cromwell second in it, having been joined

to the recruited armies of Essex and Waller in order to resist the King.

Manchester and Waller were the real Parliamentary commanders, Essex being

ill. It was a severe battle. The King had, on the whole, the worst; but

he got off, as Cromwell and others thought, less thoroughly beaten than

he ought to have been. [Footnote: Rushworth, V. 721-730; Carlyle's

Cromwell (ed. 1857), I. l59.] From the date of this second Battle of

Newbury, accordingly, Cromwell became the spokesman of a dissatisfaction

with the military and political conduct of the cause of Parliament as

deep and as wide-spread throughout England as that dissatisfaction with

the conduct of the religious question of which he had made himself the

spokesman six weeks before.

What Cromwell had thought when he moved the Accommodation Order of Sept.

13 had been virtually this: "Here are you discoursing about strict

Presbytery and what differences from it may be tolerated, when the real

question is whether we shall have a free England for Presbytery or

anything else to exist in, and how we can carry with us all honest men

who will fight to make such a free England." And now, when, after the

second Battle of Newbury, he again reappeared in Parliament, it was in

this prolongation, or profounder state, of the same mood:--"The time has

come when I must speak out. We, of this nation, must turn over a new

leaf. We have been fighting the King now for more than two years, and we

are very much as we were when we began. And why? Because the men who

command our armies against the King do not want really to beat him;

because they want only to _seem_ to be beating him; because the

picture they love to look on, as their heaven on earth to come, is a

picture of their gracious sovereign, after he has been beaten no more

than could be helped, surrounded by themselves as his reconciled and

pardoned ministers and chatting pleasantly with them over the deeds of

the campaigns. I say nothing personally of my Lord of Essex, or of Sir

William Waller: they are most honourable men. But I speak generally as I

feel. If the King is to be beaten, it can only be by generals who want to

beat him, who will beat him to bits, who will use all means to beat him,

who will gladly see in their armies the men who have the right

_spirit_ in them for beating him. Are these the Presbyterians only?

I trow not. I know my men; and I tell you that many of those that you

call Independents, that you call Anabaptists, Sectaries, and what not,

are among the stoutest and godliest in England, and will go as far as

any. Some weeks ago I complained to you of Major-general Crawford,

because he would trouble these men, and would have no soldiers of

Parliament in my Lord Manchester's army that did not agree with his own

notions of Religion and Church-government. _Now_ I complain of my

Lord Manchester himself. In this last Battle of Newbury, I tell you, the

King was beaten less than he might have been. He was allowed to get off.

I advised pursuing him, and my Lord Manchester would not. It was that

over again which has been from the first. And now I speak out what has

long been in my mind, and what brave men in thousands are thinking.

Before the Lord, we must turn over a new leaf in this War. We must have

an Army of the right sort of men, and men of the right sort to command

that Army."

This is a purely imaginary speech of Cromwell's; but it is an accurate

expression of several months of English history. The shrewdest of men at

all times, and also the most sincere, he was yet always the most

tempestuous when the fit time came, and it was the characteristic of his

life that he carried everything before him at such times by his bursts

and tempests. There can be no doubt that, after the second Battle of

Newbury, Cromwell was in one of his paroxysms. Of his vehemence against

Manchester at that time, and of Manchester's recriminations on him, one

may read at large in Rushworth and elsewhere. [Footnote: Rushworth, V.

732-736; Carlyle's Cromwell (ed. 1857), I. 159, 160.] The brief account

of Baillie, who had not yet left London, and was in the centre of the

whole affair, will be sufficient here. "Lieutenant-general Cromwell,"

writes Baillie, Dec. 1, "has publicly, in the House of Commons, accused

my Lord of Manchester of the neglect of fighting at Newbury. That neglect

indeed was great; for, as we now are made sure, the King's army was in

that posture that they took themselves for lost all-utterly. Yet the

fault is most in justly charged on Manchester: it was common to all the

general officers then present, and to Cromwell himself as much as to any

other. Always my Lord Manchester has cleared himself abundantly in the

House of Lords, and there has recriminate Cromwell as one who has avowed

his desire to abolish the nobility of England; who has spoken

contumeliously of the Scots' intention in coming to England to establish

their Church-government, in which Cromwell said he would draw his sword

against them; also against the Assembly of Divines; and has threatened to

make a party of Sectaries, to extort by force, both from King and

Parliament, what conditions they thought meet. This fire was long under

the emmers; now it's broken out, we trust, in a good time. It's like, for

the interest of our nation, we must crave reason of that darling of the

Sectaries [_i.e._ bring Cromwell to a reckoning], and, in obtaining

his removal from the army--which himself by his over-rashness has

procured--to break the power of that potent faction. This is our present

difficile enterprise: we had need of your prayers." [Footnote: Baillie,

II. 243-245.] In this account Baillie mixes up the proceedings in the

Commons on the 25th of November when Cromwell exhibited his charge

against Manchester, and in the Lords a few days after when Manchester

gave in his defence and countercharge, with current gossip, apparently

true enough, of Cromwell and his awful sayings in private. Evidently

Baillie thought Cromwell had ruined himself. Even the hero of Marston

Moor could not beard all respectable England in this way, and it should

not be the fault of the Scottish Commissioners if he did not find himself

shelved! Little did Baillie know with what great things, beyond all

Scottish power of resistance or machination, Cromwell's fury was

pregnant.

While Baillie was writing the passage above quoted, the Scottish

Commissioners, along with the Lord-general Essex, and some of Essex's

chief adherents, including Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapleton, were

consulting how they might trip Cromwell up. At a conference late one

night at Essex-house, to which Whitlocke and Maynard were invited, the

Scottish Chancellor Loudoun moved the business warily in a speech which

Whitlocke mischievously tries to report in its native Scotch--"You ken

vary weele that Lieutenant-general Cromwell is no friend of ours," &c.

"You ken vary weele the accord 'twixt the twa kingdoms" &c. Loudoun

wanted to know, especially from the two lawyers, whether the Scottish

plan of procedure in such cases would have any chance in England, in

other words whether Cromwell could be prosecuted as an _incendiary_;

for "you may ken that by our law in Scotland we clepe him an

_incendiary_ whay kindleth coals of contention and raiseth differences in

the State to the public damage." Whitlocke and Maynard satisfied his

lordship that the thing was possible in law, but suggested the extreme

difficulty there would be in proof, represented Cromwell's great

influence in the Parliament and the country, and in fact discouraged the

notion altogether. Holles, Stapleton, and others were still eager for

proceeding, but the Scots were impressed and thought delay would be

prudent. And so, Whitlocke tells us, the Presbyterian intriguers parted

at two in the morning, and he had reason to believe that Cromwell knew

all that had passed before many hours were over, and that this

precipitated what followed. [Footnote: Whitlocke's Memorials (edit.

Oxford, 1853), I. 3l3 _et seq._]

On Wednesday the 9th of December, at all events, the Commons having met

in grand committee on the condition of the kingdom through the

continuance of the war, there was for a time a dead silence, as if

something extraordinary was expected, and then Cromwell rose and made a

short speech. It was very solemn, and even calm, but so hazy and general

that the practical drift of it could not possibly have been guessed but

for the sequel. Almost the last words of the speech were, "I hope we have

such true English hearts, and zealous affections towards the general weal

of our mother-country, as no members of either House will scruple to

_deny themselves,_ and their own private interests, for the public

good." The words, vague enough in themselves, are memorable as having

christened by anticipation the measure for which Cromwell, as he uttered

them, was boring the way. For, after one or two more had spoken in the

same general strain, Mr. Zouch Tate, member for Northampton, did the duty

assigned him, and opened the bag which contained the cat. He made a

distinct motion, which, when it had been seconded by young Vane, and

debated by others (Cromwell again saying a few words, and luminous enough

this time), issued in this resolution, "That no member of either House of

Parliament shall during the war enjoy or execute any office or command,

military or civil; and that an ordinance be brought in to that effect."

This was on the 9th of December; and on the 19th of that month the

ordinance itself, having gone through all its stages, passed the Commons.

All London was astounded. "The House of Commons," writes Baillie, Dec.

26, "in one hour has ended all the quarrels which was betwixt Manchester

and Cromwell, all the obloquies against the General, the grumblings

against the proceedings of many members of their House. They have taken

all office from all members of both Houses. This, done on a sudden, in

one session, with great unanimity, is still more and more admired by

some, as a most wise, necessary, and heroic action; by others as the most

rash, hazardous, and unjust action that ever Parliament did. Much may be

said on both hands, but as yet it seems a dream, and the bottom of it is

not understood." To the House of Lords the _Self-denying Ordinance_

was by no means palatable. They demurred, conferred with the Commons

about it, and at last (Jan. 15) rejected it. Their chief ground of

rejection being that they did not know what was to be the shape of the

Army to be officered on the new principle, the Commons immediately

produced their scheme in that matter. The existing armies were to be

weeded, consolidated, and recruited into one really effective army of

21,000 men (of which 6,000 should be horse in ten regiments, 1,000 should

be dragoons in ten single companies, and 14,000 should be foot in

regiments of not less than 1,200 each), the whole to cost 44,955_l_.

per month, to be raised by assessment throughout the kingdom. This army,

it was farther resolved by the Commons (Jan. 21), should be commanded in

chief by the trusty and popular Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had done so well

in the North, and, under him, by the trusty and popular Major-general

Skippon, whose character for bull-headed bravery even the disaster in

Cornwall had only more fully brought out. [Footnote: I find, from the

Commons Journals, that there was a division on the question whether

Fairfax should be appointed commander-in-chief of the New Model--the

state of the vote being _Yeas_ 101 against _Noes_ 69, or a majority of 32

_for_ the appointment. The Tellers for the majority were the younger Vane

and Cromwell; for the minority, Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapleton.

There was a subsequent division, Feb. 7, on the question whether

Fairfax's choice of officers under him should be subject to Parliamentary

revision. Cromwell was one of the Tellers for the _Noes_--_i.e._ he

wanted Fairfax to have full powers. The other side, however, beat this

time by a majority of 82 against 63. After all it was arranged

satisfactorily between Fairfax and Parliament.] On the 28th of January

the _New Model_ complete passed the Commons. The Lords hesitated about

some parts of it, and were especially anxious for a provision in it

incapacitating all from being officers or soldiers in the new army who

should not have taken the Covenant: there were conferences on this point,

and a kind of compromise on it by the Commons; and on the 15th of

February the _Ordinance for New Modelling of the Army_ was finally

passed. The _Self-denying Ordinance_ was then re-introduced in a changed

form, and it passed the Lords, April 3, 1645. It ordained that all

members of either House who had since November 20, 1640, been appointed

to any offices, military or civil, should, at the end of forty days from

the passing of the Ordinance, vacate these offices, but that all other

officers in commission on the 20th of March, 1644-5, should continue in

the posts they then held.

Thus the year 1645 (beginning, in English reckoning, March 25) opened

with new prospects. Essex, Manchester, Waller, and all the officers under

them, retired into ordinary life, with thanks and honours--Essex, indeed,

with a great pension; and the fighting for Parliament was thenceforward

to be done mainly by a re-modelled Army, commanded by Fairfax, Skippon,

and officers under them, whose faces were unknown in Parliament, and

whose business was to be to fight only and teach the art of fighting.

It was high time! For another long bout of negotiations with the King,

begun as early as Nov. 20, 1644, and issuing in a formal Treaty of great

ceremony, called "The Treaty of Uxbridge," had ended, as usual, in no

result. Feb. 22, it had been broken off after such a waste of speeches

and arguments on paper that the account of the Treaty occupies ten pages

in Clarendon and fifty-six folio pages in Rushworth. It was clear that

the year 1645 was to be a year of continued war. [Footnote: For this

story of the Self-denying Ordinance and the New Modelling of the Army

authorities are--Rushworth, VI. 1-16; Baillie, II. 247; Carlyle's

Cromwell (ed. 1857), I. 160-163. The Uxbridge Treaty is narrated in

Clarendon's Hist. (one-volume ed. 1843), pp. 520-530, and in Rushworth,

V. 787-842.]

PARLIAMENTARY VENGEANCES: DEATH OF LAUD.

Ere we pass out of the rich general history of this year 1644, the year

of Marston Moor, we must take note of a few vengeances and deaths with

which it was wound up. The long-deferred trial of poor Laud, begun March

12, 1643-4, after he had been more than three years a prisoner in the

Tower, and they might have left him there in quiet, had straggled on

through the whole of 1644. The interest in it had run, like a red thread,

through the miscellany of other events. The temper of the people had been

made fiercer by the length of the war, and there was a desire for the old

man's blood. The Presbyterian ministers of the Assembly, I find, fostered

this desire. In that very sermon of Herbert Palmer's before Parliament

(Aug. 13) in which he had called for the extirpation of heresy and

schism, and denounced Milton, there was an express passage on the duty of

"doing justice upon Delinquents impartially and without respect of

persons." [Footnote: Palmer's Sermon, p. 48.] Calamy in his sermon, Oct.

22, followed, and told the Parliament, "All the guilty blood that God

requires you in justice to shed, and you spare, God will require the

blood at your hands." [Footnote: Calamy's Sermon, p. 27.] Mr. Francis

Woodcock, preaching Oct. 30, was even more decided. His sermon, which was

on Rev. xvi. 15, is a very untastefully-worded discourse on the propriety

of always being on the watch so as not to be taken by surprise without

one's garments; and, among the rather ludicrous images which his literal

treatment of the subject suggests, we come upon a passage describing one

of four pieces of raiment which the State ought never to be caught

without. He calls it the "Robe of Justice," and adds, "Would God this

robe were often worn, and dyed of a deeper colour in the blood of

Delinquents. It is that which God and man calls for. God repeats it,

_Justice, Justice_; we, echoing God, cry _Justice, Justice_; and let me

say, perhaps we should not see other garments so much rolled in blood,

did we not see these so little." [Footnote: Woodcock's Sermon, pp 30,

31.] Baillie, I am glad to think, was more tender-hearted. There was,

indeed, one Delinquent for whom Baillie would have had no mercy--Dr.

Maxwell, the Scottish ex-Bishop of Ross, who had published at Oxford, in

the King's interest, "a desperately malicious invective" against Scottish

Presbytery and its leaders. "However I could hardly consent to the

hanging of Canterbury himself, or of any Jesuit," Baillie had written,

July 16, 1644, after his first indignant sight of this book, "yet I could

give my sentence freely against that unhappy liar's [Maxwell's] life."

