. '¦ "¦ p : ¦' '• .^ ¦' .' -¦ ; YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE CONGREGATIONALISM OF THE LAST THREE HUNDRED YEARS, AS- SEEN IN ITS LITERATURE: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CERTAIN RECONDITE, NEGLECTED, OR DISPUTED PASSAGES. IN TWELVE LECTURES, DELIVERED ON THE SOUTHWORTH FOUNDATION IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT ANDOVER, MASS., 1876-1879. IBitJ) a S&iMiograpfjual SGppentiij:. BY HENRY MARTYN DEXTER. Jn tf-eCe olo tomes lltoe tbe ofti times. NEW YORK- HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 18 80. Copyright, 1880, by H. M. Dextek. Stereotyped by Thomas Todd, Congregational House, Boston. TO THEODORE DWIGHT WOOLSEY, D. D., LL. D. EX-PRESIDENT OF YALE COLLEGE, AND EDWARDS AMASA PARK, D. D. ABBOT PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AT ANDOVER : TO THE EARLY STIMULUS OF WHOSE FRIENDLY AND DISCREET INSTRUCTION, AND THE LATER INSPIRATION OF WHOSE LUSTROUS EXAMPLE, MUCH OF WHATSOEVER MAY HAVE VALUE IN IT IS DUE; THIS VOLUME IS (with permission) RESPECTFULLY, GRATEFULLY, AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. Le vrai n'est pas tou jours vraisemblable. French Proverb. If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us 1 But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us I S. T. Coleridge, Table Talk, 18 December, 1831. for conjsibering tfce toonbetfufl numier, anb tbe biffieuftie t&at tfes Jatie tfiat UjouKb Je occu- pieb in t&e re&eat#rtt of £torie& fiecau-fe of tfre btoerpitie of tide matter;?, J©ee ftabe enbeuouteb, tfcat tjej tjat woWb reabe, misfit feme pleasure, anb tfcat tfieg to&idb ate gtubiou^, misfit eap'iln fteepe tfwm in memorp, anb t&at tofrnjioeuer reabe t&em mi0&t fcaue P*-o*1te. 2 Maccabees {Genevan Version], ii: 24, 25. It is not the least debt which we owe unto History, that it hath made us acquainted with our dead Ancestors, and out of the depth and darkness of the Earth delivered us their Mem ory and Fame : In a word, we may gather out of History a Policy no less Wise than Eter nal, by the Comparison and Application of other men's fore-passed Miseries, with our own like Errors and 111 deservings. Sir Walter Raleigh, Preface to History of the World, Works (1829), ii: v. Take wings O Booke, and fly abroade with speed, The things in thee are good for men to reed ; Which haue not seen what thou canst to them show, And what thou speakst is meete for all to know : Who would discern some things amiss that bee, Within the Land of our Nativitiee. To such thou shalt be iudged wondrous kinde, Because thou canst right well informe their minde : In such a sort as they shall bettred bee, And well advantag'd by the things in thee. Prelude to Henry Barrowe's Platforme, etc. (1611), 4. Jnfrobttcfton* ALTHOUGH by no means inconsiderable in size, this book is yet, strictly, an episode. I cannot remember when I had not a singular interest in the first settlers and fortunes of New England ; and, born within ten miles of Plymouth Rock, always esteemed it great good fortune when my occasions took me into the ancient town. On growing up to learn that in my veins were blended the blood of that restless and sometimes testy Puritan who bargained with Poquanum for Nahant, and to whom a jury gave 40s. damages against Gov. Endecott for an assault, and of that amiable Pilgrim who died in the Secretaryship of the Plymouth Colony which he had held for nearly forty years, having given to the world the first Record of its fortunes ; I began almost to esteem it a filial duty to study closely our primitive annals. And this the more that the polity of my fathers, which, against strong temptations toward other church folds, I was learning especially to value, so intertwines its post-reformation rec ords with those annals, as to make the two nearly inseparable. I began to collect material of all sorts, and in several visits to the incunabula in the North of England and Holland, added to the common stock of knowledge much that had been overlooked, until the purpose was grad ually formed of writing anew the history of the Old Colony. I went abroad again in the closing days of 1870, to undertake directly that labor. But it soon made itself clear that one cannot adequately understand the Plymouth men, or their work, without a deeper insight than any past vi Introduction. writer had gained, into the reality of their religious position, purpose and atmosphere. To this it became indispensable to restudy the English Reformation, to trace the gradual development of its distinctive ideas ; comprehend exactly how Separatism stood related to the Establishment on the one hand, and to various collateral forms of dissent on the other ; mark the germination of the modern ideas of civil and religious liberty ; assign them to their true originators under God ; and not only ascertain the precise stand-point of the Pilgrim Fathers, but determine how much they received from those who had preceded them, and how much — if anything — were original with themselves. As a help in the researches thus suggested, a list of treatises on church government and related themes was commenced, which gradually expanded into a folio MS. Bibliography of some five hundred pages, and some eighteen hundred titles, for the sixteenth century alone. While pursuing these general studies after my return, I was notified, in 1875, of my election to the Southworth Lectureship upon Congrega tionalism in the Theological Seminary at Andover, for the three years' term then next succeeding ; with the intimation that were my lectures to be flavored with history more strongly than with philosophy, such procedure might not be unacceptable to the Trustees. I undertook the task largely because it lay directly in my path, and I dared to hope that I might thus do Christian scholars a service for which possibly my priv ileges of preparation had been exceptional ; and because — though involving much labor by the way — my supreme purpose might be advantaged thereby. I spent six further months in special study in England, Holland and France, and the present volume is the result. The first necessity was to get back into direct intercourse with the men themselves who laid the foundations of modern Congregationalism, since it was always their misfortune that the pen of immediate history for Church as well as for State, was held by writers who saw not how any good thing could come out of Nazareth ; and who, often beginning in a misunderstanding that was radical, nearly always ended in a misrepre sentation that was reckless. In many cases, and those most important, the difficulty of doing this is excessive, because their humble volumes and pamphlets — always printed on the sly, whose possession was felony, and which were often burned by the hangman ; between such special hard usage, and the natural abrasion of from two to three hundred years — are almost unknown even in quarters so insatiate of such literature Introduction. vii as the rich repositories of the British Museum and the Bodleian. " Out of the eater came forth meate." And but for the fact that- the two archbishops seem to have caused to be preserved in their collections at Lambeth and York Minster many of the books whose authors they harried and hanged for writing them, it might now be impossible to find several of those treatises. Robert Browne had been dead for three generations, and Barrowe and Penry for nearly five, when Neal began the series of modern histories seeking to do them better justice. But he, and Brook eighty years later, could do little more in regard to some than recast what Fuller and other church writers nearer their own time, had written. Hanbury, a quarter of a century after, recognized the impossibility of understanding the early Separatists except through better acquaintance with their own litera ture ; and it would not be easy to overstate the value of his unwearied labors in collecting, describing, and in part reproducing their volumes. But forty years aigo the various restrictions which" barricaded the York and Lambeth libraries were such, that even if this diligent investigator had somehow become aware that upon their dusty shelves were reposing the means of hearing from the father of the Brownists, and from the self-baptizing John Smyth, their own version of their own views, access might have proved to him so difficult as to be impracticable." The tem per of the present is different, and I have found nothing but good will and hearty help from all whom I have had occasion to approach in my search for the principia of modern Congregationalism. And in thus discovering and gaining access — at Lambeth, to Browne's books, and especially to what was really his autobiography for the most critical period of his life, and to some of the scarcest Mar-prelate tracts; at York, to Smith's Principles and Inferences, and particularly to his Re tractation of his Errours ; and, at Cambridge, to George Johnson's Dis course, much of which gives as full, and I have no doubt as faithful, an account of the business church meetings of the Barrowists of Amster dam, as could now be obtained from the professional reporter of a morn ing journal — opportunities of knowledge have been enjoyed which, unless they have been deplorably misused, ought to freight these pages with some special value. If I may not venture so large a claim for data heretofore undiscovered on this side of the sea, it is not for want of diligent search, but because too many gleaners have gone before. I have, indeed, the satisfaction, from the original manuscript in the rich viii Introduction. collection of the American Antiquarian Society, of offering to my readers for the first time the opportunity to compare the possible Cambridge Platform of Ralph Partridge, with the actual Cambridge Platform of Richard Mather. I believe I may also say that there is no treatise — in Europe or here — known to exist, and to offer im portant aid to the just comprehension of any person, passage or period herein treated, but — sometimes indeed after years of endeavor, and an expenditure which in anything but the pursuit of useful knowledge would be reckless extravagance — has been somewhere and somehow consulted. It seems an odd thing to find such men as Cotton Mather, and even the two earlier worthies whose names he bore, complaining of the difficulty of coming to the sight of books of many generations before them which we can consult with ease; but it is very certain that — with scarcely any exception — Neal and Brook and Hanbury could do much better to-day in gathering trusty material for their vol umes, than was possible in their own time. As to the results of these investigations, it does not become me to speak with assurance. The enthusiasm of long and at last suc cessful inquiry for facts which have eluded the research of gener ations of previous investigators, is very apt unduly to exalt the importance of the discoveries which it has made. And he who claims from the public the re-hearing of an old case, on the ground that he is able to produce new evidence which ought to reverse all former verdicts; must be prepared for the rigidest sifting of his claims, and may be sure they will be rejected — by the simple force of inertia — unless he have the very best proof, and plenty of it, of the substantial justice of the position he has taken. As to what I have herein presented which is new to our Congregational literature, I respectfully ask the most rigid inquest of those experts who are competent to pass upon the issues that are raised. I trust, however, that many intelligent readers may be interested in the endeavor to make clear in detail to what a condition the papacy had reduced England; an endeavor in which I was surprised to find myself to so large an extent a pioneer, yet without which much that came after can only imperfectly be comprehended. I hope also that the view which I have taken of Robert Browne may aid toward a fairer judgment of a long maligned, eccentric, Introduction. ix infirm, and probably insane, yet I must think a mainly good and singularly clever, man. It will be seen that I reach a kindlier estimate of the quality of the famous Martin Mar-prelate pamphlets, than any preceding investigator. It is my impression — for I assume that Mr. Maskell, who printed in 1845, had been the most diligent of previous special students of this subject — that I am the first writer able to gain sight of the entire collection on both sides, and to examine it without violent prepossession against the Separatist writers, and their work. It is high time that the senseless denunciation of these extraordinary and effective publications, on the part of those, who, having no knowledge at first hand of what they affirm, simply reproduce vile slanders that are old, should give place to an intelligence and candor of criticism which can fairly recog nize their distinguished fitness for the exigency which they met ; acquit them of all baseness of thought and indecency of speech; and admit their influential place among those intellectual forces which were power fully moving the England of that day. They are surely none the less worthy our regard, in that they furnish the first instance in the English tongue of the employment of satire as a successful weapon against ecclesiastical wrong. I have ventured an entirely new theory of their authorship. Mr. Edward Arber, F. S. A., Lecturer in English Literature, etc., in Uni versity College, London — who is just now adding to his already large claim upon the gratitude of scholars in the English tongue, by reprint ing in verbatim most of these Mar-prelate tracts — in an Introductory Sketch to the Martin Mar-prelate Controversy — published in London in April last, and since the Lecture on that subject in this volume passed through the stereotyper's hands — has done me the honor to print a brief statement of my hypothesis, which on his request I had furnished for that purpose, and has frankly added thereto the expression of his total dissent from my conclusion. His adverse judgment is mainly founded upon the evidence of various sorts contained in the dep ositions in the Harleian MS. No. 7,042 ; from which he concludes Job Throckmorton to have been Martin. Having for more than six years had in my possession a copy of that manuscript, the considerations on which his conclusion rests are not new to me. And without assuming — what I should be the last to claim — an equal degree of critical acu men or knowledge of the subject, I may yet say, with all respect, that I x Introduction. find nothing in Mr. Arber's argument to shake my conviction previously reached. I firmly believe that Martin was speaking the truth in all soberness, when (as appears on p. 196 herein) he declared that he had neither wife nor child ; while if Udall be a trusty witness for Mr. Arber, when he again and again cites him to some other point, why is he not also worthy of belief when he declares (as on p. 194 herein) that no minister was Martin ? " But if Martin were a bachelor and no minister, Job Throckmorton, who was both a minister and the father of a learned and eloquent Member of Parliament, seems to be ruled out of the case ; while, so far as I am aware, there is a total absence of all that internal evidence to support the notion of his authorship, which I have shown to be abundant in the case of Henry Barrowe. The two lectures on the Barrowists of Amsterdam cover ground pre viously little known. But by the careful collation of their publications, and those of their enemies, of the period ; by the important help of the Prcestantium ac Eruditorum Virorum Epistolce, the Amsterdam city rec ords, and the MSS. collections in the Library of the Mennonite Semi nary there; and especially by the constant study of the invaluable newly discovered volumes of John Smyth and George Johnson, it has proved possible to unravel most of the problems of the subject, and present a fairly clear consecutive narrative of a remarkable passage in the Anglo-Dutch history of Separatism. I have no doubt that many readers will be both disappointed and dis pleased with that portion of the lecture on John Robinson, which seeks to show that the popular conception of the prophetic drift toward modern Liberalism of his "Farewell Address" is founded upon misapprehension on the part of writers unfamiliar with his works and unacquainted with his spirit, who seized words out of their connection and strained them from their real significance to shape them toward an utterance unnatural to the time and impossible to the man ; a misapprehension favored by the excessive rarity of that book of Edward Winslow which is our sole authority for what the Pilgrim pastor actually said. It has seemed to me that John Robinson was great enough to bear the honest truth told in his case ; of whatever unearned laurels such telling may relieve him. I might have added, from hundreds of records in my possession, almost indefinitely to this lecture in the way of elucidation of the Leyden life of our fathers — of their shops and homes, of the Pas tor's house where they brake bread upon the Sabbath day; of their Introduction. xi buyings and sellings, and the trades by which they lived; of theii marriages and burials, and of all which made up their Dutch life; but it seemed better to reserve these facts for other employ. In the two lectures on the Congregationalism of New England, I have endeavored to make it clear that the essential Barrowism of its first hundred years, and of the Cambridge Platform — a fact unnoted by previous writers — solves the mystery which has hung about the Ruling Elder system of our fathers ; and that the irrepressible conflict which that system involved between the two polities mingled in it, accounts for the unrest and half-heartedness prominent in the later portion of those earlier days. There was no dishonesty, and nothing said for effect, when John Cotton and others wrote to England their distrust and dislike of democracy ; for they were not as yet democrats either in Church or State, and they meant every word that they said. . I have endeavored also to awaken some well-earned, if long delayed, gratitude toward that reformer, whose brilliant qualities the leading men of his own generation were slow to recognize, to whom, under God, the rehab ilitation of essential Brownism was due; and to write the name of John Wise of Ipswich vastly higher upon the roll of the great, influential and useful of the land, than it has been the fashion to rank it. The discussion of Ecclesiastical Councils has been extended beyond all possibility of use as a lecture simply, in the desire to take advantage of the opportunity to treat the subject with some completeness in all its important bearings, and offer to the students of such matters some clews both to the actual working of so important a feature of the New England polity, and the abundance and quality of an unique and con stantly accumulating literature. I can well foresee how jejune and inadequate what is herein said of the Congregationalism of England must appear to my learned friends in that country ; but it seemed to me that even so slight and poor an out line might be better than nothing for young students here desiring to know more of the Father Land ; while I can let slip no proper oppor tunity to urge and further — in however humble a way — the better mutual acquaintance of the good men of the two nations that were one. For what is said in the closing lecture with which some brethren whom I cordially respect but with whom I as cordially differ, will find fault, I make no apology. I have spoken frankly — as I would have them speak. To my notion that glorious end of perfect oneness of xn Introduction. doctrine, duty and desire which we all pursue, is most wisely to be sought neither by sullen or over-cautious silence of the non-agreed, nor by guile and flattering words as pleasing men ; but by speaking the truth in love every man with his neighbor, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. My great object in all has been to ascertain and set down the truth, for the rectification of existing misapprehension, and the guide of future conduct. I hold it a sacred duty of Congregationalists to be just to the good men, however lowly their position, and however inadequate may have been many of their conceptions, who endured hardness, and counted not their lives dear unto themselves that they might finish their course with joy, and testify, first to their children, the gospel of the grace of God which they felt had been committed unto them that they might teach others also. Their faults were those of their age, and the rudeness of the culture of many of them ; their virtues were their own „ — such as they were in native worth, and such as God's grace, mainly in that severe discipline of furnace, anvil and sledge by which the Divine hand has been wont to forge its most useful implements and weapons for the service of earth, had made them. My theory as to the writing of history differs from that of many. I do not think intelligent readers are satisfied barely to be told what any writer, however gifted with talent or opportunity, may have deduced from his studies of the literature of the period which he would elucidate. They desire to be directed to the sources of his information, not merely that they may have the means of testing his fidelity, but that they may avail of his researches should they desire more fully to study some point which he has only casually touched. Especially in investigations whose results — and on evidence not easily in reach — convict much current narrative of ignorance and error, if not of perversion, I have felt it to be doubly important always to note the authority on which I have spoken ; and, as often as possible without overloading pages already crowded, to give the exact language on which my deduction has been founded ; feel ing that it will be cheap to satisfy one candid inquirer, even at the cost of disgusting ten adepts who despise foot-notes as rubbish. I may add that I have had one rule as to citations — to put my reader, as nearly as may be possible to modern type, into the position of one holding the .Introduction. xiii original in his hand, by the exact copying, even of manifest errors of the press. Sometimes, in connection with their cause, such errors be come one of the most touching testimonies of a book. It would be as slanderous a piece of wickedness to print Martin Mar-prelate's Protesta- tyon [see p. 168, herein] in a revised and corrected form, as to paint the picture of one martyred by starvation in the plumpness of previous health. While there is always some quaint flavor about these ancient writers — of which modernizing robs them — to which they are entitled. I should not care to meet Sidney, Shakespeare or Vandyck, disennobled in the trowsers, swallow-tails and stove-pipe hats of our time. It is fair for me to say further here that to save space in the text I have occasionally remitted to the smaller type of the notes a statement, or an argument upon some side issue, yet which is essential to be read if one would get the whole scope of the book ; as examples of which the two notes on Henry Ainsworth [pp. 270 and 343] ; one which pro duces the evidence that the early English Baptists did not baptize by immersion [p. 318], and one [p. 319] which proves that John Smyth did rebaptize himself, may be specified. The Appendix, which makes no pretence of being a complete bibliography of Congregational Literature, but merely, what its title declares it, "Collections toward" such a bibliography, is offered with unfeigned diffidence to the inspection of bibliographical scholars, in the hope that its possible convenience may excuse its palpable de ficiencies. As already intimated, I had in hand the nucleus of such a list, and it seemed to me that I ought to share with others the fruit of those countless hours of research which I had pursued upon my own account. Students of these particular lines of investigation may be few and far between; perhaps all the more should they therefore have every available help offered to their hand. I under took this part of the labor of the volume, I hope, a little in the spirit of a self-sacrificing desire for the public good. It has proved a work of immeasurable toil, and heavy expenditure. If it should fail to make these vice angustissimce somewhat more accessible to the eager foot of the future student, I shall indeed miss my reward. . As "all roads lead to Rome," so there is a sense in which almost any book might claim some remote relation even to such a special catalogue. I have aimed to include: (1) All publications which xiv Introduction. directly discuss the principles of the Congregational Way, and develop the experiences, or outline the duties, of Congregational ministers and churches — either for or against. (2) Related literature, so far as needful to make references clear. As, for example, No. 610 is inserted because it would be helpful in the full understanding of Gov. Brad ford's Dialogue which cites it. Many volumes of records and of his tory — like Nos. 18 16, 1986, 2081, 2098, 2893, 3701, etc., have been thus included. (3) Such a selection from collateral literature as may serve to hint those surroundings of Congregationalism which have aided to make it what it is, and to illustrate its general position, fortunes, outgrowths and tendencies. Here the field widens so immeasurably that no one mind could reasonably expect to satisfy all other minds in its selection. I have thought it better in this to risk transgressing on the side of fullness rather than on that of meagerness ; since no man need complain if volumes are enumerated which lie outside of his wants, pro vided fair provision have been also made for his actual requirements. The key-note to the whole is the endeavor to aid the research of a student of the central subject, who, as he pursues his investigations, is constantly led outward toward inquiries suggested by that subject, rather than strictly germane to it. Thus, volumes upon the baptismal controversy, the rise and growth of Quakerism, the Universalist and Unitarian theologies, and even upon Transcendentalism, Spiritualism and absolute free-thinking, while in no sense directly appertaining to strict Congregational literature, may all need consultation by the man who wishes to know everything vital that has been urged on all sides of questions appertaining to its life and work. Following this idea, in the insertion of titles from all parts of the theological field I have sought, in my method of doing so, to be absolutely even-handed. If my Unitarian friends do not find my list as useful in tracing their own literature as if proceeding out of their own body; if Baptist stu dents do not find it covering those volumes and pamphlets and periodicals which especially concern their views and history, to a degree beyond any list published by themselves ; I can only say that I have not accomplished my desire — which was to treat the subject with an impartiality so , entire as to make it impossible to guess from it the proclivities of its compiler. Absolute completeness even in the narrowest of these three circles is unattainable, and its assumption would be absurd. The extent of my Introduction. xv claim is diligently to have sought to render this list — particularly in its earlier portion — as full and useful as my knowledge and opportunities would permit. I make no doubt that, at least, it may be taken as fairly exampling the whole. The Challenger did not bring home all the fish in the Atlantic, but the yield of her trawl-nets fairly sampled the deep sea. It was a part of my desire — especially in the case of those older publications now grown rare— to direct the inquirer to the book itself, as well as to its title; and I have not spared effort to do this with accu racy. Down to A. D. 1 700, all proof-sheets went to the British Museum and the Bodleian, to have their press-marks inserted ; a convenience which I am sure will be appreciated by those who know by experience how long one — especially if on the track of an anonymous volume — may wander through huge folio catalogues without finding the trail. Down to within one hundred years also, this list has been carefully com pared with the Yale and Harvard shelves. It should be observed, however, that while — accidents excepted — the presence of any given book in the libraries named as having it, may be relied on, it is never certain that it may not also be found in collec tions to which it has failed to be credited. This, because new titles have often been inserted in the last proofs, when it was too late to send to England, or elsewhere, to ascertain whether they were in possession there or not. Nor in nearing our own time has it been felt to be so important to indicate the locality of volumes presumably common. I have been especially indebted in that department of the subject to which it is devoted, to Dr. Ezra Abbot's Literature of the Doctrine of a Future Life, published as an appendix to Rev. W. R. Alger's Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, an indebtedness which is gratefully acknowledged. I indulge the hope that many who may not largely use it as a guide in direct consultation, may yet find this catalogue indirectly valuable. Its obvious chronological suggestions of the rise and fall of certain opinions, may be useful. The ebb and flow which it reveals in theological discus sion — now as to the Trinity, now as to revivalism, now as to New and Old Schoolism, now as to the mode of Baptism, now as to the retribu tions of the future, and so on — may teach us that the former days have been much like these in their exemplification of the truth of our old copy-book legend : " Many men of many minds ; " while it may suggest also that there are some questions which in this imperfect world God xvi Introduction. probably intends shall be " settled " by being left amicably open. Who, without the evidence before him, would have supposed it possible that within forty-five years twenty or thirty public oral discussions, of con sequence enough to be reported, and issued in book form, could have been held in this land on general questions at issue between Univer- salism and Orthodoxy? If a glance at the iterations and reiterations of almost all phases of truth and error in this list suggested, could be so far blessed to some of the self-satisfied sciolists of the present as to make them suspect that the new light in which they briefly exult, is simply somebody else's old darkness, I am sure I could feel that my labor has not been in vain in the Lord. It may prove an incidental benefit of such a catalogue, if it awaken the interest of lovers of good books to the not unnatural fact of the deplorable pauperism of most of our American public libraries as to the Eocene of church literature. If I have counted correctly, of the original editions of the first thousand volumes on my list, but 208 — or a trifle over twenty per cent — can be seen in all our principal col lections put together. These stand in order thus — the same book of course being occasionally found in more than one place, viz.: the Prince Library has 70; Harvard, 55; Yale, 36; the Congregational Library, 29; Boston Athenasum, 26; the American Antiquarian Society, 18; the Massachusetts Historical Society, 7 ; Brown University, 5 ; Bowdoin College, 4; Andover Theological Seminary, 3, and the Boston Public Library, 2. On the other hand, I am sure encouragement may be taken from the fact that of the entire list so good a representation is by my researches proved to be within easy reach of American students. It must certainly be gratifying to all the friends of the Congregational Library to notice that an association which has been at its work scarcely more than twenty-five years, and whose pecuniary resources have always been of the most restricted character, has yet been able already to enrich its shelves with a collection so fairly representing the Congregational literature, especially of the last two hundred years. Particular care has been taken to insure the most rigid accuracy of all quotations, citations and references; certainly more than ninety per cent of them having been (generally twice) compared in proof with their originals. I have ventured to think that the few autographs which are inter spersed through the volume would be acceptable, as bringing their Introduction. xvii authors a little nearer to the reader's sympathy and interest, as well as aiding an ornamentation at once unique and tasteful. It should be stated, further, that while prepared especially to be deliv ered at Andover, the majority of these lectures have also been read at Oberlin and Hartford ; and that on Robert Browne, to the students of New College, St. John's Wood, London. In most cases, except in those where the preciseness seemed needless, dates have been given in both old style and new. Only by line upon line and precept upon precept, can even scholars become thoroughly accustomed to this simple solution of many chronological perplexities. The pleasant duty remains of putting on record here my sincere thanks to the many who have befriended me in these labors. Had it not been for the appreciative cordiality of his Grace the Most Reverend Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and of the Rev. Canons James Raine of York, and Robert C. Jenkins of Hythe, I would almost surely have missed some of the most important objects of my search. I may also say much the same of Rev. Henry Allon, D. D., and of the Very Rev erend Dean of Westminster. I desire to make special mention also of the courtesy of Mr. Bullen, formerly Superintendent of the Read- ing-Room of the British Museum, and now Superintendent of its de partment of printed books; of Dr. Coxe, librarian of the Bodleian; of Mr. W. Aldis Wright, now bursar and formerly librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Secretary of the Old Testament Revision Committee, and of Mr. Kershaw, librarian at Lambeth. I have also been largely indebted to the Rev. Thomas Hunter, librarian of the Dr. Williams Library, Grafton St., Gower St., London, not only for the loan of the extremely rare Brief Discouerie of Henry Barrowe, but for unstinted aid in various ways. I must name also Mr. F. Ellis Tucker, and Mr. S. J. Aldrich of the British Museum staff, and Mr. W. Burden of the Bodleian, as having done me important service. Here should be added, as well, my thankful acknowledgments to Messrs. Frederick Muller, F. A. v. Scheltema, the Rev. W. Macfarlane of the English Reformed Church, and Prof. J. G. de Hoop Scheffer of the Mennonite Institution, in Amsterdam ; to M. le Baron W. J. C. Rammel- man Elsevier, and Mr. C. A. Emeis of Leyden, Holland ; and to the Rev. B. H. Carp of Middelberg, Zeland. While, on this side of the ocean, I gratefully enumerate as among those who have been my help- XV111 Introduction. ers Dr. S. A. Greene of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Dr. S. F. Haven of the American Antiquarian Society, Prof. Justin Winsor and Mr. C. S. Bowen of Cambridge, Prof. Smyth and the Rev. W. L. Ropes of Andover, Dr. R. A. Guild of Brown University, Dr. W. H. Moore of the Lenox Library, New York ; and especially — as among those who have kindly expended much time and pains to make my work worthier — Dr. Langworthy and Miss M. E. Stone of the Congregational Library, Boston ; my learned kinsman Prof. Franklin B. Dexter of Yale College, and Hon. J. Hammond Trumbull, LL. D., of Hartford, Conn. It is a relief to lay down a pen which has been kept busy — often far into the night — either in furnishing copy to the printer, or in correcting his proofs, now during every hour of the past three years which could be honorably disengaged from other duties. I do so daring to hope that the Master may recognize the desire which prompted the work as one to do Him service ; whether His children be able to find such service done, therein and thereby, or not. While, in any event, I may close with the honest words of the author of the second Book of the Maccabees : " If I haue done well, and as the story required, it is the thing that I desired : but if I haue spoken slenderly and barely, it is that I could." Greystones, New Bedford, Mass. i November, i8yg. A«wuQ^^ (Confcnte, dt. PAGE. LIST OF AUTOGRAPHS xx ANALYSIS OF LECTURES xxi LECTURE I. The Darkness and the Dawn .... i II. Robert Browne and his Co-workers . . . 