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known in the period of which we are now speaking. Good old Father Fox was quite outlandish in his notion of subscribing to nothing but the New Testament, Vol. i. p. 335. We are not aware that Mr. Brook has attempted to establish a parallel to this licentious position in these early times. And Fox met with an appropriate reward for his inappropriate liberality and candour of sen. timent, as appears from the beautiful correspondence in Latin preserved by historians in the matter of his persecution by the real and zealous Puritans of Magdalen College, Oxford.

concession, extracted evidently invitâ Minerva from Mr. Brook, would awaken in the hearts of our readers the very same train of thoughts which, after some consideration of the real state of the question in those times, it does in ours, we should leave the passage to its own effect. As it is, we must take leave to add to it, that, in our mind, Mr. Brook here gives the death-wound to his whole system: and, in point of fact, reveals the meator eudos which runs through, we believe unintentionally, his whole three volumes. He begins by professing to give an account of "those divines who were most distinguished in the cause of religious liberty:" and the impression through the whole work is, that we are reading a book of Martyrs who fell in that first of causes (according to modern language), the right of private judgment and the privilege of worshipping God, each according to his own conscience an impression the very contrary to fact, and a most notorious imposition upon those who are strangers to the real history and principles of the Puritan controversy! There is no historical truth, we believe, more clear, no fact more incontrovertible, than that the real design of the Puritans was not the general grant of religious liberty, but the establish- remembered," says Mr. Cartwright, ment of their own peculiar plat-"that civil magistrates must govern form and if we might be allowed the Church according to the rule of an apparent paradox, though with a far greater approach to truth than any doctrine suggested by Mr. Brook ean boast, the established Church of England, particularly during the first portions of its reign, was the real stickler and advocate for religious liberty against the close spirit, jealous designs, and unattainable discipline of the Puritan school.

Religious liberty, be it understood by our readers, meant in those days, if it had any meaning at all, the most liberal and comprehensive church establishment. The question, during the whole period to which we allude, was not, whether there should be any establishment at all; but what that establishment should be. It was no part of the controversy, whether the civil power should be exercised or not in the maintenance of religion; and when even the Puritans began to refuse its headship, which was not from the beginning, it was still to be employed as a servant, for the support and advancement of the Church. "It must be

God prescribed in his word; and that, as they are nurses, so they be servants unto the Church; and as they rule in the Church, so they must remember to subject themselves unto the Church; to submit their sceptres, to throw down their crowns, before the Church: yea, as the prophet speaks, to lick the dust of the feet of the Church."

When we speak of religious (Def. of Admonition). It is not liberty, we must be understood, indeed, to mean something rather different from that term in its modern use: for we believe it in this sense to have been wholly un

to be imagined, with these sentiments afloat, that any correct ideas of a toleration had been beaten out on either side. And whilst a bitter and relentless intolerance of the

Papists, even to death, was the universal watch-word of the whole Puritan party; and as a consequence to this, the total extirpation of the episcopal establishment, as identical with Popery, was secretly aimed at by their leaders; it could be no difficult matter to bring forward other sects and modifications of religious opinion towards whom they looked with an equally jealous and punitive intention. Where was, then, the boasted religious liberty, or free toleration, aimed at by the Puritan reformers? we believe the first measure of the kind for which Mr. Brook would teach us to thank the early Puritans as the "kindlers and preservers of the spark of liberty," was originated and executed, under the pressure of urgent necessity, by that greatest of tyrants, Oliver Cromwell.

Far is it from us, nothing farther than the intention, to draw a veil over severities, much less to offer an excuse for guilt, with which, thank God, we in this present age of true Christian liberty have nothing at all to do, and on which we in no measure depend for our own security. We only desire to serve the cause of truth so far as to lay down what appear to us to have been the real principles of both parties in those singular times. And we more particularly wish our readers fully to understand, what it was that both held, and acknowledged, and acted upon, as far as they could, in common with each other, before we enter upon any discussion of the points in which they differed. Here, therefore, we think it of the utmost consequence to repeat and demand every possible attention to the fact, that both parties were fully agreed in the main, that some establishment was necessary; that the alliance between the Church and the State was a benefit by no means to be trifled with or quitted by the former; that the State had full authority and power

not only to impose rites and ceremo nies, but to enact a whole body both of doctrine and discipline, provided it were according to the word of God, and fully to establish it by law as the uniform religion of the realm; that obedience to these enactments ought by no means to be optional, but absolutely compulsory; that what should be esteemed a very gross and mischievous departure from such enactments, should be the subject of heavy and grievous punishment; that rigorous inquisi tion should and ought to be made more particularly into the conduct and the belief of ministers under such an establishment; that suspension and deprivation should follow their delinquency, or at least their perseverance in delinquency after admonition: and, to the shame of Christians, of Britons, and, more especially, of British Protestants, it seemed a principle admitted on both sides, that capital punishment itself might be inflicted in some cases which the purer light and milder spirit of modern Christianity has taught us wholly to refer to the Supreme Arbiter of all, and the dread tribunal of the last day. So far were the Puritan Reformers from seeking a general relaxation of penal statutes in cases of conscience, that we should be at a loss to point out the time when even the infamous and detestable writ de heretico comburendo* was made a subject of complaint, or in any degree animadverted upon, by the disciples of Geneva. Let their illustrious master, Calvin, himself explain the reason and pursue the tale.