But, indeed, the Scottish Commissioners and the Scottish nation were

conjoined as parties with the English Presbyterians and the English

Parliamentarians generally (Prynne ruthlessly busy in getting up the

evidence) in the long prosecution of Laud. It was all over on the 10th of

January, 1644-5. On that day Laud, aged 72, laid his head upon the block

on a scaffold in Tower Hill. Hanging had been commuted, with some

difficulty, to beheading. He died brave, raspy, and High-Church to the

last. [Footnote: Rushworth's main account of the trial and last days of

Laud is in Vol. V. pp, 763-786. The "History of the Troubles and Tryal of

William Laud," edited by Wharton, in two vols. folio, appeared in 1695-

1700.]--Minor executions about the same time were those of Hugh Macmahon

and Lord Maguire for their concern in the Irish rebellion and massacre,

Sir Alexander Carew for treachery at Plymouth, and the Hothams, father

and son, for treachery at Hull. One Roger L'Estrange, a younger son of a

Norfolk family, had been condemned to be hanged in Smithfield for an

underhand attempt to win the town of Lynn for the King; but he was

reprieved, lay in Newgate for some years, and lived for sixty years

longer, to be known, even in Queen Anne's time, as Sir Roger L'Estrange,

the journalist.

CHAPTER II.

MILTON AMONG THE SECTARIES, AND IN A "WORLD OF DISESTEEM": STORY OF MRS.

ATTAWAY--SAMUEL HARTLIB, JOHN DURIE, AND JOHN AMOS COMENIUS: SCHEMES OF A

REFORMED EDUCATION, AND PROJECT OF A LONDON UNIVERSITY--MILTON'S _TRACT

ON EDUCATION_, AND METHOD WITH HIS PUPILS--HIS SECOND DIVORCE TRACT,

OR COMPILATION FROM BUCER--MR. HERBERT PALMER'S ATTACK ON MILTON FROM THE

PULPIT--MILTON AND THE STATIONERS' COMPANY: THEIR ACCUSATION OF HIM IN A

PETITION TO THE COMMONS--HIS _AREOPAGITICA_, OR SPEECH FOR THE

LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING--ANGER OF THE STATIONERS, AND THEIR

COMPLAINT AGAINST MILTON TO THE LORDS: CONSEQUENCE OF THE COMPLAINT--THE

DIVORCE QUESTION CONTINUED: PUBLICATION OF MR. HERBERT PALMER'S SERMON,

AND FARTHER ATTACKS ON MILTON BY PRYNNE, DR. FEATLEY, AND AN ANONYMOUS

PAMPHLETEER--_TETRACHORDON AND COLASTERION_: THEIR REPLIES TO THE

ASSAILANTS.

Ever since August 1643, when Milton had published his extraordinary

_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, but more especially since Feb.

1643-4, when he had published the second and enlarged edition of it, with

his name in full, and the dedication to Parliament and the Westminster

Assembly, his reputation with orthodox English society had been definite

enough. He was one of those dreadful Sectaries! Nay he was a Sectary more

odious than most; for his was a _moral_ heresy. What was Independency,

what was Anabaptism, what was vague Antinomianism, compared with this

heresy of the household, this loosening of the holy relation on which all

civil society depended? How detestable the doctrine that, when two

married people found they had made a mistake in coming together, or at

least when the husband could declare before God and human witnesses his

irreconcilable dissatisfaction with his wife, then it was right that the

two should be separated, with liberty to each to find a new mate! True,

it was an able man who had divulged this heresy, one who had brought

applauses from Cambridge, who was said to have written beautiful English

poems, who had served the cause of Parliament by some splendid pamphlets

for Church-reformation and against Episcopacy, and who had in these

pamphlets encountered even the great Bishop Hall. All this only made the

doctrine more dangerous, the aberration more lamentable. This Mr. Milton

must be avoided, and denounced as a Sectary of the worst kind! Some said

it was all owing to the conduct of his wife, a rank Royalist, who had

deserted him and gone back to her friends! If that were the case, he was

to be pitied; but perhaps there were two sides to that story too!

There must have been much gossip of this kind, about Milton and his

Divorce Treatise, in the booksellers' shops near St. Paul's, and even

round the Parliament in Westminster, in the early months of 1644. The

gossip may have affected Milton's relations with some of his former

friends and acquaintances. If Bishop Hall, when he first saw the

treatise, and perceived its literary ability, "blushed for his age" that

so "scandalous" a thing should have appeared, and if even Howell the

letter-writer, in his prison, thought it the impudent production of "a

poor shallow-brained puppy," what could Milton's orthodox and reverend

Smectymnuan friends--Marshall, Calamy, Young, Newcomen, and Spurstow--

think or say about it? Shocked they must have been; and, knowing Milton's

temper, and with what demeanour he would front any remonstrances of

theirs, they probably left him alone, and became scarcer in their visits

to Aldersgate Street. It would not do to keep up the Smectymnuan

connexion too visibly after what had happened. Or, if Young could not

break off so easily, but would still call to see his old pupil, and to

talk with old Mr. Milton about the Bread Street days, how the good man

must have yearned to speak sometimes when the old gentleman was out of

the way, and he and Milton were alone. "O my dear Mr. Milton, how much we

are all concerned about that pamphlet! I am not going to argue it with

you; I know you too well, and how little influence my reasonings could

have with you now in any such matter; and it is my comfort at least to be

able to tell some of my Assembly friends that, if they knew you as well

as I do, they would be sure that nothing you do but is done in a great

spirit and with a high intention. But, dear me! it is a terrible opinion

you have broached!" To something like this Milton may have listened, more

or less patiently; or he may have imagined it in Young's mind, if it was

not uttered. The mutual regard between Young and his old pupil did not

suffer so much from the trial but that we find Milton still willing to

acknowledge publicly the connexion that had subsisted between them.

On the whole, it is certain that one consequence of the outcry about

Milton's treatise among the London Presbyterians, and especially among

the city clergy and the Divines of the Assembly, was to drive Milton more

arid more into the society of those who had begun to dislike and to dread

the ascendancy of the Presbyterians. Finding himself, almost from the

first publication of the treatise, as he tells us, in "a world of

disesteem" on account of it, he naturally held intercourse more and more

with those who, though they may not have approved of _his_ particular

heresy, yet, as being themselves voted heretics on other accounts, were

more easy in their judgments of all extreme opinions. I believe, in fact,

that, could Milton's acquaintanceships in London from the winter of 1643-

4 onwards be traced and recovered, they would be found to have been

chiefly among the Independents, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers, and

other Tolerationists. What were the religious opinions of the Lady

Margaret Ley, that "woman of great wit and ingenuity," and her husband

Captain Hobson, "a very accomplished gentleman," with both of whom he was

so intimate about this time, and who, as Phillips tells us, "had a

particular honour for him and took much delight in his company," must be

left to conjecture. [Footnote: It has been in my mind whether the Captain

Hobson who was the Lady Ley's husband, and whom Dagdale describes as "...

Hobson of... in the Isle of Wight, Esq.," can by possibility have been

the same person as the Baptist preacher, Paul Hobson, who was also a

Captain in the Parliamentary Army, and who figures much in Edwards's

_Gangræna_ and in other books of the time, under the express name of

"Captain Hobson," as a leading Sectary, though Edwards will have it that

he was originally "a tailor from Buckinghamshire" (_antè_, p. 148). The

supposition seems so absurd that I hardly like to mention that I spent

hours in turning over Paul Hobson's published sermons and Baptist

treatises in case I might come on any confirmation of it--which I did

_not_.]

From Milton's Sonnet to the Lady Margaret one may safely infer at least

that she was a woman of liberal principles as well as wit. Probably her

house was the resort of a good many of what would now be called the

"advanced" or "strong-minded" Christians of both sexes then in London;

and Milton may there have extended his acquaintance with such, and have

even been an object of peculiar interest to some of one sex, as "that

handsome, fair gentleman, now talking to Lady Margaret, who is a great

scholar and a poet, and whose wife has left him shamefully, so that he

wants to be divorced from her, and has written a book which quite proves

it." Milton's acquaintance with Roger Williams, at all events, is almost

certainly to be dated from Williams's visit to England in 1643-4, when he

was writing his _Bloody Tenent_; and if Milton, at the same time,

did not become acquainted with John Goodwin of Coleman Street, it would

be a wonder.

STORY OF MRS. ATTAWAY.

We must, I am sorry to say, descend lower in the society of London, in

and about 1644, than the Lady Margaret Ley's drawing-room, or the level

of marked men like Williams and Goodwin, if we would understand how

Milton's Divorce opinion had begun to operate, and with what consequences

of its operation his name was associated. The reader may remember a Mrs.

Attaway, mentioned by us among both the Baptists and the Seekers, and as

perhaps the most noted of all the women-preachers in London (_antè_,

pp. 149, 153). She was, it seems, a "lace-woman, dwelling in Bell Alley

in Coleman Street," and preaching on week-day afternoons in that

neighbourhood, with occasional excursions to other parts of the city

where rooms could be had. Sometimes other "preaching-women" were with

her, and the gatherings, though at first of her own sex only, soon

attracted curious persons of the other. From the descriptions of what

passed in some of them, it would appear that, though the meetings were

for worship, and there were regular discourses by Mrs. Attaway and

others, free talk and criticism was permitted to all present, so that the

conventicle took on sometimes the aspect of a religious debating society.

Well, Mrs. Attaway, among others, had got hold of Milton's Divorce

Treatise, and had been reading it. "Two gentlemen of the Inns of Court,

civil and well-disposed men," who had gone "out of novelty" to hear her,

afterwards told _Gangræna_ Edwards of some "discourse they had had

with her." Among other passages she "spoke to them of Master Milton's

_Doctrine of Divorce_, and asked them what they thought of it;

saying "it was a point to be considered of, and that she, for her part,

would look more into it, for she had an unsanctified husband, that did

not walk in the way of Sion, nor speak the language of Canaan." Edwards

does not give the date of this conversation with Mrs. Attaway; and,

though presumably in 1644, it may have been later. He evidently

introduces it, however, in order to implicate Milton in the subsequent

break-down, which he also reports, of the poor woman morally. For, if Mr.

Edwards is to be believed, Mrs. Attaway did "look more into" Milton's

doctrine, and at length acted upon it. Some time in 1645 she abjured her

"unsanctified husband" Mr. Attaway, who, besides being unsanctified, was

then absent in the army, leaving her alone in her lace-shop, and

transferred herself to a man named William Jenney, an occasional

preacher, who was much more sanctified, and was also on the spot. Mr.

Jenney had, unfortunately, a wife already, some children by her, and one

expected; but ho too had been meditating on the Divorce Doctrine, and had

used his Christian liberty. Mr. Edwards had been most particular in his

investigations. He had actually procured from a sure hand the copies of

two letters-taken from the original letters, and compared by a minister

with the originals--one of William Jenney to his wife since he went away

with Mistress Attaway, the other of Mistress Attaway to William Jenney

before his going away." He refrains from printing the letters

_verbatim_, as they were too long; but he gives extracts. "I thought

good to write to you these few lines," writes Jenney to the deserted Mrs.

Jenney, Feb. 15, 1645, "to tell you that, because you have been to me

rather a disturber of my body and soul than to be a meet help for me----

but I silence! And, for looking for me to come to you again, I shall

never come to you again any more. I shall send unto you never no more

concerning anything." If this actually was Jenney's letter, Mrs. Attaway

was worth ten of him, and deserved a better second. "Dearest friend and

well-beloved in the Lord," so she had begun the letter sent to him while

he was still Mrs. Jenney's, and which had got into Mrs. Jenney's hands,

"I am unspeakably sorry in respect of thy sufferings, I being the object

that occasioned it." The sufferings were Mrs. Jenney's bastings of him

because he was always with Mrs. Attaway. In good time, Mrs. Attaway goes

on to say, he would be delivered from these. "When Jehoshaphat knew not

what to do, he looked to the Lord. Let _us_ look to Him, believing

confidently in Him with the faith of Jesus; and no question but we shall

be delivered. In the mean season I shall give up my heart and affections

to thee in the Lord; and, whatsoever I have or am in Him which is our

Head, thou shalt command it." The event, according to Edwards, was that

Mr. Jenney and Mrs. Attaway eloped together, Mrs. Attaway having

persuaded Jenney that she should never die, but that, in obedience to a

heavenly message, they must go to Jerusalem, and repair that city in

anticipation of the bringing of all the Saints to it in ships to be sent

from Tarshish. I suspect they went only to Jericho. [Footnote: This story

of Mrs. Attaway is from Edwards's _Gangræna_, Part II. pp. 31, 32, 113-

115; _Fresh Discovery_, appended to Second Part of _Gangræna_, p. 9; and

Third Part of _Gangræna_, pp. 25-27 and 188. See also Baillie's

_Dissuasive_, Part II. pp. l00 and 123-4.]

All this on the faith of Mr. Edwards's statements in the _Gangræna_.

But really one should not judge of even a poor enthusiastic woman, dead

two hundred years ago, on that sole authority. Never was there a more

nauseous creature of the pious kind than this Presbyterian Paul Pry of

1644-46. He revelled in scandals, and kept a private office for the

receipt of all sorts of secret information, by word of mouth or letter,

that could be used against the Independents and the Sectaries. [Footnote:

Richard Baxter, as he himself tells us, sent communications from the

country to Edwards. His correspondents were legion, but he concealed

their names.] Yet there was a kind of coarse business-like

conscientiousness in the toad; and, though he was credulous and

unscrupulous in his collections of scandal, I do not believe he invented

documents or lied deliberately. I do not doubt, therefore, that Mrs.

Attaway, whether she went ultimately to Jericho or to Jerusalem, did know

of Milton's Divorce Doctrine, and had extracted suggestions from it

suitable to her circumstances. For, indeed, the Doctrine was likely to

find not a few whose circumstances it suited. Mr. Edwards's book is

strewn with instances of persons who had even found out a tantamount

doctrine for themselves--men who had left their wives, or wanted to do

so, and wives who had left their husbands, and who, without having seen

Milton's treatise, defended their act or their wish on grounds of

religion and natural law. Nay, in the frenzy of inquiry which had taken

possession of the English mind, everything appertaining to Marriage and

the Marriage-institution was being plucked up for fundamental re-

investigation. There were actually persons who were occupying themselves

intently with questioning the forbidden degrees of Consanguinity and

Affinity in marriage, and who had not only come to the easy conclusion

that marriage with a deceased wife's sister is perfectly legitimate, but

had worked out a general theologico-physiological speculation to the

effect that the marriage of near relatives is in all cases peculiarly

proper, and perhaps the more proper in proportion to the nearness of the

relationship. This, I imagine, was a very small sect. [Footnote: But,

unless Edwards and Baillie were both wrong, there _was_ some such

sect. See _Gangræna_, Part III. p. 187, and, more particularly,

Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. pp. 100 and 122-3.]