61 III. The Martin Mar-prelate Controversy . . 131 IV. The Martyrs of Congregationalism . . .205 V. The Exodus to Amsterdam 255 VI. Fortunes and Misfortunes in Amsterdam . . 299 VII. John Robinson and Leyden Congregationalism . 359 VIII. Early New England- Congregationalism . . 413 IX. Later New England Congregationalism . . . 467 X. Ecclesiastical Councils 521 XI. Congregationalism in England .... 629 XII. Things. More Clearly Seen 681 [Second nunt&ering.] APPENDIX 1 Bibliographical Collections ...... 5 A Few Manuscripts 287 Index of Bibliographical Collections .... 289 Index of the Lectures 309 3Uuto0tap!)0. PAGE. i. WILLIAM BRADFORD— To whose History what we know of the beginnings of the Plymouth . movement is mainly due. From his marriage application (9 November, 1613) at Amsterdam [Pui- toeken, s. d.]. He was then twenty-four years old; making this much his youngest known autograph v 2. NATHANIEL MORTON— Secretary of the Plymouth Colony from 1645 to his death in 1685, and the author of New Englands Memorial. From one of his letters in my possession . xix 3. WILLIAM TYNDALE— Whose translation of the New Testament was the great force of the English Reformation. From his letter (A. D. 1435) preserved in the archives at Brabant ; the only known specimen of his handwriting 1 4. THOMAS CARTWRIGHT— From the Harleian MSS., No. 7851 58 5. ROBERT BROWNE— From the parish records of Achurch-cum-Thorpe 61 6. EDWARD GLOVER — From the Lansdowne MSS., Ixxv : D, 50 128 7. JOHN PENRY— From the Lansdowne MSS., cix: 36. 131 8. MARTIN MAR-PRELATE — I hope I may be acquitted of trifling in filling his place with the only name we surely know of him — Stat Nominis Umhra — in the style of his time , . 202 9. HENRY BARROWE— From the Harleian MSS., No. 65: 6j 205 10. THOMAS EGERTON — The judge who condemned these martyrs. From the Harleian MSS., No. 6848:14 232 n. FRANCIS JOHNSON — From the Harleian MSS., No. 6849:145 .245 12. HENRY AINSWORTH — From his marriage application (29 March, 1607), at Amsterdam \Pui- boeken, s. d.]; the only known specimen of his handwriting 296 13. JOHN SMYTH — From his MSS. in the Library of the Mennonite Institution, Amsterdam . 299 14. JOHN MURTON — From his signature in the church-list in the same collection .... 356 15. JOHN ROBINSON — I cannot vouch for the genuineness of this, but it is from the title-page of a book in the Library of the British Museum believed by the experts of that institution to have belonged to him 359 16. WILLIAM BREWSTER — From the title-page of a book in my possession once belonging to him; being a much younger autograph than those at Plymouth and New Haven .... 410 17. JOHN COTTON — From the fly-leaf of a book in my possession once belonging to him . , 413 18. JOHN DAVENPORT — From one of his letters . 464 ig. JOHN WISE — From a letter in the collection in the State Library of Massachusetts . . . 467 20. NATHANAEL EMMONS — From one of his letters 5,8 21. RICHARD MATHER — Who went to his death-bed from the moderator's chair of probably the most important Council in the early history of New England (13 April, 1669). From the Col lections of the Dorchester Antiquarian Society 52 s 22. LEONARD BACON— Who was moderator of the two mbst important Councils (at Brooklyn in 1874 and 1876) of the present generation 626 23. BENJAMIN HANBURY — The earliest editor and restorer of the Congregational literature of our fathers. From the fly-leaf of a book in my possession once belonging to him . . . 629 24. JOHN STOUGHTON— The gifted and faithful historian of English Congregationalism . . 67S 25. COTTON MATHER— The earliest historian of American Congregationalism. From his Journal (29 November, 1692) '. . . 681 26. GEORGE PUNCHARD — The latest historian of American Congregationalism .... 716 27. THOMAS PRINCE — The earliest Congregational Bibliographer on this side of the sea . . (3) 3Mp$i£. PAGE. LECTURE I. The Darkness and the Dawn 1-58 Object of these Lectures 1 Proper background of any just picture of Modern Congregationalism . . 2 England in A. D. 1500 2 Number and kinds of beggars 3 Low state of Education at that time 3 Complaint of Erasmus . . ... . . 4 Child supposed to be born in A. D. 1 500, and its imagined life taken to illustrate the state of Papal England 5 Baptism, except in danger of sudden death, only twice a year .... 5 Form used in baptism 6 Completive rite of confirmation then required, on penalty, to be administered also in infancy 7 Manner of rite of Confirmation 8 Churching of the mother, and its form 9 The wayside cross . . . 10 Abundant crosses, and the sign of the cross n Bell-ringing to drive away evil spirits 11 Why yew trees were planted round the Parish Church 12 Orientation of the building, and why 12 The Parvise, and the great Rood 12 The images, and the altar, with its candles 1 . 13 The furniture. of a church which was requiredby law 14 The bells, in the tower, and their inscriptions 15 Ringing —praying to the patron saints 16 The Sunday service 16 The mass . 17 The elevation of the host, and the sounding of the bells 18 Genuflections and gyrations, but no preaching, or next to none ... 19 No Bibles and no book's, and no right to have any 20 The lad, solicitous as to duty, goes to his mother 20 She sends him to the priest — who scolds him 21 He seeks elsewhere for light -r- and finds a little 22 The strange things he sees thereafter 22 Exorcism, the Pax, Church-ales, and Glutton-masses 23 Many other things which he cannot comprehend 24 Four great thoughts oppress him : 26 (1) The perpetual interferences of the church with common life ... 26 Fasting on one quarter of the week days of the year .... 26 Nearly one half the year festival time 26 Restrictions on marriage 27 Restrictions on burial 28 The heavy tax of the Mortuary 29 Sick men could not make their wills save in presence of the priest . 2 This a logical and remarkable system to have been elaborated, from the Bible alone, in the 16th. century, by a young man of nine and twenty . . .110 Some qualities of the system no Some excellences' of it in Causes of the Middelberg shipwreck . .112 _, The Congregationalism of the Independents of England, and of the Congrega- 1 tionalists of America, to-day essentially Brownism 114 Its essence will leaven all the polities of the future 115 What, on the whole, must we think of this man ? 116 Clearly two sides to his story 116 Fuller's mean portrait false 116 Sir Geo. Paule's testimony in his favor 117 Browne had no wife, in Fuller's young manhood, to be separated from . . 117 He kept his parish records faithfully, as the records witness to-day . . . 117 Browne's love of music •. . .119 Three hypotheses exhaust his case 119 (1) But he was not always, and in all, bad 119 (2) Nor did he relapse, after an honest beginning, into scandalous sin . . 120 (3) Real key to his strange career, that the larger portion of his life was one of mental disorder, sometimes almost, or quite, deepening into abso lute insanity 120 Considerations in proof of this : 1 20 (a) His natural constitution nervous, fitful, fiery and easily gliding into mental disease 120 (b) His physical constitution a feeble one 121 (c) He underwent great sufferings 121 (d) Insane peculiarities about him 121 His letter to Burghley about the Latin "tables," etc. His dis appearance for more than eight years. His strange en tries on the parish records 122 His insane conduct at St. Olave's 123 Stephen Bredwell's testimony 123 Bredwell, a physician, calls Browne " madde " , . .126 He was sane therefore, and insane. A like case 126 We need not then blush for him, nor seek to dislodge him from his natural pri macy among the great thinkers of Liberalism, and modern Congregation alism 127 A fit epitaph 128 LECTURE III. The Martin Mar-prelate Controversy .... 131-202 Mr. Punch supposed to discomfit the old master in presence of the boys . . 131 Martin Mar-prelate bounces similarly in upon the Bishops .... 132 Ecclesiastical satire as yet unknown in the English tongue . . . .133 Erasmus and his Morice Encomium, etc 134 Luther's Colloquium inter Lutherum et Diabolum, etc 134 Beza's Epistola M. B. Passauantij, etc j.35 Walter Map's Apocalypsis Golia Episc, etc 136 Langland's Vision of Piers Plowman, etc 1^5 Sir David Lindsay and Geo. Buchanan j^y A Commission sente to the Pope, etc t?j The State of the Church of England, etc 130 Bishop Aylmer's Harborowe, etc j^, John Bridges, Dean of Sarum, and his big Defence, etc !43 The first Martin — the Epitome 144 (a) Its liberty of style. It puns -,43 Analysis. xxv (b) And is easily impudent 146 (c) Its free personal assaults ; 147 Not great wit; but tremendously effective for that time . . .151 (d) Quaint and telling little incidents 132 (e) Under the froth a clear stream of strong argument 153 (/) The proposition which it makes 153 (g ) The prophecies and threats which it makes 1 54 How this tract went everywhere — Earl of Essex; Cambridge and Oxford students, etc. 155 Four assaulted Bishops organize for reply 136 Proclamation against Martin 1 56 Second Martin — the Epistle 156 Main object of it to criticise the Dean of Sarum 157 The Bishops' answer — An Admonition, etc., by the hands of T. C. . . .158 Conferred great respectability upon Martin 159 Third Martin — Certaine Mineral! and Metaphisicall School Points, etc. . . 160 Fourth Martin — Hay any Worke for Cooper, tic 162 Severe on T. C. and his wife, etc 162 Pleads for the Presbyterian Elders, etc 163 JTow comes forward Antimartinvs, etc., heavy with good advice . . . 164 The effort to counteract Martin by comedies 165 Facts about the printing of these Martins 166 The press seized in Manchester 167 Speedily at it again at Woolston 167 Fifth Martin — The Protestatyon, etc 168 Replies: A Whip for an Ape, and Mar-martine 170 Marre-Mar- Martin, etc 171 Sixth Martin — Theses Martinianiz, etc 172 Seventh' Martin — The iust censure and reproofe, etc 173 More replies : A Countercuffe, etc 177 Pappe with an hatchet, etc 178 The Returne of the renowned Caualiero Pasquill, etc. * 179 An Almond for a Parrat, etc 180 Martin's Months minde, etc. 181 Plaine Percevall the Peace-maker of England, etc 183 The First parte of Pasquils Apologie, etc 184 Some serious answers to Martin : R. Harvey's Theological discourse, etc. L. Wright's A Friendly Admonition to Martin, etc., and T. Turswell's A Mirror for Martinists, etc. 185 Misapprehensions as to these Martins 186 Puritans nothing to do with Martin, but repudiated him 186 Martin not the work of the Jesuits ! , . . 187 These Martins not "foul-mouthed," "obscene " and "shameless," etc., neither are they " coarse, personal and abusive," 188 It is a pity as much can not be said of the tracts gotten up by the Bishops to answer them 192 Authorship of the. tracts against Martin 192 But who was Martin himself ? 192 Penry clearly was the publisher 193 But Penry was not Martin 194 Two internal clews 195 Udall thought no minister wrote them ; there seems to be colorable internal evidence that some lawyer wrote them , 195 And Martin, when speaking in all seriousness, declares himself to have neither wife nor child 196 Henry Barrowe was a bachelor barrister, who, in point of sentiment, could have written them 196 xxvi Analysis. Similarities between Barrowe's acknowledged books and the Martins — in epithets i°7 And in severe invective J9^ Barrowe's books were widely criticised at the time for the very qualities which distinguish Martin I98 Further, (i) Martin and Barrowe were always asking for a public conference . 199 (2) Both talk identically about Cartwright and the principal Puritans . . 200 (3) Barrowe refers incidentally to Martin, but never with dislike, or so as to damage this hypothesis, while, in a Petition, he defends him . . 200 (4) Martin almost anticipated Barrowe's language in accepting martyrdom . 200 (5) Martin himself declares that he is a temporall man [i.e., no minister] and that he is in easy private circumstances — both of which were exactly true of Barrowe 200 (6) There was special security in Barrowe's being Martin, who had already been for years in the Fleet — where nobody would think of looking for Martin 201 If Barrowe were Martin, since he and Penry took the close secret to Heaven with them in 1 593, it is small wonder it has been so well kept since . . 201 At all events, this controversy had marvelous influence in disenthralling England from its ancient intellectual servitude to the hierarchy . . . 202 LECTURE IV. The Martyrs of Congregationalism .... 205-252 Without shedding of blood is no remission 205 Browne had outlined a polity, and Martin damaged the spell of the Bishops' power ; now heroes were needed to put all in motion 205 Aside from many who were worn out in prison, there were six Congregational Martyrs : Dennis, Copping, Thacker, Barrowe, Greenwood and Penry . 206 Little known of Dennis 20S Copping and Thacker imprisoned 208 Tried and executed 210 John Greenwood and his arrest 211 Henry Barrowe goes to see him, and is himself arrested without warrant . . .212 The two examined at Lambeth 213 Again examined four months later 213 Barrowe examined further. The scene, from Barrowe's own pen . . 216-220 Greenwood examined 220 Barrowe and Greenwood address Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Travers, and other Puri tans . . 221 Fifty-two Separatist prisoners parcelled out, for personal labor, among forty- three clergymen 223 The " Briefe " furnished in aid of these conferences 224 The prisoners manage to get a little printing done in Dort .... 225 Some interviews 228 The insufferable meanness of Mr. Andrews 1 . 230 Barrowe's reasons, in brief, for refusing to conform 231 More conferences, in 1590 ,231 Some mitigation in 1592 of the closeness of imprisonment, and Greenwood out on bail 232 Opportunity taken to have a Barrowist church formed, out of Separatists who had long met in secret places 232 The hearing of this alarms the Bishops, who hurry Greenwood back to jail, and F. Johnson with him 232 Prison pen- work — The Trve Description, etc., A Collection ofcertaine Sclander- crvs Articles, etc 234 In 1591 another quarto, as to which something curious happened . . . 235 ~~-yX> Barrowism — and how it differed from Brownism on one hand, and Genevan Puritanism on the other 235-239 Barrowe and Greenwood indicted for felony 241 Analysis. xxvii Their trial — the brief of the prosecuting officer, and Barrowe's own account of his defence 241-243 They were condemned — taken to execution, and reprieved .... 243 Again reprieved, but gained only six days, then suddenly hanged . . . 245 John Penry, and his life down to his arrest 246 His trial, the two indictments against him 248 His appeal, after condemnation, to Lord Burghley 249 His letters 249 His execution . 251 Henry Barrowe's letter in the Harleian MSS. 252 LECTURE V. ¦ The Exodus to Amsterdam 255-296 - — XX Difficulty of tracing the early Separatists in London 255 Or determining if they were due to Browne's labors 255 Little gatherings of them as early as 1 587-8 255 Twenty-four died in various dungeons 207, 256 Fifty-nine who were in eight prisons petition the Lord Treasurer . . . 256 Manner of their Sabbath service 257 The Trve Description (1589), etc 258 Neither Clyfton, Smyth nor Johnson, but Barrowe and Greenwood, produced it 258 A leaning in it toward Barrowism 260 Alison's Confutation of it 261 Francis Johnson, and his early history 263 Pastor in Middelberg, where, in 1591, he discovered and burned Barrowe and Greenwood's Plaine Refutation — and was converted thereby . . . 263 The inchoate London church fully organized (1592) 265 Penry advised the church to emigrate in a body 266 Barrowe left them a helping legacy 267 Some of the London church went to Holland in 1 593 267 We hear of them at Campen, and Naarden 267 By the close of 1595, they were established in Amsterdam .... 26S Few particulars of their life for four years 269 Poor and divided, Henry Ainsworth became their teacher .... 269 A Trve Confession, etc., published (1596) by them in concert with London . 270 The portion remaining in prison in London, in trouble 271 George Johnson, younger brother of Francis 272 Francis Johnson a suitor to Mrs. Tomison Boys 272 Some thought it not a good match 272 A secret marriage v. . . . 273 She too "garish and proud" in apparel, giving great offence .... 273 George interposes, in a letter 274 An angry correspondence follows 275 A church meeting about it 275 During 1595, Francis prints A Treatise of the Ministery, etc 276 In 1597 Francis and George, with two others, banished to Newfoundland (Rainea) 277 The rest (apparently) set at liberty 277 The voyage to Rainea ending in shipwreck, and return 278 They quickly get over to Holland with the rest 278 The Trve Confession described 278-282 — — . Barrowist in polity, and behind Browne as to the magistrates .... 281 These Englishmen in Holland very low in outward estate 283 The old clothes controversy, soon breaks out again 284 In November, 1597, George was told that they would choose him elder if he would back down as to the clothes 285 But he was inflexible, and excommunication was threatened .... 285 Church meeting lasting till 10 p. M 285 Soon another, lasting from 3 P. M. till 10 P. M 285 xxviii Analysis. Three more church meetings, and what was said in them 286 Another, with a discussion On "topishness" 287 Pastor's discourse on dress . 287 A little discussion, ending in a promise to produce Mrs. Johnson's offending gown for examination at the next meeting 288 Which they didn't do, and the meeting fell through 288 Another meeting, and Ann Colyer's testimony 289 More meetings, but small progress 289 TheZiphims 289 A church meeting to choose elders 291 Sharp practice of the pastor and elder as to the vote 291 A lull 292 Jacob Johnson could not be chosen deacon because he had " apostated " . . 293 Old clothes controversy revives again (August, 1598) ...... 293 Pastor refuses George's request for a council, as Popish 294 George and his old father excommunicated. George dies ..... 294 George Johnson peculiar, but, without doubt, in the main trustworthy . . 296 LECTURE VI. Fortunes and Misfortunes in Amsterdam . . . 299-356 Brief period of comparative peace at Amsterdam 299 New edition of Confession (1598) 299 Translated into Latin by Henry Ainsworth 299 Correspondence with Francis Junius, Professor of Theology at Leyden . . 301 Junius writes to the Dutch and French pastors of Amsterdam about these Fratres Angli 303 They reply 304 Letter of Taffin and Arminius, showing the difficulties under which these English contended 305 These exiles send a deputation to James I. 306 And note "The Heads of differences" between themselves and the Church of England 306 Further supplication to the king to be allowed to live in peace in Separatism in England 309 Attack of University of Oxford upon these Barrowists 309 Which they answer in An Apologie or Defence, etc 310 The king unyielding, and more emigration to Amsterdam 310 Thomas White and his company 310 White's Discoverie of Brownisme, etc.. 311 Johnson reprints (1605) the book he had burned (1 591) 311 John Smyth appears on the scene (1606) 311 His character, and his company 313 His Principles and Inferences, etc , 313 He and his secede from Johnson's and Ainsworth's church .... 313 His Differences of the Churches of the Separation, etc. 313 The six errors 314 Smyth then neither a Baptist nor an Arminian 314 These Barrowists, with help from England, build a preaching-house . . . 316 Ainsworth's marriage (1607) 316 Second edition of the Confessio, etc 316 John Robinson and his company arrive at Amsterdam 317 Grand times, for a little while ?i-j Smyth baptized himself, and his company, and reorganizes altogether . .318 Smyth's later offensive views 320 He is excommunicated (1609) from his own Baptist church, for heresy . . 321 His death and burial (1612) 321 His remnant of followers later (161 5) join the Dutch Baptists .... 322 Helwys and Murton return to England and form the first Arminian Baptist church there 322 Analysis. xxix Character of Smyth 323 Robinson and his church withdraw to Leyden 324 Conflict between High Church and Low Church Barrowism in the old Amster dam church . 325 Johnson maintains that " tell it to the church " means tell it to the elders . . 326 Ainsworth takes the lower .view 326 Three propositions in the interest of peace 327 The Leyden church applied to 328 The Leyden elders visit Amsterdam twice 329 Ainsworth and his friends secede . 331 Johnson publishes A Short Treatise, etc 331 C. Lawne, et al., and their Prophane Schisme 332 Clyfton replies in An Advertisejnent, etc , 332 Order of Sabbath service in the ancient church 333 What and how they sang 333 Order in Smyth's church 333 Civil suit, brought by. Ainsworth's company against Johnson's, for the house — which had been built largely by friends whose faith the plaintiffs claimed most to represent 334 Paper of grounds 336 Seem to have gained their suit 337 Meeting-house contained tenements, and so was head-quarters of the company 338 Ousted, Johnson and his friends retreat to Emden 338 Ainsworth's church 339 Death of Francis Johnson (1618) . 340 Controversy between Ainsworth and John Paget 341 Ainsworth's eminence as author, and especially as expositor .... 342 His death, character and works 344 Church droops — yet fights 347 John Canne becomes its pastor 347 Further fortunes, meeting-house burned, and rebuilt 348 Feeble remnant finally absorbed by Dutch (1701) 349 Meeting-house conveyed to Nederduitsche Gereformeerde Diaconie . . . 350 An ineradicable conflict inbred in Barrowism 351 The old meeting-house still standing on the Bruinistensteeg .... 355 LECTURE VII. John Robinson and Leyden Congregationalism . . 359-410 Almost nothing known of his birthplace 359 Nothing of his childhood 360 Went to Cambridge in 1 592 360 England and its great men of that date 361 Few great churchmen . 363 Puritans then prominent 364 Corpus Christi (Benet) College then 364 The English student-life of that period 365 Cambridge as a residence 366 The daily round of college duties 367 Important events while he was a student 370 A foreshadowing of the Arminian controversy 372 Probable influence of W. Perkins over Robinson 372 Robinson goes to labor in the northeast 373 Labors for four years near, and in, Norwich 373 Leaves Norwich, it would seem, in 1604 374 Influence of the policy of James I. on. religion 375 Dissent in the neighborhood of Scrooby and at Gainsborough .... 376 Robinson joins the Gainsborough company 377 That company becomes two bodies 379 Robinson pastor of the Scrooby church 379 xxx Analysis. Their removal to Amsterdam (1607 or 1608) 380 Here he prints his first controversial pamphlet — in reply to Joseph Hall . 381 He and his company ask leave to live in Leyden 382 Which is gladly granted (12 February, 1609) 383 Leyden then a large and charming city 383 Its University and its great men 384 Its library 3S6 How these people proceeded to earn their living 386 With Jepson, Wood and Thickins, Robinson buys a house on the Klok-steeg (1611) 387 This becomes their head-quarters, and worship-house 388 Robinson matriculated as a member of the University 388 The Arminian controversy, and his share in it 388 The Synod of Dort (1618-19) 389 Leyden church has near 300 members, and lives in peace 389 Love of their children, etc., leads them to think of America .... 390 The process of emigration and the separation 391 Robinson buries two children in Leyden 391 Is himself buried in St. Peter's, (4 March, 1625) 391 His Ivstification of Separation, etc. 392 His Of Religious Communion, etc 395 The general, and mellowing, position which he held 395 Robinson's polity Broad Church Barrowism 397 Differences between Robinson's position and that of Ainsworth . . . 39S Robinson's other volumes 399 His famous Farewell Address (1620) 400 The Synod of Dort felt itself to have laid down ultimate truth .... 401 Robinson thought as much, and defended its dogma, having no idea of further progress in theology . . ... . . . . . . 402 Passages in his Essayes showing that he had no tendencies to Rationalism . 402 The address (as it was — according to Winslow's recollection twenty-six years after) 404 Winslow employs it as an argument 405 He cites it in proof of the liberal character of the polity of Robinson and his church 407 To interpret it as spoken oi polity makes sense of all; to interpret it of dogma is, under the circumstances, to do it violence 40S John Robinson needs no spurious renown 400 His honest soul would abhor the " Liberal ." vie w of his position . . . 409 LECTURE VIII. Early New England Congregationalism . . . 413-464 Providential circumstances weakened into almost Brownism, the Barrowism at Plymouth 4,4 The Salem company Nonconformist, but not Separatist 414 Dea. Dr. Fuller's influence 41,. The Salem men soon set up a Separate church 416 Winthrop's company soon did the same .„ Ministers reordained .......' 4™ Law of the Mass. Colony that none but church members be freemen . . 420 Massachusetts then mainly a trading corporation 420 Law that no church be formed without civil consent . . ... 421 How John Cotton was ordained at Boston 422 Cotton's Questions and Answers upon Chh. Govt., etc. (1634) .... 42-! The Answer of the Elders, etc. (1643) 425 Richard Mather's Church Govt, and Church Covt., etc. (1643) .... 426 All these reproduce the intense Barrowism of F. Johnson 428 Voting at Plymouth . 430 The first Synod (1637) 430 Analysis. xxxi The second (1643) much enjoyed, but they thought they wouldn't need one every year . . 432 Parker and Noyes, and the Presbyterian way 432 Noyes's Temple Measufed, etc. (1647) 432 Cotton's Keyes, etc 433 His Way of the Churches, etc 434 The Cambridge Platform Synod 435 The Cambridge Platform (R. Mather's draught) 438 Mr. Partridge's draught 444 Result of Synod accepted "for the substance thereof " 448 The modus operan di of those days 448 Forming a church 448 Joining the church 449 Discipline 450 Voting, etc 451 Council of other churches 452 Order of Sabbath worship 452 The Lord's Supper 453 Baptism 454 Meeting-houses and their internals 454 Supporting the gospel 454 Worship at Plymouth (1632), (Winthrop's account) 455 Meetings for social prayer and conference almost unknown .... 456 The weekly lecture 457 Annual Fast and Thanksgiving 457 Marriage a civil contract and service 458 Funerals friendly, but not religious 458 Numerical designation of months and days 459 This Congregationalism as related to Presbyterianism 459 The two -systems differed ; as to terms of church membership .... 459 As to the power of consent of the brotherhood 460 As to the function of Synods . . 461 This early Congregational, by no means a democratic,, way .... 463 LECTURE IX. Later New England Congregationalism .... 467-518 Matters did not work as well as hoped 467 The grandchildren growing up out of the church 467 Doubtful if this had the.relation to the. State sometimes affirmed . . . 468- Connecticut first moved for some plan for the baptism of the children of parents baptized, but not in covenant 469 A Synod (1657) 470 Made matters worse 470 A second Synod (1662) 470 The half-way covenant 47 1 The strife it raised 473 John Davenport, the First. Church, Boston, and the formation of the Old South 474 Decay of morals and manners in consequence of the half-way covenant . . 476 Another Synod (the reforming, 1679) 477 Its diagnosis and prescription 477 Much renewing of covenant thereafter 480 Yet disasters by land and sea 480 Four particulars of drift from Cambridge Platform 481 As to the pastor of one church's officiating for another . . . .481 As to the office of Ruling Elder 482 As to lay ordination 482 As to requirements for admission to the church 483 Growth of High Church view of Synods 484 xxxii Analysis. Growth of High Church view of power of the Elders 4§4 Ruling Elders grown so scarce that the "Presbytery" in a given church most often consisted of its pastor only 485 Joining the church at this period 485 Freedom of unregenerate as to entering on most solemn vows .... 486 Jonathan Edwards (1741-2) administering a covenant to all his congregation above 14 years 487 Many churches steadily resisting the pastor's autocracy ..... 487 Increase Mather's prophecy of need to "gather churches out of churches " . 488 The Saybrook Synod's attempt (1708) to remedy these evils .... 488 The Heads of Agreement, etc 489 The associated ministers of Boston (1705) send out Proposals of steps to be taken, etc 492 These Proposals too strong Presbyterian meat for Congregational palates . 494 John Wise, of Ipswich 494 His little books, 17 10-17 17 496 Their tremendous assault on the " Proposals " 496 Their clear and cogent argument for democracy as the only true government for church or State 498 The effect of these prodigious 500 Vain (and last) attempt to have another Synod 501 Whitefield and the Great Awakening 501 Samuel Mather's Apology, etc. (1738) 501 Favorable influence of the revival . 502 Gov, Fitch's Explanation oi Saybrook Platform 503 Mr. Hobart's reply 504 The Bolton case (1770) 504 The Revolution and Independence, and their effect to favor democratic Brown ism more than aristocratic Barrowism 506 But the new wine was in the old bottles 507 Nathanael Emmons, and his influence 507 His radical democracy in polity, and his influence in carrying out Wise's phi losophy 507 There had been from the first a flickering desire for a " strong " government . 509 John Eliot and his Divine Ordinance of Councils, etc. (1665) .... 509 Solomon Stoddard's Doctrine of Instituted Churches, etc. (1700) . . . 510 William Homes's Proposals, etc. (1732) 511 Dr. Colman (1735) favoring Consociation 512 Last real attempt at Consociationism in Mass. (1815) 512 Yet still another flounder in that direction (1844) 514 The committee and its suggested Manual (1846) 515 The Albany Convention (1852) . 315 Formation of American Congregational Union (1853) 516 Boston Council (1865) 516 Its sole deliverance as to polity 317 Organization of "National Council" at Oberlin (1871) 517 Security to the rights of the churches in its fundamental law .... 518 Jealousy still felt in certain quarters in regard to it 5,1.8 But Synodus non est Ecclesia 518 LECTURE X. Ecclesiastical Councils 521-626 Brownism recognized church fellowship by council ...... 521 Doctrine of Barrowism on the subject 521 High Church Barrowism repudiated councils 522 Robinson's view 522 Small practical occasion then to develop the subject 523 Congregationalism, how distinguished from Independency 523 Councils a method of church communion 524 Analysis. xxxiii Foul classes of councils 524 But there are features common to all, as such 524 1. Ecclesiastical Councils as such 524 (1) Proper occasions for a Council 524 (2) Who may call a Council ? 525 (a) Believers wishing to organize . . , 525 (b) A church desiring fellowship or advice _, 525 (c) A member aggrieved as to a point touching his fellowship with other churches, and unreasonably refused a. mutual council 525 Have (irregularly) been called in other methods 526 (3) Kinds of Councils — Advisory, Mutual, Ex-parte 527 (4) How regularly called '? . 527 (5) Place of meeting 530 (6) Membership 531 Pastors sit not ex-officio, but as being sent 531 Number of delegates originally variable 532 Now usual to send but one with the pastor 533 Rightly no " honorary " or " corresponding " members . . . 534 Incongruous to call other than Congregational churches . . 534 Acting pastor may represent a church when specifically asked to do so in the Letter-missive, not otherwise . . . -535 Council no right to increase itself 535 Members, on occasion, may retire 536 Irregular for a church to sit on its own council .... 537 (7) Quorum, a majority of all having right of membership . . . 537 One man alone acting as a council (1697) 73538 Importance of strictness in the matter 539 (8) Forming the Council 539 Moderator best chosen by ballot 540 (9) Business, must be rigidly held to the Letter-missive . . . .541 An obiter dictum an impertinence 541 No good reason why. counsel should not be employed by parties, when desired 542 Unnecessary to require that such a counsel be a church-member . 542 As to testimony, councils properly not so rigid as courts . . 