To us, we must confess, as we have hinted before, the real and substantial difference, the point at issue between the Church of England and the Puritan party, appears to have been the degree of strictness in conduct, and largeness in sacrifice abso

* It was repealed A. D. 1677, by Charles 2d's Parliament.

lutely to be required in the true res formed profession of religion. The Established Church required less the Puritan Reformers required more. in the violent disruption from Popery, Episcopacy was content to bleed a little-Presbyterian ism was ambitious of bleeding much. The submission to a few easy and indifferent ceremonies were, as Mr. Brook observes, all that was requisite to qualify a Church of England minister for his office (in addition to the doctrinal subscriptions which both required alike;) but the Geneva school demanded the establishment of the godly discipline. We believe, indeed, that in doctrine, as well as discipline, the Puritans latterly required greater rigours in subscription. They required, in short, the total extirpation of Popery, root and branch: they must dethrone popish prelates, displace popish ceremonies; tear off popish garments; even desecrate popish orders; and renounce all but the fundamentals of Christianity (we can scarcely think how they escaped) which came through the channel of Popery. Neither prejudice nor prepossession was to be consulted for a moment. The very liking men might have for any thing ancient, was in this case to be sufficient argument against it. Reformation was to begin by total subversion: the rights of private property were scarcely to be regarded in so great and good a cause. In fine, "every thing was to be removed as far as possible from the Church of Rome." p. 22. In this respect there was certainly a great difference of principle maintained by the Church of England. Nothing, indeed, can be idler than the imputation of Popery to its founders or friends, during the whole period of which we are speaking. We have no hesitation in asserting, that the attempts to prove a real popish leaning in Queen Elizabeth or her bish. ops; in King James or his bishops,

or in the unfortunate Charles, and even the most suspicious of all his compeers, Archbishop Laud, are amongst the most futile and unfair specimens of reasoning that ever dishonoured the page of history. But that they were far more fa vourable to the feelings of Papists; and lenient to their persons, than the Puritans were disposed to be, is equally indisputable; and for a most intelligible reason the Papists had been the Established Church: they were originally in possession of the ground and it certainly did appear to the ruling powers, to be the part equally of policy, of justice, and of mercy to regard these two impor tant facts in the subsequent › settle, ment of the national church. It by no means appeared to them to be politic to force the consciences of men, by imposing a system "as far removed as possible" from every thing which they had been heretofore taught to consider as most dear and most venerable; and with which also many saw their own interests most intimately blended. Our ru lers knew what difficulties, what discontents, what revolutions have in all ages resulted from attempting a forcible change in the religion of any country. They might have apprehended, in regard to England, what has in point of fact befallen Ireland, where with a compulsory Protestant establishment, there still exists really a popish population. They may have foreseen insuperable impediments to any course different from what they pursued. And who knows but that, under God, we owe the very existence of a Protestant Church in this country to the exact steps which that most politic of women, Elizabeth, thought fit, with the advice of her wise counsellors, firmly to adopt in its original settlement and constitution?

Our rulers took still higher ground. They considered justice and law to require the course of

conduct they pursued. They felt that what was established had, as such, a claim upon their maintenance and support. And this claim they never deemed themselves at liberty to refuse but in so far as that estab lishment, or any part of it, might have departed from the condition on which its claims were founded; that is, when it was clearly contrary to the word of God. Now the most corrupt establishment of Popery that ever disgraced or cursed any country in the world could not in all its parts be assumed to be contrary to the word of God: so far from it, the whole of Christianity was actually contained in the Romish religion; though we allow that it lay hid in the rubbish of its superinduced errors and superstitions. What, therefore, did the legislators of those times find themselves called upon to do? To clear away those errors and superstitions which had gathered upon the face of Christianity by means of Popery, and to leave the rest standing out upon the footing and basis of all its own original authority. They felt themselves bound, in short, to reform that which was contrary to the common and acknowledged standard of appeal-the word of God-and nothing more. It was quite another question, whether they at liberty, and, much less, obliged, to adopt other laws of discipline or ritual, even though they might have appeared more expedient, more edifying, or otherwise more excellent than those already established. That very moment when they should depart from the express and definite limit of reformation-contrariety to the word of God-they would have felt themselves afloat on a shoreless ocean of conjecture and, perhaps, injustice; where the wishes of a few might have been consulted, in opposition to the rights of the many; and

were

where the Papists, still the majority of the nation, would have had as much, and even more ground for clamour on their part, than all the other and newer sects and denominations of Christians,* whose views and interests might also have happened not to be consulted. Thus, assume ing that which was assumed on all sides, and which was the grand mistake, that a compulsory establishment was necessary, they considered it the part of justice to make that imposition vary as little as possible from what had been imposed in all former ages; and only to require of all, uniformity in that which should not be in contradiction to the word of God, as the price of a happy reformation from all that really was so.