Let us re-ascend into more pleasant air. There was one rather notable

person in London, of the highly respectable sort, though, decidedly among

the free opinionists, whose acquaintance Milton did make about this time,

if he had not made it before, and who must be specially introduced to the

reader. This was SAMUEL HARTLIB.

SAMUEL HARTLIB: JOHN DURIE: JOHN AMOS COMENIUS, AND HIS SPECULATIONS

ABOUT A REFORMED EDUCATION--PROJECT OF A LONDON UNIVERSITY.

Everybody knew Hartlib. He was a foreigner by birth, being the son of a

Polish merchant, of German extraction, who had left Poland when that

country fell under Jesuit rule, and had settled in Elbing in Prussia in

very good circumstances. Twice married before to Polish ladies, this

merchant had married, in Prussia, for his third wife, the daughter of a

wealthy English merchant of Dantzic; and thus our Hartlib, their son,

though Prussian-born and with Polish connexions, could reckon himself

half-English. The date of his birth was probably about the beginning of

the century, _i.e._ he may have been eight or ten years older than

Milton. He appears to have first visited England in or about 1628, and

from that time, though he made frequent journeys to the Continent, London

had been his head-quarters. Here, with a residence in the City, he had

carried on business as a "merchant," with extensive foreign

correspondences, and very respectable family connexions. One of his aunts

(sisters of his mother) had married a Mr. Clark, the son of a former Lord

Mayor of London, and afterwards a Sir Richard Smith, Knight and Privy

Councillor, and again a Sir Edward Savage. The other aunt had married a

country gentleman, named Peak. A cousin of Hartlib's, the daughter of the

first and wealthier aunt, Lady Smith, became the wife of Sir Anthony

Irby, M.P. for Boston in the Long Parliament. But it did not require such

family connexions to make Hartlib at home in English society. The

character of the man would have made him at home anywhere. He was one of

those persons, now styled "philanthropists" or "friends of progress," who

take an interest in every question or project of their time promising

social improvement, have always some iron in the fire, are constantly

forming committees or writing letters to persons of influence, and

altogether live for the public. By the common consent of all who have

explored the intellectual and social history of England in the

seventeenth century, he is one of the most interesting and memorable

figures of that whole period. He is interesting both for what he did

himself and also on account of the number and intimacy of his contacts

with other interesting people. [Footnote: Memoir of Hartlib by H. Dircks,

pp 2-6, where there are extracts from an autobiographical letter of

Hartlib to Worthington, written in 1660. "The Diary and Correspondence of

Dr. John Worthington," edited by James Crossley, Esq., F.S.A. (Chetham

Society), contains many letters from Hartlib to Worthington, between 1655

and 1662, but not this one. Mr. Crossley's Diary and Correspondence of

Worthington, so far as it has gone, is one of the best edited books known

to me, the footnotes being very nuggets of biographical lore; and it is

to be regretted that the connected notices of Worthington, Hartlib, and

Durie, postponed by Mr. Crossley until the work should be completed, have

not yet appeared.]

An early friend of Hartlib, associated with him long before the date at

which we are now arrived, was that John Durie of whom, and his famous

scheme for a union of all the Protestant Churches of Europe, we have

already had to take some account (Vol. II. pp. 367-8 and 517-8). Their

intimacy must have begun in Hartlib's native town of Elbing in Prussia,

where, I now find, Durie was residing in 1628, as minister to the English

company of merchants in the town, and where, in that very year, I also

now find, Durie had the great idea of his life first suggested to him by

the Swedish Dr. Godeman. [Footnote: The proof is in statements of

Hartlib's own in a Tract of his published in 1641 under the title of "A

Briefe Relation of that which hath been lately attempted to procure

Ecclesiasticall Peace amongst Protestants."] Among Durie's first

disciples in the idea must certainly have been Hartlib; and it does not

seem improbable that, when Hartlib left Prussia, in or about 1628, to

settle in England, it was with an understanding that he was to be an

agent or missionary for Durie's idea among the English. That he did so

act, and that he was little less of an enthusiast for Durie's idea than

Durie himself, there is the most positive evidence. Thus, in a series of

letters, preserved in the State Paper Office, from Durie abroad to the

diplomatist Sir Thomas Roe, of various dates between April 1633 and Feb.

1637-8, there is incessant mention of Hartlib. In the first of these

letters, dated from Heilbron April 2/12, 1633, Durie, among other things,

begs Roe "to help Mr. Hartlib with a Petition of Divines of those

quarters concerning an Edition of a Body of Divinity gathered out of

English authors, a work which will be exceeding profitable, but will

require divers agents and an exact ordering of the work." In a subsequent

letter Durie speaks of having sent Roe, "by Mr. Hartlib, whose industry

is specially recommended," an important proposition made by the Swedish

Chancellor Oxenstiern; and in still later letters Roe is requested by

Durie to show Hartlib not only Durie's letters to himself, but also

letters about the progress of his scheme which he has enclosed to Roe for

the Archbishop of Canterbury (Abbot) and the Bishop of London (Laud). At

this point, accordingly, July 20, 1633, there is a letter of Roe's to the

Archbishop, from which it appears that Hartlib was made the bearer of

Durie's letter to his Grace. Roe recommends the blessed work in which

Durie is engaged, says that it seems to him and Durie that "there is

nothing wanting but the public declaration of his Majesty and the Church

of England" in its favour, and beseeches the Archbishop "to give his

countenance to the bearer," described in the margin as "Mr. Hartlib, a

Prussian." As Abbot was then within fifteen days of his death, nothing

can have come of the application to him; and, as we already know, his

successor Laud was a far less hopeful subject for Durie's idea, even

though recommended by Roe and explained by Hartlib. In fact, he thought

it mischievous moonshine; and, instead of giving Durie the encouragement

which he wanted, he wrote to the English agent at Frankfort, instructing

him to show Durie no countenance whatever. Durie felt the rebuff sorely.

In England, he writes, he must depend now chiefly on Roe, who could still

do much privately, apart from Laud's approbation. "Mr. Hartlib will send

anything to Durie which Roe would have communicated to him in a secret

way." So in June 1634; and fourteen months later (Aug. 1635) Durie, who

had meanwhile removed to the Hague, again writes to Roe and again relies

on Hartlib. The Dutch, he says, are slow to take up his scheme; and he

can think of nothing better in the circumstances than that Roe in England

should collect "all the advices and comments of the best divines of the

age" on the subject, and have them printed. His very best agent in such a

business would be Hartlib, "a man well known, beloved and trusted by all

sides, a man exceeding painful, diligent and cordially affected to these

endeavours, and one that for such works had lost himself by too much

charity." On independent grounds it would be well to find him "some place

suitable for his abilities, which might rid him of the undeserved

necessities whereunto his public-heartedness had brought him;" but in

this special employment he would be invaluable, being "furnished with the

Polish, Dutch, English, and Latin languages, perfectly honest and trusty,

discreet, and well versed in affairs." In the same strain in subsequent

letters. Thus, from Amsterdam Dec. 7/17, Roe is thanked for having

bestowed some gratuity on Hartlib, and Hartlib is described as, next to

Roe, "the man in the world whom Durie loves and honours most for his

virtues and good offices in Durie's cause." At the same time Durie "prays

God to free Hartlib from his straits and set him a little on horseback,"

and adds, "His spirit is so large that it has lost itself in zeal to good

things." Again, from Amsterdam Jan 25/Feb 4, 1635-6, Durie writes to Roe

and encloses a letter to be sent to his (Durie's) diocesan in Hartlib's

behalf. "Mr. Hartlib," Durie says to Roe, "has furnished his lordship

(the diocesan) with intelligence from foreign parts for two or three

years, and has not yet got any consideration. Perhaps his lordship knows

not how Hartlib has fallen into decay for being too charitable to poor

scholars, and for undertaking too freely the work of schooling and

education of children. If Hartlib and Roe were not in England, Durie

would despair of doing any good." The diocesan referred to is probably

Juxon, Bishop of London; but, two years later, we find Roe recommending

Durie's business and Hartlib personally to another prelate, Bishop Morton

of Durham. Writing from St. Martin's Lane, Feb. 17, 1637-8, Sir Thomas

"presents the Bishop with a letter from Mr. Durie, and one from Durie to

the writer, from which the Bishop may collect his state, and his constant

resolution to pursue his business as long as God gives him bread to eat.

Such a spirit the writer has never met, daunted with nothing, and only

relying upon Providence. ... Sir Thomas in Michaelmas term sent the

Bishop a great packet from Samuel Hartlib, correspondent of Durie, an

excellent man, and of the same spirit. If the Bishop like his way,

Hartlib will constantly write to him, and send all the passages both of

learning and public affairs, no man having better information, especially

_in re literariâ_." [Footnote: The quotations in this paragraph are

from the late Mr. Brace's accurate abstracts of Durie's and Roe's letters

(sixteen in all) given in the six volumes of Calendars of the Domestic

State Papers from 1633 to 1638.]

These letters enable us to see Hartlib as he was in 1637, a Prussian

naturalized in London, between thirty and forty years of age, nominally a

merchant of some kind, but in reality a man of various hobbies, and

conducting a general news-agency, partly as a means of income and partly

from sheer zeal in certain public causes interesting to himself. His zeal

in this way, and in private benevolences to needy scholars and inventors,

had even outrun prudence; so that, though he could reckon his means at

between 300_l_. and 400_l_. a year, [Footnote: This appears from the

letter of his to Worthington, of date Aug. 3, 1660, quoted in Dircks's

Memoir (p. 4), where he says, "Let it not seem a paradox to you, if I

tell you, as long as I have lived in England, by wonderful providences, I

have spent yearly out of my own betwixt 300_l._ and 400_l._ sterling a

year."] that had not sufficed for his openhandedness. Durie's great

project for a reconciliation of the Calvinists and Lutherans, and a union

of all the Protestant Churches of Europe on some broad basis of mutual

tolerance or concession, had hitherto been his hobby in chief. He had

other hobbies, however, of a more literary nature, and of late he had

been undertaking too freely some work appertaining to "the schooling and

education of children."

This last fact, which we learn hazily from Durie's letters and Roe's, we

should have known, abundantly and distinctly, otherwise. There are two

publications of Hartlib's, of the years 1637 and 1638 respectively, the

first of a long and varied series that were to come from his pen. Now,

both of these are on the subject of Education. "_Conatuum Comenianorum

Præludia, ex Bibliothecâ S. H.: Oxoniæ, Excudebat Gulielmus Turnerus,

Academia Typographus_, 1637" ("Preludes of the Endeavours of Comenius,

from the Library of S. H.: Oxford, Printed by William Turner, University

Printer, 1637")--such is the general title of the first of these

publications. It is a small quarto, and consists first of a Preface

"_Ad Lectorem_" (to the Reader), signed "Samuel Hartlibius," and

then of a foreign treatise which it is the object of the publication to

introduce to the attention of Oxford and of the English nation; which

treatise has this separate title:--"_Porta Sapientiæ Reserata; sive

Pansophiæ Christianæ Seminarium: hoc est, Nova, Compendiosa et Solida

omnes Scientias et Artes, et quicquid manifesti vel occulti est quod

ingenio humano penetrare, solertiæ imitari, linguae eloqui, datur,

brevius, verius, melius, quam hactenus, Addiscendi Methodus: Auctore

Reverendo Clarissimoque viro Domino Johanne Amoso Comenio_" ("The Gate

of Wisdom Opened; or the Seminary of all Christian Knowledge: being a

New, Compendious, and Solid Method of Learning, more briefly, more truly,

and better than hitherto, all Sciences and Arts, and whatever there is,

manifest or occult, that it is given to the genius of man to penetrate,

his craft to imitate, or his tongue to speak: The author that Reverend

and most distinguished man, Mr. John Amos Comenius"). So far as I have

been able to trace, this is the first publication bearing the name of

Hartlib. Copies of it must be scarce, but there is at least one in the

British Museum. There also is a copy of what, on the faith of an entry in

the Registers of the Stationers' Company, I have to record as his second

publication. "Oct. 17, 1638: Samuel Gillebrand entered for his copy,

under the hands of Mr. Baker and Mr. Rothwell, warden, a Book called

_Comenii Pansophiæ Prodromus et Didactica Dissertatio_ (Comenius's

Harbinger of Universal Knowledge and Treatise on Education), published by

Sam. Hartlib." [Footnote: My notes from Stationers' Registers.] When the

thing actually appeared, in small duodecimo, it had the date "1639" on

the title-page.

The canvas becomes rather crowded; but I am bound to introduce here to

the reader "that reverend and most distinguished man, Mr. John Amos

Comenius," who had been winning on Hartlib's heart by his theories of

Education and Pansophia, prepossessed though that heart was by Durie and

his scheme of Pan-Protestantism.

He was an Austro-Slav, born in 1592, at Comnia in Moravia, whence his

name Jan Amos Komensky, Latinized into Joannes Amosius Comenius. His

parents were Protestants of the sect known as the Bohemian or Moravian

Brethren, who traced their origin to the followers of Huss. Left an

orphan in early life, he was poorly looked after, and was in his

sixteenth year before he began to learn Latin. Afterwards he studied in

various places, and particularly at Herborn in the Duchy of Nassau;

whence he returned to his native Moravia in 1614, to become Rector of a

school at Prerau. Here it was that he first began to study and practise

new methods of teaching, and especially of grammatical teaching, induced,

as he himself tells us, by the fame of certain speculations on that

subject which had recently been put forth by Wolfgang Ratich, an

Educational Reformer then very active in Germany. From Prerau Comenius

removed in 1618 to Fulneck, to be pastor to a congregation of Moravian

Brethren there; but, as he conjoined the charge of a new school with his

pastorate, he continued his interest in new methods of education.