543 (10) Voting in a Council 543 No evidence that the usual old way was to vote by churches . 544 (n) Adjourning for a Purpose 544 (1.2) Result 545 (a) Has been conditioned upon some future event .... 545 (b) Councils have declined to come to any result, as feeling it ex pedient to favor some other method of action . . . 545 (c) Have retired in disgust 545 Authority of the Result measured by its good sense 546 (13) Protest, members have the right 546 (14) Interpretation of Result — must be by the laws of language. Moder ator has no more authority than any other member to say what it means 547 (15) Dissolution, when its work is done a council should dissolve . . 547 Cannot keep itself alive in terrorem over the parties . . . 547 2. Ecclesiastical Councils having to do with Fellowship 548 (1) Fellowship of the churches . . . , 548 (a) For their recognition 548 (b) Respecting their intercourse 553 (c) Respecting the disfellowship of churches 555 Old "Third Way of Communion" 555 Case at Wenham, Mass. (17 19) 555 xxxiv Analysis. Case at Salem, Mass. (1733) 557 Case at Hopkinton, Mass. (1735) 5&1 Why this " Third Way " was not made use of in the Unitarian Controversy 5°2 Later cases of disfellowship 5°3 [d) Councils respecting disbandment 5°5 Process and difficulties in the way 5^5 (2) Councils having to do with Fellowship in the case of Ministers . . 567 (a) Ordination of a {so-called) Evangelist 567 Traveling preachers, etc 5^9 [b) Settlement of Pastors 5^9 Earliest way here 5°9 Councils to advise whom churches should call . . ¦ 57° Called to smoothe the way before a coming pastor . . . 571 Early ordination at Dedham, Mass 57 l At first no sermon 573 Laying on of hands repeated at every ordination . . . 574 Ordination day first a fast, and then a feast .... 575 Obed Abbott and how he mollified a council . . . 575 A council declining to ordain, in 1696 57^ Declining to ordain for doctrinal unsoundness . . . 578 The case of.Clark Brown (1798) 578 The Deerfield case (1807) 579 Councils and Councils 58° Ordaining in the face of protest 58 1 Beginning of the limitations of six months' notice, etc. . . 581 Unique ordinations 583 Reordination over same church 584 (ag iv tt; oxoxlq. (palvet, xal rt oxoilct avid oi xazilaflsv. John i: j. Often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow. Coleridge, The Death of Wallenstein, Act v, Sc. i. They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. B. Franklin. iDo-Jt^rcnetaefllti):! t%t ©atfou** mrt> t$t ©aS5n+ ,INCE the invention of printed books, every move ment of thought which has acquired force widely to agitate the public mind, has revealed itself, both from its promoters and opposers, through the press. A complete, chronologically arranged bibliography of the literature of the world, would therefore fur nish the most accurate guide to the scope of the discussions, and the quality of the opinions, of the last four hundred years. Should it lack, now and then, some slight connecting link, it would still have the great advantage of freedom from all color ing due to the preconceptions of a single mind, such as the personality of the historian even who is most candid in his intent, seldom fails to inject into his narrative. It is my purpose, in twelve lectures, to endeavor to develop from the literature out of which it has grown on the one hand, and to which it has given birth on the other, something of the quality and the progressive history of the Congregationalism of the last three centuries ; but the narrow limits within which I must necessarily confine myself, will compel me to pay chief attention to certain recondite, neglected or disputed passages, attempting only so much of reference to our literary history as 2 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. a denomination of Christians, as may serve to assign rightly to their place those portions to which chief attention will be invited. A picture without a background would be as ineffective as un-artistic. The natural background of any just picture of modern Congregationalism must be that condition of mind, morals and life, to which the alien system which supplanted the original Congregationalism of the Acts of the Apostles had brought the world, in which the Reformation found, and from which it has partially rescued it. I shall not, then, think it a work of supererogation to attempt, in the outset, to freshen before your minds some just conception of the actual state of things in men's homes and hearts when the sixteenth century of our Christian era dawned upon the world; or — for we must concentrate our thoughts in the utmost possible degree — dawned upon- that England of our fathers, which is also ours. There were there then, it would seem, all together, some thing less than three millions of people ; ' many fewer than are now living within what is called the outer ring of London itself. London was then relatively a great city, and there were perhaps a dozen considerable towns besides ; but the large majority of the population lived afar from towns. The rural territory was portioned out among the chief nobles, who held immediately from the Crown ; and who, in addition to their own proper estates, controlled immense domains in a secondary way as lords of the fee, having under them knights and gentlemen owing fealty to them, or, more properly, to the country through them. Under these lords of the manor, in the third rank, came numbers of small freeholders, paying from twenty to forty shil lings annual rent, and ready, on demand, for military service. Below these three ranks was the indiscriminate mass of work men and farm-laborers of both sexes, who, instead of being bestowed in small cottages, each with its own little family as now, slept on the premises and ate at the table of their em ployer, commonly remaining single until, toward middle life, they could slowly save enough from their scanty wage to set up for themselves in some better way. Lower down, — to use J Prof. Rogers, Princeton Rev., July, 1879, I *7- Mr. Froude makes it more. The Darkness and the Dawn. 3 the graphic language of an act of Parliament of 1530* — were huge "routes and companyes" of "vagaboundes and beggers,"3 strolling about " in great and excessive nombres, wherby hath insurged- and spronge and daily insurgeth and springeth con tinual theftes, murders and other sondry heynous offences and great enormitiees to the hygh displeasure of God, the inquieta- tion and damage of the Kynge's people, and to the meruaylous disturbance of the common weale of this realme; " among whom, curiously enough to our present thought, were members of the Universities, of Cambridge and Oxford, who resorted to this method of eking out their livelihood in such numbers, that the act to which I have referred made distinct provision for the case of such as did this without special authorization under the broad seal of the universities themselves, by ordering such an offender " to be tied to the ende of a carte naked, and be beaten with whippes throughout the same market towne, or other place, tyll his body be blody by reason of such whyppynge," as was provided in the case of " valiant vagaboundes." All this England, urban and . rural, was minutely sub-divided into local parishes, each with its own church-edifice ; and while in large towns these parishes were sometimes of considerable size, through the land generally they were not such. Simon Fish, in 1531, estimated each parish in England to contain, on an average, ten households,4 and Mr. Froude endorses this com putation as probably exact for the country districts ; s but we must remember that most of these households, by that inclusion of farm laborers to which I have referred, as well as by the laws of nature as then in unresisted force, would be raised to a size not usually now suggested by the word. Education, in the modern sense of that term, so far as it existed, was confined to a portion of the children of the nobles, gentlemen and gentlemen farmers. Cambridge and Oxford were open to them ; the cost was not great ; and, if any were too poor to pay their way, rich patrons could be found, or they might ask alms, when duly authorized, as we have seen. z Statutes of the Realm, 22 Henry VIII., ch. 12. 3 Henry VIII. hanged 72,000 robbers, thieves and various vagabonds. Pictorial History of England, ii : 907. 4 Supplication of Beggars, reprinted in Fox's Acts and Monuments, etc. Townsend's ed, iv: 659. 5 Hist, of Eng. i : 13. 4 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. The degradation of good letters in these their venerable seats had become so great, however, that when Erasmus went to Cambridge in 1498, he complained that while he could do nothing with them in Greek, their ignorance of Latin was such that he could find no man to write out the comedy of Icaro- menippus which he had composed;6 and the ancient historian of Oxford declared that learning was then " so far lost, that those who could but read and write were accounted no small clerks." 7 The children of the common people possibly in rare instances picked up a few crumbs of knowledge, but it may well be seen that the state of general culture must have been low indeed in 1500, when, nearly half a century later, an act of Parliament made special provision for the case of nobles and peers of the realm who were unable to read their mother tongue!8 For weary centuries England had been a Papal country. The innate force of the English character had indeed offered stout resistance to the demoralizing influences of the Romish system, and prevented general subsidence into anything equal ing in mournful depths the resulting degradation of some other lands ; yet it can only be after we have succeeded, at least in some small degree, in making real to ourselves what, for the mind, and for the heart, and for the life, it must have been to be born and to grow up saturated with the quality of the England of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, that we can be in any degree fairly ready to do justice to the hesita tions, the temptations, the struggles, the trials and the triumphs of our spiritual fathers. I have been able to think of no better way in which to stim ulate and guide the difficult attempt to do this, than to endeavor in imagination to group around the experience of an average Englishman of that time, so many well authenticated facts of the period, as I may, without violence to the probabilities 6 Ant. & Wood, Hist, and Antiq. of Univ. of Oxford (1792), i : 656. 7 Ibid. 8 Statutes of Realm, I Edward KZ.chap. 12, (1547), "And be it enacted, etc., that where any the Lorde and Lordes of the Parliament, and pere and peres of the Realme, hauyng place and voyce in Parliament, shall by virtue of this present acte, of common grace, upon his or their request, or prayer, alledging that he is a lorde or pere of this Realme, and claim- yng the benefit of this acte, though he cannot read" etc., etc. This, though indirect testi mony, is yet conclusive. The Darkness and the Dawn. 5 of the case. In so doing I expect to fail in the graphic and picturesque elements ; but I pledge myself that every step shall atleast.be planted upon the solid rock of what seems to be unimpeachable testimony. Let us suppose, then, that with the mid-June roses of the year 1500 — the fifteenth of the reign of Henry VII. and nine years before his greater son succeeded to the throne — a man- child is born into some fairly comfortable English home; one neither noble on the one hand, nor absolutely servile on the other — that kind of home where, in the main, the men were born whose lives especially interest us in the history of Father land. Most likely the babe has been in a manner pledged to Rome before its birth in at least two ways : by the pilgrimage of the mother to the shrine of some saint, and the adoration of some relic there, which service, " the accustomed offering being payd," was believed to rob the inevitable advancing hour of its peril ; 9 and also by special confession to the parish priest, as by law enjoined.10 The mother has been taught that baptism is essen tial to salvation. Recalling, we will suppose, with an intensity quickened by the sorrowful experience of previous disappoint ments, the perils which stand thick around the first months of a young child's life, she is naturally anxious to have that rite at once performed. But she is told that the two regular annual periods when it may rightly be administered — that is to say, Easter (which this year had occurred on the 19th of April), when the ordinance commemorates the death and resurrection of the Lord, and Whitsuntide (this year on the 7th of June), when it commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles — are already past." Should the babe be brought into evident danger of sudden death, it may, indeed, be bap tized " pro causa necessitatis " at any time, but otherwise it will be needful to wait until the nth of April of the succeeding year;- to wait, not without occasional shudders of remembrance 9T. Becon, Reliques of Rome. Works (1560), iii, fol. clxxxj, reverse. 10 Arch. Edmonds Constitutions (1236), J. Johnson, Collection of Laws and Canons of the Ch. of Eng. etc. (Oxford, 1850), ii: 143. 11 G. Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Offt- ciorum, Lib. iv, cap. lxxxii, 3 ; J. S. Duran- tus, De Ritibus Ecclesia; Catholica, Lib. i, cap. xix, 24 ; J. Beleth, Rationale Divinorum Offici- orum, etc., cap. ex. See also W. Lyndwood, Provinciate, seu Constitutiones Anglice, etc. Lib. iii, tit. 25. 6 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. on the mother's part, of cases within her cognizance where some dire accident has suddenly cut short the life of the strongest infant, without so much as a moment of warning, in which to secure for it that water of regeneration on which its eternity depends. But the rolling months come, by and by, safely round, and the happy father and mother proceed to claim for their little one the blessing waited for. Presenting themselves at. the porch of the church, the priest comes out to them, and with a few words of exhortation, asking the child's name (which he exercises the right to change should he regard it as unsuit able);12 he breathes three times in its face; makes the sign of the cross on its forehead and on its breast to exorcise the evil spirit ; *3 blesses some salt, . and puts a little in the child's mouth, saying, "Accipe sal sapientia? ut propitiatus sit tibi Deus." Entering then the church, and advancing to the font, the Creed and the Lord's Prayer are repeated, and a second exorcism follows after the manner of the first, when the priest spits in his left hand . and rubs the child's ears and nostrils with the spittle, saying to the right ear, " Ephphatha ; " some thing else to the nostrils and the left ear. Then the babe, being stripped and turned so that its body shall point east and west, is asked whether it renounces the devil and all his works, to which the godfather, on its behalf, makes affirma tive reply. Then the priest, dipping his finger in the vessel holding the chrism, or consecrated oil, marks therewith the sign of the cross between the shoulders, after which, sprink ling or pouring holy water thrice upon the head — sometimes thrice plunging the body in a way to make a cross in the water — he says, "Ego baptizo te: In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." I4 The god-parents are then charged to special care lest the child meet with accident during its first seven years, to teach it the Ave Maria and the Creed, to bring it 12 Lyndwood, Lib. iii, tit. 24. J3 " The priest then commands the wicked spirit to depart out of that child who is still under his dominion, and to make room for the Holy Ghost, whose temple it is going to be made." Glover, Explanation ef the Sacra ments, etc. 15. '4 It was sometimes allowable to use this formula in English and French, the prescribed * words being respectively : " I Christen thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," and : " le te Baptize au nom du Pere, et du Filz, et du Sainct Esperit." Lyndwood, Lib. iii, tit. 24. The Darkness and the Dawn. " with convenient speede " to confirmation, and to wash their hands before they leave the church ; 1S after which, wrapped in its chrysom robe, the service ended, the babe is borne away, having been by this baptizing rescued from the dominion of the prince of this world, and duly initiated into that great company to whom — with proper care on the way — Heaven is pledged, and who alone have the right that their bodies when dead shall rest in consecrated ground.'6 At what precise time this completive rite of confirmation would be administered, depended largely upon the convenience or caprice of the bishop, by whom alone it could be performed. The law of the church, however, which was in force in England down to the Reformation, strictly charged all parish priests frequently to admonish the parents of baptized children, that they carry them to confirmation as soon as possible after seven days after baptism?'1 They were to carry them whenever there after the bishop held an Episcopal visitation within seven miles of their home.18 And should any such parents fail in the dis charge of this duty, they were to be punished by a day's pen 's A manuscript Manual in the British Mu seum, which formerly belonged to a church in the diocese of Winchester, gives this form, as follows : " I comaunde ow godfadre and god- modre, on holy chirche bihalue, that ye chargen the fadur and the modur of this child, that theykepe this child in to the age of seven yere, that hit beo from tier and water, and from alle other mischeues and periles that myten to him byfalle throug miskepinge, and also that ye or they techen his ryte bileue, hure Pater noster, and hure Ave Maria and hure Credo, or do him to beo taugte : and also that ye wasthe your hondes, or ye gon out of chirche : and also that hit beo confermed the next tyme that the byssop cometh to contre : and al this doeth in payne of corsynge." Bibl. Reg. Ms. 2, A, xxi, fol. 15. 16 See Durandus, Lib. vi, cap. lxxxiii : 1- 12; also W. F. Hook, Church Dictionary, sub voce, and the Manuale ad usum Sarum sub Ritus Baptizandi. Durandus also says: "in coemeterio autem Christianorum non nisi Christianus baptizatus sepeliri debet." [Ra tionale, Lib. i, cap. v, 14.] And again: "par tus tamen de ventre ipsius extractus mortuus, et non baptizatur extra coemeterium sepelia- tur." [Ibid, 15.] •7 "Nisi demum post septem dies post bap- tismum, propter septem dona spiritus sancti, quae recipiunt in baptismo ; nam pro singulis donis decet dies singulos celebrare;" Duran dus, Lib. vi, cap. lxxxiv, 1. 18 The English law as laid down by the Synod of Exeter (A. D. 1287), confirmed in 1308, and 1322, and in force down to the Reformation was this : " Quoniam in baptismo regeneramur ad vitam post baptismum confirmamur ad pugnam ; eo quod nobis est magna et gravis colluctatio adversus principem tenebrarum; quapropter sacerdotibus parochialibus dis- tricte prsecipimus, ut parochianos suos ssepius moneant, quatenus parvulos suos, quos prius baptizatos esse constiterit, procurent quam citius poterunt, confirmari. Et, ne ob parentum neg- legentiam ipsos contingat absque confirmatione diutius remanere ; statuimus, ut parvuli infra triennium *. tempore ortus sui confirmationis recipiant sacramentum, dum tamen proprii vel alieni episcopi copia habeatur: alioquin parentes extunc qualibet sexta feria in pane et aqua jejunent, donee pueri confirmentur." D. Wilkins, Concilia Magna Britannia, etc. ii: 132, 293, 512. See also, in further con firmation of the same, Durandus, Lib. vi, cap. lxxxiv. 8 Congregationalism^ as seen in its Literature. r ance of bread and water.19 They were directed to provide and :carry with them long strips of linen, with which, after the bishop1 had anointed the child's head with the oil of the holy chrism, it was to be so wrapped up and bandaged about, that the sacred anointing could in no way be unseasonably removed. Origin ally these bandages were directed to remain untouched for seven days, " by which were represented the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit," but the necessities of the case prevailed to abridge the period and change the symbolism, and three days were declared to be enough, " in memory of the Trinity, or pf the rising of our Lord on the third day." On the third day, there fore, after confirmation, the parents were directed to carry the child to the church, where, in the baptistery, the fillets were removed, and, to make sure that their sacredness should never be impaired by degradation to any secular use, were burned;; and the child's face was washed by the priest.20 In confirma tion the bishop thanked God that he had deigned to regenerate the child by water and the Holy Spirit, and to give it remission of all sin, and then besought Him to endue it with the seven fold spirit, the sacred Paraclete from heaven : the spirit of wisdom and knowledge ; the spirit of prudence and dutifulness ; the spirit of counsel and strength ; and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Then dipping his thumb in the chrism, or conse crated mixture of oil and balm, he marked with it the sign of the cross upon the forehead, saying, " consigno te signo cru+cis, et confirmo te chrismate salutis. In nomine Patris, et Fi-\-lij, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Pax tibi." Then he prayed that God would look kindly on the child thus anointed, " sacro- sancto chrismate," and signed with the holy cross ; and that the entering Spirit would graciously complete the perfect temple of his glory within the soul. The rubric demanded that the sign of the cross be made eight times during this ceremony, and there were three different impositions of the hands of the bishop ; 2I and as the church never settled — and, strangely, the Bible is silent as to the point — in connection with which of these acts the supernal grace is imparted, it was held .that if for 19 " Extunc patres et matres eorum per unum diem in pane et aqua jejunare cogan- tur." Wilkins, ii : 293. 20 Lyndwood, Lib. i, tit. 6. 21 Manualc ad usum Sarum, Confirmatio Puerorum. The Darkness and the Dawn. 9 sudden sickness, or any reason, the child were removed after the anointing and before the benediction, there must be at least a conditional repetition of the rite.22 The theory of the Romish church was that baptism is a rudimental, and confirm ation a conclusive transaction, both charged with and conveying supernatural grace ; and it taught its votaries that an infant of days, not yet knowing its right hand from its left, by passing through these two ceremonies, in which it had, and could have, no intelligent participation, became translated out of the king dom of Satan into the kingdom of God. So soon as she should be in physical strength for it, the mother would present herself to be " churched." Pausing out side the outer door of the sacred edifice, the priest with his attendants would come out to her, and saying the 121st Psalm (Levavi oculos meos) and the 128th (Beati omnes, qui timent Dominum) with the Kyrie Eleyson and the Pater Noster, he would offer, in Latin, this prayer : " O God, who hast delivered this thy servant from the peril of childbirth, and made her devoted to Thy service, grant that after she hath faithfully fin ished the course of this life she may obtain life and rest eternal, under the wings of Thy mercy, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Then, sprinkling her with holy water, he would lead her by the right hand into the church, saying : " Enter into the temple of God, that thou mayest have eternal life and live forever." n The " accustomed offerings " were then in order. Parents, however devoutly inclined, trained in such a system as these facts indicate, could hardly fail to educate their off spring to a superstition which should treat the gospel as Paul says the heathen treated its Divine Author, changing its incor ruptible glory into an image like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. And it would almost seem that the more devout might be their intent, the more unfortunate must be their influence ; because, starting with a radical divergence from the plan of salvation, and all those methods of right spiritual culture which Revelation offers and enjoins, the further the progress they should achieve, the 22 Glover. Explanation of the Sacraments, etc., 27. 23 Manuale ad usum Sarum. Ordo ad Puri- ficandum Mulierem, etc. 10 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. wider and the more mournful must be the distance by which they would be led astray. While, too, those silent pulsings, gusts and currents of influence which are generated by all the activi ties of a community in which such things are true, must unite to create a ground-swell, and, as one might say, gulf-stream drift, upon which individual souls, without steam or skill to use the wind against them, would be helplessly swung and swept. Now, by as much as we can succeed in vividly putting our selves into such a child's place, by so much shall we find the forces thus suggested conducting him — and the more intelli gent and thoughtful he might prove, the broader and deeper would most likely become the fact — toward a condition of practical heathenism, mental dissatisfaction, and spiritual fam ine, which would be in no manner relieved of its ungodliness by its nominally Christian quality. It was a part of the wonder ful — our fathers would not have hesitated to say, devilish — skill with which Rome spun her web to make a net to catch the world, not only that her reticulation provides a strand for every strain, but that she weaves here and there of silk, or twine, or wire, as may best fit the necessity of circumstance. One of the things which would be likely early to attract the notice and arouse the curiosity of such a child, would be the cross within sight of the cottage door, standing where two ways meet. He would notice that beggars daily choose that place to ask their alms ; that funeral processions wending their solemn way toward the church-yard there pause and set down the bier. And he would be told that the cross was to bring people some benefit of the sacred wood on which Jesus died; that the cripple or the pauper frequented that spot, in hope that passers-by might by that symbol be made to think of their need of good deeds, and so their hearts be softened in charity ;24 and that the dead rested there, that the company of mourners might be minded to pray for the soul of the departed.23 And this fictitious value of the cross as a symbol would mee^ him 24 Hence the old simile : " He begged like a cripple at a cross." 25 T. Staveley, History of the Churches in England ; wherein is shewn the Time, Means and Manner of Founding, Building and En dowing of Churches, both Cathedral and Rural, with their Furniture and Appendages, London, 1773, 8vo. My references are air to a copy in the British Museum [7816. aa.] which has been enlarged and extended into two volumes quarto, with numerous and valuable MS. and other additions. (Additional MS.) 51. The Darkness and the Dawn. ii whichsoever way he turned. Crosses in the graveyard solicited prayers for the dead. The parish church, if not itself cruciform, would have a great cross.in its rood-loft, and a little one would perhaps crown the summit of its spire.26 The priest all through the Sunday, or feast-day, or fast-day service, would be making the sign of the cross with his thumb and two' fingers, " in honor of the blessed Trinity,"27 while the people not only crossed themselves as they entered, and while within, but crossed them selves to drive away evil spirits whenever and wherever any fit of terror came upon them.28 Boundaries between parishes and estates were marked by stones having crosses cut upon them ; and when any man lacked skill to attach his name to any legal paper, some clerk wrote it for him, and he assumed it as his own by marking the sign of the cross against it.29 The child would be sure, with his first consciousness of the notions of those about him, to enter into a bondage of fear with reference to spirits of evil, which he would be taught to conceive of as roaming in malicious throngs invisibly through space, on mischief to men intent. And when he wakes in the middle of the night-tempest, and hears the clangor of the chimes in the church tower, mingling with the crash of the thunder and the howling of the gale, his mother hushes him by saying that the demons which aroused the storm, hearing the bells ring will soon be frightened away, and all be still and safe again.30 He is also taught to cross himself and, if possible, be sprinkled with holy water whenever he is especially terrified by any appearance of evil ; for Satan and his minions cannot stand before the 2&/.W,,(add. MS.) 199. 27 Durandus, Lib. v, cap. ii, 12. See the most "advanced" Ritualistic explanation in Lee's Glossary, under " Cross (the sigh of the)." 28 " Signo crucis, se munit, ad effugandam illius virtutem, scilicet quamlibet diaboli ver- sutiam, et potestatem. Valde enim timet sig- num crucis : Unde Chrysostomus : Ubicunque daemonei signum crucis viderint, fugiunt, timentes baculum, quo plagam acceperunt." Durandus, Lib. v, cap. ii, 9. See also Sym bolism of Churches and Church Ornaments, etc. (1843), 38, and Appendix D. ^Staveley (add. MS.) 51. In the original of the solemn "League and Covenant " in the British Museum, there are plenty of instances 4 of men who could not write their names, but who, abhorring Popery, affixed their " mark *' in the shape of the letter T, so as to avoid making a complete and perfect cross. 3° Durandus, Lib. i, cap. iv. i. Beleth, cap. xxiv. Staveley (227) says on some bells was cast the motto : Laudo Deum verum, Plebem voco, Congrego clerum, Defunctos ploro, Pestem fugo, Festa decoro. and on others : Funera plango, Fulgura frango, Sabbato pango; Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, Paco cruentos. 12 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. sacred symbol, and the aqua beata is a terror to him, and to them.31 The great focus of the life of the little hamlet is its parish church ; its only edifice of any pretension to public character, or, if the dwelling of the Lord of the manor be excepted, of any special sife or comeliness. Yew trees stand around and overshadow it, because, better than those of other Eng lish trees, their branches meet the ecclesiastical necessities of Palm-Sunday, and its great ceremonies.32 Awkwardly, some times, as regards the direction of the public ways by which it is approached, the building is invariably planted east and west, fronting the sunset. The object of this orientation is that the congregation, as they look toward the altar, shall face the sun- rising, and the reason for it is quaintly thus given in one of the ancient books of the English church : " Lete us thynke that Crist deyed in the Este, and therfore lete us prey besely in to the Est, that we may be of the Nombre that he deyd fore. Also lete us thynke that he shall come oute of the Este to the dome : wherefore lete us praye hertely to hym, and besely, that we maye have Grace of Contrition in our hartes of our Mysdedes, with Shrift and Satisfactyon, that we may stonde that Day on the right honde of our Lord Jesu Cryst, and soo be of the nombre that shall be saved, & come to euerlasting blisse and ioy, and that we maye scape that horryble rebuke, that shall be gyuen to all that shal be dampned, and go to everlastynge peyne." 33 Entering the building by the porch, or Parvise, where if any thing resembling a school offered itself to his early necessities it would most likely be kept,34 our lad .would be struck first, on passing within, by the great Rood upon its loft over the arched passage joining the chancel, or choir, — that is the eastern projection containing the altar — to the body of the house. 31 Durandus, Lib. v, cap. ii, n. vStaveley (add. MS.) 12. nDurandus gives eight reasons why church es should front the sun-rising, the seventh of which is : " quia Dominus crucifixus, ad orien tem respiciebat, ideb et nos oramus ad eum re- spicientes : sed et ipse in ccelum assumptus, ad orientem sursum ferebatur, et ita ipsum Apos- toli adorauerunt : et ita veniet, quemadmodum viderunt eum euntem in ccelum : ipsum igitur expectantes, ad orientem adoramus." [Lib. v, cap. ii, 57.] See also Durantus, Lib. i, cap. iii, 4. The extract is from Liber Festivalis (1483), 155. 34 Staveley, 159. See Matt. Paris in Hen. iii, fol. 798, "venditis in Parviso libellis," etc. Sometimes the word was applied, as in Thame Church, Oxfordshire, to the little chamber over the church porch. F. G. Lee, Glossary of Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Terms, etc. (1877), sub voce. The Darkness and the Dawn. *3 Most likely it would be a rude and inartistic, but still to a child effective and affecting statue of Christ hanging upon the cross, with subordinate images of the Virgin, and Saint John, on either side.35 The church would be named after and dedicated especially to some saint ; and on the left hand, on the north side of the altar, would be placed his, or her, effigy or picture, the Imago principalis ',36 ranking locally even before that of the Saviour himself. Possibly, if any wealthy person who had been a resident of the parish, or native there, had felt himself on the approach of death tremulous in regard to the security of his welcome in the other world, and desired to fortify his claims upon Saint Peter by something left behind to the embellish ment of the church,37 there may be on the other side an addi tional image, perhaps representing the Trinity by an old man holding a crucifix between his knees, with a dove upon his breast or at his ear;38 or a gold collar, or trinkets, or a rich robe of lace, might be bequeathed for the beautifying of the other images ; which on festival days were often gaily decked out with beads, corals, silver ornaments, jewels and embroidered robes.39 Central to all would be the altar, even in rudest edifices enriched and dignified by at least some effort at adornment, and generally with some picture hanging behind and over it ; surely with candles burning all the day-time upon it, as also upon some shelf or table before the Imago principalis.