That such a middle and equitable mode of proceeding, on the part of the ruling powers, would in a general way best. answer the designs of mercy, and become by far the most comprehensive, and therefore, according to the notion then prevalent, the most tolerant church establishment, we think cannot require a mo. ment's proof. It is on the self-evident pature of this assumption, that we feel ourselves justified in maintaining that the Church of England, even in those times of persecution, was the most tolerant of the two par ties actually in collision; and that it is only by her final triumph, though through a purification of trial, suffering, and bloodshed on part, that we are left unacquainted with the state in which religious

her own

"A difficult work," says Mr. Strype, reformation of the corrupt religion; being "this that was now taking in hand, the the harder to bring to pass, because there was not only in this juncture a formidable Popish party to struggle with, but a Lutheran party also: for there were not a few now that in the alteration of religion would endeavour to have it settled according to the Augustan Confession.”—Annals, Vol. I.

liberty would have been found at this day, in the event of the ultimate success of her adversaries.*

Feeling, as we do, the utmost abhorrence of forcible impositions upon any man's conscience, without liberty of dissent on equitable terms, we are nevertheless free to confess, that from the foregoing considera tions, we see the strongest reasons for rebutting Mr. Brook's reiterated charge of persecution against the Church of England, even during the worst part of that period of which we are now speaking. How is it pos

*It is so much to our present purpose that we cannot help anticipating an act pas sed in 1648, by the triumphant Parliament, as a specimen, we hope, not of the generally avowed principles of that despotic assem. bly, but rather of the occasional violence and tone of intemperance of which some of the Presbyterians were capable in every successive period of their early existence. It is found in Neal, vol, iii. p. 498, 8vo. 1796; and Mr. Neal confesses is a shocking law, and declarative of the terrible use which the Presbyterians would have made of their power. It enacts. "that all persons who shall willingly maintain, publish, or defend, by preaching or writing, the following here. sies with obstinacy, shall, upon complaint or proof by the oaths of two witnesses before two justices of the peace, or confession of the party, be committed to prison, without bail or mainprize, till the next gaol delivery; and in case the party, upon his trial, shall not abjure his said error, and his defence and maintenance of the same, he shall suffer the pains of death, as in case of felony, without benefit of clergy;* if he recant or abjure, he shall remain in prison till he find sureties; and in relapsing,shall suffer death as before." The heresies proscribed are, in the main, those of Atheists, Deists, Socinians, Arians, and impugners of the doctrine of the general resurrection. Besides which, certain other

errors, principally those of Pelagians, Quakers, Antinomians, Anabaptists, Arminians, &c. are punished with imprisonment till security is found for no further publication or maintenance of them. So much for tolera

tion!

Mr. Brook, in alluding to these ordinan. ces (p. 93,) omits to mention this dreadful part of them. Was that purely accidental?

sible to call the Puritans a perse. cuted body, when the inflictions alleged were lawful on their own principles, and their heaviest charge against the bishops and government was, that sufficient severity was not exercised towards those whom they themselves deemed enemies to true religion? If the Puritans were a persecuted body, who were the ob jects of the persecution? Those few on whom the severest corporal and even capital punishment was executed for notorious and extreme religious delinquency? For these not a complaint was uttered; not a single voice of supplication, save and except that of good old Father Fox, in his exquisite Latin letter to Queen Eli. Zabeth, was ever lifted by these "friends of religious liberty." Was it those who were labouring by all means for the introduction of the godly discipline, and rending the air with the grossest and most intolerable libels, in their sermons, and harangues, and pamphlets, against the Po. pish government, and Anti-Christian bishops?

Their own books pro

claim at once their spirit and their intentions. Was it then the harmless and inoffensive non-conformist, who never meddled with his neighbours, merely scrupled, and abstained from a few indifferent ceremonies, and peaceably prayed for a better mind both for himself and his governors? We believe it will not be so easy as Mr. Brook would make it, to find many of such persons amongst his 500 sufferers for conscience sake. We could bring abundant testimony from history, that such persons, according to their behaviour, were connived at, favoured, and even noticed and courted by the ruling powers: and Mr. Brook himself shall inform us of some difference made in this respect, which we apprebend is not all that he could have told us to the same point.

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