Manuscripts of schoolbooks which he was preparing on his new methods

perished, with his library, in a sack of Fulneck in 1621 by the

Spaniards; and in 1624, on an edict proscribing all the Protestant

ministers of the Austrian States, Comenius lost his living, and took

refuge in the Bohemian mountains with a certain Baron Sadowski of

Slaupna. In this retreat he wrote, in 1627, a short educational Directory

for the use of the tutor of the baron's sons. But, the persecution waxing

furious, and 30,000 families being driven out of Bohemia for their

Protestantism, Comenius had to migrate to Poland It was with a heavy

heart that lie did so: and, as he and his fellow-exiles crossed the

mountain-boundary on their way, they looked back on Moravia and Bohemia,

and, falling on their knees, prayed God not to let His truth fail utterly

out of those hinds, but to preserve a remnant in them for himself. Leszno

in Poland was Comenius's new refuge. Here again he employed himself in

teaching; and here, in a more systematic manner than before, he pursued

his speculations on the science of teaching and on improved methods for

the acquisition of universal knowledge. He read, he tells us, all the

works he could find on the subject of Didactics by predecessors or

contemporaries, such as Ratich, Ritter, Glaumius, Wolfstirn, Cæcilius,

and Joannes Valentinus Andreæ, and also the philosophical works of

Campanella and Lord Bacon; but he combined the information so obtained

with his own ideas and experience. The results he seems mainly to have

jotted down, for future use, in various manuscript papers in his Slavic

vernacular, or in German, or in Latin; but in 1631 he was induced by the

curators of the school at Leszno to send to the press in Latin one book

of a practical and particular nature. This was a so-called "_Janua

Linguarum Reserata_," or "Gate of Languages Opened," propounding a

method which he had devised, and had employed at Leszno, for rapidly

teaching Latin, or any other tongue, and at the same time communicating

the rudiments of useful knowledge. The little book, though he thought it

a trifle, made him famous. "It happened, as I could not have imagined

possible," he himself writes, "that that puerile little work was received

with a sort of universal applause by the learned world. This was

testified by very many persons of different countries, both by letters to

myself congratulating me earnestly on the new invention, and also by

translations into the various popular tongues, undertaken as if in

rivalry with each other. Not only did editions which we have ourselves

seen appear in all the European tongues, twelve in number--viz. Latin,

Greek, Bohemian, Polish, German. Swedish, Dutch, English, French,

Spanish, Italian, and Hungarian; but it was translated, as we have

learnt, into such Asiatic tongues as the Arabic, the Turkish, the

Persian, and even the Mongolian."

The process which Comenius thus describes must have extended over several

years. There are traces of knowledge of him, and of his _Janua

Linguarum Reserata_, in England as early as 1633. In that year a

Thomas Home, M.A., then a schoolmaster in London, but afterwards Master

of Eton, put forth a "_Janua Linguarum_" which is said by Anthony

Wood to have been taken, "all or most," from Comenius. An actual English

translation or expansion of Comenius's book, by a John Anchoran,

licentiate in Divinity, under the title of "The Gate of Tongues Unlocked

and Opened: or else A Summary or Seed-Plot of all Tongues and Sciences,"

reached its "fourth edition much enlarged" in 1639, and may be presumed

to have been in circulation, in other forms, some years before. But the

great herald of Comenius and his ideas among the English was Samuel

Hartlib. Not only may he have had to do with the importation of

Comenius's _Janua Linguarum_ and the recommendation of that book to

such pedagogues as Home and Anchoran; but he was instrumental in

extracting from Comenius, while that book and certain appendices to it

were in the flush of their first European popularity, a summary of his

reserved and more general theories and intentions in the field of

Didactics. The story is told very minutely by Comenius himself.

The _Janua Linguarum Reserata_ was only a proposed improvement in

the art of teaching Language or Words; and ought not a true system of

education to range beyond that, and provide for a knowledge of Things?

This was what Comenius was thinking: he was meditating a sequel to his

popular little book, to be called "_Janua Rerum Reserata" or "Gate of

Things Opened," and to contain an epitome or encyclopædia of all

essential knowledge, under the three heads of Nature, Scripture, and the

Mind of Man. Nay, borrowing a word which had appeared as the title of a

somewhat meagre Encyclopædia of the Arts by a Peter Laurenbergius,

Comenius had resolved on _Pansophia_, or _Pansophia Christiana_

("Universal Wisdom," or "Universal Christian Wisdom"), as a fit

alternative name for this intended _Janua Rerum_. But he was keeping the

work back, as one requiring leisure, and could only be persuaded to let

the announcement of its title appear in the Leipsic catalogue of

forthcoming books. By that time, however, Hartlib of London had become so

dear a friend to Comenius that he could refuse _him_ nothing. Whether

there had been any prior personal acquaintance between Hartlib and

Comenius, by reason of their German and Slavic connexions, I cannot say.

But, since the publication of the _Janua Linguarum_, Hartlib had been in

correspondence with Comenius in his Polish home; and, by 1636, his

interest in the designs of Comenius, and willingness to forward them, had

become so well known in the circle of the admirers of Comenius that he

had been named as one of the five chief Comenians in Europe, the other

four being Zacharias Schneider of Leipsic, Sigismund Evenius of Weimar,

John Mochinger of Dantzic, and John Docemius of Hamburg. Now, Hartlib,

having heard of the intended _Janua Rerum_ or _Pansophia_ of Comenius,

not only in the Leipsic catalogue of forthcoming works, but also, more

particularly, from some Moravian students passing through London, had

written to Comenius, requesting some sketch of it. "Being thus asked,"

says Comenius, "by the most intimate of my friends, a man piously eager

for the public good, to communicate some idea of my future work, I did

communicate to him in writing, in a chance way, what I had a thought of

prefixing some time or other to the work in the form of a Preface; and

this, beyond my hope, and without my knowledge, was printed at Oxford,

under the title of _Conatuum Comenianorum Præludia_." Here we have the

whole secret of that publication from the Oxford University press, in

1637, which was edited by Hartlib and announced as being from his

Library. It was not a reprint of anything that had already appeared

abroad, but was in fact a new treatise by the great Comenius which

Hartlib had persuaded the author to send him from Poland and had

published on his own responsibility. He had apologized to Comenius for so

doing, on the ground that the publication would "serve a good purpose by

feeling the way and ascertaining the opinions of learned and wise men in

a matter of such unusual consequence." Comenius was a little nettled, he

says, especially as criticisms of the Pansophic sketch began to come in,

which would have been obviated, he thought, if he had been allowed

quietly to develop the thing farther before publication. Nevertheless,

there the book was, and the world now knew of Comenius not only as the

author of the little _Janua Linguarum_, but also as contemplating a vast

_Janua Rerum_, or organization of universal knowledge on a new basis.--In

fact, the fame of Comenius was increased by Hartlib's little

indiscretion. In Sweden especially there was an anxiety to have the

benefit of the counsels of so eminent a theorist in the business of

education. In 1638 the Swedish Government, at the head of which, during

the minority of Queen Christina, was the Chancellor Oxenstiern, invited

Comenius to Sweden, that he might preside over a Commission for the

revision and reform of the schools there. Comenius, however, declined the

invitation, recommending that the work should be entrusted to some native

Swede, but promising to give his advice; and, at the same time (1638), he

began to translate into Latin, for the behoof of Sweden and of other

countries, a certain _Didactica Magna_, or treatise on Didactics at

large, which he had written in his Bohemian Slavic vernacular nine years

before. Hartlib had an early abstract of this book, and this abstract is

part of the _Comenii Pansophiæ Prodromus et Didactica Dissertatio_ which

he edited in London in the same year, and published in duodecimo in 1639.

[Footnote: Bayle's Dictionary: Art. _Coménius (Jean-Amos)_; "Geshichte

der Pädagogik," by Karl von Raumer (Stuttgart, 1843), Zweither Theil, pp.

46-49; "Essays on Educational Reformers," by Robert Hebert Quick (1868),

pp. 43-47; Wood's Ath. III. 366, and II. 677. The general sketch of

Comenius in Bayle, and those by Raumer and Mr. Quick, are very good; but

details in the text, and especially the particulars of Hartlib's early

connexion with Comenius, have had to be culled by me from the curious

autobiographical passages prefixed to or inserted in Comenius's various

writings as far as 1642. These form Part I. of his large Folio, _Opera

Didactica Omnia_, published by him at Amsterdam in 1657; and the passages

in that Part which have supplied particulars for the text will be found

at columns 3-4, 318, 326,403,442--444,454-459. Comenius, like most such

theoretic reformers, had a vein of egotism, and a strong memory for

details respecting the history of his own ideas and their reception.]

What, after all, were the new notions propounded from Poland, with such

universal European effort, by this Protestant Austro-Slav, Comenius, and

sponsored in England by the Prussian Hartlib? We shall try to give them

in epitome. Be it understood, however, that the epitome takes account

only of those works of Comenius which were written before 1639, without

including the mass of his later writings, some of which were to be even

more celebrated.

The _Didactica Magna_ is perhaps the most pregnant of the early

books of Comenius. The full title of this treatise is, in translation, as

follows: "Didactics at Large: propounding a universal Scheme for teaching

all Things to all persons; or a Certain and Perfect Mode of erecting such

Schools through all the communities, towns, and villages of any Christian

Kingdom, as that all the youth of both sexes, without the neglect of a

single one, may be compendiously, pleasantly, and solidly educated in

Learning, grounded in Morals, imbued with Piety, and so, before the years

of puberty, instructed in all things belonging to the present and the

future life." In the treatise itself there are first some chapters of

preliminary generalities. Man, says Comenius, is the last and most

perfect of creatures; his destiny is to a life beyond this; and the

present life is but a preparation for that eternal one. This preparation

involves three things--Knowledge by Man of himself and of all things

about him (Learning), Rule of himself (Morals), and Direction of himself

to God (Religion). The seeds of these three varieties of preparation are

in us by Nature; nevertheless, if Man would come out complete Man, he

must be formed or educated. Always the education must be threefold--in

Knowledge, in Morals, and in Religion; and this combination must never be

lost sight of. Such education, however, comes most fitly in early life.

Parents may do much, but they cannot do all; there is need, therefore, in

every country, of public schools for youth. Such schools should be for

the children of all alike, the poor as well as the rich, the stupid and

malicious as well as the clever and docile, and equally for girls as for

boys; and the training in them ought to be absolutely universal or

encyclopædic, in Letters, Arts, and Science, in Morals, and in Piety.

[Footnote: For Miltonic reasons, as well as for others, I cannot resist

the temptation to translate here, in a Note, the sub stance of Comenius's

views on the Education of Women; as given in Chap. IX. (cols. 42-44) of

his _Didactica Magna_:--"Nor, to say something particularly on this

subject, can any sufficient reason be given why the weaker sex"

[_sequior sexus_, literally "the later or following sex," is his

phrase, borrowed from Apuleius, and, though the phrase is usually

translated "the inferior sex," it seems to have been chosen by Comenius

to avoid that implication], "should be wholly shut out from liberal

studies, whether in the native tongue or in Latin. For equally are they

God's image; equally are they partakers of grace and of the kingdom to

come; equally are they furnished with minds agile and capable of wisdom,

yea often beyond our sex; equally to them is there a possibility of

attaining high distinction, inasmuch as they have often been employed by

God himself for the government of peoples, the bestowing of the most

wholesome counsels on kings and princes, the science of medicine and

other things useful to the human race, nay even the prophetical office,

and the rattling reprimand of Priests and Bishops" [_etiam ad

Propheticum munus, et incrependos Sacerdotes Episcoposque_, are the

words; and, as the treatise was prepared for the press in 1638, one

detects a reference, by the Moravian Brother in Poland, to the recent

fame of Jenny Geddes of Scotland]. "Why then should we admit them to the

Alphabet, but afterwards debar them from Books? Do we fear their

rashness? The more we occupy their thoughts, the less room will there be

in them for rashness, which springs generally from vacuity of mind." Some

slight limitations as to the reading proper for young women are appended,

but with a hint that the same limitations would be good for youth of the

other sex; and there is a bold quotation of the Scriptural text (1 Tim.

ii. 12),"_I suffer not a woman to teach_," and of two well-known

passages of Euripides and Juvenal against learned women or bluestockings,

to show that he was quite aware of these passages, but saw nothing in

them against his real meaning.] Here, at length, in the eleventh chapter,

we arrive at the great question, Has such a system of schools been

anywhere established? _No_, answers Comenius, and abundantly proves

his negative. Schools of a kind there had been in the world from the days

of the Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzar, if not from those of Shem, but not

yet were there schools everywhere; not yet, where schools did exist, were

they for all classes; and, at best, where they did exist, of what sort

were they? Places, for the most part, of nausea and torment for the poor

creatures collected in them; narrow and imperfect in their aims, which

were verbal rather than real; and not even succeeding in these aims!

Latin, nothing but Latin! And how had they taught this precious and

eternal Latin of theirs? "Good God! how intricate, laborious, and prolix

this study of Latin has been! Do not scullions, shoeblacks, cobblers,

among pots and pans, or in camp, or in any other sordid employment, learn

a language different from their own, or even two or three such, more

readily than school students, with every leisure and appliance and all

imaginable effort, learn their solitary Latin? And what a difference in

the proficiency attained! The former, after a few months, are found

gabbling away with ease; the latter, after fifteen or twenty years, can

hardly, for the most part, unless when strapped up tight in their

grammars and dictionaries, bring out a bit of Latin, and that not without

hesitation and stammering." But all this might be remedied. There might

be such a Reformation of Schools that not only Latin, but all other

languages, and all the real Sciences and Arts of life to boot, might be

taught in them expeditiously, pleasantly, and thoroughly. What was wanted

was right methods and the consistent practical application of these.

Nature must supply the principles of the Method of Education: as all

Nature's processes go softly and spontaneously, so will all artificial

processes that are in conformity with Nature's principles. And what are

Nature's principles, as transferable into the Art of Education? Comenius

enumerates a good many, laying stress on such as these: nothing out of

season; matter before form; the general before the special, or the simple

before the complex; all continuously, and nothing _per saltum_. He

philosophizes a good deal, sometimes a little quaintly and mystically, on

these principles of Nature, and on the hints she gives for facility,

solidity, and celerity of learning, and then sums up his deductions as to

the proper Method in each of the three departments of education, the

Intellectual, the Moral, and the Religious. Things before words, or

always along with words, to explain them; the concrete and sensible to

prepare for the abstract; example and illustration rather than verbal

definition, or to accompany verbal definition: such is his main maxim in

the first department. Object-lessons, wherever possible: i.e. if boys are

taught about the stars, let it be with the stars over their heads to look

at; if about the structure of the human body, let it be with a skeleton

before them; if about the action of a pump, or other machine, let it be

with the machine actually at hand. "Always let the things which the words

are to designate be shown; and again, whatever the pupils see, hear,

touch, taste, let them be taught to express the same; so that tongue and

intellect may go on together." Where the actual objects cannot be

exhibited, there may be models, pictures, and the like; and every school

ought to have a large apparatus of such, and a museum. Writing and

drawing ought to be taught simultaneously with reading. All should be

made pleasant to the pupils; they ought to relish their lessons, to be

kept brisk, excited, wide-awake; and to this end there should be

emulation, praise of the deserving, always something nice and rousing on

the board, a mixture of the funny with the serious, and occasional

puzzles, anecdotes, and conundrums. The school-houses ought to be airy

and agreeable, and the school-hours not too long. In order that there may

be time to teach all that really ought to be taught, there must be a wise

neglect of heaps of things not essential: a great deal must be flung

overboard, as far as School is concerned, and left to the chance

inquisitiveness of individuals afterwards. And what sort of things may be

thus wisely neglected? Why, in the first place, the _non necessaria_

(things generally unprofitable), or things that contribute neither to

piety nor to good morals, and without which there may be very sufficient

erudition--as, for example, "the names of the Gentile gods, their love-

histories, and their religious rites," all which may be got up in books

at any time by any one that wants them; and, again, the _aliena_

(things that do not fit the particular pupil)--mathematics, for example,

for some, and music for those who have no ear; and, again, the

_particularissima_, or those excessive minutenesses and distinctions

into which one may go without end in any subject whatsoever. So, at

large, with very competent learning, no small philosophical acumen, much

logical formality and numeration of propositions and paragraphs, but a

frequent liveliness of style, and every now and then a crashing shot of

practical good sense, Comenius reasons and argues for a new System of

Education, inspired by what would now be called Realism or enlightened

Utilitarianism. Objections, as they might occur, are duly met and

answered; and one notes throughout the practical schoolmaster, knowing

what he is talking about, and having before his fancy all the while the

spectacle of a hundred or two of lads ranged on benches, and to be

managed gloriously from the desk, as a skilled metallurgist manages a

mass of molten iron. He is a decided advocate for large classes, each of

"some hundreds," under one head-master, because of the fervour which such

classes generate in themselves and in the master; and he shows how they

may be managed. Emulation, kindliness, and occasional rebuke, are chiefly

to be trusted to for maintaining discipline; and punishments are to be

for moral offences only. How Comenius would blend moral teaching and

religious teaching with the acquisition of knowledge in schools is

explained in two chapters, entitled "Method of Morals" and "Method of

instilling Piety;" and this last leads him to a separate chapter, in

which he maintains that, "if we would have schools thoroughly reformed

according to the true rules of Christianity, the books of Heathen authors

must be removed from them, or at least employed more cautiously than

hitherto." He argues this at length, insisting on the necessity of the

preparation of a graduated series of school-books that should supersede

the ordinary classics, conserving perhaps the best bits of some of them.