^ Originally intended to symbolize the blessed fact that Christ is the light of the world,41 and by the strict law of England still enjoined to be kept a-light for that purpose upon the altars of all churches of the establishment ; 42 this candle-burning, following that law 35 See Cardinal Pole's Articles of Enquiry in ISJ7- Staveley (add. MS.) 199. i6Staveley, 126 (add. MS.) 199. Lyndwood, Lib. iii, tit. 27. 37 Archb. Dean left by will, to his church of Canterbury, "my silver image of St. John the Evangelist, weighing 151 oz." (1502.) [E. Hasted, History of Kent, iv : 735.] Theobalde Evias of Faversham, Kent, widow, devised, among other things, " her cross of gold, which she wore round her neck," to the shrine of St. Richard in Chichester ; her beads of gold to "St. John hys hed in Amyas," and her "ryng of gold with the 'ruby " to the sepulcher of the three kings of Cologne. Ibid, ii : 703. i%Ibid, 190, 191. 39 F. Blomefield, Hist. Norfolk, ii : 596, 702; iv: 150, etc. 4° Soames, Latin Church during Anglo-Sax on Times, etc., 266. 41 Lee, Glossary, sub voce. 42 " Such ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their min istration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the au thority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth (1548). Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer, etc. [1 Elizabeth], as endorsed by the present Rubric. M Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. of degradation which our human nature seems to make insep arable from all such ceremonies, had come to be in the com mon mind associated mainly with some vague impression of propitiation before God, the Saviour, the Virgin, and the saints, and so with some slight satisfaction paid for sin.43 The amount of furniture, of one sort and another, deemed indispensable, and by statute demanded, for the decent uses of the Romish worship in every parish church, however small, seems scarcely less marvellous in our eyes, than it sometimes used to seem onerous to those parishioners who were compelled to furnish and pay for the same. We get a distinct list in 1305, from a canon of Archbishop Winchelsey,44 enjoining upon all parishes provision of the things undermentioned, to wit: a Legend, an Antiphonarium, a Grail, a Psalter, a Tropa- rium, an Ordinal, a Missal and a Manuale, in the way of service- books for the guidance of priest and people through the wilder nesses of Sundays, saints' days, and other occasions of public or private worship ; a Cope, a Dalmatic, a Tunic, and a second- best Cope, with Alb, Amyct, Stole, Maniple and Girdle, to gether with three Surplices and a Rochet, in the way of vest ments for the priest and his assistants. Then there were to be made ready for the ordinary requirements of the service, a Chal ice ; a great Cross for processions ; a smaller Cross to be laid upon the body of the dead at funerals ; a Censer for incense ; a Lantern ; a Hand Bell to be rung before the body of the Lord when it was taken out to be carried to the dying ; a Pyx or strong cupboard with lock and key — sometimes called a " God- house "4S — to hold and guard the wafer Christ when not needed for eucharistic purposes ; Candlesticks and Candles ; a vessel for the Blessed Water ; another, a Chrismatory, for the consecrated 43 John of Gaunt, by will, ordered ten large wax candles to burn about his corpse on his burial day, " in ye name of Gods x. command ments agaynst wh. I have wickedly offended ;'' as also seven large ones " in memory of ye vii. works of charity " of which he had been neg ligent, and "the vii. mortal synns;" and, "be- sydes these, v. large ones in honour of our Saviours v. principall wounds, and for his v. senses " which he had too carelessly used ; and also three, " in honour of ye blessed Trin ity " to which he resigned himself for the evils he had done in the world. Staveley (add. MS.) 189. 44 J. Johnson, Laws and Canons of the Church of England, etc., ii: 318. See also Staveley, 183-196; Durandus, Lib. iii, pas sim; Lyndwood, Lib. iii, tit. 27, andDurantus, Lib. ii, passim. 45 In the eastern angle of the choir at Lud low, Shropshire, is a closet, anciently called the God-house, where the priests locked up the roods, wafers, etc., having a window strongly barred outward. Staveley (add. MS.), 157. The Darkness and the Dawn. ?5 Oil; a Baptismal Font; an Osculatory, or Pax — that is to say, a small tablet of silver, or some -less costly material, with suita ble ornamentation, to be at the appointed period of service (near its end) kissed by the priest, by him handed to the deacon, kissed by him, and by him passed down to the congregation to be kissed in order by them, in memory and imitation of the primitive kiss of peace ; a Bier for the dead, with the Palla mor- tuorum ; Bells with ropes — in the steeple, that is — to be tolled at the elevation of the Host ; suitable linen and other coverings for the Altar ; four towels for washing of hands where needful in the ceremonies ; and banners for the processions of the three Rogation Days preceding the festival of the Ascension. Then there were Corporals, or coverings for the Host, Flabella, or fly- flaps for the sacred cup, Phylatteria, or vessels containing the holy relics, besides an Offertorium for collections, the Ambo for reading homilies, Lent veils and garments for the Images, and a Beam-light, or taper kept burning before the Host. I do not venture to think that every one of these was to be found in every, the smallest, parish church in England ; but it is clear • that they were canonically required to be there, and that Arti cles of Inquiry were now and then issued to church-wardens through the land, as to whether the law were complied with in every particular, or not. As late as 1557, we find Cardinal Pole46 thus demanding whether the churches be sufficiently gar nished with all ornaments and books necessary ; and whether they have a Rood in the church of a decent stature, with Mary and John, and an image of the Patron of the said church ? All this the lad finds within the edifice. And when, with boyish curiosity some day, by favor, he climbs the rude stairs conducting to the tower, he discovers that the bells which hang there and whose music he loves, bear, in letters which are a part of their surface, legends which indicate that they have other uses than merely to call the faithful to prayer. One may be inscribed with the name of the patron saint of the church, and the prayer : " Ora pro nobis ; " 47 another perhaps to the Vir- 46 Staveley (add. MS.) 199. 47 St. Butolph's, Cambridge, has four bells inscribed [Staveley, i (2)] as follows : (1) Sancte Ipoline, ora pro nobis. (2) Sancte Andrea, ora pro nobis. (3) Sancta Margareta, ora pro nobis. (4) Nomen Magdalenie, campana gerit melodie.Norton Church, Norfolk, has three : (1) Sancte Johannes, ora pro nobis. (2) Sancta Caterina, ora pro nobis. (3) O Matris Barbara, pro me Deum exora. 1 6 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. gin Mary : " Protego Virgo pia quos convoco, sancta Maria ; " 4S very likely another to St. Thomas : " Per Thorns mentis, mere- amur gaudia lucis;"49 and still another may bear the general motto : s° En ego campana, nunquam de- nuncio vana • Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum, Defunctos plango, vivos voco, ful- mina f rango • Vox mea, vox vitas, voco vos ad sacra venite • Sanctos collaudo, tonitrus fugo, funera claudo. As he spells these out, he asks the sexton what it all means, and the old man tells him that he himself is not much of a scholar, but he has always remembered what a priest who was . very learned, and who was a great friend of his when both were young, told him one sunny day as they were up there together, how that each bell is hallowed to some saint, and that this writ ing is a prayer, and that every time the bell sounds it prays that prayer ; and that is why they have so many bells, to gain the good of more saintly help ; and that is why sometimes when his withering arms are tired he still rings on longer than he thinks he can, so that the village may get the good of it and the fiends be driven away.51 But I cannot take time for too many of these minutiae. My object will be quite accomplished if I can make you see how, as this young mind expands and stretches forth itself, with some kindling longings towards the true, the beautiful and the good, it will be ever, and everywhere, thrown back upon itself by a freezing formalism, which in no degree, and as to nothing, offers real and comfortable answer to the solicitudes of the soul. On Sundays he listens to a service almost the whole of which is in a language which conveys to him no notion of what is said, 48 This is upon a bell in Plumtre, Devon. Ibid, i, (4.) 49 Starston, Norfolk. So at Croxton' in the same shire is a bell with this legend : " O Martyr Thoma, pro me Deum exora." Ibid, -. (3» 4-) 1° Ibid, 227. 51 In old wills money was often left for ring ing at funerals, and when the obit, or anniver sary was kept, a peal was to be rung. Stave ley (add. MS.) 228. See also Lee, Glossary, sub voce "Annuals," etc. The Darkness and the Dawn. 17 while those few ideas which, by aid of gesture, sound, or com mon fame, might filter through to his consciousness, would be as purely pagan as those of any ritual of Athens, or of Hindustan. The Litany, or the Kyrie Eleison, while beginning, indeed:52 "Lord, haue merci on us: Crist, haue merci on us: Crist, heere us," goes on, with all popular impression of equal stress and need, to beseech " Seynt Marie, Hooli moder of God, Hooli virgyn of virgyns," and not only her, but sixty-seven male saints and martyrs, and twenty-three female saints, each by name, besides " alle hooli aungels and archaungels," and " alle ordris of hooly spiritis," and "alle hooli patriarkis and prophetis," and " all hooli apostlis and euangelistis," and " all hooli disciplis of the lord and innocentis," and " alle hooli martris," and " alle hooli confessouris," and " alle hooli virgyns," and " alle hooli men and wymmen " in general ; saying " preie ye for us." All reaches its climax in the mass. And in this the priest began 53 by confessing to God and to blessed Mary, and beseech ing holy Mary, and all the saints of God, to pray for him. After ward he " offered a sacrifice " to the Lord, saying — I translate from the Latin — " Accept, O holy Trinity, this oblation which I, an unworthy sinner, offer in thy honor, and in honor of blessed Mary, and of all thy saints." And in the canon of the mass, he characterized the service as 54 " communicating with, and honoring the memory, especially of the glorious ever- Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord and God Jesus Christ; and also of Thy blessed apostles and martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Thaddeus ; Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Grisogonus, John and Paul, Cos- 52 As this, although usually given in Latin, would possibly be sometimes rendered in Eng lish, I have cited these passages in the trans lation of the Prymer, of date about 1410, which Mr. Maskell has given. Monumenta Rit. Ec- cles. Anglicana, ii : 95. 53 " Confiteor Deo, beatae Mariae, etc., precor sanctam Mariam, et omnes sanctos Dei, etc., orare pro me." Ordinarium Missis, Sarum. "Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem quam ego, indignus peccator, offero in honore tuo, et beatae Mariae, et omnium sanctorum tuorum." Ibid. 54"Communicantes et memoriam veneran- tes : Imprimis, gloriosae semper virginis Mariae, genetricis Dei et Domini nostri Jesu Christi ; sed et beatorum apostolorum ac martyrum tuorum, Petri et Pauli, Andreas, Jacobi, Jo- annis, Thomse, Jacobi, Philippi, Bartholomaei, Matthsei, Simonis et Thadda^i; Lini, Cleti, Clementis, Sixti, Cornelii, Cypriani, Laurentii, Grisogoni, Joannis et Pauli, Cosmse et Dam- iani; et omnium sanctorum tuorum, quorum meritis precibusque concedas, ut in omnibus protectionis tuse muniamur auxilio." Canon Misses, Sarum. i8 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. mas and Damian, and of all Thy saints ; by whose merits and prayers do Thou grant that we may in all things be defended with the help of Thy protection." So, further on, having prayed for the dead, he proceeded, striking his breast, to say : 55 " let it please Thee to grant us some part and fellowship with Thy holy apostles and martyrs, with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barna bas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua; Agatha, Lucia, Agnes, Caecilia, Anastasia, and all Thy saints." Again he prayed : 5° " Deliver us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, from all evils past, present and to come, on the intercession of the blessed and ever glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and of thy blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and Andrew, with all saints." Thus, perpetually, through this sacredest service of the church was the mind dragged down from all uplifting contemplation of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world, to be fixed upon creatures imperfect like ourselves, who were thus dignified to something very like an equality of mediation and adoration with Him ; while, so far as any teaching was con nected with the rite, it was the blasphemy that the priest, by his formulae, could, and did, change the bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ himself, crucifying Him afresh in every service; the great bells of the church being tolled when the host was elevated,57 that, especially on week-days, the people in their houses, and in the fields, might kneel in rever ence, and to secure the offered benefits. This central teaching was, however, so muffled in forms and hidden behind, ceremo nies, that, while it must have been robbed of much of its direct effect, the tendency of what was done became inevitable and inexorable to transform the whole service, to unlearned ears, 55 " Nobis quoque peccatoribus famulis tuis, de multitudine miserationum tuarum speranti- bus, partem aliquam et societatem donare digneris, cum tuis Sanctis apostolis et martyr- ibus : cum Ioanne, Stephano, Matthia, Barna- ba, Ignatio, Alexandro, Marcellino, Petro, Felicitate, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucia, Agnete, Cxcilia, Anastasia, et cum omnibus Sanctis tuis." Ibid. 56 " Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine, ab om nibus malis, praeteritis, prasentibus, et futu- ris j et intercedente pro nobis beata et gloriosa semper virgine Dei genetrice Maria, et beatis Apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, atque Andrea, cum omnibus Sanctis." Ibid. 57 " In elevatione corporis Christi ab una parte ad minus pulsentur campanae, ut popu- lares, qui celebrationi missarum non valent quotidie interesse, ubicunque fuerint sive in agris, sive in domibus, flectant genua, Indul- gentias concessas a pluribus episcopis habi- turi." Archb. Peckham's Constitutions (1279) Lyndwood, Lib. iii, tit. 23 ; Johnson, ii : 273 ; Durandus, Lib. iv, passim. The Darkness and the Dawn. *9 into a kind of pantomime, than which nothing could well be imagined more 'repugnant to the simplicity of the faith and practice of the early church. For example, during the celebra tion of the mass, there were requisite at least eleven assistants to the priest, besides the choir, to wit : 58 a deacon, a sub-deacon, two ceroferarii (or candle-bearers), two thurifers (or incense- bearers), at least four boys in surplices, and the acolyte (or sexton, or servant). The priest must say some things on the north side of the altar, and some in front of it ; and when the priest stood before the altar, the deacon was to stand immedi ately behind him on the next step, and the sub-deacon in the same manner on the second step immediately behind the deacon. Whenever the priest turned himself toward the people, they likewise were to turn themselves, and when he genuflected they were to genuflect. And the rubric of Sarum required that dur ing mass the deacon should kiss the priest's hand three times, that the priest should kiss the deacon and sub-deacon once, the book of the Gospels twice, the corporals once, the chalice once, and the altar four times ; that he should bow to the host ; that he should wash his hands with water three times, and once with wine ; that incense should be swung eight times, and that the priest make the sign of the cross fifty-one times. Moreover the consecrative words: " Hoc est enim corpus meum" must be pro nounced in one breath and utterance, with no pause between.59 There would be no preaching, or next to none. In the majority of cases the priest would be too ignorant to preach.6" But he might probably make shift in some blundering way to comply with the law which required him four times in a year by himself, or by some other, to expound to the people, in the vulgar tongue, without any fantastical affectation of subtilty, the fourteen articles of faith, the ten commandments of the Decalogue — which, by the way, were only nine, Rome having 5s See, for this whole subject, the Ordinari- um et Canon Misses secundum usum Ecclesice Sarum Anglicance ; and compare the Manuale, and Missale ad usum insigtiis Ecclesia Ebora- censis, of which excellent editions have been recently published by the Surtees Society [vols. 59 and 63]. Compare also the Missale Ro- manum of the contemporary period. 59 " Et debent ista verba proferri cum uno spiritu et sub una prolatione, nulla pausatione interposita." Rubric. Canon Missa, Sarum. 60 " The ignorance of priests plunges the people into error ; and the stupidness of clerks who are commanded to instruct the faithful in the Catholic faith, does rather mislead than teach them." Archb. Peckham's Constitu tions (1281), reaffirmed by Archb. Nevil (1466). Johnson, ii : 2S2, 520. 20 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. omitted the second, and split the tenth6' — the two precepts of the Gospel, or of love to God and men, the seven'works of mercy, the seven capital sins with their progeny, the seven principal virtues, and the seven sacraments of grace.62 There would be no Bible. Nobody, not even the priest, had any Bible ; only the psalter and the lessons, and these were in Latin. No one had the right to read the Bible, if there were any, on pain of the greater excommunication. And63 there would be no books accessible which cOuld do anything to mend this state of mat ters, for since the stir about Wyclif and the Lollards, it had been expressly decreed that no book be allowed to be read " composed by John Wyclif, or by any other in his time or since, or hereafter to be composed," unless it had been first examined and unanimously approved by Cambridge and Oxford, or at least by twelve men chosen by the said universities, or by one of them, and afterwards by the Bishop.64 Apparently, all ordi nary avenues of light were closed, and the Papal church had had triumphant success in so arranging it that the sun of right eousness could shine upon men from heaven, only through the painted windows of its own devising. But the Spirit of God worketh where it listeth, and the Lord knoweth everyone that is His. So that even in the midst of these non-conductors the heart of this young Englishman could be touched, his conscience troubled, and his mind made anxious with that great anxiety which has led so many millions, in so many ages and tongues, to ask, " What must I do to be saved ? " In his vague yet sharp discontent, he goes, as every son ought to feel prompted to go, and able to go, first of all to his mother. But she tells him that he was, beyond all possible doubt, duly baptized and properly confirmed ; that he has taken his com munions regularly, and confessed and had absolution three times each year since he was fourteen years old, and, besides, has 61 Johnson, ii : 427 ; Soames, 310. Newman [On De-jelopment, London (1845), 434, 435] jus tifies this. 62 Johnson, ii : 282, 520 ; Lyndwood, Lib. i, tit. 1. 63 " Statuimus et ordinamus ut nemo dein- ceps textuni aliquem Sacrae Scripturae aucto ritate sua in linguam Anglicanam vel aliam tatus, nee legatur aliquis hujusmodi liber, libellus, aut tractatus jam noviter tempore dicti Johannis Wickliff, sive citra compositus, aut in posterum componendus in parte, vel in toto, publice vel occulte, sub poena ma- joris excommunicationis,'' etc. Archb. Arun del's Constitutions. Lyndwood, Lib. v, tit. 4 ; Johnson, ii : 466. transferat per viam libri, vel libelli, aut trac- | - 64 Johnson, ii : 465. The Darkness and tke Dawn. 21 been a good boy and a good son ; and is just as sure of heaven as the holy father himself, and she can't imagine why he should be troubled ; and, when he insists that none of these things do comfort him, and that, in point of fact, he is troubled, she sends him to the priest. He goes with reluctance, for he knows per fectly well that the priest is seldom sober, besides being of most unsavory character in general ; and he entertains no inward expectation of help from him. He finds him carousing with a lot of traveling monks at the village ale-house ; and what he overhears of their talk so disgusts and repels him, that, without a word, he slinks home across the fields, in greater trouble than ever. And in a still, secluded, shady place he falls prostrate, with a vehement, blind plea to God for help. He does not know that Inspiration has said, but in the depths of his soul he feels, that " vain is the help of man." And lying there, led by a holy instinct, with strong crying and tears, he pours out his whole soul to Him that heareth in secret, and begs for light, for peace, for truth. And when he rises afterward, he goes the rest of his way home, he cannot tell why, with some glimmer of rest afar comforting his soul ; in some way as with a new sense of seeing in his eyes, which discerns at once the formal empti ness of all with which he has hitherto assayed to satisfy himself. What he wants now and henceforth, and what he must have, is more truth from God. If God has spoken to men, where is what he said? And if Christ died for him, he wants Christ and not a wafer ! Now, self-moved, even with all his ever- increasing repugnance toward the man, he goes to the priest. He asks him for God's word ; is there no way in which he who can read English can read what God says, and all which He has said ; and will he tell him everything that he knows about Christ ? The priest sneers : " What business have you to know how to read," and scolds : " Go, you young upstart, say your Pater Nosters and your Ave Marias ; that is quite enough for you," and tells him that at his next confession he shall give him heavy extra penance for presuming, with vain curiosity, to med dle with matters with which he has no concern ; that all which it is either needful or proper for him to do and know, is to know and do as he is weekly and daily commanded by the church. Saddened, but with will strengthened by this repulse, the 22 Congregationalism) as seen in its Literature. young man goes home with the conviction that God must have given men something better than this, and that find out what that may be, he must. He remembers that when he was six years old he heard of the burning of one of the last of the Lollards at Amersham in Buckinghamshire,65 and how his only daughter was punished for her sympathy with her father's opin ions, by being compelled to kindle the fire which consumed him. It strikes him forcibly that any person who could be willing to be burned for his faith, must live nearer to, and know more about God and Jesus, than any of the sensual and scan dalous priests, or monks, whom he has ever seen, and there springs up within him an intense desire, if it may be, to search out that daughter, if she be now alive, and prove whether she may not aid his quest. Secretly — for her sake not less than for his own — he seeks to find her, but in vain. Yet with what one who used to know her, and to whom she sometimes read out of the old manuscript fragment of Wyclif's New Testa ment, which was the only legacy her father left her, suggests to him, he begins to see a little more clearly, and to feel a clew in his hand which may some day guide his feet into the way of peace. Thenceforth, while long outwardly conformed to the faith of his father, and obedient to the ceremonies which his mother loves and trusts, it is with an inward repugnance which grows with every service, and an eye daily sharper to detect that deso lation and emptiness which are come in to reign where the glory of the Lord should appear in the midst of his temple. A spirit of unbelief in the church, and the priest, and in all that is done by the latter in the name of the former, keeps even pace in his soul with all increase of that direct faith in God, and in Christ, which he begins to venture increasingly to cherish. And as he watches the ceremonies day after day, they seem to him ever more strange as being ordained of God, and yet ever crowding God out of sight, and thrusting whole wilder nesses of rubbish between Him and the soul. He sees the priest first exorcise salt by making three signs of the cross and invok es William Tylsworth (A. D. 1506). His I See John Pox, Actes and Monuments, etc daughter's (married) name was Joan Clerk. I (Townsend's edition), iv : 123. The Darkness and the Dawn. 23 ing the living God, and the true God, and the holy God ; and then exorcise water by making three more crosses in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; and then put the salt into the water in the form of a cross with three more crosses in the name of the Trinity ; and then call it Holy Water, and teach that it can drive away unclean spirits and poisonous serpents, and in general protect the living and hal low the dead.66 When the Pax, worn and greasy with the handlings and mouthings of many generations, cOmes down fresh day after day, and goes the rounds of the faithful as the symbol of peace and charity ; he thinks how much easier it is to kiss that, unin viting as it may be, than to feel any real love for the priest who starts it on its way, or for many whom it passes before it comes down to him.67 Church-ales63 and glutton-masses69 especially perplex him, be cause both end in converting the house of God into the scene of unseemly and sometimes revolting revels. That, when some slight repairs were needed for the building, their cost should be raised by contributions of ale brewed throughout the parish, the inhabitants then all assembling and paying some fixed sum for the privilege of drinking together as much as they could, was bad enough ; but that village should vie with village in turning 66 " ut ubicunque fuerit aspersa, per invo- cationem sancti nominis tui, omnis infestatio immundi spiritus abjiciatur : terrorque vene- nosi serpentis proeul pel-latur : et presentia Sancti Spiritus nobis misericordiam tuam pos- centibus ubique adesse dignetur." Benedic tio aquae, Manuale ad usum Sarum. 67The Pax, sometimes called the Osculato- rium, was a small tablet of wood, ivory or some precious metal, with a handle behind, often ornamented with an Agnus Dei, or some little bas-relief of some sacred scene, which was kissed by the priest, and then passed round to be kissed by the faithful during mass. [Lee's Glossary, etc., 255, 278.] As to its theory and philosophy, see Durandus, Lib. iv, liii, 1 ; Durantus, ii : 54. The denial of the pax to an offender was one of the minor pun ishments of the church. Johnson, ii: 132. See also Chambers, 382. 68 It is a curious illustration how nothing is new under the sun, that our fathers some times raised money for the repair of a church by the profits arising from ale brewed in the parish and contributed for the purpose, which all the inhabitants used to meet and drink, paying so much a head for the privilege — quite after the philosophy of modern church fairs, or festivals. Staveley (add. MS. 99), gives citations from parish records like this : " 1453, sexto die Maii, from a Church Ale, 13s. 4d." 69 Glutton-masses were quite akin to church ales. They were sometimes held " in honor of the Virgin " five times a year. The people repaired to church laden with provisions and liquors, and after mass had been hurried through, the church was suddenly converted into a house of feasting; and when village strove with village which should contribute most to such an occasion, it is not strange that drunkenness often, and riot sometimes, ended the scene. Pictorial Hist. Eng., ii : 253, which cites Wilkins, Concilia, etc. 24 Congregationalism^ as seen in its Literature. their sanctuaries into pot-houses, and a general carousal follow mass five times in the year " in honor of the Virgin Mary," was a riddle which he had neither skill nor heart to solve. Why the altar-cloths should be so sacred that only priests or deacons could wash them;7" and why — for his friend the old sexton could tell him of many of these things of which other wise he might not have heard — if any one entitled to be buried with religious rites had been buried without them, the body must be dug up and reinterred by a priest wearing an alb and a stole and a maniple, and with holy water, and a cross, and a thurible and incense;71 and why the priest and his helpers— always provided the parish were able to afford the expense — ought to wear white on Christmas day and the feast of the cir cumcision, and red on all martyrs' days, and yellow on all feasts of confessors, and violet on the Sunday before Advent, and on all vigils of saints, and green on the feast of the Holy Trin ity, and black on the feast of All Souls, and the passover;72 and why the altar coverings must usually, but not always, be of the same color with the priest's robes ; 73 and why the clerks should bow toward the altar so many times in the service, and particularly why there should be an indulgence of one hundred days to all who bowed devoutly every time that the name of Jesus occurred;74 and why the priest should select the very wheat from which the wafer-bread for the Lord's Supper was to be made, and why it must be ground separately from all other wheat, and be bolted by a church officer in a white dress, and baked by a deacon wearing gloves, an alb and amice ; and why all engaged in the process should repeat Psalms, or say the Litany, before and during the progress of the making, in other respects keeping entire silence, all in the presence of at least one priest, and, if possible, in the sacristy of the church ; 75 and why the Lord should be entreated with three signs of the cross. 7° Johnson, ii : 338. 71 J. Thorpe, ii : 256; J. D. Chambers, Di vine Worship in England in the ijth and 14th Centuries, etc., 27. 72 See Chambers On the Colours of the Vest ments of the Clergy, etc. Appendix, i; also Durandus, Lib. iii, xviii. See also, De Coloribus Vestimentorum in Eccl. Exon. Pub. Surtees Soc.,\xi: 388-390. 73 Chambers, Appendix, xiv. 74 "Urban IV. and John XXII. granted indulgences of one hundred days to all who bowed devoutly as often as the name of Jesus Christ was recited in the church. This is also mentioned in the Exeter Consuetudinary and later Sarum books." Chambers, 92. 75 Chambers, 230. See Lanfranc, Ab. Ware, and Martene. [De Antiq. Mon. Rit.,W : 8.] The Darkness and the Dawn. 25 to " sanctify, purify and consecrate " the' linen cloth with which the bread was to be covered ; 75 and why it was forbidden to partake of the Eucharist, except from vessels of silver or gold, the consecration being interdicted upon dishes of baser metal ;77 and why if the bread should accidentally fall to the ground the place which it touched must be scraped and the scrapings burned with fire, and if any drops of the wine thus fell, the priest must lick it up, and then the spot be scraped and the scrapings burned ; 7S and why if there be danger of a fatal result in child-birth, the foot of the child might be baptized (if the head could not be) by the midwife, but the baptismal water must be thrown into the fire, and the vessel containing it burned or given to the church;79 and should the child live it must be conditionally rebaptized, thus : " If thou hast been baptized I do not rebaptize thee, but, if thou art not baptized, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;"8" and why the chrism, or holy oil and balm, used for anointing in baptism and confirmation and extreme unction, should be consecrated annually with great formality on Maundy Thursday, and why if any were left over from the last year it must be burned ; 8l and why the laity were instructed that it was unnecessary for them to take the sacrament of the cup, inas much as " both the body and blood of our Lord is given to them at once under the form of bread ; " and why Archbishop Peckham's statute should direct them " not overmuch to grind the sacrament with their teeth, but to swallow it entirely after they have a little chewed it, lest it should happen that some small par ticles stick between the teeth or somewhere else ; " 82 and why, while most persons wanted to be buried with their heads toward the west and their feet towards the east, in order that they may rise with their faces toward the Lord, it was considered an indi cation of extraordinary humility and self-abasement to be buried north and south ;83 and why the common people should so much l6 Ibid, 271. 77 " Praecipimus, ne consecratur Eucharistia nisi in calice de auro vel argento ; et ne stan- neum calicem aliquis episcopus amod6 bene dicat, interdicimus." Lyndwood, Lib. iii, tit. **3- 78 Chambers, 301. 79Lyndwood, Lib. iii, tit. 24. 80 Johnson, ii : 261 ; Lyndwood, Lib. iii, tit. 24. 81 Johnson, ii : 263. 