will make these letters come very late. Since, there has been but small
progress in affairs. After our fourteen days debate for a present way
of ordination, upon the desire of the Lords in this extraordinary
necessity, when we were ready to conclude it, upon my Lord Sey’s
harangue and vehement desire, it was laid aside; and upon hope made by
him and his followers of the quick dispatch of the ordinary way, we
fell on the long-wished-for subject of the presbytery; whereupon we
have been skirmishing ever since. The proposition we stick on is. That
no particular congregation may be under the government of one classical
presbytery. The Independents agree for the negative; but finding, that
all they brought yet was but vellications on quiddities, the most was
impatient of their ways; so much the more, as this day being pressed
to answer to the scriptures, which the committee had given in for the
affirmation, they were obstinate to end first their negative. They
promised at last to come to their scriptural objections; but would not
name their scriptures beforehand. By this the most took them rather to
seek vantage and victory, than the truth in so ingenuous a way as they
professed. However, the matter cannot take long debate. The heat and
clamorous confusion of this assembly is often times greater than with
us. The reason, I think, is their way, both in assembly and parliament,
to divest the speaker and prolocutor of all authority, and turn them
to a very and mere chair, as they call them. We mind yet again to
essay the Independents in a privy conference, if we can draw them to a
reasonable accommodation; for to that toleration they aim at we cannot
consent. In the committee for the directory, we gave in the matter of
publick prayer. It was taken well by all the committee, and I hope
shall pass. It was laid on __________ to draw up a directory for both
sacraments; on Mr Marshall for preaching; on Mr Palmer for catechising;
on Mr Young for reading of scriptures, and singing of psalms; on Mr
Goodwin and Mr Herle for fasting and thanksgiving. Had not the debate
upon the main point of differing, (the presbytery,) withdrawn all our
minds, before this these tasks had been ended. However, we expect, by
God’s grace, shortly to end these. What is behind in the directory,
will all be committed the next time to the forenamed hands; and if it
had passed these, we apprehend no great difficulty in its passing the
great committee, the assembly, and parliament. We get good help in our
assembly-debates of my Lord Wariston; but of none more than of that
noble youth Mr Gillespie. I truly admire his faculty, and bless God,
as for all my colleagues, so for him in that faculty with the first of
the whole assembly. The Anabaptists and Antinomians increase; which yet
cannot be helped.
* * * * *
Montrose has contrived a wicked band and oath, against all who have
taken the covenant, for the assistance of England, as traitors, which,
we hear, Kinnoul, Traquair, and others, have refused, with disdain.
However, ye would look to yourselves, and know well whom you trust.
Yet we hope in our God that our army in England shall break the neck
of all these wicked designs. The good party here were neither very
able nor willing to move much till our state-commissioners came. At
their first coming, they drew the form of an ordinance, whereby seven
Lords and fourteen Commons, should join with our four commissioners,
whereof five should make a quorum, viz. one Lord, two Commons, two
Scots, for giving of counsel, for ordering and directing the armies
in the three kingdoms for the ends expressed in the covenant. When we
had agreed with Sir Harry Vane and the Solicitor, upon the draught, it
was gotten through the House of Lords with little difficulty, where
most was expected; my Lord Sey, upon new occurrences, being somewhat
of the general; my Lord Northumberland joining effectually with all
our desires, our army being now masters of his lands; also Stapleton
being put on the committee, and desirous to be sent to salute our army.
Hollis, Clotworthy, and others, were put off it; so a great business
was made on it: yet it was carried over the belly of the opposers. But
they tuned themselves about another way, and wrought on the facility
of the General, deaving him with demonstrations of his limitation and
degradation by this committee; that it made void the close committee
of safety; it took the power to manage the war, to do all; which was
to infringe his commission, subjecting him only to the two Houses,
and no committee from them. Hereupon the House of Lords alters, and
puts other six Lords, and twelve Commons to the former, limits the
committee’s power to advising and consulting, makes the English quorum
to consist of three Lords and six Commons. Upon this demur we gave a
short and sharp enough paper to both Houses, to be at a point, if they
thought to make any use of our committee, which so oft and so earnestly
they had sought for. It was so guided, that the Commons unanimously
agreed to the former ordinance, and required the Lords to stand in
their own hazard. This day the Lords have well near agreed to the
former ordinance. If this were past, we look for a new life and vigour
in all affairs, especially if it please God to send a sweet north
wind, carrying the certain news of the taking of Newcastle, which we
daily expect. By all this you see what great need we have all of your
effectual prayers. How great things are presently in hand! the highest
affairs both of church and state being now in agitation, the diligence
and power both of devils, and all kind of human enemies, being in their
extreme bent-sail of opposition, either now or never to overthrow us,
so much the more should your courage be to pray; as I persuade you the
former supplications are all turned in sensible blessings on us; all
here, as in body and mind, praise to his name, being supported to this
day, as you do wish; which we truly ascribe in a good part to your
intercession, which we intreat may continue and increase, especially
for assistance to me in preaching the last Wednesday of this month
before the House of Commons in the fast-day. This is all, but yet a
great recompense, which I require of you for my long letters in a time
not of much leisure. The Lord give an happy and quick end to all these
confusions, and settle again these poor churches and kingdoms in truth
and justice.
Since the closing of my last, the hard and great business of the joint
committee is happily concluded, fully according to our mind, praised
be God; for once we were in great fear of its miscarriage, and of the
dividing of the one House from the other upon it. They began to sit
yesterday: and are appointed to sit every day at three o’clock, and
oftener on occasion: henceforth we expect expedition.
* * * * *
It is said, these of Oxford are so far fallen, as to acknowledge the
parliament at Westminster, and to put down Episcopacy, and to disclaim
the cessation of Ireland. If our march to Newcastle has produced
this much, I hope our taking of it shall obtain the rest. I hope our
synod-affairs shall have a more speedy dispatch. A course will be
shortly taken with all sectaries, and is begun already. The misorders
which are at this time in New England, will make the Independents more
willing to accommodate and comply with us. Praise to God we all are
well, chearful, and hopeful, by your prayers, to see the advancement of
a glorious work here.
* * * * *
_To Mr William Spang._
You have a large report from me, how all went here to the 18th of
February. My leisure since has been but small; and as yet I have no
time. Only know, that your letters to us were exceeding welcome; and
for your good service to God, and us, in due time, you shall receive
thanks. My nephew is gone home, with his most loving remembrance of
your great kindness. The other day some of the Dutch church came to
the assembly-door, and delivered a letter to us, from the classes of
Wallachren. It was publickly read, and taken with a great deal of
respect. It came wonderful opportunely, and will do a great deal of
good. The long and sharp censure of the apologetick narration was very
well received by all, but the parties, who yet were altogether silent,
and durst not oppose one word. A committee was presently appointed for
translating it into English, and transmitting it, to be read, to both
houses of parliament, both in Latin and English. What there it may
work, you shall hear in time. It spoke so near to the mind and words
of the Scots, that some said it savoured of them; but when some such
muttering was brought to the face of the assembly, all did deny they
knew any author of such a speech; so, no man avowing it, the Scots
let such a calumny pass, without any apology. I believe they wished,
and thought it just, that all the Reformed churches should do all
which the divines of Wallachren hath, in the defence of the cause of
God, and all the Reformed churches, against common and very dangerous
adversaries. But I heard them say, in private, that they had no
correspondence at all with any foreign churches; it might be that some
of them had sometimes letters from the minister of the Scots staple at
Campvere, but that none of them had sent him either the apologetical
narration, or so much as our answer to it; that they had never motioned
any censure of that book by the foreign divines. However, in the good
providence of God, that letter came. It is expected the synod of
Zealand will not only avow what their brethren have written, but will
give their brotherly advice to this synod, anent all the things in
hand; which I assure you will be very well taken, and do much good;
especially, if with their serious dissuasive from Independency, and
cordial exhortation to erect presbyteries and synods, they join their
counsels for abolishing the relicks of Romish superstition, in their
festival days and liturgy, &c., and, above all, to beware of any
toleration of sects, wherein you are an evil and dangerous example. If
you assist us at this time, God may make us helpful to you another day.
Farewell. March 10th.
_April 2, 1644._—Since the 18th of February, till now, I have so little
leisure, especially by my preparing and preaching my parliament-sermon,
wherein, praised be God, I was graciously assisted, that I could not
attend the writing of any long letter; but now, that task being off
my hand, I may better wait on my friends. I shewed, in my last, how
we were brought, in our assembly, to our chief question, That many
particular congregations were under the government of one presbytery.
The Independents pressed they might first be heard in the negative.
Here they spent to us many of twenty long sessions. Goodwin took most
of the speech upon him; yet they divided their arguments among them,
and gave the managing of them by turns, to Bridges, Burroughs, Nye,
Simpson, and Caryl. Truly, if the cause were good, the men have plenty
of learning, wit, eloquence, and, above all, boldness and stiffness,
to make it out; but when they had wearied themselves, and overwearied
us all, we found the most they had to say against the presbytery, was
but curious idle niceties; yea, that all they could bring was no ways
concluding. Every one of their arguments, when it had been pressed to
the full, in one whole session, and sometimes in two or three, were
voiced, and found to be light, unanimously by all but themselves. By
this means their credit did much fall in the city, who understood daily
all we did, and found these men had got much more than fair play, a
more free liberty than any innovators ever in any assembly, to reason
their cause to the bottom; but farther in the country, who knew not
the manner of our proceedings, their emissaries filled the ears of the
people, that the assembly did cry down the truth with votes, and was
but an Anti-christian meeting, which would erect a presbytery worse
than bishops.
For to remeid these evils, and to satisfy the minds of all, we thought
meet to essay how far we could draw them in a private friendly way
of accommodation; but Satan, the father of discord, had well near
crushed that motion in the very beginning. After our first meeting,
with some three of the assembly, Marshall, Palmer, Vines, and three
of them, Goodwin, Burroughs, Bridges, with my Lord Wharton, Sir Harry
Vane, and the Solicitor, in our house, and very fair appearances of
pretty agreement, Mr Nye was like to spoil all our play. When it came
to his turn in the assembly to opugn the presbytery, he had, from
Matth. xviii. drawn in a crooked unformal way, which he never could
get in a syllogism, the inconsistence of a presbytery with a civil
state. In this he was cried down as impertinent. The day following,
when he saw the assembly full of the prime nobles and chief members
of both Houses, he did fall on that argument again, and very boldly
offered to demonstrate, that our way of drawing a whole kingdom under
one national assembly, is formidable; yea, thrice over pernicious to
civil states and kingdoms. All cried him down, and some would have had
him expelled the assembly as seditious. Mr Henderson showed, he spoke
against the government of ours, and all the Reformed churches, as
Lucian and the Pagans wont to stir up princes and states against the
Christian religion. We were all highly offended with him. The assembly
voted him to have spoken against the order; this is the highest of
their censures. Maitland was absent; but enraged when he heard of it.
We had many consultations what to do; at last, we resolved to pursue
it no further, only we would not meet with him, except he acknowledged
his fault. The Independents were resolute not to meet without him, and
he resolute to recal nothing of the substance of that he had said. At
last, we were intreated by our friends, to shuffle it over the best
way might be, and to go on in our business. God, that brings good out
of evil, made that miscarriage of Nye a mean to do him some good; for,
ever since, we find him, in all things, the most accommodating man in
the company.
This, and sundry occurrences, have made the sails of that party fall
lower. My Lord Sey’s credit and reputation is none at all, which
wont to be all in all. Sir Harry Vane, whatever be his judgement,
yet less or more does not own them, and gives them no encouragement.
No man I know, in either of the Houses, of any note, is for them.
Sundry officers and soldiers in the army are fallen from their way
to Antinomianism and Anabaptism, which burdens them with envy. Not
any one in the assembly, when they have been heard to the full in any
one thing, is persuaded by them; but all profess themselves to be
more averse from their ways than before. The brethren of New England
incline more to synods and presbyteries, driven thereto by the manifold
late heresies, schisms, and factions, broken out among them; also the
many pens that have fallen more sharply than we on their Apologetick
Narration. These, and divers other accidents, have cooled somewhat of
these mens fervour; above all, the letter from Holland has given them a
great wound. Our good friend in Zealand gave to his neighbour so good
information of all heard from us here, that so soon as the classes of
Wallachren did meet to consult about the letter which this synod sent
to them, as to all the Reformed churches, they were very bent presently
to write an answer, in the which they fell flat and expressly upon the
Independents, and their Apologetick Narration, shewing how far their
way was contrary to the word of God, to the Reformed churches, and to
all sound reason. This was read openly in the face of the assembly, and
in the ears of the Independents, who durst not mute against it. It was
appointed to be translated into English, and sent to be read in both
Houses of parliament, which was done accordingly. This has much vexed
the minds of these men, and yet we expect from the synod of Zealand,
now sitting, more water to be put in their wine. It seems they are
justly crossed by God; for beside all the error and great evil which
is in their way, they have been the only men who have kept this poor
church in an anarchy so long a time, who have preferred the advancement
of their private new fancies to the kingdom of Christ, who have lost
many thousand souls through the long confusion occasioned by their
wilfulness only, and the settling of the land, which their way hitherto
has kept loose and open, to the evident hazard of its ruin. Their ways,
private and publick, have taken away from the most of beholders, the
opinion which was of their more than ordinary piety and ingenuity: that
now is gone. All this contributes to the peace of this church. While
we came to prove the affirmative of our tenet anent the presbytery,
they jangled many days with us; but at last it was carried, and sundry
scriptures were voiced also for that proposition, to our great joy.
In the debate, they let fall so much of their mind, that it was hoped
they might come up, if not fully to our grounds, yet to most of our
practical conclusions. For this end the assembly appointed a committee
of four of them, and four of the assembly, to meet with us four, to
see how far we could agree. We were glad that what we were doing in
private should be thus authorised. We have met some three or four
times already, and have agreed on five or six propositions, hoping,
by God’s grace, to agree in more. They yield, that a presbytery, even
as we take it, is an ordinance of God, which hath power and authority
from Christ, to call the ministers and elders, or any in their bounds,
before them, to account for any offence in life or doctrine, to try and
examine the cause, to admonish and rebuke, and if they be obstinate,
to declare them as Ethnicks and publicans, and give them over to the
punishment of the magistrates, also doctrinally to declare the mind of
God in all questions of religion, with such authority as obliges to
receive their just sentences; that they will be members of such fixed
presbyteries, keep the meeting, preach as it comes to their turn, join
in the discipline after doctrine. Thus far we have gone on without
prejudice to the proceeding of the assembly. When we were going to the
rest of the propositions concerning the presbytery, my Lord Manchester
wrote to us from Cambridge, what he had done in the university, how
he had ejected for gross scandals, the heads of five colleges, Dr
Coosings, Beel, Sterne, Ramborne, and another; that he had made choice
of five of our number, to be masters in their places, Mr Palmer, Vines,
Seaman, Arrowsmith, and our countryman Young, requiring the assembly’s
approbation of his choice; which was unanimously given; for they are
all very good and able divines. Also, because of the multitude of
scandalous ministers, he behoved to remove, he renewed to the assembly
his former motion, anent the expediting of ordination. This has cast us
on that head. We have voted sundry propositions of it. The last four
sessions were spent upon an unexpected debate: Good Mr Calamy, and
some of our best friends, fearing the Separatists objections, anent
the ministry of England, as if they had no calling, for this reason,
among others, That they were ordained without the people’s election,
yea, without any flock; for the fellows of their colleges are ordained
ministers _sine titulo_, long before they are presented to any people:
when we came therefore to the proposition, That no man should be
ordained a minister without a designation to a certain church, they
stifly maintained their own practice: yet we carried it this afternoon.
As for our Directory, the matter of prayer which we gave in, is agreed
to in the committee. Mr Marshall’s part, anent preaching, and Mr
Palmer’s, about catechising, though the one be the best preacher, and
the other the best catechist, in England, yet we no way like it: so
their papers are past in our hands to frame them according to our mind.
Our paper anent the sacraments we gave in. We agreed, so far as we
went, except in a table. Here all of them oppose us, and we them. They
will not, and say the people will never yield to alter their practice.
They are content of sitting, albeit not as of a rite institute; but
to come out of their pews to a table, they deny the necessity of it:
we affirm it necessary, and will stand to it. The Independents way
of celebrating, seems to be very irreverent. They have the communion
every Sabbath, without any preparation before or thanksgiving after:
little examination of people: their very prayers and doctrine before
the sacrament, use not to be directed to the use of the sacrament. They
have, after the blessing, a short discourse, and two short graces over
the elements, which are distributed and participate in silence, without
exhortation, reading, or singing, and all is ended with a psalm,
without prayer. Mr Nye told us his private judgement, that in preaching
he thinks the minister should be covered, and the people discovered;
but in the sacrament, the minister should be discovered, as a servant,
and the guests all covered. For hasting of the assembly, we got many
messages from the Houses; but all they can do, is to sit all the days
of the week, except Saturday and Sunday, till one or two o’clock,
and twice a-week also in the afternoon; the other afternoons are for
committees. However their speed be small, yet their labour is exceeding
great, whereof all do expect a happy conclusion, and blessed fruits.
* * * * *
The eyes of all are towards our army. The great God be with it, to put
a quick end to the great miseries and dangers of all these dominions.
We were comforted by the sundry clear passages of God’s mercies towards
them; that they got as easily over the Tyne and the Ware; that the
enemy, who durst visit them in their quarters, were so infatuated by
God as not to set upon them in their passage; that when their want of
provision was almost extreme, there should come to them at Sunderland,
both from London and Scotland, so much as to put them out of hazard of
starving; that though the extremity of the tempest had cast away the
barks with their provision, yet God should have sent such weather as
made the Tyne passable, and that no longer than they were over. Many
such passages are in the letters, which we see from the camp, that
demonstrates the answer of our prayers in a part, and confirms our hope
in the rest: though the difficulties yet be many, and far greater than
any did expect; yet we think the Lord is but walking in his ordinary
way, to let us fell in difficulties insuperable to us, to draw us near
to him out of all self-confidence, that we may cry to Heaven, and what
deliverance comes it may be taken out of his hand. That very day, and
these hours, when our army was passing the Tyne, the 28th of February,
were we all here fasting and praying; and among the rest, I was praying
and preaching to the parliament; blessed be his name that gave us at
the same hour so gracious an answer. The next week, when that happy
solemn fast does return, we have much ado with the help of God; for
every where the armies are near a-yoking.
* * * * *