If any of the classics were to be kept bodily for school-use, they should

be Seneca, Epictetus, Plato, and the like. And so at last he comes to

describe the System of Schools he would have set up in every country,

viz.: I. THE INFANT SCHOOL, or MOTHER'S OWN SCHOOL, for children under

six; II. THE LUDUS LITERARIUS, Or VERNACULAR PUBLIC SCHOOL, for boys and

girls up to the age of twelve; III. THE LATIN SCHOOL or GYMNASIUM, for

higher teaching up to eighteen or so; and IV. THE UNIVERSITY (with

TRAVEL), for the highest possible teaching on to the age of about five-

and-twenty. From the little babble of the Infant School about Water, Air,

Fire, Iron, Bird, Fish, Hill, Sun, Moon, &c., all on the plan of

exercising the senses and making Things and Words go together, up to the

most exquisite training of the University, he shows how there might be a

progress and yet a continuity of encyclopædic aim. Most boys and girls in

every community, he thinks, might stop at the Vernacular School, without

going on to the Latin; and he has great faith in the capabilities of any

vernacular and the culture that may be obtained within it. Still he would

like to see as many as possible going on to the Latin School and the

University, that there might never be wanting in a community spirits

consummately educated, veritable [Greek: polumatheis] and [Greek:

pansophoi]. In the Universities apparently he would allow the largest

ranging among the classics of all sorts, though still on some principle

for organizing that kind of reading. There is, in fact, a mass of details

and suggestions about each of the four kinds of schools, all vital to

Comenius, and all pervaded by his sanguine spirit, but which one can

hardly now read through. [Footnote: A separate little treatise on the

management of "The Infant School," containing advices to parents for home

use, was written by Comenius in Bohemian Slavic, and translated thence

into German in 1633. It appears in Latin among his _Opera Didactica_

collected. He wrote also, he tells us, six little books for "The

Vernacular School," under fancy-titles. These do not seem ever to have

been published. His _Janua Linguarum_ (1631), and one or two

appendages to it, were contributions to the theory and practice of "The

Latin School."] The final chapter is one of the most eloquent and

interesting. It is entitled, "Of the Requisites necessary for beginning

the practice of this Universal Method." Here he comes back upon his

notion of a graduated series of school-books, or rather of an

organization of books generally for the purposes of education. "One great

requisite," he says, "the absence of which would make the whole machine

useless, while its presence would put all in motion, is A SUFFICIENT

APPARATUS OF PAMMETHODIC BOOKS." All, he repeats, hinges on the

possibility of creating such an apparatus. "This is a work," he adds,

"not for one man, especially if he is otherwise occupied, and not

instructed in everything that ought to be reduced into the Universal

Method; nor is it perhaps a work for one age, if we would have all

brought to absolute perfection. There is need, therefore, of a COLLEGIAL

SOCIETY (_ergo Societate Collegiali est opus_). For the convocation

of such a Society there is need of the authority and liberality of some

King, or Prince, or Republic, and also of some quiet place, away from

crowds, with a Library and other appurtenances." There follows an earnest

appeal to persons of all classes to forward such an association, and the

good Moravian winds up with a prayer to God. [Footnote: There is a

summary of Comenius's _Didactica Magna_ in Von Reumer's "Geshichte

der Pædgogis" (pp. 53-59). It is accurate so far as it goes; but I have

gone to the book itself.]

A special part of Comenius's system, better known perhaps at the time of

which we write than his system as a whole, was his Method for Teaching

Languages. This is explained in Chapter XXII. of his _Didactica

Magna_, and more in detail in his _Linguarum Janua Rescrata_, and

one or two writings added to that book:--Comenius, as we already know,

did not overrate linguistic training in education. "Languages are

acquired," he says, "not as a part of learning or wisdom, but as

instrumental to the reception and communication of learning. Accordingly,

it is not _all_ languages that are to be learnt, for that is

impossible, nor yet _many_, for that would be useless, as drawing

away the time due to the study of Things; but only those that are

_necessary_. The necessary tongues, however, are: first, the

Vernacular, for home use; next, Neighbouring Tongues, for conversation

with neighbours,--as, for example, the German for Poles of one frontier,

and the Hungarian, the Wallachian, and the Turkish, for Poles of other

parts; next, Latin, as the common language of the learned, admitting one

to the wise use of books; and, finally, the Greek and Arabic for

philosophers and medical men, and Greek and Hebrew for theologians." Not

all the tongues that are learnt, either, are to be learnt to the same

nicety of perfection, but only to the extent really needed. Each language

should be learnt separately--first, the Vernacular, which ought to be

perfectly learnt, and to which children ought to be kept for eight or ten

years; then whatever neighbouring tongue might be desirable, for which a

year would be long enough; next, Latin, which ought to be learnt well,

and might be learnt in two years; and so to Greek, to which he would give

one year, and Hebrew, which he would settle in six months. If people

should be amazed at the shortness of the time in which he ventured to

assert a language like the Latin might be learnt and learnt well, let

them consider the principles of his method. Always Things along with

Words, and Words associated with new groups of Things, from the most

familiar objects to those rarer and farther off, so that the

_vocabulary_ might get bigger and bigger; and, all the while, the

constant use of the vocabulary, such as it was, in actual talk, as well

as in reading and writing. First, let the pupil stutter on anyhow, only

using his stock of words; correctness would come afterwards, and in the

end elegance and force. Always practice rather than rule, and leading to

rule; also connexion of the tongue being learnt with that learnt last. A

kind of common grammar may be supposed lying in the pupil's head, which

he transfers instinctively to each new tongue, so that he has to be

troubled only with variations and peculiarities. The reading-books

necessary for thoroughly teaching a language by this method might be

(besides Lexicons graduated to match) four in number--I. _Vestibulum_

(The Porch), containing a vocabulary of some hundreds of simple words,

fit for babbling with, grouped in little sentences, with annexed tables

of declensions and conjugations; II. _Janua_ (The Gate), containing all

the common words in the language, say about 8,000, also compacted into

interesting sentences, with farther grammatical aids; III. _Palatium_

(The Palace), containing tit-bits of higher discourse about things, and

elegant extracts from authors, with notes and grammatical comments; IV.

_Thesaurus_ (The Treasury), consisting of select authors themselves, duly

illustrated, with a catalogue of other authors, so that the pupils might

have some idea of the extent of the Literature of the language, and might

know what authors to read on occasion afterwards.--Comenius himself

actually wrote a _Vestibulum_ for Latin, consisting of 427 short

sentences, and directions for their use; and, as we know, his _Janua

Linguarum Reserata_, which appeared in 1631, was the publication which

made him famous. It is an application of his system to Latin. On the

principle that Latin can never be acquired with ease while its vocabulary

is allowed to lie alphabetically in dead Dictionaries, or in

multitudinous variety of combination in Latin authors, about 8,000 Latin

words of constant use are collected into a kind of Noah's Ark,

representative of all Latinity. This is done in 1,000 short Latin

sentences, arranged in 100 paragraphs of useful information about all

things and sundry, under such headings as _De Ortu Mundi_ (Of the

Beginning of the World), _De Elementis_ (Of the Elements), _De

Firmamento_ (Of the Firmament), _De Igne_ (Of Fire), and so on through

other physical and moral topics. Among these are _De Metallis_ (Of

Metals), _De Herbis_ (Of Plants), _De Insectis_ (Of Insects), _De

Ulceribus et Vulneribus_ (Of Sores and Wounds), _De Agricultura_ (Of

Agriculture), _De Vestituum Generibus (Of Articles of Dress), _De

Puerperio_ (Of Childbirth), _De Pace et Bella_ (Of Peace and War), _De

Modestia_ (Of Modesty), _De Morte et Sepultura_ (Of Death and Burial),

_De Providentia Dei_ (Of the Providence of God), _De Angelis_ (Of

Angels). Comenius was sure that due drill in this book would put a boy in

effective possession of Latin for all purposes of reading, speaking, and

writing. And, of course, by translation, the same manual would serve for

any other language. For, the Noah's Ark of _things_ being much the same

for all peoples, in learning a new language you have but to fit on to the

contents of that permanent Ark of realities a new set of vocables.

[Footnote: _Dialectica Magna_ Chap. XXII. first edition of _Janua_, as

reprinted in _Comenii Opera Didactica_, 1657 (Part I, cols. 255-302).]

Comenius rather smiled at the rush of all Europe upon his _Janua

Linguarum_, or Method for Teaching Languages. That was a trifle in his

estimation, compared with the bigger speculations of his _Didactica

Magna_, and still more with his _Pansophiæ Prodromus_ or _Porta

Sapientiæ Reserata_. A word or two on this last little book:--Comenius

appears in it as a would-be Lord Bacon, an Austro-Slavic Lord Bacon, a

very Austro-Slavic Lord Bacon. He mentions Bacon several times, and

always with profound respect ("_illustrissimus Verulamius_" and so

on); but it appeared to him that more was wanted than Bacon's _Novum

Organum,_ or _Instauratio Magna_, with all its merits. A PANSOPHIA was

wanted, nay, a PANSOPHIA CHRISTIANA, or consolidation of all human

knowledge into true central Wisdom, one body of Real Truth. O Wisdom,

Wisdom! O the knowledge of things in themselves, and in their universal

harmony! What was mere knowledge of words, or all the fuss of pedagogy

and literature, in view of that! Once attained, and made communicable, it

would make the future of the world one Golden Age! Why had it not been

attained? What had been the hindrances to its attainment? What were the

remedies? In a kind of phrenzy, which does not prevent most logical

precision of paragraphing and of numbering of propositions, Comenius

discusses all this, becoming more and more like a Bacon bemuddled, as he

eyes his PANSOPHIA through the mist. What it is he cannot make plain to

us; but we see he has some notion of it himself, and we honour him

accordingly. For there are gleams, and even flashes, through the mist.

For example, there is a paragraph entitled _Scientiarum Laceratio_,

lamenting the state of division, disconnectedness, and piece-meal

distribution among many hands, into which the Sciences had fallen. Though

there were books entitled Pansophias, Encyclopædias, and the like, he had

seen none sufficiently justifying the name, or exhausting the

universality of things. Much less had he seen the whole apparatus of

human intelligence so constructed from its own certain and eternal

principles that all things should appear mutually concatenated among

themselves from first to last without any hiatus! "Metaphysicians hum to

themselves only, Natural Philosophers chaunt their own praises,

Astronomers lead on their dances for themselves, Ethical Thinkers set up

laws for themselves, Politicians lay foundations for themselves,

Mathematicians triumph for themselves, and for themselves Theologians

reign." What is the consequence? Why, that, while each one attends only

to himself and his own phantasy, there is no general accord, but only

dissonance. "We see that the branches of a tree cannot live unless they

all alike suck their juices from a common trunk with common roots. And

can we hope that the branches of Wisdom can be torn asunder with safety

to their life, that is to truth? Can one be a Natural Philosopher who is

not also a Metaphysician? or an Ethical Thinker who does not know

something of Physical Science? or a Logician who has no knowledge of real

matters? or a Theologian, a Jurisconsult, or a Physician, who is not

first a Philosopher? or an Orator or Poet who is not all things at once?

He deprives himself of light, of hand, and of regulation, who pushes away

from him any shred of the knowable." From such passages one has a glimmer

of what Comenius did mean by his Pansophia. He hoped to do something

himself towards furnishing the world with this grand desideratum. He had

in contemplation a book which should at least show what a proper

Encyclopædia or Consolidation of Universal Truth ought to be. But here

again he invites co-operation. Many hands in many lands would have to

labour at the building of the great Temple of Wisdom. He appeals to all,

"of every rank, age, sex, and tongue," to do what they can. Especially

let there be an end to the monopoly of Latin. "We desire and protest that

studies of wisdom be no longer committed to Latin alone, and kept shut up

in the schools, as has hitherto been done, to the greatest contempt and

injury of the people at large and the popular tongues. Let all things be

delivered to each nation in its own speech, so that occasion may be

afforded to all who are men to occupy themselves with these liberal

matters rather than fatigue themselves, as is constantly the case, with

the cares of this life, or ambitions, or drinking-bouts, or other

vanities, to the destruction of life and soul both. Languages themselves

too would so be polished to perfection with the advancement of the

Sciences and Arts. Wherefore we, for our part, have resolved, if God

pleases, to divulge these things of ours both in the Latin and in the

vernacular. For no one lights a candle and hides it under a bushel, but

places it on a candlestick, that it may give light to all." [Footnote:

_Pansophici Libri Delineatio_ (_i.e._ the same treatise which Hartlib had

printed at Oxford in 1637) in _Comenii Opera Didactica_, Part I. cols.

403-454.] Such were the varied Comenian views which the good Hartlib

strove to bring into notice in England in 1637-9. Durie and

Reconciliation of the Churches was still one of his enthusiasms, but

Comenius and Reformed Education was another. But, indeed, nothing of a

hopeful kind, with novelty in it, came amiss to Hartlib. He, as well as

Comenius, had read Lord Bacon. He was a devoted admirer of the Baconian

philosophy, and had imbibed, I think, more deeply than most of Bacon's

own countrymen, the very spirit and mood of that philosophy. That' the

world had got on so slowly hitherto because it had pursued wrong methods;

that, if once right methods were adopted, the world would spin forward at

a much faster rate in all things; that no one could tell what fine

discoveries of new knowledge, what splendid inventions in art, what

devices for saving labour, increasing wealth, preserving health, and

promoting happiness, awaited the human race in the future: all this,

which Bacon had taught, Hartlib had taken into his soul. His sympathy

with Durie and Religious Compromise and his sympathy with Comenius and

School Reform were but special exhibitions of his general passion for new

lights. The cry of his soul, morning and night, in all things, was

Phosphore, redde diem! Quid gaudia nostra moraris?

Phosphore, redde diem!

[Footnote: This is no fancy-quotation. Hartlib himself, in 1659, uses it

in a letter to the famous Boyle, as the passionate motto of his life (see

Diary of Worthington, edited by Crossley, I, 168, and Boyle's Works, ed.

1744, V. 293).]

Naturally this passion had a political side. Through the reign of

Thorough, it is true, Hartlib had been as quiet as it became a foreigner

in London to be at such a time, and had even been in humble

correspondence in Durie's behalf with Bishops, Privy Councillors, and

other chiefs of the existing power. But, when the Scottish troubles

brought signs of coming change for England, and there began to be stir

among the Puritans and the miscellaneous _quidnuncs_ of London in

anxiety for that change, Hartlib found himself in friendly contact and

acquaintanceship with some of these forward spirits. One is not

surprised, therefore, at the fact, previously mentioned in our History

(Vol. II. p. 45), that, when Charles was mustering his forces for the

First Bishops' War against the Scots, and Secretary Windebank was busy

with arrests of persons in London suspected of complicity with the Scots,

Hartlib was one of those pounced upon. Here is the exact official

warrant:--"These are to will, require, and authorize you to make your

repair to the house of Samuel Hartlib, merchant, and to examine him upon

such interrogatories as you shall find pertinent to the business you are

now employed in; and you are also to take with you one of the messengers

of his Majesty's Chamber, who is to receive and follow such order and

directions as you shall think fit to give him; and this shall be your

sufficient warrant in this behalf.--Dated at my house in Drury Lane, 1

May 1639.--Fran. Windebank. To Robert Reade, my Secretary." [Footnote:

Copied by me from the original in the S.P.O.]--The reader may, at this

point, like to know where Hartlib's house was. It was in Duke's Place,

Aldgate. He had been there for more than a year, if not from his first

settling in London; and it was to be his residence for many years to

come.[Footnote: Among the Ayscough MSS. in the British Museum there is

one (No. 4276) containing a short letter from Joseph Meade to Hartlib,

dated from Christ's College, Cambridge, June 18, 1638, and addressed "To

his worthie friend Mr. Samuel Hartlib at his house in Duke's Place,

London." There is nothing of importance in the letter; which is mainly

about books Meade would like Hartlib to send to certain persons named--

one of them Dr. Twisse, afterwards Prolocutor of the Westminster

Assembly. Meade died less than four months after the date of this

letter.] He was married, and had at least one child.--Reade and the

King's officer appear to have discovered nothing specially implicating

Hartlib; for he is found living on much as before through the remainder

of the Scottish Presbyterian Revolt, on very good terms with his former

Episcopal correspondents and others who regarded that Revolt with dread

and detestation. The following is a letter of his, of date Aug. 10, 1640,

which I found in his own hand in the State Paper Office. It has not, I

believe, been published before, and letters of Hartlib's of so early a

date are scarce: besides, it is too characteristic to be omitted:--

"Right Hon. [no farther indication of the person addressed: was it Sir

Thomas Roe?]

"These are to improve the leisure which perhaps you may enjoy in your

retiredness from this place. The author of the Schedule of Divers New

Inventions [apparently enclosed in the letter] is the same Plattes who

about a year ago published two profitable treatises concerning Husbandry

and Mines. He is now busy in contriving of some other Tracts, which will

more particularly inform all sorts of people how to procure their own and

the public good of these countries. [Footnote: Gabriel Plattes, author of

"A Discovery of Subterraneall Treasure: viz. of all manner of Mines and

Minerals from the Gold to the Coale: London 1639, 4to." This is from

Lowndes's _Bibliographer's Manual_ by Bohn; where it is added that

"Plattes published several other works chiefly relating to Husbandry, and

is said to have dropped down dead in the London streets for want of

food." Among other things, he was an Alchemist; and in Wood's Athenæ by

Bliss (I. 640-1) there is a curious extract from his Mineralogical book,

giving an account of a process of his for making pure gold artificially,

though, as he says, not with profit. One thinks kindly of this poor

inventive spirit hanging on upon Hartlib with his "Schedule of New

Inventions," and of Hartlib's interest in him.] Some of my learned

friends in France do highly commend one Palissi to be a man of the like

disposition and industry. The books which he hath written and printed

(some of them in French) are said to contain a world of excellent matter.

[Footnote: This, I think, must be the famous Bernard Palissy, "the

Potter," who died in 1590, leaving writings such as Hartlib describes. If

so, Hartlib was a little behind time in his knowledge, for one might

fancy him speaking of a contemporary.] I wish such like observations,

experiments, and true philosophies, were more known to other nations. By

this means not only the Heavens, but also the Earth, would declare the

glory of God more evidently than it hath done.---As for Mr. Durie, by

these enclosed [a number of extracts from letters about Durie's business

which Hartlib had received from Bishops and others] your Honour will be

able to see how far I am advanced in transactions of his affairs. My Lord

Bishop of Exeter [Hall], in one of his late letters unto himself [Durie],

uses these following words: '_Perlegi quæ_,' &c. [A long Latin

passage, which may be given in English: 'I have read through what you

have heretofore written to the most illustrious Sir Thomas Roe respecting

the procuring of an ecclesiastical agreement. I like your prudence and

most sagacious theological ingenuity in the same: should Princes follow

the thread of the advice, we shall easily extricate ourselves from this

labyrinth of controversies. The Reverend Bishop of Salisbury has a work

on the Fundamentals of Faith, which is now at press, designed for the

composing of these disputes of the Christian world; doubtless to the

great good of the Church. Proceed busily in the sacred work you have

undertaken: we will not cease to aid you all we can with our prayers and

counsels, and, if possible, with other helps']: I hear the worthies of

Cambridge are at work to satisfy in like manner the Doctors of Bremen:

only my Lord Bishop of Durham [Morton] is altogether silent. It may be

the northern distractions hinder him from such and the like pacifical

overtures. I am much grieved for his book _De [Greek: polutopia]

corporis Christi_ [on the Ubiquity of Christ's Body], which is now in

the press at Cambridge; for both the Bishop of Lincoln [Williams] and Dr.

Hacket told me, from the mouth of him that corrects it (an accurate and

judicious scholar), that it was a very invective and bitter railing

against the Lutheran tenets on that point, insomuch that Dr. Brownrigg

had written unto his lordship about it, to put all into a milder strain.

I confess others do blame somewhat Mr. D[urie] for certain phrases which

he seems to yield unto in his printed treatise with the Danes, '_De

Omnipræsentiâ et orali manducatione_' [Of the Omnipresence and Eating

with the Mouth]; yet let me say this much--that Reverend Bucer, that

prudent learned man, who was the first man of note that ever laboured in

this most excellent work of reconciling the Protestants, even in the very

first beginning of the breach, and who laboured more abundantly than they

all in it (I mean than all the rest of the Reformers in his time): Bucer,

I say, yielded so far for peace' sake to Luther and his followers in some

harsh-sounding terms and words that the Helvetians began to be suspicious

of him, lest he should be won to the contrary side, although the good man

did fully afterwards declare his mind when he saw his yielding would do

no good. It is not then Mr. D.'s case alone, when so brave a worthy as

Bucer goes along with him, a man of whom great Calvin uttered these words

when news was brought him of his death, '_Quam multiplicem in Bucero

jacturam fecerit Dei Ecclesia quoties in mentem venit, cor meum prope

laccrari sentio_' ['As often as it comes to my mind what a manifold

loss the Church of God has had in Bucer, I feel my heart almost

lacerated']. So he wrote in an epistle to Viret. But enough of this

subject.----I have had these 14 days no letters from Mr. D.; nor do I

long much for them, except I could get in the rents from his tenant to

pay the 70 rixdollars to Mr. Avery's brother in London. The Bishop of

Exeter seems to be a man of excellent bowels; and, if your Honour would

be pleased to second his requests towards my Lord's Grace of Canterbury,

or to favour Bishop Davenant's advice in your own way, perhaps some

comfortable effects would soon follow. My Lady Anna Waller doth highly

affect Mr. D. and his endeavours; and, if any donatives or other

preferments should be recommended to be disposed this way by my Lord

Keeper (who is a near kinsman of her Ladyship), I am confident she would

prove a successful mediatrix in his behalf. If your Honour thinks it fit,

I can write also to my Lord Primate [Usher] to intercede with my Lord's

Grace [Laud] for Mr. D. He is about to bring forth a great universal

work, or Ecclesiastical History. The other treatise, put upon him by his

Majesty's special command, '_De Authoritate Regum et Officio

Subditorum,_' ['On the Authority of Kings and the Duty of Subjects']

will shortly come to light.----Thus, craving pardon for this prolixity of

scribbling, I take humbly my leave; remaining always

"Your Honour's most obliged and most assured Servant,

SAM. HARTLIB. [Footnote: Copied by me from the original in the S.P.O.]

London: the 10 of Aug. 1640."

Three months after the date of this letter the Long Parliament had met,

and there was a changed world, with changed opportunities, for Hartlib,

as well as for other people. The following digest of particulars in his

life for the years 1641 and 1642 will show what he was about:--

"A Briefe Relation of that which hath been lately attempted to procure

Ecclesiasticall Peace amongst Protestants. Published by Samuel Hartlib.

London, Printed by J. R. for Andrew Crooke, and are to be sold at his

shop in Paul's Churchyard at the sign of the Green Dragon. 1641."--This

little tract is an exposition of Durie's idea, and a narrative sketch of

his exertions in its behalf from 1628 onwards.

"A Description of the famous Kingdom of MACARIA, shewing its excellent

Government, wherein the Inhabitants live in great prosperity, health, and

happiness; the King obeyed, the Nobles honoured, and all good men

respected; Vice punished, and Virtue rewarded: An example to other

nations. In a Dialogue between a Scholar and a Traveller. London 1641"

(4to. pp. 15).--There is a Dedication to Parliament, dated "25th October

1641," in which it is said that "Honourable Court will lay the

cornerstone of the world's happiness." The tract is an attempt at a

fiction, after the manner of "More's Utopia" and Bacon's "New Atlantis,"

shadowing forth the essentials of good government in the constitution of

the imaginary Kingdom of MACARIA (Happy-land, from the Greek makarios,

happy). The gist of the thing lies in the rather prosaic statement that

MACARIA has Five Councils or Departments of State: to wit, _Husbandry_,

_Fishery_, _Land-trade_, _Sea-trade_, and _New Plantations_.--Although

there is no author's name to the scrap, it is known to be Hartlib's; who,

indeed, continued to use the word MACARIA, half-seriously, half-

playfully, till the Restoration and beyond, as a pet name for his Ideal

Commonwealth of perfect institutions. [Footnote: See Worthington's Diary

edited by Crossley (L 163). Hartlib's original _Macaria_ is reprinted in

the Harleian Miscellany, Vol. I.]

In 1641 Hartlib was in correspondence with Alexander Henderson. The

reader already knows how "the Scottish business," or the King's

difficulty with the Scots, led to the calling of the Long Parliament, and

how for six or seven months (Nov. 1640-June 1641) that business

intertwined itself with the other proceedings of the Parliament, and

Henderson and the other Scottish Commissioners, lay and clerical, were in

London all that time, nominally looking after that business, but really

co-operating with Pym and the other Parliamentary leaders for the Reform

of both kingdoms, and much lionized by the Londoners accordingly (Vol.

II. pp. 189-192). Well, Hartlib, who found his way to everybody, found

his way to Henderson. lie probably saw a good deal of him, if not of the

other Scottish Commissioners; for, after Henderson had returned to

Scotland, at least three letters from Hartlib followed him thither. Here

is the beginning of the third: "Reverend and Loving Brother in Christ: I

hope my two former letters were safely delivered, wherein I gave you

notice of a purpose taken in hand here to make Notes upon the Bible. What

concurrence you think fit to give in such a work I leave to your own

piety to determine. Now I have some other thoughts to impart to you,

which lie as a burthen on my heart." The thoughts communicated to

Henderson are about the wretched state of the Palatinate, with its

Protestantism and its University of Heidelberg ruined by the Thirty

Years' War, and the "sweet-natured Prince Elector" in exile; but Hartlib

slips into Durie's idea, and urges theological correspondence of all

Protestant divines, in order to put an end to divisions. The letter,

which is signed "Your faithful friend and servant in Christ," is dated

"London, Octob. 1641." All this we know because Hartlib kept a copy of

the letter and printed it in 1643. "The copy of a Letter written to Mr.

Alexander Henderson: London, Printed in the yeare 1643," is the title of

the scrap, as I have seen it in the British Museum. Even so we should not

have known it to be Hartlib's, had not the invaluable Thomason written

"_By Mr. Hartlib_" on the title-page, appending "_Feb._ 6, 1642" (_i.e._

1642-3) as the date of the publication.

"A Reformation of Schooles, designed in two excellent Treatises: the

first whereof summarily sheweth the great necessity of a generall

Reformation of Common Learning, what grounds of hope there are for such a

Reformation, how it may be brought to passe. The second answers certaine

objections ordinarily made against such undertakings, arid describes the

severall parts and titles of workes which are shortly to follow. Written

many yeares agoe in Latine by that reverend, godly, learned, and famous

Divine, Mr. John Amos Comenius, one of the Seniours of the exiled Church

of Moravia; and now, upon the request of many, translated into English

and published by Samuel Hartlib for the general good of the Nation.

London: Printed for Michael Sparke, Senior, at the Blue Bible in Greene

Arbour: 1642" (small ito. pp. 94).--This is, in fact, a reproduction in

English of the views of Comenius in his Didactica Magna, &c. As I find it

registered in the books of the Stationers' Company "Jan. 12, 1641"

(_i.e._ 1641-2), it must have been out early in 1642.

These traces of Hartlib in the years 1641 and 1642 are significant, and

admit of some comment:--In the _Description_ _of the Kingdom of Macaria_,

I should say, Hartlib broke out for himself. He had all sorts of ideas as

to social and economic improvements, and he would communicate a little

specimen of these, respecting Husbandry, Fishery, and Commerce, to the

reforming Parliament. But he was still faithful to Durie and Comenius,

and three of his recovered utterances of 1641-2 are in behalf of them.

His _Brief Relation_ and his _Letter to Henderson_ refer to Durie and his

scheme of Protestant union. It is not impossible that Hartlib was moved

to these new utterances in the old subject by Durie's own presence in

London; for, as we have mentioned (Vol. II. p. 367), there is some

evidence that Durie, who had not been in London since 1633, came over on

a flying visit after the opening of the Long Parliament. It is a

coincidence, at least, that the publisher of Hartlib's _Brief Relation_

about Durie brought out, at the very same time, a book of Durie's own

tending in the same direction. [Footnote: "Mr. Dureus his Eleven

Treatises touching Ecclesiastical Peace amongst Protestants" is the title

of an entry by Mr. Crooke in the Stationers' Registers, of date Feb. 15,

1640.] Quite possibly, however, Durie may have still been abroad, and

Hartlib may have acted for him. In the other case there is no such doubt.

When, in Jan. 1641-2, Hartlib sent to the press his new compilation of

the views of Comenius under the title of _A Reformation of Schools_,

there was good reason for it. Comenius himself was at his elbow. The

great man had come to London.

Education, and especially University Education, was one of the subjects

that Parliament was anxious to take up. In the intellectual world of

England, quite apart from politics, there had for some time been a

tradition of dissatisfaction with the existing state of the Universities

and the great Public Schools. In especial, Bacon's complaints and

suggestions on this subject in the Second Book of his _De Augmentis_

had sunk into thoughtful minds. That the Universities, by persistence in

old and outworn methods, were not in full accord with the demands and

needs of the age; that their aims were too professional and particular,

and not sufficiently scientific and general; that the order of studies in

them was bad, and some of the studies barren; that there ought to be a

bold direction of their endowments and apparatus in the line of

experimental knowledge, so as to extract from Nature new secrets, and

sciences for which Humanity was panting; that, moreover, there ought to

be more of fraternity and correspondence among the Universities of

Europe, and some organization of their labours with a view to mutual

illumination and collective advance: [Footnote: "De Augmentis:" Bacon's

Works, I. 487 _et seq._, and Translation of same, III. 323 _et seq._

(Spedding's edition).] all these Verulamian speculations, first submitted

to King James, were lying hid here and there in English intellects, in

watch for an opportunity. Then, in a different way, the political crisis

had brought Oxford and Cambridge, but especially Oxford, under severe

revision. Had they not been the nurseries of Episcopacy, and of other

things and principles of which England was now declaring herself

impatient? All this, which was to be more felt after the Civil War had

begun and Oxford became the King's headquarters, was felt already in very

considerable degree during the two-and-twenty months of preliminary

struggle between the King and the Parliament (Nov. 1640-Aug. 1642). Why

not have a University in London? There was Gresham College in the city,

in existence since 1597, and doing not ill on its limited basis; there

was Chelsea College, founded by Dean Sutcliffe of Exeter in 1610, "to the

intent that learned men might there have maintenance to answer all the

adversaries of religion" but which, after a rickety infancy, and laughed

at by Laud as "Controversy College," had been lost in lawsuits: why not,

with inclusion or exclusion of these and other foundations, set up in

London a great University on the best modern principles, abolishing the

monopoly of Oxford and Cambridge?

Of these rumours, plans, or possibilities, due notice had been sent by

the zealous Hartlib to Comenius at Leszno. Ought not Comenius to be on

the spot? What had he been hoping for and praying for but a "Collegial

Society" somewhere in some European state to prepare the necessary

"Apparatus of Pammethodic Books" and so initiate his new system of

Universal Didactics, or again (to take the other and larger form of his

aspiration), a visible co-operation of kindred spirits throughout Europe

towards founding and building the great "Temple of Pansophia" or

"Universal Real Knowledge"? What if these Austro-Slavic dreams of his

should be realized on the banks of the Thames? People were very willing

thereabouts; circumstances were favourable; what was mainly wanted was

direction and the grasp of a master-spirit! Decidedly, Comenius ought to

come over.--All this we learn from Comenius himself, whose account of the

matter and of what followed had better now be quoted. "The _Pansophiæ

Prodromus_," he says, "having been published, and copies dispersed

through the various kingdoms of Europe, but many learned men who approved

of the sketch despairing of the full accomplishment of the work by one

man, and therefore advising the erection of a College of learned men for

this express business, in these circumstances the very person who had

been the means of giving the _Prodromus_ to the world, a man strenuous in

practically prosecuting things as far as he can, Mr. S. H. [_strenuus

rerum quâ datur [Greek: ergodioktæs], D. S. H._], devoted himself

laboriously to that scheme, so as to bring as many of the more forward

spirits into it as possible. And so it happened at length that, having

won over one and another, he, in the year 1641, prevailed on me also by

great entreaties to go to him. My people having consented to the journey,

I came to London on the very day of the autumnal equinox [Sept. 22,

1641], and there at last learnt that I had been invited by the order of

the Parliament. But, as the Parliament, the King having then gone to

Scotland [Aug. 10], was dismissed for a three months' recess [not quite

three months, but from Sept. 9 to Oct. 20], I was detained there through

the winter, my friends mustering what Pansophic apparatus they could,

though it was but slender. On which occasion there grew on my hands a

tractate with this title, _Via Lucis: Hoc Est, &c._. [The Way of Light]:

That is, A Reasonable Disquisition how the Intellectual Light of Souls,

namely Wisdom, may now at length, in this Evening of the World, be

happily diffused through all Minds and Peoples. This for the better

understanding of these words of the oracle in _Zachariah XIV._ 7, _It

shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light._ The

Parliament meanwhile having reassembled, and our presence being known, I

had orders to wait until they should have sufficient leisure from other

business to appoint a commission of learned and wise men from their body

for hearing us and considering the grounds of our design. They

communicate also beforehand their thoughts of assigning to us some

College with its revenues, whereby a certain number of learned and

illustrious men, called from all nations, might he honourably maintained,

either for a term of years or in perpetuity. There was even named for the

purpose _the Savoy_ in London; _Winchester College_ out of London was

named; and again, nearer the city, _Chelsea College_, inventories of

which and of its revenues were communicated to us; so that nothing seemed

more certain than that the design of the great Verulam, concerning the

opening somewhere of a Universal College, devoted to the advancement of

the Sciences, could be carried out. But the rumour of the Insurrection in

Ireland, and of the massacre in one night of more than 200,000 English

[Oct.-Nov.], and the sudden departure of the King from London [Jan. 10,

1641-2], and the plentiful signs of the bloody war about to break out,

disturbed these plans, and obliged me to hasten my return to my own

people. It happened, however, that letters came to me from Sweden, which

had been sent to Poland and thence forwarded to England, in which that

magnanimous and energetic man, Ludovicus de Geer, invited me to come to

him in Sweden, and offered immediate means of furthering my studies and

those of any two or three learned men I chose to associate with me.

Communicating this offer to my friends in London, I took my departure,

but not without protestations from them that I ought to let my services

be employed in nothing short of the Pansophic Design." [Footnote:

Autobiographic Introduction to the "Second Part" of the _Opera Didactica_

of Comenius (1657), containing his Didactic writings from 1642 to 1650.]

This is very interesting, and, I have no doubt, quite accurate.

[Footnote: I have not been able to find in the Lords or Commons Journals

for 1641 and 1642 any traces of those communications between Comenius and

the Parliament of which he speaks. There may be such, for the Indexes are

not perfect; and there is not the least reason to doubt the word of

Comenius.] And so, through the winter of 1641-2 and the spring of 1642,

we are to imagine Hartlib and Comenius going about London together,

Hartlib about forty years of age and Comenius about fifty, the younger

man delighted with his famous friend, introducing him to various people,

and showing him the chief sights (the law-chambers and house of the great

Verulam not omitted, surely), and all the while busy with Pansophic talk

and the details of the Pansophic College. We see now the reason of

Hartlib's publication in Jan. 1641-2 of Comenius's two treatises jointly

in a book called _A Reformation of Schools_. It was to help in the

business which had brought Comenius to London.

It was a great chagrin to Hartlib when the London plan came to an abrupt

end, and Comenius transferred himself to Sweden. Thither we must follow

him, for yet one other passage of his history before we leave him:--

"Conveyed to Sweden in August of the year 1642," proceeds Comenius, "I

found my new Mæcenas at his house at Nortcoping; and, having been kindly

received by him, I was, after some days of deliberation, sent to

Stockholm, to the most illustrious Oxenstiern, Chancellor of the Kingdom,

and Dr. Johannes Skyte, Chancellor of the University of Upsal. These two

exercised me in colloquy for four days; and chiefly the former, that

Eagle of the North (_Aquila Aquilonius_). He inquired into the

foundations of both my schemes, the Didactic and the Pansophic, so

searchingly that it was unlike anything that had been done before by any

of my learned critics. In the first two days he examined the Didactics,

with at length this conclusion: 'From an early age,' said he, 'I

perceived that our Method of Studies generally in use is a harsh and

crude one [_violentum quiddam_]; but where the thing stuck I could

not find out. At length, having been sent, by my King of glorious memory

[Gustavus Adolphus], as ambassador into Germany, I conversed on the

subject with various learned men. And, when I had heard that Wolfgang

Ratich was toiling at an amended Method, I had no rest of mind till I had

got that gentleman into my presence; who, however, instead of a talk on

the subject, offered me a big volume in quarto to read. I swallowed that

trouble; and, having turned over the whole book, I saw that he detected

not badly the maladies of our schools, but the remedies he proposed did

not seem sufficient. Yours, Mr. Comenius, rest on firmer foundations. Go

on with the work.' I answered that I had done all I could in those

matters, and must now go on to others. 'I know said he, 'that you are

toiling at greater affairs, for I have read your _Prodromus Pansophiæ_.

We will speak of that to-morrow: I must to public business now.' Next

day, beginning to examine, but with greater severity, my Pansophic

Attempts, he opened with this question, 'Are you a man, Mr. Comenius,

that can bear contradiction? [_Potesne contradicentem ferre_?]' 'I can,'

replied I, 'and therefore that _Prodromus_ or Preliminary Sketch was (not

by me either, but by friends) sent out first, that it might meet with

judgment and criticism. Which if we admit from all and sundry, why not

from men of mature wisdom and heroic reason?' He began, accordingly, to

discourse against the hope of a better state of things conceived as lying

in a rightly instituted study of Pansophia, first objecting political

reasons of deep import, and then the testimonies of the divine

Scriptures, which seem to foretell for the latter days of the world

rather darkness and a certain deterioration of things than light and

amended institutions. To all which he had such answers from me that he

closed with these words, 'Into no one's mind do I think such things have

come before. Stand upon these grounds of yours: either so shall we come

some time to agreement, or there will be no way at all left. My advice,

however, is (added he) that you proceed first to do a good stroke in the

School business, and to bring the study of the Latin tongue to a greater

facility, and so prepare a broader and clearer way for those bigger

matter.' The Chancellor of the University did not cease to urge the same;

and he suggested this as well: that, if I were unwilling to remove with

my family into Sweden, at all events I should come nearer to Sweden by

taking up my abode in Prussia, say in Elbing. As my Mæcenas, to whom I

returned at Nortcoping [Ludovicus de Geer], thought that both advices

ought to be acquiesced in, and earnestly begged me that nothing should be

done otherwise than had been advised, whether in respect of the place of

my abode, or of priority to be given to any other task, I agreed at

length, always with the hope that within a year or two there would be an

end of the hack-work."--In fact, Comenius went to Elbing in Prussia

(Hartlib's native place, as the reader may remember), to be supported

there by the generosity of Ludovicus de Geer, with subsidies perhaps from

Oxenstiern, and to labour on at a completion of his system of School

Education, with a view to its application to Sweden.--"But this good-

nature of mine in yielding to the Swedes vehemently displeased my English

friends; and they sought to draw me back from any bargain by a long

epistle, most full of reasons. 'A sufficient specimen,' they argued, 'had

been given in Didactics; the path of farther rectification in that

department was open enough: not yet so in Real Science. Others could act

in the former department, and everywhere there were rising up

Schoolmasters provoking each other to industry by mutual emulation;

whereas the foundations of Pansophia were not yet sufficiently laid bare.

Infinitely more profit would redound to the public from an explanation of

the ways of true Wisdom than from little trifles about Latin.' Much more

in the same strain; and S. H. [Samuel Hartlib] added, '_Quo, moriture,

ruis? minoraque viribus audes_?' in this poetical _solecism_ [Comenius

calls the hexameter a solecism, I suppose, on account of the false

quantity it contains in the word _minora_], reproaching my

inconsiderateness. Rejoiced by this recall into the road-royal, I sent

on this letter to Sweden; and, nothing doubting that they would come

round to the arguments there expressed, I gave myself up wholly to my

Pansophics, whether to continue in them, or that, at all events (if the

Swedish folk did wish me to dwell on in my Scholastics and it were my hap

to die in that drudgery), the foundations of Pansophia, of the

insufficient exposition of which I heard complaints, might be better dug

down into, so that they might no longer be ignored. But from Sweden the

answer that came was one ordering me to persevere in the proposal of

first finishing the Didactics; backed by saws to this effect: 'One would

rather the _better_, but the _earlier_ must be done first,' 'One doesn't

go from the bigger to the smaller, but _wicey warsey_,' and all the rest

of it. Nothing was left me but to obey, and plod on against my will in

the clay of logomachies for eight whole years. Fortunately this was not

till I had printed at Dantzic, in the year 1643, my already-made efforts

at a better detection of the foundations of Pansophia, under the title of

'_Pansophiæ Diatyposis Ichnographica et Orthographica_,' reprinted

immediately at Amsterdam and Paris." [Footnote: Introd. to Part II. of

_Opera Didactica_.]

Poor Comenius! He had a long life before him yet; but at this point we

must throw him off, shunted into his siding at Elbing, to plod there for

four years (1642-1646) at his Didactics, while he would fain have been

soaring among his Pansophics. [Footnote: Though, as he has told us, his

drudgery at the Didactics continued for _eight_ years in all, there

was a break of these eight years in 1646 when he returned to Sweden to

report proceedings to his employers.] Letters from his London friend,

Hartlib, would reach him frequently in Elbing, and would doubtless

encourage him in the humbler labour since he could not be at the higher.

For Hartlib himself, we find, also laid aside the Pansophics for a time,

seeing no hope for them in London without the presidency of Comenius, but

continued to interest himself in the Didactics. In fact, however, he was

never without interests of some kind or another. Thus, in Feb. 1642-3, or

when Comenius may have been about a year at Elbing, Hartlib was again at

the Durie business. "A Faithfull and Seasonable Advice, or the Necessity

of a Correspondence for the Advancement of the Protestant Cause: humbly

suggested to the Great Councill of England assembled in Parliament:

Printed by John Hammond, 1643," is the title of a new tract, of a few

pages, which we know to be Hartlib's. [Footnote: In the copy in the

King's Library, British Museum, there is the MS. note "Ex dono Authoris,

S. Hartlib" with the date "Feb. 6, 1642," (_i.e._ 1642-3).] Then, in

July 1643, the Westminster Assembly met; and what an accession of topics

of interest that brought to Hartlib may be easily imagined. There was the

excitement of _The Solemn League and Covenant_ (Aug.-Sept.), with

the arrival in London of the Scottish Commissioners, including Hartlib's

friend Henderson, to take part in the Assembly; there was the beginning

of the great debate between Independency and Presbyterianism; nay, in

Nov. 1643, Durie was himself appointed a member of the Assembly by the

Parliament (Vol. II. p. 517), and so drawn over from the Continent for a

long period of service and residence in England.

That Hartlib _was_ interested in all this, and led into new

positions and relationships by it, there is very varied proof.--For

example, he was one of the witnesses in Laud's trial, which began Nov.

13,1643, and straggled on through the rest of that year and the next. His

evidence was wanted by the prosecution in support of that one of the

charges against Laud which alleged that he had "endeavoured to cause

division and discord between the Church of England and other Reformed

Churches." In proof of this it was proposed to show that he had

discouraged and impeded Durie in his Conciliation scheme, on the ground

that the Calvinistic Churches were alien from the true faith, and that,

in particular, he had "caused letters-patent granted by the King for a

collection for the Palatinate ministers to be revoked after they had

passed the great seal"; and it was to the truth of both these statements

that Hartlib, with others, was required to testify. He was, as we know, a

most competent witness in that matter; and he gave his evidence duly,

though, as I should fancy, with no real ill-will to Laud. [Footnote: See

particulars in Prynne's _Canterburie's Doome_ (1646), pp.539-542.

Laud, in this part of his defence, names both Durie and Hartlib. He says

he did not discourage Durie, but rather encouraged him, as he could prove

by letters of Durie's which he had; to which the prosecution replied that

the contrary was notorious, and that Durie had "oft complained to his

friends" of Land's coldness.]--Now that Episcopacy was done with, and it

was to a Parliament and an Assembly mainly Presbyterian that England was

looking for a new system of Church-government, Hartlib's anxiety was, as

Durie's also was, to make the best of the new conditions, and to instil

into them as much of the Durie idea as possible. Might it not even be

that a Reformed Presbyterian Church of England would be a more effective

leader in a movement for the union of the Protestant Churches of Europe

than the Episcopal Church had been? This explains another short tract of

Hartlib's, put forth Nov. 9, 1644, and entitled, "The Necessity of some

nearer Conjunction and Correspondency amongst Evangelical Protestants,

for the Advancement of the National Cause, and bringing to passe the

effect of the Covenant." [Footnote: Though the tract, which consists of

but eight small quarto pages, is anonymous, it is verified as Hartlib's

by the inscription on the British Museum copy, "By Mr. Hartlib, Novemb.

9th." The tract itself bears only "London Printed 1644."]--Well, but how

did Hartlib stand in the great controversy between the Independents and

the Presbyterians? This too can be answered. As might be expected, he was

in sympathy with the Independents, in as far as their claim for a

Toleration was concerned. The reader will remember Edwards's famous

_Antapologia_, published in July 1644, in answer to the _Apologetical

Narration_ of the Five Independent Divines of the Assembly, and which all

the Presbyterian world welcomed as an absolutely crushing blow to

Independency and the Toleration principle. Here, then, is the title of a

smaller publication which that big one provoked: "A Short Letter modestly

entreating a Friend's judgment upon Mr. Edwards his Booke he calleth an

Anti-Apologia: with a large but modest Answer thereunto: London, Printed

according to order, 1644." Actually it was out on Sept. 14th, or about

two months after Edwards's book. The title exactly indicates the

structure of the publication. It consists of a short Letter and a longish

Reply to that Letter. The Letter begins, "Worthy Sir, I have heard of Mr.

Edwards's Anti-Apologeticall Book, as I needs must doe, for all the City

and Parliament rings with it," and it goes on to request from the person

addressed _his_ opinion of the hook. At the end of the letter we find the

writer's name "Sam Hartlib": and the dating "from my house in Duke's

Place in great haste, Aug. 5." And who was the friend addressed? He was a

Hezekiah Woodward, B.A. (Oxon.), preacher in or near Aldermanbury, about

fifty years of age, long a zealous Puritan, latterly a decided

Parliamentarian and champion of the Solemn League and Covenant, and

already known as an author by some Puritanic books, and one or two of a

pedagogic kind, referable to an earlier period of his life when he had

been a London schoolmaster. Hartlib had known him, he says in his letter,

for sixteen years, that is to say from his first coming to London in 1628

or 1629. It is this long friendship that justifies him in asking

Woodward's opinion of Edwards's book. The opinion is given in a reply to

Hartlib, signed "Hezekiah Woodward," and dated "from my house in

Aldermanbury, 13 Aug. 1644"; and it is, as far as I remember, quite

against Edwards, and a real, though hazy and perplexed, reasoning for

Toleration.[Footnote: The publication was duly registered, and has a long

appended _Imprimatur_ by Joseph Caryl; and the exact date of the

publication (Sept 14) is from a MS. note in the British Museum copy, For

a sketch of Woodward and a list of his writings see Wood, Ath. III, 1034-

7.]

MILTON'S TRACT ON EDUCATION: HIS METHOD WITH HIS PUPILS.

It had been Hartlib's chance, he himself tells us, to be "familiarly

acquainted with the best of Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, Viscounts,

Barons, Knights, Esquires, Gentlemen, ministers, Professors of both

Universities, Merchants, and all sorts of learned or in any kind useful

men." This he wrote at a considerably later date in his life; [Footnote:

In Aug. 1660, See Letter in Dircks's Memoir, p. 4.] but, from what we

have already seen, we may vote it substantially true even in 1644. In

that year, we know for certain, the circle of Hartlib's friends included

Milton.

The acquaintanceship may have begun some years before that. It may have

begun in 1639 when Milton, on his return from abroad, took lodgings in

St. Bride's Churchyard, or in 1640, when he first set up house in

Aldersgate Street. At all events, when Milton's Anti-Episcopal pamphlets

of the next two years made him a public man, he is not likely to have

escaped the cognisance of Hartlib. I should not wonder if Milton were one

of those "more forward spirits" whom Hartlib wanted to enlist in the

great scheme of a Pansophic University of London to be organized by

Comenius, and whom he tried to bring round Comenius personally during the

stay of that theorist in London in 1641-2, when the experiment of some

such University was really in contemplation by friends in Parliament, and

Chelsea had been almost fixed on as the site. But, if so, I rather guess,

for reasons which will appear, that Milton gave the whole scheme the cold

shoulder, and did not take to the great Comenius. Quite possibly,

however, it was not till Comenius was gone, and was fixed down at Elbing

in Prussia, that there was any intimacy between Milton and Hartlib. It

may have come about after Milton had been deserted by his wife in July

1643, and when a few pupils, besides the two nephews he had till then had

charge of, were received into his wifeless household. Would not this in

itself be an attraction to Hartlib? Was not Milton pursuing a new method

with his pupils, between which and the method of Comenius there were

points in common? Might not Comenius himself, in his retirement at

Elbing, be interested in hearing of an eminent English scholar and poet

who had views about a Reform of Education akin to his own?

This is very much fancy, but it is the exact kind of fancy that fits the

certainty. That certainty is that, before the middle of 1644, Milton and

Hartlib were well acquainted with each other, had met pretty frequently

at Milton's house in Aldersgate Street, or at Hartlib's in Duke's Place,

and had conversed freely on many subjects, and especially on that of

Education. Nay more, Hartlib, trying to indoctrinate Milton with the

Comenian views on this subject, had found that Milton had already certain

most positive views of his own upon it, in some things agreeing with the

Comenian, but in others vigorously differing. Hence, after various

colloquies, he had made a request to Milton. Would he put a sketch of his

views upon paper--no elaborate treatise, but merely a sketch, such as one

could read in half-an-hour or so, and, if permitted, show to a friend, or

print for more general use? Urged more and more pressingly, Milton

complied; and the result was the appearance, on June 5, 1644, on some

booksellers' counters, of a thin little quarto tract, of eight pages in

rather small type, with no author's name, and no title-page at all, but

simply this heading atop of the text on the first page, "OF EDUCATION: TO

MASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB." The publication had been duly registered, and the

publisher was the same Thomas Underhill, of Wood Street, who had

published Milton's first three Anti-Episcopal pamphlets. The inference is

that the thing was printed by Milton himself, and not by Hartlib. It

would be handier for Hartlib to have it in print than in manuscript.

[Footnote: "June 4, 1644: Tho. Underhill entered for his copy under the

hands of Mr. Cranford [the licenser] and Mr. Man, warden, a little tract

touching Education of Youth," is the entry in the Stationers' books;

without which we should not have known the publisher's name. The date of

the publication is fixed, and the fact that the authorship was known at

the time is proved, by this MS. note of Thomason on the copy among the

King's Pamphlets in the British Museum (Press mark 12. F. e. 12./160)

"By Mr. John Milton: 5 June, 1644."--Milton reprinted the tract in 1673,

at the end of the second edition of his Minor Poems, with the words

"Written above twenty years since" added to the original title.]

Hartlib must have been pleased, and yet not altogether pleased, with the

opening of the Tract. Here it is:--

"MR. HARTLIB,

"I am long since persuaded that to say or do aught worth memory and

imitation no purpose or respect should sooner move us than simply the

love of God and of Mankind. Nevertheless, to write now the Reforming of

Education, though it be one of the greatest and noblest designs that can

be thought on, and for the want whereof this Nation perishes, I had not

yet at this time been induced, but by your earnest entreaties and serious

conjurements; as having my mind for the present half diverted in the

pursuance of some other assertions, the knowledge and the use of which

cannot but be a great furtherance both to the enlargement of Truth and

honest living with much more peace. [Footnote: This passage, the wording

of which clearly implies that Milton was prosecuting his Divorce

speculation, with whatever else in addition, sets aside a hypothesis

(which may have occurred to the reader as well as to myself) that the

Tract on Education, though not published till June 1644, may have been

written, and in Hartlib's hands, as early as 1641-2, when Comenius was in

London. The hypothesis, which might have been otherwise plausible, will

not accord with the particular words of the tract now presented; and the

conclusion is that, whether Milton knew Hartlib or not as early as 1641-

2, when Comenius was with him, the tract was not written till shortly

before its publication in June 1644, when Comenius had been two years in

Elbing.] Nor should the laws of any private friendship have prevailed

with me to divide thus, or to transpose, my former thoughts, but that I

see those aims, those actions, which have won you with me the esteem of a

person sent hither by some good providence from a far country to be the

occasion and the incitement of great good to this Island. And, as I hear,

you have obtained the same repute with men of most approved wisdom, and

some of highest authority among us; not to mention the learned

correspondence which you hold in foreign parts, and the extraordinary

pains and diligence which you have used in this matter both here and

beyond the seas, either by the definite will of God so ruling, or the

peculiar sway of nature, which also is God's working, Neither can I think

that, so reputed and so valued as you are, you would, to the forfeit of

your own discerning ability, impose upon me an unfit and over-ponderous

argument, but that the satisfaction which you profess to have received

from those incidental discourses which we have wandered into hath

pressed, and almost constrained, you into a persuasion that what you

require from me in this point I neither ought nor can in conscience defer

beyond this time, both of so much need at once and of so much opportunity

to try what God hath determined. I will not resist, therefore, whatever

it is either of divine or human obligement that you lay upon me; but will

forthwith set down in writing, as you request me, that voluntary Idea

which hath long in silence presented itself to me of a better Education,

in extent and comprehension far more large, and yet of time far shorter

and of attainment far more certain, than hath been yet in practice. Brief

I shall endeavour to be; for that which I have to say assuredly this

Nation hath extreme need should be _done_ sooner than _spoken_.

To tell you, therefore, what I have benefited herein among old renowned

authors, I shall spare; and to search what many modern JANUAS and

DIDACTICS, more than ever I shall read, have projected, my inclination

leads me not. But, if you can accept of these few observations, which

have flowered off, and are as it were the burnishing of, many studious

and contemplative years altogether spent in the search of religious and

civil knowledge, and such as pleased you so well in the relating, I here

give you them to dispose of."

What must have pleased Hartlib in this was the tone of respectful

compliment to himself; what may have pleased him less was the slighting

way in which Comenius is passed over. "To search what many modern JANUAS

and DIDACTICS, more than ever I shall read, have projected, my

inclination leads me not," says Milton, quoting in brief the titles of

the two best-known works of Comenius. It is as if he had said, "I know

your enthusiasm for your Pansophic friend; but I have not read his books

on Education, and do not mean to do so." This was barely polite;

[Footnote: The manner of the allusion to Comenius rather forbids the idea

that Milton had met him during his London visit. Like most high-natured

men, Milton had a kindly side to the merits of those whom he personally

knew.] but Hartlib was a man of sense: and he would be glad, in reading

on, to find that, with whatever independence Milton had formed his views,

not even Comenius had outgone him in denunciations of the existing system

of Education. Thus:--

"Seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all

kind of learning, therefore we are taught chiefly the languages of those

people who have at any time been most industrious after wisdom; so that

Language is but the instrument conveying to us Things worthy to be known.

And, though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that

Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied the solid things

in them as well as the words and Lexicons, he were nothing so much to be

esteemed a learned man as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his

mother-dialect only. Hence appear the many mistakes which have made

Learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful. First, we do amiss

to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much

miserable Latin and Greek as might be learnt otherwise easily and

delightfully in one year. And that which casts our proficiency therein so

much behind is our time lost, partly in too oft idle vacancies given both

to Schools and Universities, partly in a preposterous exaction, forcing

the empty wits of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, which

are the acts of ripest judgment, and the final work of a head filled, by

long reading and observing, with elegant maxims and copious invention.

These are not matters to be wrung from poor striplings, like blood out of

the nose, or the plucking of untimely fruit: besides the ill habit which

they get of wretched barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom with

their untutored Anglicisms, odious to read, yet not to be avoided without

a well-continued and judicious conversing among pure authors digested,

which they scarce taste; whereas, if, after some preparatory grounds of

speech by their certain forms got into memory, they were led to the

praxis thereof in some chosen short book lessoned thoroughly to them,

they might then forthwith proceed to learn the substance of good Things

and Arts in due order, which would bring the whole language quickly into