82 Ibid, ii : 274. I'I Staveley (add. MS.) 3. J. Weever, [An cient Funerall Monuments, etc. (ed. 1631), 30] mentions the finding, in 1619, at Newport- Pagnell, of the body of a man whose bones had been filled with lead, buried N. and S. '26 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. prefer to be buried on the south side of the church, that- it was difficult to prevent other, portions of the churchyard from becom ing actually disused;84— all these were questions not only which he could not answer, but to which it increasingly seemed to him no man could give reasonable answer. And when, at last, he is grown capable of mature and . orig inal thinking, and, in one way and another, has imbibed enough of that spirit of dissent which somehow always manages, to infect the air even under the rigidest ecclesiastical rule, to guide his scattered notions toward some clear conclusions, he finds four great thoughts every day weighing more heavily upon his spirit ; thoughts giving birth not merely to distrust and dis like, but steadily growing toward absolute loathing and detes tation. i. In the first place, he is annoyed by the perpetual interfer ence of the church with all the ordinary goings-on of life. On more than one quarter of the secular days of the year it forbade all persons over twelve years of age to taste food until three o'clock in the afternoon, besides prohibiting all to eat on the eves of most festival days.85 On the other hand it set aside nearly one half of the year, on various pretexts, as festival -time.86 And when it is remembered that on all these "holy days" the people were compelled to attend church, under severe penalties,87 it will be seen how great was the tax put thus upon the industry of the land; and when one thinks how a large portion of so many feast-days would be likely to be spent, one •is quite ready to appreciate the strong language with which, in 1536, Henry VIII. spoke out upon it: " Forasrhoch as the nombre of holy-days is so excessively grown, and yet dayly more and more by mens devocyon, yea rather supersticyon, was like 84 This preference arose from the idea that, seeing their graves every day as they passed by them into church — the principal entrance being on the south side — their friends would be reminded to pray for the repose of their souls. At Hawstead, in Suffolk, Sir John Cullum undertook to break down this custom, and provided by will that at his own death he should be buried under the step of the disused north door of the Hawstead church. Staveley (add. MS.) 5. 85 Hook, Church Diet., sub voce " Fasts." 86 The Missale secundum usum Sarum, if I have rightly counted, has special festival services provided, as follows : For days in Jan uary, 14; in February, 10; in March, 8; in April, 7 ; in May, n ; in June, 19; in July, 21 ; in August, 20; in September, 15; in Oc tober, 15; in November, 18; and in Decem ber, 10 ; in all, 16S. See also Soames, Anglo- Saxon Church, 257. 87 Wilkins, ii : 145. The Darkness and the Dawn. 27 further to encrease, that the same was and sholde be not onely prejudiciall to the common weale by reason that it is occasion as well of moche sloth and ydleness, the very nourishe of theves, vacaboundes, and of dyvers other unthriftynesse and inconven- yences, as of decaye of good mysteryes and artes, utyle and necessary for the common welthe, and losse of mans fode many tymes, beyng clene destroyed through the supersticious observance of the said holy dayes, in not taking th' oportunitie of good and serene wheather, offered upon the same in time of harvest; but also pernicyous to the soules of many men, whiche being entysed by the lycencyous vacacyon and lybertye of those holy dayes, do upon the same commonly use and practise more excesse, ryote, and superfluitie than upon any other dayes." 88 The hand of the church, through its laws, and through the priest was, moreover, laid heavily upon men's affairs in other ways. No marriage could be contracted except at certain times in the year,89 nor without bans thrice published in the church, nor between persons unknown to the priest, nor except publicly in the church, nor unless the priest were satisfied as to the dowry;9" and no married persons could take any long journey without the mutual consent of both before the priest. In the marriage service the sign of the cross was made nine times, besides the twenty-eight crossings in the regular canon of the mass which was then said. The wedding ring had to be blessed with a prayer, and sprinkled with holy water. The early part of the service to the giving of the ring, must be outside of the church, after which they must enter and approach the altar. Then incense was burned, and the pallium, held by four priests, extended over their heads. On the following night the priest blessed the marriage bed, exorcising it " ab omnibus phantasmat- icis daemonum illusionibus." The sign of the cross was made four times, and the bed and the bridal pair were sprinkled with holy water, before the priest retired, " et dimittat eos in pace."9' s$Ibid, iii: 823. 89 Johnson, ii : 91. See also Ordo ad fac spons. Manuale ad usum Sarum : "Certis tem- poribus fieri prohibetur, videlicet : ab adven- tu Domini usque ad octavam Epiphaniae, et a Septuagesima usque ad octavam Paschae, et a Dominicsrante Ascencionem Domini, usque 5 ad octavam Pentecoste," etc. See the reason^ given for this in Durandus, Lib. i : ix, 7. 9° "Interroget sacerdos dotem mulieris," etc. Missale ad usum Sarum. Durandus, Lib. i : ix, 7. 9" Durandus, Lib. i: ix; and Missale ad usum Sarum. 28 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. No corpse could be carried away from home for burial ; and; if such burial took place, the body was required to be exhumed and returned to its own parish cemetery for final interment.9' And the philosophy of these regulations comes out in the fact that on all occasions of special service, such as marriage and funeral rites, the churching of women, and so on — to use the phrase of the law — "God in the person of His ministers was to be honored with the oblations of His people;'" and if any practiced, or even ventured to counsel otherwise, such " sons of malediction " were to be excommunicated.93 If a man did not come to church on Sundays and holy-days, the priest would doom him ; if he came, and, in the opinion of the same func tionary, misbehaved himself while there, he would be doomed as well.94 Moreover, the priest kept his eye upon any of his peo ple whom he had reason to think were well-off in worldly goods, as they began apparently to approach the last of life, and if he saw symptoms of a disposition on their part to dispose of their property largely beforehand, so that there might be little left after they were gone from which the church could claim her share ; he at once interposed with threats of excommunication.95 There was a canon of 1378 that any person guilty of thus defrauding the church, should be denied Christian burial, and it ended, "let them often be. told of this."96 The "mortuary," or money to be paid after a man was dead from his estate to the priest, grew to be called, familiarly, "the principal legacy."97 By a canon of 1367, if a man dying left three cattle, the second- best became the property of the church where he had received the sacraments while alive, " as a recompense for the withdraw ing his tithes, as well personal as predial, as also of his oblations for the delivery of his own soul."98 If his widow followed him speedily to the grave, this payment sufficed for her as well, but if she survived a twelve-month, her estate must pay a like mor tuary on pain of being "forced with ecclesiasticall censures."99 92 Johnson, ii : 28. 93 Ibid, ii: 351. . 94 Ibid, ii: 432. 95 " Such donation or alienation shall be deemed to be done through malice, or fraud, no farther proof being required." Archb. Stratford's Const. Johnson, ii : 393. 96Constit. Archb. Sudbury. Ibid, ii: 444. 97Constit. Archb. Gray. Ibid, ii : 179, 181. It would seem that the mortuary was at first a voluntary offering bequeathed by will, but gradually grew to be a custom and then a law. 98 Constit. Archb. Langham. Ibid, ii : 437, IB Lyndwood, 1:3; Ibid, ii : 438. The Darkness and the Dawn. 29 And, in general, it was laid down that, as to this, the local cus tom of the church was to be followed, even if, as sometimes, it comprehended the third part of the entire estate of the dead.100 More than this, the church not only demanded this large pro portion of the property of all men, but claimed a right of super vision over the whole of that property. To make all sure, the physician was commanded, on pain of anathema, to " effectually •persuade " sick persons to send immediately for the priest ; I01 and men were expressly forbidden to make their wills except in presence of the parish priest ; io2 and those wills had afterward to be proved and made effectual before the Bishop's court; and if a man died without making a will, the same court assumed the disposition of what he left behind him.103 So that there was ground for the bitter taunt of Erasmus, when, moved by the sight of so many demands of " holy church " upon each of its dying members, he exclaimed : " Tot vultures ad unum cadaver!"104 2. Then, secondly, the low quality of all which is prescribed for salvation, stirs the conscience within him with a sense of impertinent inefficiency. The one great dogma which includes all others is, that obedience, implicit, absolute and entire, to the church, is religion.105 This does not carry his conviction in the general, but when it comes to be subdivided into innumer able petty precepts, it makes itself in them' repugnant to his common sense. Yet if difficulties are raised, the only response is an anathema upon the wickedness of unbelief. Four sorts of obedience are enjoined upon him, if he would have everlasting life. First, and chiefly, the full and reverent performance of all the regular rites of the church. These included baptism and confirmation when an infant, and ever after arrival at maturity constant and compliant attendance 100 md. 101 Johnson, ii : 127. 102 Ibid, ii: 141. '°ilbid, ii: 203. I04 Familiarium Colloquiorum, Funus (ed. rS43)> 538. This whole Colloquy is aimed at these disgusting Romanist practices, and con tains many hard hits at them. I05 "The religion of the people was made to consist entirely in obedience to the church. An unhesitating willingness to submit to the creed and commandments of the church, in all cases whatsoever, passed for true piety ; and as every effort to advance the real spiritual good of the individual was of course regarded with suspicion by the hierarchy, very little was done for the religious instruction and excite ment of the community." Giescler, Text Book, Eccles. History, /3d Period, div. v, chap. 4, sec. 145. 3o Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. upon" the church service for Sundays and holy-days, and, as much as might be, at daily mass, with exact obedience to every priestly command and suggestion. Second, confession with absolution, with fasting and partaking of the Eucharist three times in the year, to wit, at Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. Third — if one wanted to, do more — special care to keep saints' days, and to visit their shrines. And, fourth — if this were not enough — pilgrimages and the adoration of relics. All these seem to him to be essentially superficial. He feels within himself that he might pay all these dues to the uttermost farthing, and be a bad man still. Nay, he cannot smother the suspicion that he knows men who carry all this even to. an excess of strictness, whose lives prove that they are bad, not withstanding all, — even all the worse for the hypocrisy of this pretence of goodness. There is nothing in all this which, by any divine necessity, takes hold of the soul to change that from darkness to light. All are rather seeming and subterfuge.105 On the other hand, there is much in it which is intrinsically so unreasonable, and even absurd, as to throw doubt upon the good faith of the whole. That it should lift, the soul nearer heaven to journey to Canterbury, as Erasmus did, and kiss the sacred rust on the spear-head with which Thomas Becket was slain,107 or to send a priest to Rome to sing masses there a year in five principal churches,1"8 would not be a self-evident proposition ; but around the whole subject of relics, to a shrewd English man — even if a peasant — of that day, we may well believe would gleam glimmerings of stupendous and impudent impos ture. He might not even suspect, what so soon after became matter of demonstration, that Saint Matthew had one body at Padua, another at Rome, and a third at Thiers, besides a supple mentary head and arm elsewhere ; that the Virgin Mary's girdle 106 Johnson, ii : 427. io7 R. B. Drummond, Erasmus, his Life and Character, i : 234. See also Fam. Coll., Pere- grinatio, etc., 456. i°8 In 1509, £\t, was left to a priest to con tinue a year at Rome (including going and coming) to sing at five places there — St. Pe ter's, Scala Celi, St. Sebastian's, St. John Lateran's and St. Gregory's — for the repose of the soul of the testator. [Staveley (add. MS.) 49.] Erasmus, too, represents George Balearicus as providing in his will that his elder son was, immediately after his father's funeral, to hasten to Rome, and there obtain by Papal dispensation to be made a priest be fore his time, to the end that : "totum annum singulis diebus sacrificaret in templo Vaticano pro anima patris, et sacros gradus inLaterano singulo quoque Veneris die genibus perrepta- ret." Fam. Coll., Funus, 544. The Darkness and the Dawn. 31 was shewn at eleven places in England, and her milk in eight ; that there were in that favored country two or three heads of St. Ursula, Malchus's ear, the spear-head which pierced Christ's side, a piece of the beam of his manger, several fragments of his cross, and thorns from his crown; the coals which roasted St. Lawrence, and many of the stones with which Stephen was martyred, and some of his bones and blood ; *"9 but when he should be told that if he would go to Westminster Abbey and worship its entire collection of relics,11" he could have indulgence for fifteen -years and • eighty-eight days, besides a share in all the good done in that Monastery and nineteen other Cathedral churches™ I am afraid he might scarcely estimate the value of the latter portion as worth the trouble of earning. And when he should be reminded that in Bromholme Abbey, Norfolk, was a cross which " had raysed up unto life xxxix deade persons, restored to theyr eye-sight xix blind men, and wrought manye other notable miracles," II2 I cannot help thinking that he would be apt to say, as Thomas Becon did of St. Peter's crozier, esteemed as a great relic at Paris, and at two other places, as well : "It is truly to be thought that none of them al haue it, for in S. Peter's tyme there were no such beble-bables ; " II3 and he would be quite ready to see it proven, as it was proven toward the middle of the century, that, at Hales in Gloucestershire, where the monks pretended to show the blood of Christ in a glass tube, they really had the blood of a duck renewed weekly, and had contrived the tube with one side so thick that nothing could be visible through it, and the other side thin ; and so — the pretence being that a man in mortal sin could not see the blood — when with the thick side they had frightened a sinner enough, and made him pay satisfactorily, they would slip the thin side round, and ease his mind ! "4 i°9 Lord Herbert, Life and Reign of Henry VIII.{ed. 1719), ii : 213; T. Becon, Reliques of Rome, Works (1560), iii: clxxxxi. "° J. Dart, History of St. Peter's Westmin ster (1742), i : 35-38, has several folio pages of inventory of these relics. In the Cotton MS. there is a list of relics in the cathedral at Canterbury, which takes up more than eight folio pages. He who wishes to familiarize himself with the subject and its literature, will be instructedJlv carefully reading John Gough Nichol's Pilgrimages to Saint Mary of Wal singham, and Saint Thomas of Canterbury ; which is a translation of Erasmus's Colloquy, Perigrinatio Religionis Ergo, edited with a great amount of antiquarian and other illus trative matter. Westminster, 1849. i6mo., xxiii, 248. "tDart, i: 46. 112 Becon, iii : fol. clxxxj. ; "3 Ibid, lxxxxi. "4 Lord Herbert, ii: 213. 32 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. Most provocative of unbelief would perhaps be those pre tended miracles wrought by shrines and relics. We have the best opportunity to examine such in the case of those as cribed to Thomas Becket of Canterbury, hundreds of which have been described, with all their minute " particulars, in the Chronicles of the monks William, and Benedict. Their range was wonderful, from the restoration of lost eyes and limbs,"5 and the raising of the dead,"6 to the recovery of missing ani mals,"7 the resuscitation of a gander,"8 and the transformation of vermin into pearls."9 Of course, Becket's blood possessed miraculous power, and, lest the supply should fail, the experi7 ment was tried of mixing it with water, aiid modern Homoeop- athists would have been charmed to see that (while pleasanter to take) in its decillionth dilution it proved to be quite as effect ual as in its allopathic state.12" Thence began a great traffic in Canterbury water. On one occasion, where ordinary water had been by mistake administered in place of this, the cure fol lowed, because of the receiver's faith ! I21 And yet, strange to say, those generations of Englishmen died, as usual, and no rumor of any general betterment of the public health, when the means of it were so easily at hand, has come down to our time. Often, indeed, it was obvious on the spot that no change was wrought in the sufferer ; but that was explained as being the fault of himself or of somebody not the saint122 — as where a blind boy whose eyes remained sealed was told it was because of sin committed before his birth.123 To make such things as these lauded helps whereon to climb toward the very topmost hights of holiness, must be necessarily, to the last degree, offensive to a healthy robust English con science.124 'I5Miracula S. Thoma, auctore Willelmo. Cantuariensi [as published in Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, etc., 1875], *: 156, 420, 422, 424. ™blbid, 160, 190, 199, 204, 213, etc. "7 Ibid, 282. "S/foV, 359. 1 *9 Hermanni Corneri Chronicon. [Eccard, Corpus Hist. Medii /Evi, Lips. 1723], ii : 746. i2°Miracula S. Thoma, auctore Benedicto. [Materials, etc.] ii : 42. '"Ibid, 216; Nichols, Pilgrimages, etc., 226. ™Ibid, 67, 1 09-1 1 2. >23 Ibid, 67. "4 Durandus [Lib. iiii: xiii, 8], makes this extraordinary statement : " Creditur tamen prxputium [Christi] in Lateranen basilica con- servari ; licet a quibusdam dicatur, quod illud fuit in Hierusalem delatum ab angelo Carolo magno, qui transtulit illuc, et posuit Aquis- grani honorific^ in ecclesia B. Mariae, sed postei Carolo Caluo positum est in ecclesia, scilicet Saluatoris, apud Crosium : sed si hoc verum est, mirandum est!" [The italics are mine.] The most incredulous will find no dif ficulty in believing the last cla^t The Darkness and the Dawn. 33 3. But further, in the third place, our friend would be oppressed with a. conviction of the ill moral quality and influ ence, both of the clergy and. the church. It seems scarcely pos sible, now, to speak too severely of the ordinary, average, pri vate character of the so-called " religious "—the celibates of the monasteries and convents — of those days in England. Indeed, it is difficult to convey such facts as are needful to any just his tory, without offence to a modest ear.125 There were over three thousand monasteries and chantries, saying nothing about col leges, hospitals and other places where nuns and monks abode, and the land swarmed with them.126 In the first year of Henry VII. their morals had become so bad, that a statute was passed providing for the punishment of crime in the " religious " as in other people. But matters, grew worse and worse. And after making every due deduction which candor and charity may sug gest, the official reports of the commissions appointed by Henry VIII. to examine the facts, remain strong enough to stamp with everlasting infamy a system which had well nigh reduced Eng land to the level, of Sodom ; and demonstrate that a country which was open to the strollings of these filthy vagrants, lacked security of being a. sweet and wholesome country for an honest man to dwell in with his family. Nor were most of the parish priests much, if any, better. In point of scholarship there had, indeed, been some improvement since Alfred the Great declared that he did not know a single one in the most, cultivated part of England who understood the 'ordinary prayers, or could translate Latin into his mother tongue;127 but, as late as 1465, we find Archbishop . Bouchier describing many of his clergy as persons wholly destitute both of literature and capacity, and as profligate as they were igno rant.128 And, still later, an Archbishop of Canterbury preluded a canon designed to do something to correct the evil, with the declaration that " the ignorance of priests plunges the people into error, and the stupidness of clerks who are commanded to instruct the faithful in the Catholic faith, does rather mislead I25Mr; Froude gives some hints, i: 93-103, and the Statute of Henry VII. on the subject, (Statutes of the Realm, I Henry VII., cap. 4) gives more. The Antonelli will-case, going on at Rome as I write, reveals the system to-day. 126 J. Speed, Historic of Great Britain (ed. 1632), 1026-1028. I27j. Spelman, Vita Alfred. Append. H. Hallam, Mid. Ages, iii : 288. i=8 D. Wilkins, Concilia^ etc., iii : 573. 34 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. than teach them."129 While it would be easy for one who wished to put darker shadows into the picture, to find authentic mate rial for doing so ; and that by the testimony not merely of crit ics from without, but of sorrowing friends from within.130 Among the latter it will be instructive to refer to Nicolas de Clamanges, Archdeacon of Bayeux, during the fifteenth century, who with shame and pain described a state of things in France quite akin to that in England; taking for.his starting-point that dictum of the Apostle Peter, that it is time for judgment to begin at the house of God. After speaking of the scandal of seeing the parish priests purchasing of their bishops with money the right openly to violate their celibate vows, he goes on to accuse many of them of being disciples of Epicurus rather than of Jesus Christ, of wasting their time in low company. drinking and blaspheming ; from which low company, he says, they pass to the arms of their courtesans, and from the arms of those courtesans they go up to the holy altars.131 All this, evil as it must necessarily be, might have been anti- doted, at least in part, if the influence of the church itself in its teachings, and through its rites, had been sweet and evangelic. But these, in point of fact, were so spiritually deleterious, that it is difficult to conceive how a ministry, even of saints and I29 Johnson, ii: 282, 520. 130 Two communications of Bishop Grosse teste to his clergy are worth reading in this connection. One was written about 1244, and grieves over the fact : " habent insuper suas focarias," etc. The other, of date six years later, speaks much more strongly, deploring the popular wickedness: "Tam multiplicia mala, tam gravia, tam def ormia, tam foeda, tam ¦flagitiosa, .tam facinorosa, tam scelerata, tam sacrilega;";arising "ex neglectu rectorum, ex incuria ,pastorum, et, quod heu flendum est potius-quam.scribendum, ex exemplo pessimo ef pernicie rabida passim et impudenter ubique serpente." Imdespair of any remedy, he had made, up his mind to resign his bishopric, " sed intervenit auctoritas cui non parere ne- fas censetur, quae nos ad tempus subtrahit ves- trae praesentiae, et a concepto salubri proposito nos retardat." [Roberti Grosseteste, Epis. quon dam Lincoln. Epistola, 317, 440.] In 1530 Tyndale declared.that there were 20,000 priests in England Who could not translate the Lord's prayer into English [Answer to Sir Thomas More, 75] ; and Bishop Hooper found scores of the clergy in Gloucestershire who were un able to tell who was the author of the Lord's Prayer, or where it was to be read. R. De- maus, Life of Tyndale, 14. "5" " Li, dans la crapule et l'ivresse, ils cri- ent, vociftrent, et leurs levres souillees blas- phement le nom de Dieu, et des saints. Puis, de ces sales debauches, ils passent dans les bras de leurs courtisanes ; et des bras de leurs courtisanes, ils_ montent aux saints autels." [De VEtat corrompu de I'eglise, par Matthieu Nicolas de Clamanges, etc. See Bibliotheque Etrangire cTHistoire et de Litterature Ancienne et Moderne, etc., par M. Aignan (1823). Paris, iii : 46,] Among the miscellaneous publica tions of the Record Commissioners, there is a complaint by the gentlemen and the farmers of Carnarvonshire, accusing the clergy of. the systematic seduction of their wives and daugh ters. [Froude, i: 96.] See also Petition of Clergy of Bangor (about 1536). Ibid, iii : 342. The Darkness and the Dawn. 35 unfallen angels, could have neutralized their demoralizing ten dency. First of all stood certain fundamental errors of theology run ning through the entire system, even in its best estate, and deadening every throb of its pulse — errors skillfully devised to meet the demands of man's lower nature. The first problem which confronted the church when she began to lose her orig inal Congregational simplicity of form, and evangelical purity of doctrine, and became ambitious to possess the nations, and wear upon her sullied brow the diadem of the world, was how so to adjust her Christianity to the religion and the philosophy which ruled men's minds, as to present the minimum of resistance — not to say of repugnance — to their acceptance. And, laying hold of three principles which are thoroughly grounded in unre- generate human nature, by their suggestion she artfully alloyed her own system so as to allow paganism itself to be baptized, confirmed, and even canonized, without any more surrender of its own essential quality, than the bronze Jupiter passed through if it were re-christened Peter, in the Cathedral at Rome. It is natural to fallen man to shrink from direct approach to a holy God, and hard for him to make real the invisible Mediator; and so she provided him with a priestly mediator whom he could see, competent to absolve him on God's behalf, and with the Virgin Mary and a sky-full of saints, angels and martyrs, whose merits and intercessions come in between the soul and its Maker, to lull all anxiety asleep. It is natural to fallen man to prefer a symbolic and formal, to a spiritual worship ; and so she created a system of symbols and forms wonderfully adjusted to the simple natures of the com mon people on the one hand, and to the highest aesthetic demands of the refined and cultured on the other ; so that, with statuary and pictures, and music, and processions, and many- hued vestments, and incense, and genuflections, and the grand eur of cathedral architecture, she can satisfy men gentle or sim ple, who cannot comfortably sit down upon a hard bench to hear a plain talk about the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world, revealed to the soul by faith. It is natural for fallen man to choose to do something, rather than to be some thing, in the way of his soul's needs. He prefers his religion 36 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. and his business somehow kept in separate packages, that they shall not alloy and spoil each other. And so she tells him : be baptized, be confirmed, confess and be absolved, take your communions regularly, make the sign of the cross, be sprinkled with holy water, do penance, obey the church, and you shall be saved ; or, if you chance to get into purgatory you can be gotten out — all doing, and not (necessarily) being, at all ! And this leads to a glance at the demoralizing tendency of the specific methods by which the Romish church in England, in the days of our fathers, carried out this dangerous doctrine. Teaching that the Eucharist is the highest act and mystery of religion, even Jesus Christ ever freshly sacrificed for sin, she yet not only commanded it to be given to all duly offering them selves who were not openly scandalous in their lives,132 but urged all to receive it thrice a year, and compelled all to come and take it at least once in the year, on pain of excommunica tion and the loss of Christian burial ; I33 so, by solemn canon, making smooth a broad way for the sinner's feet. She instructed her votaries that, upon confession and the injunction of appro priate penance, her priests were clothed in full with God's own power to forgive sins. In the time of our fathers she had become so lenient that absolution at once followed confession, and was not, as aforetime, postponed until penance had been performed — which sometimes became deferred till inclination served, or was left to be worked out in purgatory.134 This pur gatory was among the novelties unknown to her first thousand years,135 invented for the comfort of wicked men and the profit of her treasuries, by which she virtually said to them : eat, drink and be merry, for should you die in sin, there remaineth hope in another world,, and by purgatorial discipline, aided by prayers and masses for the dead,, you may be purified and raised to 132 " Publice et instanter petenti danda est, nisi publicum sit ejus delictum." Wilkins, i : S°5- ¦33Constit. Archb. Sudbury. Johnson, ii: 444. *34H. Soames, Latin Church During Anglo- Saxon Times, 481. ¦35 In Soames's Bampton Lectures [307-366] is a mass of evidence to the point that the Anglo- Saxon Church of England knew nothing of the Purgatorial doctrine- of the Council of Trent. Purgatory not only does not appear among the- deliverances of the Synod of Cliff's Hoe [A.D. 747],. but is; incompatible with what does there appear. MMxic obscurely held it three centuries later. It was left for Trent [1544] first to make it an article necessary. to salvation. J. A. Baxter, Church Hist, of England, 127; Homilies of ALlfric, ii : 353; Soames, Latin Church, etc., 203. The Darkness and the Dawn. 37 heaven. In keeping with this she encouraged the living, espe cially the pleasure-loving and the wealthy, to make provision beforehand for possible future needs, by liberal gifts and bequests I36 to the priests, and the funds and foundations of the church; for masses to be solemnized daily and monthly and yearly — for " Certeyns," I37 and " Diriges,"138 and " Trentals," I39 and "Obiits,"14" for Chapels and Chantries,141 where prayers might be forever said for the repose of their souls.142 '36 Sir John Banys of Holme-by-the-Sea, in 1503, left twenty marks [.£13. 4s. 4d.] to "bye a sute of vestments of whight damask" for his soul, and to the church eighteen acres of free land, on condition that it should " kepe my certene in the pulpitte every Sunday for John Banys, Roger Banys, my fader, Margaret my mother, and Sir John Lee, perpetually, and, ons in the year, dirige." Blomefield, Norfolk, v: 1280. W A Certeyne was a phrase employed to describe an arrangement by which special prayer was made for the soul of the deceased,. on some fixed date. Alice Carre, Norwich, in 1523, gave her farm to the church "for a certeyn " to be kept annually forever for her, and her friends in the Church of St. Stephen, for which the curate was to have 4s. 4d., two children were to have a penny a piece for singing the versicles, and the sexton I2d. for ringing a peal. She gave alsp her coral beads to the beautifying the image of " Our Lady " on festival days. Ibid, ii : 613. 138 A Dirige was a service which took its name from the first word of the funeral psalm, Dirige gressus meos, whence our word "dirge." '39 ATrentalvtus a collection of thirty masses said on thirty consecutive days for the repose of a dead man.. The same thing was known in English as a Months-mind. Bp. Fleetwood, Chron. Preciosum (1707), 133. '4° An Obiit seem to have been an annual service of this same description. In 1474, Dr. Botwright, vicar of Swaff ham, ordered his Obiit yearly kept, and the church wardens were to pay the vicar 5d. and the parish clerk 4d., ac cording to his order on the eve of St. Alpheges in every April, for the service. Staveley (add. MS.) pref. 7. '4i A Chantry was a chapel built and funded for the express purpose of being used for the constant chanting of masses, for the good es tate of the living or the repose of the dead. Usually each had one or more chantry priests. Lee, Glossary, sub voce. 142 Wealthy persons, especially if they had gained their wealth at the expense of a troubled conscience, used often to devise largely in these directions, and even the most devout sometimes availed of this expedient to add to their spiritual safety. James Goldwell, who died in 1475, Bishop of Norwich, left all bal ance of his estate after certain legacies, to pay forever three chaplains to spend their time in praying for his soul. [Blomefield, ii: 613.] So, in 1384, William Basset, rector of Hether- set, gave a messuage to the Collegiate Church in Norwich to pay the expenses of daily re membering his soul, and those of Henry and Maud, his parents, in their morning mass for ever, each by his or her several name. [Ibid.] So, in 1531, W. Keye of Garboldesham, left lands: (1) to be prayed for by convents of "fryers" in three several towns, and by one house of nuns ; (2) to an " abil Preest to synge Divine service for my sowle, and the sowlys of all my good Frendes, by the space of an hoole yere in St. John Baptists Cherche ; " (3) to " find yerely evermore v. Gawdes [tapers] Brennyng before our Lady in the chancel : " (4) to the yerely keeping of his Obit day for five years ; (6) to a preaching friar at Thetford to "say a sermon yerely evermore, on Tues day in Estern week, and to synge messe of Requiem in the church of St. John of Gar boldesham, and to the parson and his deputy to say Dirige;" (7) to have always "on Mon day in Eastern week vi. busheles of malte brewed and iij. Bushells of whete baken, and ijs. in chese, to the releefe and comfort of the parishioners of Garboldesham, there being at Dirige on the said Monday to pray for my sowle, and the sowles of all my good Frendes, and to the fryer iiij d. to remember me in his messe." [Ibid, i: 182.] Quite in keeping with this was a clause in the will of James 38 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. But even this was not enough, and so this infallible church, which never changes, developed still another novelty to sanctify wickedness ; declaring that she has been intrusted with power from God to remit both the temporal and eternal punishment of sin ; both or either, wholly or partially; and so, for money, she granted indulgence of days or months, or years — being the re mission during that period of time of the punishment incurred by the transgressor.143 After this, whenever money was especially wanted, whether to build a cathedral or to repair a bridge, it was obtained by the sale of indulgences ; practically breaking down all barriers against ungodliness, and tempting men to do evil.144 Cooke of Sporle, in 1506: "Item. I will that myn. Executors, as sone as it may come to ther knowledg that I am dede, that they make a Drynkyng for my soul to the value of 6s. 8d. in the church of Sporle." [Ibid, iii: 443.] And Ethelred Barrowe, by her will, proved in 1513, ordered the maintenance of "a yerely give-ale while the world endured," to consist of " a quarter of malt, and vi. bushels of wheat, and victual accordant thereto." E. Hasted, Hist. Kent, iv: 353. *43 Lee, Glossary, sub voce. '441 have thought it worth while to copy here from the blackletter original in the Brit ish Museum [bound in Staveley, opp. p. 1 of Contents] the following specimen : "Unto all maner & synguler Christen peo ple beholdynge or berynge these present let ters shall come gretynge : " Our holy fathers xii. Cardynallys of Rome chosen by ye mercy of Almighty God, and by the auctorite of these Appostles Peter and Paule, to all and synguler cristen people of eyther kynde trewely penytent & confessyd, and devoutly gyve to the churche of our lady and seynct George the martyr in Southwerke, protector of this Realme of Englande, any- thynge or helpe with any parte of theyr goodes to the Repacions or maynteynynge the servyce of almyghty god done in the same place as in gyvynge any boke, belle, or lyght, or any other churchly ornamentes ; they shall haue of eche us Cardinallys syngulerly aforesayd a C. dayes of pardon. " Also there is founded in the same parysshe churche aforesayd iii. chauntre preests ppetu- ally to praye in the sayd churche for the Breth- rene & Systers of the same Fraternite, and for the soules of theym that be departed, and for all cristen soules. And also iiii. tymes by the yere Placebo and Dirige with xiiii. preests and clerkes, with iii. solempne Masses, one of our Lady, another of seynt George, with a masse of Requiem. "Moreover our holy Fathers Cardynallys of Rome aforesayd hathe graunted the pardons yt followeth to all theym that be Bretherne and Systers of the same Fraternite at euery of the feestis folowynge, that is to say the firste Sonday after the feest of seynt John Baptyst, on the whiche feest the same churche was halowed, xii.C. days of p.don. "Also the feest of saynt Michaell ye Archan- gell, xii.C. dayes of pardon. "Also the second Sonday in Lent, xii.C. dayes of pardon. " Also on good Frydaye, the whiche daye Criste sufferyd his passion, xii.C. dayes of pardon. "Also the Tewysday in the Wytsonweeke, xii.C. dayes of pardon. "And also at euery feest of our Lord [gone] gulerly by hymselfe, from the firste euynsonge to the second euynsonge inclusively, xii.C. dayes of p.don. "Also my lorde Cardynall & Chancellor of Englande hath gyuen a C. days of p.don. " The sume of the pardon cometh to in the yere. xii.CCCC.x.xl. dayes of pardon. " The sume of the masses that is sayd and songe within the same Parysshe Churche of seynt George is a M. and xiiiii. — God saue the Kynge I " In 1360, the Bishop of Carlisle granted forty days' indulgence to all who should contribute toward the rebuilding of Salkeld-bridge [Hist. West., ii: 415]. The Pope granted to the. Augustinian monks of Kirkby-Belers, Leices- The Darkness and the Dawn. 39 As' the natural result; things came to such a pass that we learn on the authority of an Archbishop of York, that in the latter half of the fifteenth century impudent friars granted indulgences of their own, dispensing with vows, absolving from murders, per juries and other crimes, compounding felonies, remitting pen ances, falsely pretending to people that they had delivered their dead friends from purgatory, and neutralizing all civil and ecclesiastical discipline.145 Another fertile element of practical demoralization was the doctrine that every church was, ex officio, a sanctuary for crimi nals. Durandus traces the custom to Old Testament days, when Joab ran to the horns of the altar ; I4S and it has been in our time defended as wise and merciful to give thus in the ruder days of England to innocence a shelter, and crime at least the chance of dispassionate investigation ; I47 but the practical effect grew to be that of offering the premium of church privilege to atrocities of every grade. Whatever offender could outrun the officers of justice and first get hold of the ring of the church door, crying. out : " Peto pacem Dei, et Ecclesia-*," I43 was beyond their power, and no civil court could take him thence for trial.149 The priests were bound by canon law to provide him victuals. He had a range of thirty paces from the church, and forty, if it were a Bishop's church.150 He had to take an oath to be true and faith ful to the Archbishop and the provost, canons and priests ; not to bear any weapon ; and to make himself useful in ringing the tershire, a grant of indulgence for the raising of money for repairing and maintaining the church and convent, which Henry VIII. en dorsed with the Broad Seal. So the monks went up and down the country gathering con tributions and giving indulgences therefor : large sheets of paper with pictures of SS. Paul and Peter at the top, with the Pope's arms on the right, and the King's on the left. One clause was as follows : " If they say one Pater Noster with Ave for the soules of Sir Roger Beler and Alys his wyf e, Founder & Founders, or any of the Benefactours thereof, they have seven yeres and two hundreth Dayes of pardon, whansomever, or wheresoever they so do." [Staveley, 100.] The University of Oxford said this about indulgences: "Hodie indul- gentiarum papalium tam larga, tam prodiga, et tam frequens concessio a plerisque venalis creditur, sicquod populo quasi contemptibilis jam vilescit ; quosdam vero procliviores efficit ad peccandum, et ad opera pcenitentije tardi- ores; et ideo videtur expediens ordinare re- medium in praemissis." Wilkins, iii : 361. '45 Johnson, ii : 521. ¦46 Rationale, Lib. i : i, 49. 147 Baxter, Church Hist, of Eng.,94. "48 " Cucurrit, et arrepto Ecclesiae annulo, alta voce exclamavit, dicens : Peto pacem Dei et Ecclesiae." Rogeri de Houeden, Annalium (pars posterior) ed. Lond. 1596, 442. '49 If he could be gotten away by persuasion, he ran his own risk. Perkin Warbeck took sanctuary at Beaulieu in New Forest, but the King lured him into his possession by the promise of his life. Lord Bacon, History Henry VIL, 184. '5° Johnson, ii: 198. 40 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. bells and at mass.15" If he were a priest he could remain thus indefinitely. But if he were a layman he must take early oppor tunity to leave, the kingdom, making oath not to return without royal license, after which oath he was to go the nearest road to a seaport and by the first opportunity embark, being deemed still in sanctuary until out of sight of land.152 At one time it was enjoined upon the clergy, on every Lord's day in the year, to remind the people of the wickedness of violating this sanctu ary privilege.153 The amount of the influence of this provision for thwarting the ends of justice, even in small towns, must have been something wonderful. The original parchment regis ter of persons thus taking the oath of sanctuary in the church of St. John at Beverley in Yorkshire, is in the library of the British Museum, running from the spring of 1478, some sixty years. As nearly as I could make out from its fading records, it, in that time, was instrumental in shielding from four to five hundred scoundrels of various turpitude from their just deserts.154 But the clearest demonstration of the deadly moral influence of the Romish church in England is seen in her teaching and dealing with her members when they approached the end of earth ; when, faithful to herself, she injected her formulae almost to bursting with the venom of the reliance upon some other foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. When a man sickened the priest was to be sent for,155 and if r5i Harleian MS., No. 4292 [reverse of p. 17] contains the form of this oath taken at the church of St. John, Beverley, Yorkshire, thus : " Sir, tak hede on your oth ! Ye shal be trew and feythful to my Lord Archbishop of York, lord off this towne, to the pr.vst of the same, to the chanons of this chirch, and all othir minstrs therof. Also ye shal bere gude hert to the baillie and xii governors of this town, to all burges' and comyners of thessame. Also ye shall bere no poynted wapen, daggr, knyfe, ne none other wapen agenst the Kyngs pcce. Also ye shalbe redy at all yor power ifther be any debate or stryfe or odr. sothan case of fyre within the town, to help to scess it. Also ye shalbe redy at the obite of Kyng Athelstan, at the Dirige and the Messe at such time as it is done, at the warnyng of the bel- man of the town, and do your dewte at ryng- yng, and for to offer at the messe on the morne. So help you god, and thies holy Evangelists. " And then gar hym kysse the Book.'' '52 Johnson, ii : 19S. '53 Constitutio Dom. Othoboni, tit. 12 {Lynd wood) ; Johnson, ii : 229. ¦54 Harleian MS., No. 4292. The earliest entry [folio 17, of this beautiful parchment volume] is in the 18th of Edward IV [1478], when William and John Salvan, Esqs., John Heghfeld, gent, with George Waller and John Hunt, took sanctuary after the murder of Henry Hardewyk, 13 April. On the 23d May following, John Boys of Doram obtained sanctuary for the murder of one Baxter, a Cistercian monk. The Bailiff had 2s. 4d. fee for administering the oath, and the clerk got 4d. for making the record. '55 " When it happens that he is called to a sick man, let him [the physician] first effectu ally persuade him [the sick man] to call for the physician of the soul, under pain of anath- ema," etc. Johnson, ii: 127. The Darkness and the Dawn. 41 death seemed approaching the sacrament of extreme unction was to be administered. The priest was directed, by rubric to put on his surplice and to carry with him his stole, and, pre ceded by an assistant ringing an hand-bell " to stir up the devo tion of the faithful by its sound," and by another bearing the consecrated oil, he was to carry " the body of the Lord " in a clean box, covered with a very clean linen cloth, with a clean sil ver or tin dish for giving the washings of his fingers to be drunk after the taking of the Eucharist.156 Arrived at the bedside of the dying, after an invocation and the chanting of the seventy-first Psalm, with the Gloria Patri, the priest prayed, and while his assistants chanted the thirteenth Psalm — the Gloria Patri 'follow ing every Psalm — he dipped his thumb in the oil and marked with it the sign of the cross over each eye, saying — all was, of course, in Latin, but I translate157 — " By this anointing and His most gracious pity, may God pardon thee whatsoever sin thou hast committed by the sense of sight." Then followed the thirtieth Psalm, and the anointing of the ears, with absolution of all sin due to the sense of hearing.158 Then the forty-third Psalm, with anointing of the lips, and corresponding absolution from sin due to the sense of taste, and of improper speech.159 Then was chanted the fifty-fourth Psalm, with anointing of the nostrils, and absolution of all sin proceeding thence.16" Next followed the seventieth Psalm, with anointing of the inside of the hands, and corresponding absolution.161 Next the eighty- sixth Psalm, during which the priest anointed the back between the loins, if the sick person were a man, the navel, if a woman, with absolution for all sin of improper thoughts and acts of lust.162 Then the priest washed his hands with salt and water (what remained of the oil being burned, or buried in the church yard) and pronounced this benediction over the sick : " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let this anointing of oil purify thy soul and body, and defend *& Johnson, ii: 139. '57 " Per istam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Deus quicquid peccasti per visum. Amen." Manuale ad usum Sarum, De extrema unctione. •58"rerauditum." Ibid. '59 "Per gustum, et illicita verba.'' Ibid. 160 " per odoratum." Ibid. 161 " per tactum." Ibid. 162 <« ln dorso inter lumbos maris, vel super umbilicum mulieris ;"..." per illicitas cog- itationes, et per ardorem libidinis." Ibid. 42 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. and fortify thee against the attacks of evil spirits." "63 After the further chanting of the one hundred and forty-first Psalm, and a Collect, the sick man was directed to confess to the priest any sins occurring to his memory for which he had not already received absolution. He was then asked whether he .believed the wafer held up before him to be the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,'64 and when he said " credo " in answer, if he were so sick that vomiting might ensue,'65 or that he could not chew and swallow the wafer, he was to be told that his faith and good intent were sufficient without receiving it.'66 Otherwise the priest put on his stole l6y and gave him the wafer, saying : " Cor pus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi custodiat corpus tuum et ani- mam tuam, in vitam aeternam. Amen." l68 The one hundred and forty-sixth Psalm, with collects and benedictions, with the sign of the cross, concluded the service.'69 To make these things as vivid as we may, let us imagine that the man whose mental and spiritual processes we have sought to outline, and who has now grown to have a clear conviction, with an intense feeling, of the hollowness, heathenism and blas phemy of all this, comes home from a stealthy journey into a neighboring county, where he has at last discovered the retreat of a Lollard, and for the first time had the privilege to read nearly the whole of the New Testament in a manuscript copied from the version of Wyclif ; comes home now for the first time able with complete satisfaction to himself to defend the prop osition that God abhors these mummeries, and that pure relig ion and undefiled consists in reconciliation to Him through His crucified Son received by faith, the gift of the Holy Spirit to 163 " In nomine Patris et Filii, et 'Spiritus sancti, sit tibi haec olei unctio, ad purificatio- nem mentis et corporis, et ad munimen et de- fensionem, contra jacula immundorum spirit- uum. Amen." Ibid. 164 " Frater, credis quod sacramentum quod tractatur in altari sub forma panis, est verum corpus et sanguis Domihi Nostri Jesu Christi." Ibid. 165 " Nisi de vomitu, vel alia irreverentia probabiliter timeatur." [Ibid.] The rule seems to have been this : " the sacrament should be administered whilst the sick can swallow it, and never to any who are half alive ; because it must be eaten according to that say ing of our Lord's : qui manducat carnem meam, et bibit sanguinem meam, in me manet, et ego in eo." sElfric's Second Epistle. Soames, 309. 166 "Frater, in hoc casu sufficit tibi vera fides, et bona voluntas ; tantum crede, et man- ducasti." Manuale, etc. l67 " Sacerdos vero in infirmis communican- dis stola induetur." Rubric, Ibid. i^Ibid. '^Ibid. I have given the numbering of all these Psalms as they stand in our common ver» sion, because that (slightly different) of the rubric would mislead the reader. The Darkness and the Dawn. 43 penitence and prayer, with a sincere, loving and useful life ; comes home to find his mother, having received, the last office in the afternoon, dying in the twilight. She knows him, and her glazing eyes lighten toward his, and her stiffening fingers answer a little his loving" pressure. " Oh, my mother," with streaming tears, he says, " Oh, my mother, trust in Christ now ! Pray to Christ now; not to the Virgin nor the saints ! Christ is the only one who can help and bless you now ! They are all poor sinners like the rest of us ! Oh, trust in Christ alone, now ! " But, sud denly, he feels himself rudely thrust aside. The priest and his clergy have come running with all speed,170 and they take pos session of the bedside, that they may say and sing the " Com- mendatio. animae in articulo mortis," while the neighbors pack the room ; and, while the passing-bell sounds without, they recite the creed, seven penitential Psalms, and the Gloria Patri. Then the priest says three times over, and his assistants repeat as many times : " Parce Domine, parce famulo tuo quem red- imere dignatus es pretioso sanguine tuo : ne in seternum irasca- ris ei." Then followed the litany prescribed for such an hour, in which God the Father of heaven, the Son of God, Redeemer of the world, and the Holy Spirit, the Sacred Trinity, and the Holy God of Saints, who is three and one, were besought to pity " the soul of thy servant." Then holy Mary, sacred mother of God, sacred virgin of virgins, was besought to intercede for the dying woman. Then Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and all holy angels and archangels ; and all holy ranks of blessed spirits ; and Saints John the Baptist, and all holy patri archs and prophets ; Saints Peter, and Paul, and Andrew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James, and John, and Philip, and James, and Bartholomew, and Simon, and Jude, and Matthias, and Mark, and Luke, and Barnabas, and all holy apostles and evangelists ; and all holy disciples of the Lord, and innocents ; and Saints Stephen, and Linus, and Cletus, and Clemens, and Cornelius, and Lawrence, and Sixtus, and Vicentus, and George, and Fabian, and Sebastian, and Alban, and Edmund, and Bla- sus, and Dionysius with his company, and Eustachius with his company, and Gervase, and Protasius, and Cosmas, and Damian, I7°"Percutiatur tabula minute et acriter, et tunc omnes clerici cum summa velocitate ac- 6 currant et dicant, etc." Rubric, Manuale usum ad Sarum. 44 Congregationalism, as seen in ils Literature. and John, and Paul, and Crispin, and Crispinian, and all holy martyrs ; and Saints Benedict, and Silvester, and Nicolas, and Martin, and Hilary, and Ambrose, and Jerome, and Augustine, and Birinus, and Swithin, and ./Ethelwold, and Dunstan, and- Cuthbert, and Leonard, and Giles, and all holy confessors, and all holy monks and hermits ; and Saints Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Egypt,'71 and Felicitas, and Perpetua, and Cecilia, and Lucia, and Agatha, and Agnes, and Fides, and Catharine, and Scholastica, and Juliana, and Margaret, and Anastasia, and Petronella, and Edith, and Bridget, and all holy virgins, and all saints, were each entreated: "intercedite pro anima ejus!" And although the next petition implored the Lord by His cross and passion, and by His death and resurrection, to deliver the soul, yet this was so swathed and smothered in the garments of superstition as to rob it of all life and power, it being expressly desired in the name of angels and archangels, and in the name of thrones and dominions and principalities and powers, and of all celestial virtues, and of cherubim and seraphim, and patriarchs and prophets, and apostles and martyrs, and confess ors and bishops, and priests and Levites, and all officials of the Church Catholic, and monks and anchorites, and in the name of virgins and faithful widows. Then the key-note changed again, and God was asked to lib erate the soul of his servant as he liberated Enoch and Elijah from ordinary death, and Lot from Sodom and its flames, and Isaac from the hand of his father Abraham, and Moses from Pharoah, and Job from his troubles,'72 and David from the hand Of Goliath and the hand of Saul, and Daniel from the lions' den, and the three children from the burning fiery furnace, and Susanna from a false charge,'73 and Peter and Paul from their bonds. And after this manner the service went droning on : all in a language which it was entirely possible that not one single per son in the room understood ; and which it was absolutely cer tain could carry no idea whatever to the departing soul, even so long as every utterance might remain audible to the enfeebling ear. Alas, that, for millions of our race, the jargon of these '71 " Maria ^Egyptiaca." Ibid. >72 "De passionibus suis." Ibid. *73 " Sicut liberasti Susannam de falso crim- ine." Ibid. The Darkness and the Dawn. 45 human, if not unknown, names' crowding out the " one name," must have been the last consciousness of earth ! It could hardly be that the anguish of such moments should not overcome all thoughts of prudence, and that the son should not, even with violence, break through the cordon of ecclesiastics, that he may appeal once more, before it shall be too late, to her whom his soul loves, with his eager, almost frantic : " None but Christ, mother ; oh, none, but Christ, now ! " More than suspected before, long disliked and hounded by the priest and his minions, and only tolerated to this time for the double reason of the fidelity of his parents to the church, and his own reticent blamelessness, which made it difficult to lodge a charge against him ; the now out-spoken " heretic " would be dragged quick away even from his dead mother's side ; while the wake'74 and the funeral service'75 kept up around the corpse, until it was buried out of sight forever, that paganized Chris tianity or Christianized paganism, which then dominated the entire life of England from the cradle to the grave. Put in ward, and called to answer ; committed by his sudden avowal, and true to his now firm conviction; he would calmly face the fury of his accusers, and boldly state and earnestly defend his faith ; and, most likely, remanded for a further hear ing, the terror of excommunication would be tried upon him, and the priest, on the Sabbath, at high mass, some one holding up the cross, and a candle, would " by the authority of God the Father omnipotent, and the blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints," excommunicate, anathematize and commend, him to the devil; and go on to declare him cursed "in villis, in campis, in viis, in semitis, in domibus, extra domos, et in omnibus aliis locis; stando, jacendo, surgendo, ambulando, currendo, vigi- '74 " It is a devout custom of the faithful to observe night-watches, in behalf of the dead before their burial, and to do so sometimes in private houses, to the intent that the faithful there meeting together, and watching might de voutly intercede for them with God." [Con- stit. Archb. Stratford. Johnson, ii : 394.] The same authority adds the significant, and not unnatural statement: "These watchings are become rendezvous for adulteries, fornications, thefts and other misdoings," etc. Ibid. r75 The chief clauses in the prayer of sepul ture were : ut animam famuli tui cujus corpori debitum sepulturas officium persolvimus, in sinum Abrahae patriarchae tui jubeas colloca- ri ; ut cum dies agnitionis tuae advenerit, inter sanctos et electos tuos eum resuscitari praeci- pias. . . . Ut intercedente beata Deigenetrice Maria,. cum omnibus Sanctis tuis, peccatorum eis largiri digneris indulgentian, et in novissi- mo die beatae resurrectionis laetitium," etc, Missale ad usum Sarum. 46 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. lando, dormiendo, comedendo, bibendo, et aliud opus faciendo, et ilium a luminibus et omnibus bonis ecclesise sequestramus, et diabolo damnamus ; et in pcenis inferni animam ei extingua- mus, sicut extinguitur ista candela " — when the candle would be put out, and thrown down, and all the bells be tolled — " nisi resipiscat, et ad satisfactionem veniat." '7& This would exceedingly terrify and grieve his poor old father, but he is himself now beyond being, moved by it. It made it unlawful for his nearest friends to come at or converse with him,'77 and his servant, if he had one, must leave him within eight days *?8 — all on pain of like usage themselves ; and his goods would be confiscate.'79 It would end with the Bishop's prison, perhaps for months without formal trial. Here while awaiting his crown of martyr dom, he would have ample leisure, not without some prompt ings, to consider the fourth difficulty which troubled him with regard to the church. . I have now discussed, in the first place, the interference of that church with men's. affairs; in the second place, the low quality of all which she prescribed for men's spirit ual needs ; and, in the third place, her ill moral character and influence. That difficulty was : 4. Her intolerable tyranny over the human mind. She had one simple principle with regard to this, and one only, — that it was her right to prescribe to men in all respects their faith and conduct, and their duty to obey her behests. They had no right to call in question her authority, to discuss or even to inquire, except to make her intent more clear to their minds."80 She allowed them no appeal. She could tell them what the Bible said, and meant, and they were to take her word for it. There was to be no Bible in any hand but hers, and when wicked men, like Wyclif, pretended to translate it into ¦76 Becon, Reliques of Rome, Works iii, fol. ccclxxxiii, verso. '77 Johnson, ii : 313. 178 Ibid, ii: 196. '79lbid, ii : 461. iSo«Let no one presume to dispute of things determined by the church, . . . either publicly or privately ; unless it be in order to get the true meaning of them; nor call in question the authority of the said decrees, de cretals or constitutions, or the authority of him that made them; or preach contrary to their determination, especially concerning the adoration of the glorious cross, the veneration of the images of saints, or pilgrimages to their places and relics, etc. . . . Let him that asserts, teaches, preaches, or pertinaciously intimates the contrary, incur the penalties of heresy," etc. Constit. Archb. Arundel, Johnson, ii : 468, The Darkness and the Dawn. 47 English, she forbade that it be read, " in whole or in part, in public or in private, under pain of the greater excommunica tion."'8' People were to read no book, whatsoever, which she had not first examined and approved.'82 And to make: it sure that these awfully severe regulations did not fall into disuse, three men, or more, in every parish were to be kept sworn "on God's holy Gospels " to make diligent inquiry, at least twice in every year, and to report to the Bishop's officers, any "who keep private conventicles, or differ in their life and manners from the generality of the faithful, or who maintain heresies, or errors, or have suspected books written in the vulgar English tongue, or that entertain persons suspected of heresy, or that favor such." l83 If convicted of heresy, such suspects were delivered over to the secular power to be burned, their property being-confiscated.'84 And to make sure that they should be convicted, any person, though himself excommunicate and infamous, might be a legal witness against them ; nor could he afterward null his own evi dence in such a case by declaring himself foresworn in the same ; though if he had first deposed in favor of one accused of heresy, and afterward sworn the contrary, the second oath stood aiid not the first ! l8s Surely no condition of mental slavery could be imagined more comprehensive, and more absolute, than this. And that these bloody statutes meant what they said, and were enforced to the last letter of their horrible injustice, the teeming pages of good old John Fox — patient, candid, honest, and in the main singu larly accurate — will hold their own to all coming time, as well against the sneers of modern High-Churchmen, as against the angry denunciations of his contemporary Papists, in abundant and sufficient evidence. Such was the England into which our religious fathers were born, as it was entering upon the sixteenth century of the Chris tian era. The Word of God was withdrawn from men. There was no open vision of a Saviour. The man of sin was revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself against «*« Ibid, ii : 466. Lyndwood, Lib. v, tit. 4. 182 Johnson, ii : 465. ,83 Constit. Abp. Chicheley. Johnson, ii : 482. '«4lbid. l85 Ibid, ii: 474. Only proved personal mal ice was an allowed exception against a witness in such a case. De Hareticis. Lyndwood, Lib. v, tit. 5. 48 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. all that is called God, and against all worship, even to seat him self in the temple of God, and openly declare himself a God; even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivable- ness of unrighteousness. The Gospel had been degraded into another Gospel, which was not another. Except for a man to trudge wearily obedient his daily tread-mill round of appointed idolatries, led by ecclesiastics whom he felt to be bad in an ecclesiasticism which he could not feel to be good ; there was nothing for him but a brief, blind, instinctive and ineffectual struggle for something better he knew not what, swiftly ending in bell, book and candle, and the funeral pyre, or a craven sub mission, abjuration and absolution, which left his last state worse than the first. It was like trying to breathe in an exhausted receiver. The light that was in the land had become darkness, and how great was that darkness ! For many, for that gross and pleasure-loving multitude whose concern was to eat and drink in the days before they should die, this state of things was not grievous ; neither could they understand why it need be grievous to any. But to God's elect; to those whose eyes had been anoint ed that they should see, and whose hearts had been touched that they should feel, it was grievous ; it was insupportable. Yet dawn-streaks had already begun to flush the sky. What needed to be done was somehow to bring men back to the primitive fundamental doctrine that God's Word is the one only fountain and authority of religious belief, and to a deep convic tion of sin, and the original practical principle that salvation is from Christ through faith, and not from the church, or from any human arrangements or ceremonies whatsoever. So that, as one of our own late writers has discreetly said : " Whoever, whether in the chair of theology, in the pulpit, through the devotional treatise, or by fostering the study of languages and of history, or in perilous combat with ecclesiastical abuses, drew the minds of men to the Scriptures and to a more spiritual conception of religion, was, in a greater or less measure, a reformer before the Reformation."'86 He might have said: "a Congregationalist 1S6 prof. G. P. Fisher, The Reformation, 54. | C Ullman, Reformers bef. Reformat'n, passim. The Darkness and the Dawn. 49 before Congregationalism." I use the word Congregationalism to designate . that system of thought, faith and practice which, starting with the dictum that the conditions of church life are revealed in the Bible, and are to be thence evolved by reverent common sense, assisted, but never controlled by, all other sources of knowledge ; interprets that book as teaching the reality and independent competency of the local church, and the duty of fraternity and co-working between such churches ; from these two truths — as an ellipse from its foci — symmetrically devel oping its entire system of principles, privileges and obligations. Loose thinkers may hastily claim that what I name as the fun damental principle of Congregationalism, to wit : that all which the. Scriptures reveal as essential to human thinking and living is so, and that nothing is, or can be, thus essential, which they do not reveal, is the corner-stone of Protestantism in general, rather than of our own polity in particular. But no Protestant Episcopalian can deny that there is much in his system due to the traditions of the elders ; and no Methodist claims Wesley's Class-meetings, Bishops, General Conferences and waning Itin erancy to be the unmixed growth of Scripture ; and every intelli gent Presbyterian must be aware that his church Eldership was a contrivance of John Calvin as the best he could do to meet the exigencies in which he found himself in Geneva, and that the proof texts which " the Book " assigns as its authority for the Synods, and the General Assembly, and many other things, fully to justify such use, require an imagination more vivid and creative than that by aid of which the ancients fastened the Ursa Major upon the concave sky, by the golden nails of seven or eight glittering stars. But if we throw out, thus, the mon archic and autocratic and aristocratic polities, as having some other foundation than that which is laid in Gospels, Acts and Epistles, what have we left but the democratic, to be the simply Scriptural system. It follows, therefore, that every man along the centuries who has done anything, directly or indirectly, to enthrone the Bible over the faith and piety of the race, has — often building better than he knew — struck a blow for Congre gationalism, and should have her grateful remembrance. Did opportunity serve, it would be a fascinating labor to con sider, in detail, all earlier harbingers of the Reformation, and 5o Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. what, under God, each contributed to the grand result in Eng land. Bishop Grossteste with his simple, bold. spirit, his love of the Bible, and his horror of all church abuses ; Wyclif, a Puri tan of the Puritans before there was a Puritan, disowning and denouncing almost every Papal doctrine, defending men's right to a vernacular Gospel, and giving them one in manuscript, nobly earning a hundred martyrdoms and yet Divinely pro tected so wonderfully that Fuller could quaintly say : l87 " admir able ! that a hare so often hunted with so many packs of dogs, should die at last quietly sitting in his form;" pure and self-sac rificing John Colet, kindling his soul at Savonarola's torch in that great Florentine's earlier and better days,'88 and turning aside from the brilliant career offered by the Court, to. devote himself to imbibing, expounding and imparting the very spirit of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, too early earning the inscription that was laid, with many tears, upon his coffin : l89 " ob vitae integritatem et divinum concionandi munus, omnium sui temporis fuit charissimus ; " the nervous, fun-loving, scepti cal, liberal, tender Erasmus, the incarnation of humanism, the apostle of common sense, the most cultivated scholar of his age, and the man who brought the New Testament in its original out of mediaeval contempt and oblivion, back to the modern world, and taught it to read the same ; Latimer and Ridley, who at a cost of £i. 5s. 2d. to Queen Mary's government,190 lit "such a candle by God's grace, in England, as shall never be put out ; " '9I Tyndale, simple, earnest, heroic, who embalmed him self in our English Bible in that exquisite grace of language which makes it dear to all who love our vernacular, and who, for this, perhaps, deserves preeminence in this glance at these forerunners of the Reformation ; '92 Thomas More, whom Eras mus declared to be the one genius of England,'93 and who, living in the midst of all the mental bondage and supersti- '87 Church History of Britain (ed. 1845, Oxford), ii : 362. ¦88 F. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers (1869), 18, 37, 1 58. 189 Ashmolean MSS., Oxford, 77-141, a. '9° Bill of charges for burning Ridley and Latimer, [R. Detnaus, Life of Latimer, 524.] '9' Ibid, 523. ¦92 Demaus, Life of Tyndale, 485. '93 " Whose breast was whiter than snow, to whom in point of genius, England, though the parent of men of distinguished ability, never has produced, and never will produce, any one who bears the slightest resemblance." Ecclesiastcs, sive Concionator Evangelicus. Opera Erasmi (ed. Basle) v : 642. The Darkness and the Dawn. 51 tion which I have described, had the vigor to conceive and the boldness to outline an ideal commonwealth, still — will it always be — the creature of imagination alone; a Utopia, where they " counte nothynge so muche against glorie, as glory gotten in warre ; " "94 where every child had discreet education,'95 and where it was the fundamental statute that : " it should be lawfull for euerie man to fauoure and folow what religion he would, and that he mighte do the best he could to bring other to his opinion, so that he did it peaceablie, gentelie, quietly and soberlie, without hastie and contentious rebuking and inuehing against other;"'96 — such men as these would well repay the research demanded to comprehend what was the breadth, and length, and depth and hight of the exact legacy of each to a brighter future ! Luther came very near to the discovery, if not the reproduc tion, of the primitive Congregational way. Himself a great hearted man of the people, he was one with them, and did not start back with instinctive repugnance from the very thought of popular government. Three causes appear to have checked his progress in the direction I have indicated ; the first, that he was so overwhelmed with a sense of the doctrinal work needed to secure a reformation, that, not having had experience how vital must be the relation between them, he under-estimated the importance of the form assumed by church life ; the second, that he reacted from the Anabaptist, and kindred fanaticisms, which might not unnaturally awaken his solicitude as to exces sive freedom in religion ; and the third, and chiefest, that cir cumstances — which he interpreted as bringing the behest of God — seemed to point toward ecclesiastical arrangements in which princes should lead, and the people follow and conform. Thus, while both he and Zwingle interpreted the Bible to teach that all ecclesiastical power inheres, under Christ, in the congre gation of believers, the matter ended in an organization of Superintendents and Consistories, which gradually became fatally mixed up with the State." '97 '94 Sir T. More's Utopia [orig. printed in Latin, 1516. Englished by R. Robinson, 1551, and second and revised edition, 1556]. Arber's reprint, 1869, 131. »95 Ibid, 93, 94, 103, 106, etc. vfilbid, 145. *97 G. P. Fisher, The Reformation, 488-495. J. C. L. Gieseler [Text Book of Ch. History, (H. B. Smith's ed.) iv : 518], gives citations from Luther and Zwingle proving this view. 52 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. Calvin started out for his work from a different side of the field, and as the twig was bent the tree inclined. He was never a man of the people. Taken out of his own, to be educated by a noble family, the surroundings of his life exaggerated the nat ural bent of his mind. Using the term as one of definition, and not of reproach, he was an aristocrat ; and the thinness and arid ity of his physical nature conjoined with the keenness of his intellect, to dissociate him from the multitude. Moreover, he had not merely a belief in authority, but an appetite for it. Had opportunity offered, and the grace of God permitted, he could have been a despot ; nor did he lack much of earning that title, as it was. Approaching the New Testament with such predis positions, and called upon in haste to organize both civil and ecclesiastical government in Geneva, one could hardly expect him to evolve from the Acts of the Apostles the democratic polity. Where the Word of God is sincerely preached and heard, and the sacraments duly administered, there, he taught, must be the church of God.'98 Such a church included the whole body, both of clergy and laity who were generally of the same faith, and accustomed to meet together as a company and community. That is, all citizens of Christendom were assumed to be Chris tians until proof to the contrary'99 — a condition of affairs as unscriptural, and as really evil, as that existing in England itself ; and one which, in connection with the shape assumed by civil affairs in Switzerland — the church dwelling within- the State, much as the soul vitalizes the body — resolved church discipline into police control, and vice versa. Not concealing his decided preference for an aristocracy as a bet- 198 Institutio Christiana Religionis, Lib. iv, chap, i, sec. 9. '99 Bungener puts it thus : " The ideal which Calvin was soon to follow out to its extremest applications, was that of the Christian state ; Christian in the details, as well as in the gen eral spirit of its laws, and considering itself responsible before God for all the actions of the citizens. Thus understood, the Christian state necessarily becomes the Church-State. It rules as a sovereign faith, which is the foundation of the edifice; it rules as. a sover eign all that is to be reared upon that founda tion — all without exception, for there is noth ing, Christianly speaking, which is not con nected with faith, and which has not to be de cided by faith. Faith will then occupy in the State, the place which we are all agreed in assigning to it in the individual ; the State will force the individual to do in virtue of the com mon faith, all that the same individual, sup posing him to be a true Christian, would do in virtue of his individual faith. Here lies the error. . . . Let neither State nor Church pre sume to take the place of conscience." F. Bun gener, Calvin : his Life, his Labors, etc., 108. The Darkness and the Dawn. 53 ter form of civil government than monarchy or democracy ,20° he naturally chose that for the church, and lodged ecclesiastical authority in a Session of six preachers and twelve elders, to be " the guardian of the ordinances, and especially a tribunal of morals."20' He himself confessed that the Eldership was an expedient to which he was driven by stress of circumstances ; 2C2 although, as Dr. Davidson says, " after creating it, he naturally enough endeavored to procure Scriptural proof in its favor."203 I need not detain you even for a moment upon the utterly unsatisfactory nature of the partial readjustment — it hardly amounted to reformation — of ecclesiastical affairs, which had been contemporaneously going on in England, by which, on motion of the much-married Henry VIII., the throne had taken the Pope's place as head of the church, the monasteries been suppressed and the spoils divided, with, otherwise, as little of change as possible. The savage policy of bloody Mary's brief reign had driven many of the best men in England across the German Ocean to Frankfort, Strasburg, Zurich, Emden, Geneva and elsewhere, where they learned all that Calvin could teach them, and where numbers of them were leavened with his views. And thus it came about, most naturally, on their return; feeling acutely the contrast between the decided Prot estant and Presbyterian atmosphere which they had left abroad, and the semi-papism " pointed and defiled with infinite super stition,"204 which Mary's brief reign had so enhanced,205 and 200 See Kampschulte, i: 419; Fisher, The Reformation, 220. 201 Bungener, 184. 202 « Nunc habemus qualecunque Presby- terorum judicium, et formam discipline qual- em ferebat temporum infirmitas." J. Calvin, Epis., 54. wEccles. Pol. New Test., 193. Dr. J. P. Wilson, himself an eminent Presbyterian, sums up an elaborate investigation of the subject thus : "a special form of ecclesiasti cal government was adopted by the Genevese at the Reformation ; not because it was found by Scriptural precept or example to have been the original Apostolic scheme ; but be cause the nearest approach to the true one which the peculiar circumstances of the Can ton, and the exigencies of the times, would ad mit. . . . Had Calvin justified the expedient by the necessity of the case, he would have betrayed his design, and prevented others from the benefit of his example ; but he gave ease to his conscience, and plausibility to his conduct, by seeking a defence from the Scrip tures." Monthly Christian Spectator, vol. x, (1828) 64. 2°4^4 Brieff Discours off the Troubles begonne at Franckford in Germany, Anno Domini 1554, etc. m.d.lxxv. cciii. 2°5 " It is hardly credible," said Bishop Jew el, writing after a three months' official travel among the churches (2 Nov. 1559), to Peter Martyr, "what a harvest, yea rather what a forest of superstitions [quanta ubique seges, et sylva superstitionum] sprang up during the darkness of the Marian times. We found everywhere votive relics of saints, nails with which the silly people dreamed Christ had 54 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. which even Elizabeth preferred for -England; that some of these men should seek to arouse in all whom they couldinfluence not merely a zeal for further reformation, but a decided conviction that the government of the church by the Eldership offered the most feasible and Scriptural method for its accomplishment. John Knox had been especially zealous, during his five years' ministry in England, in the reign of Edward VI.206 Calvin's books had not only come speedily into England in their original form,207 but, as early as 1561 — the third year of Elizabeth's reign — an edition of the Institutes translated by Thomas Nor ton had been published in London ; while arguments for Presby- terianism by able foreigners, like the " Treatie of the Churche " by M. Bertrande de Loque,2oS were put into English and indus triously circulated ; and by 1572 the great Cartwright — greater in impulse and purpose than achievement — had begun the dil igent work, in and for which, with others, he did and suffered so much. It has been usual to consider Hooper the father of Puritan ism, because he " scrupled the vestments." Yet it is true that at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth most of the bishops then appointed disfavored them. Even Jewel was ready, in 1562, to urge, now that the full light had shone forth, that the last traces of error be swept away with the rubbish — " dust and all, as the saying is ; " adding " would to God we could manage to do this with the wearing of the linen surplice!"209 He branded the ceremonies of worship as "scenic apparatus;"210 been pierced, and I know not how many bits [portiunculas] of the true cross. The num ber of witches and wizards was immensely in creased. The cathedral churches were noth ing but dens of robbers, or worse, if anything can be worse." J. Jewel, Works (ed. 1848), viii : 1 28. 2o6See P. Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of England (1875), passim. 2°7" After the accession of Elizabeth, the Institutes of Calvin 'were generally in the hands of the clergy, and might be considered their text-book of theology.'" Fisher, 338, citing Blunt, Diet, of Doctr. andllistor. Theol., sub voce "Calvinism," 105. 20S A Treatie of the Churche, conteining a true discourse, to knowe the true Church by, and to discerne it from the Romish Church, and all other false assemblies, or counterfet congrega tions. Written by M. Bertrande de Loque of Dolphinee, and dedicated vnto my Lord the Viscount of Turenne. And faithfully trans lated out of French into English, by T[Aos.] W[ilcox\ London, 1 581, 1 6ma xxxii, 392. 209 " Nunc vero, postquam erupit lux omnis evangelii, quantum quidem fieri potest, ves tigia ipsa erroris una cum ruderibus, utque aiunt, cum pulvisculo auferenda sunt. Quod utinam nos in ista Xnuarol'ia obtinere potuis- semus." Letter to Peter Martyr, Works, viii: 164. 2io"Scenico apparatu." [Letter to Peter Martyr, Ibid, viii: 122.] "Veste scenica." Ibid, viii : 133. The Darkness and the Dawn. 55 stigmatized them as "fooleries,"2" and "the relics of the Amor ites;"2'2 declared that "the cess-pool would indeed have been emptied to no purpose, if these dregs were suffered to lodge themselves at the bottom ; "2'3 and vowed that neither his voice, nor his labors, should be wanting to extirpate them " even to the deepest roots."2'4 To Thomas Cartwright must clearly be assigned the chiefest place in bringing Puritanism in England to the dignity of a developed system. In 1574, Travers's Ecclesias ticce Disciplines, et Anglicance Ecclesice ab ilia Aberrationis, plena e vcrbo Dei, & dilucida Explicatio, was printed at Rochelle.2'5 Translated into English and revised by Cartwright, it was in the same year published at Geneva,2'6 and by him made the basis of a practical movement for the introduction of the Presbyterian discipline. In gatherings of ministers who sympathized with that movement, at Warwick, Northampton, Cambridge — where Mr. Cartwright, as Lady Margaret professor of divinity, had won his first laurels as a reformer, and acquired a powerful influence — and elsewhere, more than five hundred divines fol lowed him in subscribing the same.2'7 This " Sacred Disci pline," among others, laid down these especial points: that lawful church government can be gathered only from the Holy Scriptures ; that there can be but one right church order and form ; that in every particular church there ought to be a Pres bytery of elders, by whom " all things are directed that belong to the state of their church ; " and that all particular churches " ought to obey the opinion of more churches with whom they communicate.2'8 There might be nothing here radically inconsistent with the civil government of England, but in putting it into the power of the Consistory to decide what its religion and its worship shall be, a fatal blow was struck at the Queen's supremacy. More over, as a practical matter, it seemed hopeless to -undertake any 2I1"Istas ineptias." Ibid, viii: 122. 212 "Reliquiae Amorrhaeorum." Ibid, viii: '34. 2i3"Frustra enim exhausta esset sentina, si istas reliqiiias pateremur in fundo residere." Letter to Jos. Simler. Works, viii : 132. 2'4 "Ab imis radicibus." Letter to Peter Martyr, Ibid, viii : 134. 2'5See Strype, Whitgift, i: 502; T.Price, Hist. Prot. Non-Conformity, i : 363. 216 It has been stated that the Vice Chan cellor seized nearly the whole impression. It was in part reissued as A Directory of Church Government. 4to, pp. 24. 2I7B. Brook, Memoir of Cartwright, 241. ¦*-&A Directory, etc. (1644), 1-3. 56 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. plan of reform which should not provide for her oversight of matters ecclesiastical; which should not, indeed, solicit that. reform primarily at her hand, and so adjust its requirements that she might, at the least, consent to tolerate them. From our point of view some confusion of idea seems thus far to have generally prevailed among these Presbyterian reform ers, as to precisely what was the nature of the bond which held the church together, and unified it, as a whole having visibility. By the Geneva pattern, locally, the church of London, for exam ple, would have comprehended all the unexcommunicated inhab itants of London, but in what way, except by sliding back into the vague relation of the great all-embracing church invisible, this church of London, and the church of Canterbury, and the church of York, and all the churches of the kingdom, were to exist as a single organic entity, was not yet made clear ; the whole graded system of Synod, Presbytery and General Assem bly, not having as yet been evolved from the Acts of the Apostles.2'9 So, further, in what exact manner the civil magis trate was Scripturally to take oversight of this organism, or these organisms, we do not find clearly stated.220 And, all together, after studying carefully what Cartwright, Travers and Udal left behind them of exposition and of argu ment221 — disregarding all minor practical difficulties,222 we find steadily and sturdily pushing themselves up through all these 2I9The Confession of Faith adopted by the National Synod of the Reformed Churches of France, at their first National Synod in 1559, provided for a Consistory of pastors and elders in each church, and for Colloquies, Provin cial Synods " once or twice a year," and for a National Synod to meet "according to the necessities of the churches." J. Quick, Syn- odicon in Gallia Reformata, i : xxxvii, xii, 3. 220 This Confession requires honor and rev erence unto magistrates, and obedience to the laws "although the magistrates be Infidels ; so that the soveraign government of God be preserved entire." Ibid, xv. 221 Cartwright had published the Second Ad monition to the Parliament (1572) ; the Replye to Whitgift's Answere (1573); the Second Re- plie (1575); the Examination of Whitgift's Cen sures ( 1 57 5) ; and The Rest of the Second Replie, etc. (1577); and Travers, the Ecclesiastica Disciplina et Anglicana: Ecclesia ab ilia aber- rationis, plena e verbo Dei gt0 Co'Mot$m+ T was not found good for the repute of Oliver Cromwell that it should be left exclusively to royalist remembrancers. Robert Browne has experienced a like misfortune, with the added circumstance, that, having abandoned the polity which he developed, and alienated dissent with out regaining the confidence of the establishment, he left few, if any, mourners behind him. Brief mention of his career occurs in many encyclopaedias and manuals of church history, wherein the few half-truths and absolute errors of the two or three earliest writers who mentioned him, have been turned over and over, and sometimes amplified, but, although largely incongruous, apparently never sifted; until, in the absence of his own books in testimony of what he was, any just estimate of the man began to seem an impossibility. More than a cen tury and a half has now elapsed since a careful English ecclesi astical writer remarked that the reports concerning him were so various as to make it hard to discern the truth ; although he saw attractive wheat grains enough among the chaff to lead him to express the hope, that " in a little time we may have a much more full and certain account of him than we have at present." ' "¦Jas. Peirce, Vindication of the Dissenters, | etc. [1717], 143- 6.? Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. When undertaking — a few years since — some special study of his life, opinions and influence, I knew not where to lay my hand upon any volume from his pen — the sole perfect copy of the only one which the indefatigable Hanbury2 announced him- self as able, now some forty years ago, to discover in England, having disappeared from public view in the shifting fortunes of a private library. It was even difficult to decide from this men tion whether the book were three tracts in one, or one of three. And, coming, at last, into personal possession of that treatise which gives Browne's views of doctrine and church life in their most condensed and logical form, I still found myself in per plexing inability to reconcile different statements made by him, and different judgments in regard to him by contemporaries apparently worthy of trust, in any such manner as to be able to construct a theory of his character and work which should have a coherence and self-consistence to satisfy a reasonable mind. In my last visit to England, however, I was fortunate enough among the treasures of the library at Lambeth Palace3 to dis cover not only, under books catalogued in his name, the means of settling the question as to the trinity in unity of the treatise aforementioned, but also, among anonymous and unassigned quartos, a little volume, frightfully printed, without title-page, printer's name, place or date,4 — passages in which I immediately recognized as having been assigned to him by some of his antagonists. On perusal, it proved to be, although not directly so intended, in the nature of a spiritual autobiography, covering the ten most important years of his life, during which his views on church matters were taking shape, and growing firm, and he seems to have been suffering hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ for them. In the light of the revelations therein made, supplemented by the study of his other writings and of contem poraneous history, and on some points especially by manuscripts 2 B. Hanbury, Historical Memorials relat ing to the Independents, etc., i : 20. 3 I fancy that not many years have elapsed since the Lambeth Library has been put, as freely as it now is, within reach of the public, and that it is quite possible that Mr. Han bury and later investigators for that reason failed to avail of its light upon this and other subjects of the greatest interest to students of Nonconformity. 4 A Trve and Short Declaration, both of the Gathering and loyning Together of Certaine Persons : and also of the Lamentable Breach and Division which fell Amongst Them. 4to, [n. p.] pp. 24. The press mark is 40. 2. 23. Robert Browne and his Co-workers. 63 preserved in the British Museum, and elsewhere, from his own pen, and from those of Lord Burghley and others in regard to him, I believe it to be now possible to reach a more just concep tion and a fairer estimate of this interesting and extraordinary man, than, so far as I am aware, has been attained by any pre vious investigator. All, indeed, is not yet made clear. There remain some points of importance on which further light would be most acceptable. But if I am not mistaken we have at last a clew through the labyrinth. A preliminary glance at the chief external features of his life will best prepare us for some general estimate of his character and work. Robert Browne had his birth at Tolethorpe in Rutlandshire,5 just as the sixteenth century was about to pass from its first to its second moiety.6 In the English sense of that term, he was born a gentleman. His great-grandfather's great-grandfather John, who had been a wealthy draper and merchant of the sta ple7 in Calais, came over to Stamford, where he was alderman in 1376 and 1377.8 His son William, also an alderman, and " a marchant of very wonderful richness,"9 founded by will in Stam ford a hospital for decayed tradesmen, which still exists bearing his name ; IO and which, near the close of the last century, was pronounced to be " one of the best conducted charities in Eng land."" John, of the third generation, was an alderman as well,'2 and wealthy and generous enough to build All Saints 5 T. Blore, History and Antiquities of the County of Rutland, etc. (1813), 93. 6 The family genealogy as given by Blore says he died in 1636, aged " about 80." I am not aware that the exact date of his birth has anywhere been settled. The Encyclopadia Britannica, and the Allgemeine Encyc, in gen eral, say, without any citation of authority, that he was born in 1550. The arms of this Browne family were : Sable, three mullets ar gent ; quartering — per bend argent and sable, three mascles bend ways counterchanged — or, on a fesse gules, three crosses patee argent — argent on a bend sable a bezant in chief. Crest, on a wreath argent and sable, a stork's head couped, and the neck nowed, gules between two wings displayed argent. Blore, 93. 7" Merchants of the Staple ; a title given to an ancient company of merchants who export ed the staple wares of the country." J. O. Halliwell, Diet. Archaic and Prov. Words, etc. 8 Blore, as before. 9 W. Harrod, Antiquities of Stamford, etc. [1785], 104. 10 It is commonly called the Bead-House, fronts the Corn and Hay market, and Harrod gives an engraving of it [65]. See some ac count of it, as late as 1834 in History of the County of Lincoln, ii : 331. "Harrod, 371. « Blore, 93. T. Fuller [Hist. Worthies of England (ed. 1840), iii : 39], confuses John with his father William, and represents the father as the builder of the Bead House and Church, and as endowing the former with lands worth ,£400 a year. 64 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. Church in Stamford, and present it to the parish.'3 His son Christopher, who was sheriff of Rutlandshire, removed to Tole- thorpe.14 His son Francis, grandfather of Robert, received, by special charter from Henry VIII., the somewhat extraordinary distinction of being allowed to remain covered in presence of the king, and of all lords spiritual and temporal in the realm.'5 His eldest- son and heir Anthony, married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Philip Boteler of Watton Woodhull, and Robert was the third of their seven children.16 No incident of his early life has been preserved, but he emerges to our view as, at a suitable age, with his next elder brother Philip who was afterwards surveyor of Queen Eliza beth's manors in Lincolnshire,'7 he went, in 1570, to Cambridge and studied there for some years as a member of Corpus Christi (otherwise known as Benet) College. It seems nearly certain that he took his degrees in regular form.'8 He, clearly, soon began to manifest that fiery activity of mind which distinguished at least the earlier portion of his career, and one of the first dates which it seems possible definitely to fix in his history, reveals him in the summer of 1571, not far from his one and twentieth year, as a domestic chaplain of the Duke of Norfolk,'9 and as taking opportunity of that place to disseminate doctrines, which, as they were distasteful to the authorities, were esteemed seditious as well. Cited to appear before the Ecclesiastical Commission- r3 It takes one back to the old time in Eng land to find on a brass plate in the church this inscription : " Orate pro animabus Iohannis Browne, mercatoris stapula Calisia, et Mar- geria uxoris eius : Qui quidem Ioh. obiit xxvi die mensis lulii, An. Domini M. CCCCXLII ; et que quadem Marge ria obiit xxii die Novoris M.CCCCLX: Quorum animabus propitietur Deus. Amen." Hist. Co. Line, ii : 326. 14 Blore, 92. *S Ibid. Rees [Cyc. sub nomine] and T. Fuller [Church History of Britain (Brewer's ed. 1845), v : 65], say this charter was con firmed by Act of Parliament, but I have seen no proof of this assertion. Notes and Queries [(3d series) i : 20S, 350], mentions a few sim ilar cases, with suggestion of the reason. Fuller [Worthies, etc., iii : 50] gives the Latin patent in full, of date 6 July, 1526. The vital clause is : " pileo sit coopertus capite, et non exuat aut deponat pileum suum a capite suo occasione vel causa quacunq ; contra volun- tatem aut placitum suum." 16 Blore, 93; J. Wright, Hist. Co. Rutland (1687)1 129. J7 Blore, 93. iSR. Masters [History of the College of Cor pus Christi (i753),25i, 254] refers to him as a student there, and J. Lamb, in his continua tion of the same work (1831) cites this record : "Browne Robt. Rutl. ad. fjfo ; took B. A. rs72." [460.] On the other hand Thos. Ful ler, a contemporary, says he " was bred for a time in Cambridge, I conceive in Corpus Christi College ; but question whether ever a graduate therein." [Chh. Hist. Brit., v: 62.] But we shall find occasion to distrust the ac curacy of much which Fuller says about him, *-9j. Strype, Lift -of Archbishop Parker, etc., ii : 68. All my references to Strype will be to the edition of his works in 27 vols. 8vo, issued by the Clarendon Press in Oxford, 1820-28. Robert Browne and his Co-workers. 65 ers ." to answer such matters as he is to be charged withal," which are not more definitely set down, the Duke took his part, and pleading that the position was a privileged one, abetted him in refusing to answer the citation.20 What censure followed, if any, or how the matter ended, we do not know. Next we find him teaching " schollers for about the space of .three years,"21 and there is some evidence that this was in South wark.22 We hear of him at the same time as "lecturing" more or less to scattered companies who used to gather on Sundays in a gravel-pit in Islington,23 not indeed without exciting by these proceedings the hostility of the rector, with other premon itory symptoms of the dangers then attending the endeavor in the least degree publicly to exercise free speech in matters of religion.24 The plague breaking out, being sent for by his fam ily, he gave up his school and went home to his father's house — I take it in the autumn of 1578.25 20 See letter of commissioners to the Duke, of date Lambeth, 13 June (1571), given by Strype, as above, ii : 68. 21 Trve and Short Declaration, etc. I. 22 With that provoking neglect to set down minute circumstances which we often have to deplore in writers of the time, Browne him self does not so much as hint where his " schol lers" were. But Robert Baillie [Disswasive From the Errours of the Time (1645), T3] d's" tinctly declares, that Browne was " a school master in Southwark, and then a preacher at Islington near London " before he became a Separatist So Ephraim Pagitt, in 1645, makes the same statement, designating the Free School of St. Olaves in Southwark as the place ; but this is almost surely a confusion with what happened ten years later. [Heresi- ography (ed. i654),5i.] And J. Hoornbeeck, in 1653, said of Browne, "primum Ludi-magister in Southwarke, dein Verbi Magistri Islingtoni, prope Londinum " [Summa Controversiarum Religionis; etc., 620] ; but he probably copied Baillie or Pagitt. Stephen Bredwell, who writes as if he had a familiar knowledge of all the circumstances, often refers to Browne's school-mastership at St. Olaves, but as he published in 1588, and his language implies that Browne was still there, and had been there for nearly two years, it is obvious that he testifies nothing in regard to this first period. [Rasing of the Foundations of Brown- isme, etc. 134, 135.] Baillie as well as Pagitt, and others, may have confused what took place in 1575-8 with 1586-9; or it may have been for the very reason that Browne had made him self beloved in Southwark as a teacher during these first three years, that he found an elec tion to the Grammar School possible at the later period. 23 Baillie and Pagitt as above. Lewis [His tory and Topography of St. Mary's Parish, Islington (i843),ii4] represents Robert Browne as having been one of the " Lecturers " of that parish for whose support the vestry used to pay; the salary, in 1673, being "paid out of parish land, as formerly." But he cites no record of Browne's name, and it is clearly a conjecture on his part founded on what Bail- , lie and others had said, the absurd improbabil ity of which did not occur to him. In 1580 Recorder Fleetwood reported to the Lord Treasurer that the chief shelters of rogues in and about London are at the Savoy, and " the brick-kilns near Islington." R. Seymour, Sur vey of London, etc. (1735), ii : 326. 24 Trve and Short Declaration, etc., 2. 25 Ibid, 2. The plague was very bad in Eng land in 1 578. In Norwich alone from 20 Aug., 1578, to 19 Feb., 1579, as many as 4,817 per sons died of it ; of whom were 10 aldermen, 2,335 English, and 2,482 " strangers " — most of whom, probably, were Dutch. Blomefield, iii: 354- 66 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. After some stay there, on the subsidence of the pest he went back to the University for further study, and appears to have become, with other young men, for a time a member of the fam ily of the Rev. Richard Greenham, of Dry Drayton, near Cam bridge, and a student of theology with him.26 He was. allowed by Mr. Greenham to share in the religious exercises of his house hold, and of his parish, and encouraged by him to preach openly, in the face of his general rule that none ought to do so " with out leave and special word from the bishop."27 His discourses proved attractive not merely to such rural congregations as he at first addressed, but also to the more cultivated assemblies in Benet Church under the very shadow of the University itself.28 But that enthusiasm which carried all before him with the peo ple, awakened the solicitude of some of the dignitaries; and Dr. Still, afterwards Master of Trinity, it is stated, " discovered in him something extraordinary, which, he presaged, would prove the disturbance of the church, if not seasonably pre vented."29 So acceptable in the general, however, did his doc trine and manner prove, that " with consent of the maior and vice-chancelar " he was pressed to accept a Cambridge pulpit, and preached, laboring also from house to house for " about halfe a yeare," when he " sent backe the monie thei would have given him, and also gave them warning of his departure," on the conviction that they were not as yet so rightly grounded in church government as to be on a fair basis of reform.30 He was just now undergoing a conflict of opinion more serious than he had ever before experienced, and one which went to the bottom of the form of church life in its relation to practical religion, and the duties, public and private, which every redeemed man owes to his Redeemer ; and it had already become perfectly clear to his mind with regard to the Bishops, that " to be authorised of them, to be sworne, toe subscribe, to be ordained & receaue their licensing " was to the last degree a distasteful, if not,*indeed, an unlawful and impossible thing.3' His brother, who seems not to have been in full sympathy with him on this point, how ever obtained the Bishop's seals for him ; but Robert refused to 26 Trve and Short Declaration, etc., 2. 27 Ibid, 2. , *%Ibid, 2 ; T. Fuller, Chh. Hist. Brit., v : 62. 29 Fuller, v: 63. 30 Trve and Short Declaration, etc., 2, 6, 7. 3" Ibid, 6. Robert Browne and his Co-workers. 67 take them from the officers, and afterward, being written to, " would not paie for them," and when his brother paid for them, he lost one and threw another in the fire, refusing utterly to avail of any such helps for entrance upon the ministry of the WOrdi32 And, lest his brother's act " should encourage others to deale in worse manner," he proceeded openly to harangue and preach in Cambridge " against the calling & authorising of preachers by bishops," and was very careful to make it clear to all that he himself preached " not as caring for, or leaning vpon, the Bishopes authoritie, but onlie to satisfie his duetie & conscience."33 What was burning within his soul was the desire for a spiritual reformation, and what alarmed and grieved him was that even in " the best reformed places "34 the parishes were in such bondage to the Bishops, and so " pliable to that lament able state of things," that they required whoever would minister to them to come into that same bondage.35 His mind was grad ually led to the conclusion — to use his own form of stating it — that " the kingdom off God Was not to be begun by whole parishes, but rather off the worthiest, Were they never so fewe."36 And then, he says, " he knewe that the Lord had appointed him there to be occupied onlie to trie & prepare him to a further & more effectual message, & to be a witness of that wofull state of Cambrige, whereinto those wicked prelats and doctors of diuin- itie have brought it."37 In this mental and spiritual conflict he " fell soare sicke," and while he was lying thus ill, he was inhibited from further preaching by the Bishop and the Coun cil. The Bishop's officer, named Bancroft, read the letter in his presence, to which Browne replied that : " if he had taken charge in that place, he woulde no whitte lesse cease preaching for that ; but as he Vvas, he tooke not on him, he said, though the letter were not, to preach there anie longer."38 When he had slowly recovered health and strength, he " took counsell still," he declares, "and had no rest, what he might do for the name & kingdom of God. He often complained of those euill dayes & with manie teares sought where to find the right- 32 Ibid, 6. 33 Ibid, 6. Mlbid, 2. 35 Ibid, 6. tflbid, 6. 37 Ibid, 7. 38 Ibid, 7. Probably not Richard B., after ward Abp., then of Teversham. Hook, x: 192. 68 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. eous, which glorified God, with whome he might live & reioise together, that thei putt awaie abominations;"39 beseeching the Lord " to shewe him more comfort of his kingdome & church then he sawe in Cambrige." And it coming to his ears that there were some in Norfolk who were " verie forward " in the reform of religion, he " thought it his duetie to take his voiage to them ; first, because he considered that if there were not onelie faultes but also open & abominable wickednes in any par ish or companie, & thei would not or could not, redresse them, but were held in bondage bie antichristian power, as were those parishes in Cambrige by the bishops ; then euerie true chris tian was to leaue such parishes, & to seek the church of God wheresoeuer." Also, " if anie be forced by lawes, penalties & persecution, as in those parishes, to ioine with anie such persons [from whom Paul (2 Tim. iii : 5,) warneth us to turn away] ether in the sacramentes, or in the service & worship of God, thei ought utterlie to forsake them, & avoid such wickednes."40 Just at this time Robert Harrison came to Cambridge.4' Har rison had been matriculated pensioner in St. John's College, Cambridge, in October, 1564. Thence he removed to Corpus Christi, where he proceeded B. A. in 1567; and was well on toward the master's degree, which he took in 1572, when Browne had first come up to the same College in the University. In 1 573 he had been an applicant strongly endorsed by the mayor and alderman of Norwich for the mastership of the grammar school at Aylsham in Norfolk.42 But the Bishop had alleged against him that he was very young, and lacked experience ; that he was reported to scruple the reading of profane authors by young children ; that his health was not firm ; and especially that, hav ing lately been married, he had expressed some conscientious scruples as to the form of that service enjoined by the law of the land.43 These objections were, however, finally waived, and Harrison put in place over the school, under strict charge of good behaviour. But in less than a month, being god-father of 19 Ibid, 7. 40 Ibid, 7, 8. 41 Ibid, 8. 42T. Cooper has gathered together the authorities for these various statements in his Athena Cantabrigienses, ii : 177, 178. 43 Strype [Life of Parker, ii : 335] gives a somewhat minute account of the nature of Harrison's difficulties, and the requests made by him as to desired changes in the marriage and baptismal service, here referred to. Lan celot Thexton was the vicar. Robert Browne and his Co-workers. 69 a child to be baptized, having given offence by requesting cer tain changes made from the rubric in the administration of the ordinance, he had been summarily displaced.44 Subsequently — at what date is not clear — he became master of a hospital in Norwich ; as I suppose that of Saint Giles, commonly called the Old Men's Hospital.45 He now came back to his alma mater, which under the influence of Cartwright and others had become so great a seat of Puritanism, with the purpose of entering the ministry, or at least of satisfying his mind more fully with regard to the same. He and Browne were old acquaintances, if not old friends, and he now sought Browne's help to further his plans.46 He was informed of the determination which Browne had reached, and that he now abhorred " such trash and pollution " as the bishop's authorizing, yet nevertheless, that if conscience led the hospital-master to seek an entrance to the ministry at the bishop's hands, " he would do for him what he might." Har rison soon decided to return to Norwich and to seek the min istry, if at all, in some other way. And a short time after, Browne followed him thither, and — Harrison with his wife keep ing house, and having plenty of room — lodged and boarded with them.47 This appears to have been in or about 1580; when Browne would be not far from thirty years of age. Here they were accustomed to walk much in the fields, and talk together " of the lamentable abuses, disorders and sinnes " which reigned everywhere. " At the first," Browne says, " they agreed well together, but yet so as that in some things R. H. doubted : notwithstanding he came on more and more, and at 44 Some three years subsequently he has been said to have been cited before Bishop Freake at Norwich for some unspecified of fence, with the statement that he not only re fused to obey the summons, but wrote the Bishop a spicily faithful letter in which he be sought him to have a care for his own soul, and took the liberty of advising him to re nounce the office which he had usurped; — but this was probably Robert Harvey and not Robert Harrison, the coincidence of initials (R. H. standing for both) confusing their iden tity. Cooper [Ath. Canton: 178] makes the statement, but Strype [Annals of the Reform ation, ii (2) : 62] and B. Brook [Lives of Puri tans, i: 191] attribute the letter to Harvey. The letter itself is printed in A Parte of a Register, etc. (1590), 365. 45 That he was master of a hospital at Nor wich, Browne himself says a little further on [Trve and Short Declaration, etc., 8], and that it was St. Giles's, is made probable by the fact that there was some connection between it and the Aylsham school — the hospital paying £\o a year to the Aylsham master; while the Mayor and Aldermen of Norwich, who had befriended Harrison when he sought the of fice of grammar-master, then enjoyed the right of appointing the master of this hospital. Blomefield, Hist. Co. of Norfolk, iv : 376, 400. 46 Trve and Short Declaration, etc., 8. 47 Ibid, 8. 70 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. last wholie yeelded to the trueth, when he sauue it began "to pre, uaille and prosper."48 It is very clear that Browne's mind took the lead, and that here at Norwich, following the track of thought which he had long been elaborating, he thoroughly dis covered and restated the original Congregational way, in all its simplicity and symmetry. And here, in this or the following year, by his prompting and under his guidance, was formed the first church in modern days of which I have any knowledge, which was intelligently, and as one might say philosophically, Congregational in its platform and processes ; he becoming its pastor.49 It was not like this man, when thoroughly persuaded that a message had been committed to him, to be timid or hesitant in its delivery. Accordingly, on the 1 9th of the following April [1581] we find Bishop Freake of Norwich sending to Lord Treasurer Burghley articles of complaint, " against one Robert Browne, and his personal answers thereto : " alleging that " the said party had been lately apprehended, on complaint of many godly preachers, for delivering unto the people corrupt and con tentious doctrine." It was further declared that " his arrogant spirit of reproof was something to be marvelled at ; the man being also to be feared lest if he were at liberty he should seduce the vulgar sort of people, who greatly depended on him, assembling themselves together to the number of an hundred at a time in private houses and conventicles to hear him, not without danger of some evil event."50 By a communication of Sir Robert Jermyn to Lord Burghley of 28 July following, it appears that Bury Saint Edmonds was the place where Browne had been thus offending against the peace and dignity of the Bishop, and the Established Church.5' Burghley, who was Browne's kinsman,52 and whom we shall find to have been his ^ Ibid, 8. 49 Ibid, 19, 20. 5° Lansdowne MSS. (British Museum), ! xxxiii: 13. 51 Strype, Annals, iii (1): 22. 52 1 have not found it easy to fix this exact relationship. Fuller, who was born within a mile of the home of Browne's later years, says [Chh. Hist. Brit.,v: 68] that Burghley's eldest son Thomas, was Browne's " near kins man and patron." The unknown author of A Threefold Discourse, etc. [1642], who seems to have been familiar with the family, says [6] Browne and Burghley were "neere a kin." Whalley [Bridge's History of Northampton shire, etc. (1791), ii: 366] says the Brownes were "allied to" the Lord Treasurer. Dr. Waddington calls Browne "first causin" of Burghley [Congregational History, (1567-1700) 23]. But, as in the same paragraph of five Robert Browne and his Co-workers. 7* powerful and efficient friend, replied, 2 1 April, to the Bishop, suggesting that the errors of his young relative doubtless pro ceed " of zeale rather than of malice," and thinks it well that he be " charitably conferred with and reformed," proposing that, if he be not at once discharged, he be sent to him at London " to be further dealt with as I shall take order for upon his coming."53 From Robert Jermyn's letter, to which I have already referred, it looks very much as if Browne had been discharged on this request, and gone straight back to Bury Saint Edmonds to repeat the offence. At any rate, on the second of August fol lowing we find the Bishop once more addressing the Lord Treasurer in regard to the troublesome young man, declaring that he had lately been preaching *' strange and dangerous doc trines in his diocese, in all disordered manner, had greatly troubled the whole country, and brought many to great disobe dience of all law and magistrates." He thought all others could have been managed if Browne had not come back " contrary to his expectation, and greatly prejudiced these their good pro ceedings, and having private meetings in such close and secret manner, that he knew not possibly how to suppress the same." The Bishop was " sorry to foresee what must needs in short time by him [R. B.], and other disorderly persons, which only sought the disturbance of the church, be brought to pass." And so " the careful duty which he ought to have to the country, being his charge, enforced him most earnestly to crave his Lord ship's help in suppressing him [R. B.] especially." 54 Again, to all lines, he makes an error of three years in a date, calls Robert's father " Edmond " when his name was Anthony, misnames his mother and her family altogether, and three times prints "Cypele " where, to make any sense, he must mean Cyssel (or Cecil), one feels no great amount of confidence in his assertion. The writer in Notes and Queries [ist series, ix: 494], who appears to have led Dr. Wad- dington into these errors, says that Burghley's Aunt Joan, dau. of David Cyssel of Stamford (grandfather of Lord B.) who was half-sister of the Lord Treasurer's father, married Ed mond Browne. But the family pedigree in Blore [93] makes Edmond third son of Fran cis, and uncle of Anthony. All I can make out of this is that Lord Burghley's grand father would be father of Robert's great aunt — not very near kinship surely. But this may be an error, or there may have been some other and nearer tie. Burghley himself, in writing to Robert's father [Fuller, Chh. Hist. Brit., v: 65], speaks of Robert as "of my blood," and signs himself " your loving friend, and cousin." But I take it that the word "cousin" was often used vaguely, as well as closely ; [Halliwell defines " cousin " by kins man]. To the Bishop of Norwich he calls Browne his "kinsman." The Lord Treasur er's mother in her last will (i 582) calls Antho ny Browne " my friend." F. Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, i : 121. 53 Fuller, Chh. Hist. Brit., v: 64. 54 Lansdowne MSS., xxxiii: 20. 72 Congregationalism, as seen in ils Literature. appearance, Burghley's interposition availed to get his irrepress ible relative first into, and then out of, the hands of the Arch bishop of Canterbury;55 and this general experience, with that of others of the company, brought them all, at last, to the full persuasion "that the Lord did call them out of England."56 Some at first favored Scotland as a refuge ; but Browne dis- suaded from this, on the ground that that kingdom ** framed it selff in those matters to please England toe much," and " because some corruption should come upon vs from their parishes, which we ought to avoid, or because wee there should have great trouble wrought vs from England, as iff we kept still in Eng land." 57 Jersey and Guernsey were also considered,58 but Zeland was finally pitched upon, and, apparently in the autumn of 1581, the little church and its pastor emigrated in a body to Middel berg, where they received permission of the magistrates to abide in freedom of faith and worship.59 Before leaving Norwich altogether, it may be added, that almost all writers about Browne have represented him as preach ing there first to the large Dutch element of the population60 which was Anabaptistically inclined, and from them leaven ing his own countrymen. Thus Fuller writes : " In the city 55 Fuller, Chh. Hist. Brit, v : 64. 56 Trve and Short Declaration, etc., 21. 57 Ibid, 21. i^ Ibid. Brown calls them "Gersey" and " Garnsey." 59 " Met verlof der Regering." [Naam-Lyst der Predikanten, Ouderlingen en Diakenen, die de Engelsche Gereformeerde Gemeente te Middelburg, etc. (Middelburg, 1770), 1]. This list of ministers, elders and deacons of the English Reformed Church in Middelberg, has a brief preliminary notice of the Brownists there, and dates the coming of Browne in 1 588. As it is clear, however, that this date is taken from D. Neal's History of the Puri tans, and not from any municipal or other rec ords in Middelberg, it cannot alter the truer chronology otherwise derived. W. Steven [History of Scottish Church, Rotterdam (1833), 316] copies this error from this Naam-lyst. 60 In 1565, Norwich was in much distress from the decay of its worsted manufacture, and its authorities, as the result of a confer ence with the Duke of Norfolk, passed a res olution to invite " divers strangers of the Low countries " who were now come to London- and Sandwich for refuge from the persecution raised by the Duke of Alva; the consequence of which was a large influx of Dutch to that city. In October, 1 571, there were by actual count 868 Dutch men, 203 Walloons, 1,173 w0* men of both nations, and 1,681 children un der 14 years — of whom 666 had been born in England ; a total of 3,925. [Blomefield, Hist. Co. Norfolk, iii : 282, 291 ; Le Grand Tresor Historique et Politique duflorissant Commerce des Hollandois, etc. (Rouen, 1 7 12), 14, 18.] These Dutchmen had a flourishing congrega tion of their own, and its minister, on occa sion of Queen Elizabeth's visit there, 19 Aug., 1578, made her a neat Latin speech, and pre sented her with a cup worth ^50, for their protection under her government. [Blome field, 337.] There were 363 Dutch and 396 Walloons reported as communicants of the "forraigne" church at Norwich in 1634; 759 in all. John Bulteel, Relation of Troubles of For. Chhs. in Kent, etc. (1645), 22- Robert Browne and his Co-workers. 73 of Norwich, a place which then spake little more than medieta- tem Ungues, having almost as many Dutch strangers as English natives inhabiting therein. Browne, beginning with the Dutch, soon proceeded to infect his own countrymen,"6" etc. And one of the historians of Norfolk has even gone so far as to name the church of St. Peter Hungate as that in which Browne preached.62 Collier has amplified his account with still other particulars, telling us that " Browne made his first essay upon three Dutch men, and being of a positive imperious temper, took care to pick out the most flexible and resigning. And after having made some progress amongst them, and raised himself a character for zeal and sanctity, he began to tamper further and advance to the English ; and here he took in the assistance of one Robert Harrison, a country schoolmaster,"63 etc. As Collier, however, did not publish until more than a century and a quarter subse quent to these occurrences, and declares that Browne went over into Zeland, first joined Cartwright's congregation there, and then printed a book, copies of which he sent over to England to prepare the way for gathering his church, previous to becoming a missionary at Norwich ; and as Fuller says that Browne went over into Zeland " to purchase himself more reputation from for eign parts," for the reason that " a smack of travel gives an high taste to strange opinions, making them better relished to the lickerish lovers of novelty," before all this took place ; we shall perhaps be justified in questioning the accuracy of their state ments. While, from the intrinsic improbabilities of such a theory ; from the total absence of all reference to anything which would justify it in the' minutely circumstantial narration which Browne himself gives in his Trve and Short Declaration; and from the absence of Dutch names from those which he inci dentally mentions as connected with the enterprise ; it seems most likely that these reports were adopted without due evi dence by the first writers, and passed from them down the ever- lengthening lines of historians, and encyclopaedists. It is proba ble, however, that some Brownists did remain behind in Nor wich who could not, or at least did not, take part with the church °' Chh. Hist. Brit., v : 63. 62 Chambers, General History of the Co. of Norfolk, f:tz., 1188. 63 Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, to reign of Charles IL, etc. (Lathbury's ed. 1852), vii: 2. 74 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. and its pastor64 in this exodus, and that they completed, and for a time maintained, a separate church organization ; inasmuch as George Johnson, in 1603, speaks more than once of such a church as existing there, calls it " the elder sister," and says that " Mr. Hunt " was then its pastor.65 Arrived, thus where they were at liberty to follow conscience in worship, the next two years were spent here. Richard Schil- ders's66 printing office bore witness that they were not years of idleness to Robert Browne. If they could do anything for their native land by stretching forth a hand of love out of their exile, it must be done by the press. If they could do anything to take off the reproach which was charged upon them of being troublers and fanatics ; and if they could convince the thinking portion of their contemporaries, and of posterity, that they had discovered a more excellent way, even that original way in which holy men walked of old ; it must be done through the press. Three treatises clearly were printed during those two years from the pen of Browne,67 and two from that of Harrison.68 These books, aside from any little local currency which they may have had, were sent over in sheets into England, where they were bound and circulated by warm sympathizers there; where they arrived at the dignity of drawing a special procla mation from the queen ; and where, before Browne trod again his natal soil, two men had been hanged for dispersing, and another 64 C Lawne [Profane Schisme of the Brown- ists, etc., 18] gives an account of one Edward Tolwine, who " saw the very beginning of the separation," often entertained Browne, and had made all his arrangements to go to Ze land after him ; but the man who had bought his property died suddenly before he had paid for the same, so that the " bargaine came to nothing," and Tolwine could not go. Years after, he went to .Amsterdam and joined the Brownists there. 65 Discourse of some Troubles and Excom munications in the Banished English Church at Amsterdam (1603), 44, 205, 206. 66 In some of his English issues — those of Robert Browne, for example — he Englished his name into " Richarde Painter." 67 A Booke which sheweth the Life and Man ners of all true Christians, and howe vnlike thev are vnto Turkes and Papistes, and Heathen folke. Also the Pointes and Partes of all Di- vinilie, etc. (1582). A Treatise vpon the 23. of Matthewe, etc. (1582). A Treatise of Reformation without Tarying for anie, etc. (1582). Sometimes found together, and bound as one, my impression is that these were issued separately as fast as printed, but rather with the intention of making one book of the three, One purpose clearly unifies them. , 68^4 little Treatise vppon the the firste Verse of the 122. Psalme, Stirring vp vnto carefull desir ing and dutifull labouring for true Church Governement (1583), i6mo, (n. p.) pp. vi, 124' [This was reprinted by William Brewster at Leyden, in 1618, in i6mo, pp. vi, 82.] Three Formes of Catechismes, conteyning the most principal! pointes of Religion (1583)1 i6mo, pp. 64. Robert Browne and his Co-workers. 75 nearly hanged for binding the same.69 There is some evidence that Harrison had inherited or laid up something, and that he furnished the money which was needful for the printing.70 I have found no proof of the assertion, repeatedly made,7" that Browne and Harrison and their company first joined them selves to Cartwright's English church at Middelberg, and subse quently seceded in separate organization ; while all probabilities render such a course most unlikely on their part. The rumor 69 Some account of these men — Copping, Thacker and Gybson — will have a place in the fourth lecture of this series. The Procla mation is worth quoting, for the illustration which it gives of the temper of the times : " By the Queene : A Proclamation against certaine seditious and scismatical Bookes and Libelles, etc. " The Queenes most excellent Maiestie being giuen to vnderstande that there are sent from the partes beyond the seas, sundry seditious, scismatical], and erronious printed Bookes and libelles, tending to the deprauing of the Ecclesiastical gouernment established within this Realme, set foorth by Robert Browne and Richard Harrison, fled out of the Realme as seditious persons, fearing due pun ishment for their sundry offences, and re maining presently in Zealande : which seuer- all bookes, doe manifestly conteine in them very false, seditious, and scismatical doctrine and matter, and haue notwithstanding bene secretly solde, published, and dispersed in sundry places within this Realme,' to the end to breede some scisme among her Maiesties subiectes, being persons vnlearned, and vnable to discerhe the errors therein conteined : Her highnesse therefore perceiuing the wicked- nesse of these euill spirits, and the malicious disposition of lewde and euill disposed per sons to be readie to violate and breake the peace of the Churche, the Realme, and the quietnesse of her people, and knowing it also to be most requisite and conuenient for her highnesse to vse those meanes which God hath appointed for preuenting thereof, doeth will, and also straightly- charge arid com- maunde that all maner of persons what so euer, who haue any of the sayde Bookes or any of like nature in his or their Custodie, that they and euery of them doe foorthwith vpon the publishing hereof, bring in and de- liuer vp the same vnto the Ordinarie [" One who has ordinary or immediate jurisdiction in 8 matters ecclesiastical." Lee, Glossary, sub voce] of the Diocesse, or of the place where they inhabite, to the intent they may bee burned, or vtterly defaced by the sayde Ordi nary. And that from henceforth no person or persons whatsoeuer, be so hardy as to put in print or writing, sell, set foorth, receiue, giue out or distribute any more of the same or such like sedicious bookes or libels, as they tender her Maiesties good fauour, and will answere for the contrary at their vttermost perils, and vpon such further paynes as the Lawe shall inflict vpon the offendours in that behalfe, as persons maintayning such seditious actions, which her Maiestie myndeth to haue seuerely executed. " Giuen at her Maiesties Mannor of Greene- wich the last day of June, in the fiue and twentieth yeere of her highnesse Reigne [1 583]. God saue the Quee^." [Grenville Collection, (British Museum^rol. 225.] Mr. Arber has also reprinted this m his Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of Lon don, i : 502. 7°S. Bredwell says Harrison was "be witched by Browne," by "stretching his purse so wide, to the printing of his booke." [Ras ing of Foundations of Brownisme, xii.] 7' P. Heylyn, [Hist, of the Presbyterians, etc. (ed. 1672), 256] ; Collier [Eccl. Hist., vii : i]. Brook [Lives of the Puritans, ii : 367] repre sents Browne as forming his church after his arrival in Zeland. Hanbury [Hist. Memorials of the Independents, i : 19], who mentiori&'Harri- son only incidentally, falls into the same error. Cartwright, in that letter of his to Harrison which Browne answered in print, says : " your first page had raysed me vnto some hope for the reunitinge of your selfe, with the rest of your company vnto vs, from whom you haue thought good to sunder your selues." [An swere to Master Cartwright His Letter, etc. whereunto said letter is annexed (ad calcem), i.] This implies what I have stated in the text. 76 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. probably arose fr6m the fact that Harrison, and those who remained with him after Browne sailed for Scotland, then ap pear to have united themselves to Cartwright's church, and to have remained for a time with them, but afterward to have felt constrained in conscience, against Cartwright's urgency, to make another attempt at separate life. Browne's own narrative, in that little later quarto 72 the shock ing quality of whose typography demonstrates that it was not from Schilders's press, makes evident, what a little reflection upon the likelihoods of the case, not less than contemporaneous history, would lead us to suspect ; that these two years included, especially toward their close, great sorrows for him from within. I shall have occasion hereafter to call attention to the fact that the very quality of the reform in which these good people — such as they were, and in their conception of their duty — were engaged, was such as not merely to invite, but almost to neces sitate, contention among themselves. It will be sufficient here to mention that, by Browne's own statement, their internal har mony was again and again interrupted by differences of judg ment and alienations of feeling ; that a party arose among them, who, wearying of the hardness of the way, longed again for the fleshpots of England ; that Harrison, the trusted friend, was felt by his pastor — who suffered again from severe illness, incapac itating him for a considerable period from performing the duties of his position — to have lifted up his heel against him ; that Mrs. Browne — I have met with no record of the date of her appearance upon the scene — was thought to have added fuel to the fire ; 73 that on three several occasions Browne laid down his pastorate, as many times to resume it on the general request ; and that all ended in his taking ship, in November or Decem ber of 1583, with a minority of "four or five Englishmen with their wives and famileis," who clung to his fortunes, for Scot land ; doubtless in the full intent, as King James afterwards scornfully and bitterly said, to " sow " his " popple " there.74 Landing at Dundee, and finding some support, he proceeded to Saint Andrews, whence, Andrew Melville giving him a let- 72 Trve and Short Declaration, etc., 21-24. 73 G. Johnson, Discourse of Some Troubles, etc., 51. 74 Introduction to BamXixor Auiqov. Works (1616), 143. The King says this of "Browne, Penry and others." Robert Browne and his Co-workers. 77 ter to Mr. James Lowsone, he pushed on to Edinburgh, where, with his company, he arrived on Thursday, 9th January, 1584, and took up his residence in the Canongate,75 beginning at once to circulate his books and disseminate his peculiar doctrines. This was the summary of his teaching, as set down at the time by a hostile critic : 7° " They held opinioun of separation from all kirks where excommunication was not rigorouslie used against open offenders not repenting. They would not admitt witnesses [i.e. sponsors] in baptism ; and sondrie other opinions they had." This goes to show — what indeed lies on the surface of all these men's writings, utterances and endeavors — that the first great thought with them was reformation. They were seeking holi ness of life ; and they advocated a new polity not for its own sake, not, indeed, in the outset, because it was more Scrip tural than any then existing, for their studies were only begin-, ning to be turned toward that aspect of the matter ; but because of their profound conviction that the practical reform which they sought in the spiritual life, could never be reached in con nection with that parish system of churches which considered all baptized persons to be redeemed children of God, until excommunication should furnish proof to the contrary. The Scotch, whom John Knox had very thoroughly Presby- terianized, were scarcely in the mood to welcome this new faith, and they took time by the forelock, citing Browne to appear on the following Tuesday before the session of the kirk of Edin burgh. Then, and there, as they thought — for the Presbyte rian lamb held the pen which portrays this terrible Brownist lion — in " a very arrogant manner," he maintained that spon sors in baptism were not a "thing indifferent, but simplie evill." Strange to say, he failed to convince the session of the cor rectness of his view. On the following Tuesday (21 January), in a further hearing, he made bold to allege that " the_ whole discipline of Scotland- was amisse; that he and his companie were not subject to it ; and therefore, he would appeale from the kirk to the magistrat." The session, upon this, in the benevolent intent of safety in keeping him, and in keeping others from him, appears to have procured his incarceration in 75 D. Calderwood, Historic of the Kirk of I is vastly superior to edition of 1678), iv: 1. Scotland (Woodrow Society's ed. 1843 — which 7^Ibid,W: 1. 78 Congregationalism, as seen in its Literature. the common jail, and appointed Mr. James Lowsone and Mr. Johne Davidsone to apply their magnifiers to his books, with a view to " be ready against Moonday nixt " with a list of his here sies, " to pose him and his followers thervpon, that therafter the king might be informed."77 On the following Tuesday (28 Jan uary) Browne " with the rest of his complices " was called before the Presbytery of Edinburgh, and " continued till the morne." He frankly acknowledged his responsibility for his publications, and his readiness to defend the same, and the two gentlemen before requested to diagnose his theological pestilentiality, were still further enjoined to perfect their work " to be presented to the king."78 Here the interesting minuteness of this Scotch record suddenly ceases. The " articles " setting forth Browne's enormities were evidently completed and sent up to the Court, and his condemnation thereon confidently anticipated. But the State wind happened, at the moment, to be blowing from another quarter, and the civil authorities were rather minded to vex than to please the Presbytery. The disgusted historian dismisses his comments on these interlopers with the curt sen tence : " they were interteaned and fostered to molest the kirk." Browne was released, and, if so light a phrase befit so grave a subject, was rather winked at by the controlling powers. He appears thereafter to have traveled over Scotland in its " best reformed places," 79 and I am sorry to add that the result of his observation made him say : " I have seen all maner of wicked nes to abounde much more in their best places in Scotland, then in our woorser places heere in England,"80 and the result of his experience made him feel that not only was the soil, as he had three years before foreboded, inhospitable,8" but the time an evil one for missionary purposes, and he soon returned to England, where he published a book, whose name even I have as yet failed to recover, and which, so far as I am aware, now exists only in a few passages which were quoted from it by Bancroft, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, in his famous sermon at Paule's Crosse on the 9th of February, 1588, and in the indig- 77 Ibid, 2. it Ibid, 3. 79 R. Bancroft, A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse the