The Early Christian Creeds

Richard Hooker.

The truest representative of the conservative and comprehensive genius of Anglicanism in doctrine and polity, towards the close of the Elizabethan period, is the 'judicious Hooker' (1553-1600), who to this day retains the respect of all parties. In his great work on the 'Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity' he went to the root of the rising controversy between Episcopacy and Puritanism, by representing the Church as a legislative body which had the power to make and unmake institutions and rites not affecting the doctrines of salvation laid down in the Scriptures and oecumenical creeds.

He defends episcopacy, but without invalidating other forms of government, or unchurching other Churches. He highly commends Calvin's 'Institutes' and 'Commentaries,' and calls him 'incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did enjoy.' [1160] He generally agrees with his theology, at least as far as it is Augustinian, and he clearly adopts his view of the eucharist--namely, as he expresses it, that 'Christ is, personally present, albeit a part of Christ be corporally absent,' and 'that the real presence is not to be sought for in the sacrament (i.e., in the elements), but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament.' But he keeps clear of the logical sharpness and rigor of Calvinism, and subjects it to the higher test of the fathers and the early Church. [1161]

His respect for antiquity and his churchly conservatism gained ground after his death in the conflict with Puritanism; and when the Synod of Dort narrowed the Calvinism of the Reformation to a five-angular scholastic scheme, Arminian doctrines, in connection with High-Church principles, spread rapidly in the Church of England. She became, as a body, more and more exclusive, and broke off the theological interchange and fraternal fellowship with non-episcopal Churches. But we hope the time is coming when the Christian communion which characterized her formative period will be revived under a higher and more permanent form.

Note.--My friend, the Rev. Dr. E. A. Washburn, of New York, an Episcopalian divine of rare culture and liberality of spirit, has kindly furnished the following contribution to this chapter, which will give the reader a broad inside view of Anglicanism under the various phases of its historic development:

'The doctrinal system of the English Church, in its relation to other Reformed communions, especially needs a historic treatment; and the want of this has led to grave mistakes, alike by Protestant critics and Anglo-Catholic defenders. It was one in its positive principles, as opposed to the dogmatic falsehoods of Rome, with the great bodies of the Continental Reformation; yet it grew as a national Church, while those were more fully shaped by the theology of their leaders--Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. This fact is the key of its history. England felt the same influences, religious and social, that awakened Europe, but its ideas were not borrowed from abroad; it only completed the growth begun in the day of Wyclif. Its earliest step was thus a national, one. Nor was this, as has been proved by its latest historians from the record, the act of Henry VIII.; for before his quarrel the Parliament annulled forever, by its own decree, the supremacy of Rome. It could not be expected that during his reign the standard of doctrine should be greatly changed; and it should be remembered, that Luther himself renounced only by degrees the idea of Papal authority. The "Articles devised to establish Christian Quietness," probably the original of the later Cotton MSS., and the "Institution of a Christian Man" following it in 1537, show that the dogma of the mass, the seven sacraments, intercessory prayers for the dead, and reverence of the Virgin and saints as mediators, remained. It is worth noting, however, that the "Erudition" in 1543 gives signs of change, as the "corporal" presence is there only the "very body," and the idea of special intercession is modified to prayer "for the universal congregation of Christian people, quick and dead." But the next reign proves that the act of national freedom held in solution the whole result. Ultramontanism meant then, as now, not only the feudal headship of Rome, but its scholastic and priestly system. The Reformation, ripened in the minds of Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and other devout thinkers, bore its fruit in the revised Liturgy and Articles; nor can any thing be clearer than the doctrinal standard of the Church, if we trace it with just historic criticism to the time when these were fixed.

'The Articles ask our first study. It is plain that the foundation-truths of the Reformation--justification by faith, the supremacy and sufficiency of written Scripture, the fallibility of even general councils--are its basis. Yet it is just as plain that in regard of the specific points of theology, which were the root of discord in the Continental Churches, as election, predestination, reprobation, perseverance, and the rest, these Articles speak in a much more moderate tone. It is from a narrow study of that age that they have been called articles of compromise between a Calvinistic and Arminian party. There were some of extreme views, as the Lambeth Articles prove, but they did not represent the body. The English Reformers had been bred, like the great Genevan, in the school of the greater Augustine; and his richer, more ethical spirit appears in not only the Articles, but in the writings of well-nigh all from Hooper or Whitgift to Hooker. There was the friendliest intercourse between them and the divines of the Continent. Melanchthon, Calvin, Bucer were consulted in their common work. But the unity of the national Church, not the system of a school, was uppermost; and we may write the character of them all in the words of the biographer of Field, that "in points of extreme difficulty he did not think fit to be so positive in defining as to turn matters of opinion into matters of faith."

'We may thus learn the structure of the liturgical system. The English Reformers aimed not to create a new, but to reform the historic Church; and therefore they kept the ritual with the episcopate, because they were institutions rooted in the soil. They did not unchurch the bodies of the Continent, which grew under quite other conditions. No theory of an exclusive Anglicanism, as based on the episcopate and general councils, was held by them. Such a view is wholly contradictory to their own Articles. But the historic character of the Church gave it a positive relation to the past; and they sought to adhere to primitive usage as the basis of historic unity. In this revision, therefore, they weeded out all Romish errors, the mass, the five added sacraments, the legends of saints, and superstitious rites; but they kept the ancient Apostles' Creed and the Nicene in the forefront of the service, the sacramental offices, the festivals and fasts relating to Christ or Apostles with whatever they thought pure. Such a work could not be perfect, and it is false either to think it so or to judge it save by its time. There are archaic forms in these offices which retain some ideas of a scholastic theology. The view of regeneration in the baptismal service, decried to-day as Romish, can be found by any scholar in Melanchthon or in Bullinger's Decades. We may see in some of the phrases of the communion office the idea of more than a purely spiritual participation, yet the view is almost identical with that of Calvin. The dogma of the mass had been renounced, but the Aristotelian notions of spirit and body were still embodied in the philosophy of the time. The absolution in the office for the sick, and like features, have been magnified into "Romanizing germs" on one side and Catholic verities on another. The Athanasian Creed, revered by all the Reformers, was retained, yet not as that of Nice in the body of the worship; and it was wisely excluded by the American revisers, as the English Church will by-and-by displace it, because a better criticism shows it to be the metaphysical deposit of a later time, un-catholic in descent or structure. Such is the rule by which we are to know the unity of the English system. The satire, so often repeated since Chatham, that the Church has a "Popish Liturgy and Calvinistic Articles," is as ignorant as it is unjust. All liturgical formularies need revision; but such a task must be judged by the standard of the Articles, the whole tenor of the Prayer-book, and the known principles of the men. In the same way we learn their view of the Episcopate. Not one leading divine from Hooper to Hooker claimed any ground beyond the fact of primitive and historic usage; and Whitgift, the typical High-Churchman of the Elizabethan time, in reply to the charge of Cartwright against prelacy as unscriptural, took the ground that to hold it "of necessity to have the same kind of government as in the Apostles' time, and expressed in Scripture," is a "rotten pillar." The Puritan of that day was as narrow as the narrow Churchman of our own.

'This historic sketch of the English Reformation explains its whole character. It had in it varied elements, but by no means contradictory. Had not other influences dwarfed its design, it would have done much to harmonize the communions of Protestantism, to blend the new life with a sober reverence for the historic past. Lutheranism and Calvinism did each its part in the development of a profound theology. The English Church had a more comprehensive doctrine and a more conservative order. It placed the simple Apostles' Creed above all theological confessions as its basis, and a practical system above the subtleties of controversy. But its defect lay in the policy which sought uniformity instead of a large unity; and the loss of the conscientious men who left the national Church gave its ecclesiastical element an undue growth. Yet it has retained throughout much of its comprehensiveness. It has had many schools of thought, but none has ruled it. Calvinism, although shorn of its early strength, has had always adherents, from the saintly Leighton to Toplady and Venn. The Arminian doctrine entered early from Holland, and in the visit of the divines sent by James to the Synod of Dort, among whom were Hall and Davenant, we have the early traces of the change. Davenant was nominally against the Remonstrants, but the "Suffrages" prove already the milder tone of the English theology. It is with Laud that the system gained strong ground, yet it never led to such quarrels as in the land of Grotius; it represented the growing dislike of a harsh supralapsarianism and the mild spirit of scholars like Jeremy Taylor. The criticism has often been made that Arminianism is more akin to a High-Church system, because it teaches that divine grace is conditioned by works; but if so, perhaps it shows, as in the case of Jansenism, that a metaphysical creed, in losing sight of the moral side of its own truth, will always drive men to its opposite. The English theology of the next period has the like variety. It had its divines of rich learning--Bramhall, Cosin, and others--inclined to a stricter view of the sacraments and ministry than the Reformers; yet it is mere exaggeration to call them the Anglo-Catholic fathers, as if they were the exponents of the whole Church. They belong to one school of their time. Nor is it a less mistake to judge from their opposition, as members of the national Church, to the Dissenters, that they unchurched the Continental Protestants. Bramhall held an episcopate to be of the Ecclesia integra, not vera; and Morton, while bitter towards the Presbyterians, is "not so uncharitable" towards foreign Reformed bodies "as to censure them for no Churches, for that which is their infelicity, not their fault." Chillingworth and Hales are leaders in this period of a more liberal thought. The Cambridge school, which a modern critic calls the herald of broad Churchmanship, begins here with Smith and Whichcote. The theology of England passed into a still more comprehensive growth. Its larger conflict with Deism took it out of the guerrilla war of the past into the field of Biblical criticism, Christian evidence, and history. No party wholly represents it. Such different minds as Tillotson and Waterland, Cudworth and Paley, Arnold and Keble have been of the same communion. Its successive movements have stirred, yet not rent it. The Methodist revival came from the Arminian Wesley, and the wave of spiritual life left its true influence, although a cold establishment policy ignored it. The evangelical movement was Calvinistic, yet it was mainly the protest of devout men like Wilberforce against formalism, and did little for theological growth. Our time has been busy with the Oxford divinity, which has sought to build a theory of Anglo-Catholicism on the basis of an exclusive episcopal succession, a Nicene authority concurrent with Scripture, and a priesthood dispensing grace through the sacraments. It will end as the theory of a passing school. Our sketch will show on what grounds we judge it a contradiction to the standards of the body, the consensus of its fathers down to Hooker, and an utter misstatement of the historic position of the Church of England. It may be hoped that the long strife will lead to a better understanding of its relation to other Reformed communions, and to its place in the common work for the unity of Christendom.' __________________________________________________________________

[1142] The ingenious and sophistical attempt of Dr. John Henry Newman, in his famous Tract Number Ninety (Oxford, 1841), to un-Protestantize the Thirty-nine Articles, has been best refuted by his own subsequent transition to Rome. As a specimen of this non-natural interpretation we mention what he says on Art. XI., which teaches as 'a most wholesome doctrine' 'that we are justified by faith only.' This means that faith is the sole internal instrument of justification, while baptism is the sole outward means and instrument; it does not interfere with the doctrine that good works are also a means of justification (pp. 21 sqq.). That is, the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, which the Council of Trent condemned, is identical with the Romish doctrine of justification by faith and works, which the same Council taught. A more learned and elaborate work, which minimizes the Protestantism of the Articles and makes them bear a catholic sense, is the Explanation by the late Bishop Forbes of Brechin, above quoted.

[1143] His second wife, whom he secretly married in 1532, before his elevation to the primacy (March, 1533), was a niece of the Lutheran divine Osiander at Nürnberg, who subsequently excited a violent controversy about the doctrine of justification.

[1144] Melanchthon was twice called to England in 1534 ('Ego jam alteris literis in Angliam vocor'). In 1535 he dedicated an edition of his Loci to Henry, at the request of Barnes, who thought it would promote the progress of the Reformation. Henry renewed the invitation in 1538, and requested the Elector of Saxony to send 'Dominum Philippum Melancthonem, in cuius excellenti eruditione et sano judicio a bonis omnibus multa spes reposita est,' together with some other learned men, to England. Under Edward VI. Melanchthon was called again, and in 1553 he was appointed Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, but he never saw England. See Laurence, l.c. pp. 198 sqq.; Hardwick, Hist. of the Art. pp. 52 sqq.; C. Schmidt, Phil. Mel. pp. 283-289.

[1145] So his ultimate doctrine is correctly stated by Hardwick, History of the Reformation, p. 209. Cranmer wrote very extensively on the eucharist, and especially against the Romish mass. See the first volume of the Parker Society's edition of his Works. His change of view is due to the influence of the book of Ratramnus (Bertram) against transubstantiation, the tract of Bullinger on the eucharist, and the personal influence of Ridley, Peter Martyr, and Bucer. Bishop Browne says (on Art. XXVIII. Sect. I. p. 711 of the Am. ed.): 'Both Cranmer and Ridley, to whom we are chiefly indebted for our formularies, maintained the doctrine nearly identical with that maintained by Calvin, and before him by Bertram. . . . These sentiments of our Reformers were undoubtedly embodied in our Liturgy and Articles. . . . In the main, Calvin, Melanchthon in his later views, and the Anglican divines were at one.' John Knox entirely agreed with Cranmer in the Reformed doctrine of the eucharist, and he objected only to the kneeling posture, which led to the insertion of a special rubric in the Prayer-Book. See Lorimer, John Knox in England, pp. 49 and 145.

[1146] See above, p. 335.

[1147] Stähelin, Vol. II. pp. 51 sqq., discusses at length Calvin's correspondence with England. Hardwick speaks of 'the obtrusive letters of Calvin;' but his counsel was solicited from every direction. In the controversy of the English exiles at Frankfort both parties (Cox and Knox) appealed to the Genevan Reformer for advice. Cranmer requested him to write often to King Edward. See Calvin to Farel, June 15, 1551 (Opera, Vol. XIV. fol. 133): 'Cantuariensis nihil me utilius facturum admonuit, quam si ad Regem sæpius scriberem. Hoc mihi longe gratius, quam si ingenti pecuniæ summa ditatus forem.' Viret informed Farel in the same year and month (ibid. fol. 131), that the king sent to Calvin 'coronatos centum et libellum a se conscriptum gallice in papatum, cuius censuram a Calvino exigit. . . . Accepit Calvinus a multis Angliæ proceribus multas literas plenas humanitatis. Omnes testantur se ejus ingenio et laboribus valde oblectari. Hortantur ut sæpe scribat. Protector scripsit nominatim.'

[1148] Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, Vol. I. p. 584; Hardwick, History of the Reformation, p. 212.

[1149] The influence of Knox upon the English Reformation has been more fully brought to light from the Knox Papers in Dr. Williams's library at London by Dr. Peter Lorimer, in John Knox and the Church of England (London, 1875), pp. 98 sqq.

[1150] Zurich Letters, second series, I. 100. Prof. Fisher, in quoting this passage, adds the just remark (The Reformation, p. 341): 'There is no need in bringing further evidence on this point, since the Articles themselves explicitly assert the Calvinistic view [on the Lord's Supper]. In speaking of the English Reformers as Calvinists, it is not implied that they derived their opinions from Calvin exclusively, or received them on his authority. They were able and learned men, and explored the Scriptures and the patristic writers for themselves. Yet no name was held in higher honor among them than that of the Genevan Reformer.'

[1151] When Robert Sanderson (Professor of Theology in Oxford, 1642, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, d. 1663) began to study theology in Oxford about 1606, he was recommended, as was usual at that time, to read Calvin's Institutes, 'as the best and perfectest system of divinity, and the fittest to be laid as the ground-work in the study of this profession.' Blunt, Dictionary of Sects, etc., p. 97. Comp. Hooker's judgment below, p. 607.

[1152] 'Nam hoc scito, post unicæ scripturæ sacratissimam cognitionem, nullos unquam ex omni memoria temporum scriptores extitisse, quos memorabili viro Joanni Calvino tibique præferamus.' See Scrivener's Codex Bezæ, Introd. p. vi., and his Introd. to the Critic. of the New Testament, second edition, 1874, p. 112. Scrivener regards this veneration as an ill omen 'for the peace of the English Church.'

[1153] See my tract on the Revision of the English Version of the New Testament, pp. 28, 29, and Westcott's History of the English Bible, pp. 294 sq. A number of errors in the English Version, as well as excellences, can be traced to Beza.

[1154] Macaulay (in his introductory chapter, p. 39, Boston edition) says: 'The English Reformers were eager to go as far as their brethren on the Continent. They unanimously condemned as anti-Christian numerous dogmas and practices to which Henry had stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth reluctantly abandoned. Many felt a strong repugnance even to things indifferent, which had formed part of the polity or ritual of the mystical Babylon.'

[1155] So called because they are mostly derived from the extensive Simler Collection of Zurich, where the Marian exiles, as Bishop Burnet says, 'were entertained both by the magistrates and the ministers--Bullinger, Gualter, Weidner, Simler, Lavater, Gesner, and all the rest of that body--with a tenderness and affection that engaged them to the end of their lives to make the greatest acknowledgments possible for it.' The correspondence was published by the Parker Society (Cambridge, 1842-47, in four vols.), in two series, the first of which covers the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary; the second and more important the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1602). They include letters of most of the English Reformers and leading bishops and divines to the Swiss Reformers, with their answers, and are noble monuments of Christian and theological friendship.

[1156] The Suffrage of the Divines of Great Britain concerning the Articles of the Synod of Dort signed by them in the Year 1619. London, 1624. There is, however, at the close of this document (p. 176) a wholesome warning 'concerning the mystery of reprobation,' that it be 'handled sparingly and prudently,' and that 'those fearful opinions, and such as have no ground in the Scriptures, be carefully avoided, which tend rather unto desperation than edification, and do bring upon some of the Reformed Churches a grievous scandal.'

[1157] In accordance with an act of the thirty-seventh year of Henry VIII., which declares that 'Archbishops and the other ecclesiastical persons had no manner of jurisdiction ecclesiastical but by, under, and from his Royal Majesty; and that his Royal Majesty was the only supreme head of the Church of England and Ireland, to whom, by holy Scripture, all authority and power was wholly given,' etc.

[1158] Laud made such a near approach to Rome that he was offered a cardinal's hat (Aug. 1633). When he first maintained, in his exercise for Bachelor of Divinity, in 1604, the doctrine that there could be no true Church without a bishop, he was reproved by the authorities at Oxford, because he 'cast a bone of contention between the Church of England and the Reformed on the Continent.' But when he was in power he spared no effort to force his theory upon reluctant Puritans in England and Presbyterians in Scotland.

[1159] The facts above stated are acknowledged by the best authorities of the Church of England of all parties, such as Strype, Burnet, Lathbury, Keble, and by secular historians such as Hallam and Macaulay. See a calm and thorough argument of Prof. G. P. Fisher, The Relation of the Church of England to the other Protestant Churches, in the 'New-Englander' for January, 1874, pp. 121-172. This article grew out of a newspaper controversy in the New York Tribune, occasioned by the secession of Bishop Cummins after the General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance at New York, October, 1873. This inter-denominational Conference had the express sanction of the Archbishop of Canterbury in a letter addressed to the Dean of Canterbury, one of the prominent delegates. See Proceedings (published N. Y., 1874), p. 720. Comp. also Dr. Washburn, Relation of the Episcopal Church to other Christian Bodies, N. Y., 1874.

[1160] He also says: 'Of what account the Master of Sentences [Peter Lombard] was in the Church of Rome, the same and more amongst the preachers of Reformed Churches Calvin had purchased; so that the perfectest divines were judged they which were skillfulest in Calvin's writings; his books almost the very canon to judge both doctrine and discipline by.' See Hooker's lengthy account of Calvin's life and labors in the Preface to his work on the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Vol. I. pp. 158-174, edition of Dr. John Keble.

[1161] Dr. Keble, who was a High Anglican or Anglo-Catholic of the Oxford school, says in the Preface to his edition (p. xcix.): 'With regard to the points usually called Calvinistic, Hooker undoubtedly favored the tone and language, which has since come to be characteristic of that school, commonly adopted by those theologians to whom his education led him as guides and models on occasions where no part of Calvinism comes expressly into debate. It is possible that this may cause him to appear, to less profound readers, a more decided partisan of Calvin than he really was. At least it is certain that on the following subjects he was himself decidedly in favor of very considerable modifications of the Genevan theology.' Keble then contrasts the strict Calvinism of the Lambeth Articles with the cautious predestinarianism of Hooker as expressed in a fragment which teaches eternal election and the final perseverance of the foreknown elect, without mentioning reprobation, and makes condemnation depend on 'the foresight of sin as the cause.' Judas went to his place, which was 'of his own proper procurement. Devils were not ordained of God for hell-fire, but hell-fire for them; and for men so far as it was foreseen that men would be like them.' There are, however, as Keble himself admits, passages in Hooker which are more strongly Calvinistic, especially on the doctrine of the perseverance of saints, which he considers hardly consistent with his doctrine of universal baptismal grace. But both these doctrines were held by Augustine likewise, from whom Hooker borrowed them. __________________________________________________________________

§ 78. The Doctrinal Formulas of Henry VIII.

The Ten Articles.

The first doctrinal deliverance of the Church of England after the rupture with Rome is contained in the Ten Articles of 1536, devised by Henry VIII. (who styles himself in the preface 'by the grace of God king of England and of France, defender of the faith, lord of Ireland, and in earth supreme head of the Church of England'), and approved by convocation. [1162] They are essentially Romish, with the Pope left out in the cold. They can not even be called a compromise between the advocates of the 'old learning,' headed by Gardiner (Bishop of Winchester from 1531), and of the 'new learning,' headed by Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury from March, 1533). Their chief object, according to the preface, was to secure by royal authority unity and concord in religious opinions, and to 'repress' and 'utterly extinguish' all dissent and discord touching the same. They were, in the language of Foxe, intended for 'weaklings newly weaned from their mother's milk of Rome.' They assert (1) the binding authority of the Bible, the three oecumenical creeds, and the first four oecumenical councils; (2) the necessity of baptism for salvation, even in the case of infants; [1163] (3) the sacrament of penance, with confession and absolution, which are declared 'expedient and necessary;' (4) the substantial, real, corporal presence of Christ's body and blood under the form of bread and wine in the eucharist; (5) justification by faith, joined with charity and obedience; (6) the use of images in churches; (7) the honoring of saints and the Virgin Mary; (8) the invocation of saints; (9) the observance of various rites and ceremonies as good and laudable, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling of holy water, bearing of candles on Candlemas-day, giving of ashes on Ash-Wednesday; (10) the doctrine of purgatory, and prayers for the dead in purgatory.

THE BISHOPS' BOOK AND THE KING'S BOOK. [1164]

These Articles were virtually, though not legally, superseded by the 'Bishops' Book,' or the 'Institution of a Christian Man,' drawn up by a Committee of Prelates, 1537, but never sanctioned by the king. It contains an Exposition of the Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and a discussion of the disputed doctrines of justification and purgatory, and the human origin of the papacy. It marks a little progress, which must be traced to the influence of Cranmer and Ridley, but it was superseded by a reactionary revision called the 'King's Book,' or the 'Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man,' sanctioned by Convocation, and set forth by royal mandate in 1543, when Gardiner and the Romish party were in the ascendant.

The Thirteen Articles.

During the negotiations with the Lutheran divines (1535-1538), held partly at Wittenberg, partly at Lambeth, an agreement consisting of Thirteen Articles was drawn up in Latin, at London, in the summer of 1538, which did not receive the sanction of the king, but was made use of in the following reign as a basis of several of the Forty-two Articles. They have been recently discovered in their collected form, by Dr. Jenkyns, among the manuscripts of Archbishop Cranmer in the State Paper Office. [1165] They treat of the Divine Unity and Trinity, Original Sin, the Two Natures of Christ, Justification, the Church, Baptism, the Eucharist, Penitence, the Use of the Sacraments, the Ministers of the Church, Ecclesiastical Rites, Civil Affairs, the Resurrection and Final Judgment. They are based upon the Augsburg Confession, some passages being almost literally copied from the same. [1166]

The Six Articles.

The Thirteen Articles remained a dead letter in the reign of Henry. He broke off all connection with the Lutherans, and issued in 1539, under the influence of Gardiner and the Romish party, and in spite of the protest of Cranmer, the monstrous statute of the Six Articles, ' for the abolishing of Diversity of Opinions.' They are justly called the 'bloody' Articles, and a 'whip with six strings.' They bore severely not only upon the views of the Anabaptists and all radical Protestants, who in derision were called 'Gospellers,' but also upon the previous negotiations with the Lutherans. After the burning of some Dissenters the Articles were somewhat checked in their operation, but remained legally in force till the death of the king, who grew more and more despotic, and prohibited (in 1542) Tyndale's 'false translation' of the Bible, and even the reading of the New Testament in English to all women, artificers, laborers, and husbandmen.

The Six Articles imposed upon all Englishmen a belief (1) in transubstantiation, (2) the needlessness of communion in both kinds, (3) in clerical celibacy, (4) the obligation of vows of chastity or widowhood, (5) the necessity of private masses, (6) auricular confession. Here we have some of the most obnoxious features of Romanism. Whoever denied transubstantiation was to be burned at the stake; dissent from any of the other Articles was to be punished by imprisonment, confiscation of goods, or death, according to the degree of guilt. __________________________________________________________________

[1162] First printed by Thomas Berthelet, under the title 'Articles | devised by the Kinges Highnes Majestie, | to stablyshe Christen quietnes and unitie | amonge us, | and | to avoyde contentious opinions, | which articles be also approved | by the consent and determination of the hole | clergie of this realme. | Anno M.D.XXXVI.' They are given by Fuller, Burnet, (Addenda), Collier, and Hardwick (Appendix I). In the Cotton MS. the title is, 'Articles about Religion, set out by the Convocation, and published by the King's authority.' It is impossible to determine how far the Articles are the product of the king (who in his own conceit was fully equal to any task in theology as well as Church government), and how far the product of his bishops and other clergy. See Hardwick, pp. 40 sqq.

[1163] Art. II. says that 'infants ought to be baptized;' that, dying in infancy, they 'shall undoubtedly be saved thereby, and else not;' that the opinions of Anabaptists and Pelagians are 'detestable heresies, and utterly to be condemned.'

[1164] Printed in Formularies of Faith put forth by Authority during the Reign of Henry VIII. Oxford, 1825.

[1165] They are printed in Jenkyns's Remains of Cranmer (1833), Vol. IV. pp. 273 sqq.; in Cox's (Parker Soc.) edition of Cranmer's Works (1846), Vol. II. pp. 472-480; and in Hardwick's History of the Articles, Append. II. pp. 261-273. Six of these thirteen Articles were previously published by Strype and Burnet, but with a false date (1540) and considerable variations.

[1166] See the comparison in Hardwick, pp. 62 sqq. __________________________________________________________________

§ 79. The Edwardine Articles. A.D. 1553.

With the accession of Edward VI. (Jan. 28, 1547) Cranmer and the reform party gained the controlling influence. The Six Articles were abolished. The First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. was prepared and set forth (1549), and a few years afterwards the Second, with sundry changes (1552).

The reformation of worship was followed by that of doctrine. For some time Cranmer entertained the noble but premature idea of framing, with the aid of the German and Swiss Reformers, an evangelical catholic creed, which should embrace 'all the heads of ecclesiastical doctrine,' especially an adjustment of the controversy on the eucharist, and serve as a protest to the Council of Trent, and as a bond of union among the Protestant Churches. [1167]

This project was reluctantly abandoned in favor of a purely English formula of public doctrine, the Forty-two Articles of Religion. They were begun by Cranmer in 1549, subjected to several revisions, completed in November, 1552, and published in 1553, together with a short Catechism, by 'royal authority,' and with the approval of 'a Synod (Convocation) at London.' [1168] It is, however, a matter of dispute whether they received the formal sanction of Convocation, or were circulated on the sole authority of the royal council during the brief reign of Edward (who died July 6, 1553). [1169] The chief title to the authorship of the Articles, as well as of the revised Liturgy, belongs to Cranmer; it is impossible to determine how much is due to his fellow-Reformers--'bishops and other learned men'--and the foreign divines then residing in England, to whom the drafts were submitted, or whose advice was solicited. [1170]

The Edwardine Articles are essentially the same as the Thirty-nine, with the exception of a few (three of them borrowed from the Augsburg Confession), which were omitted in the Elizabethan revision--namely, one on the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (Art. XVI.); one on the obligation of keeping the moral commandments--against antinomianism--(XIX.); one on the resurrection of the dead (XXXIX.); one on the state of the soul after death--against the Anabaptist notion of the psychopannychia--(XL.); one against the millenarians (XLI.); [1171] and one against the doctrine of universal salvation (XLII.). [1172] A clause in the article on Christ's descent into Hades (Art. III.), [1173] and a strong protest against the ubiquity of Christ's body, and 'the real and bodily presence of Christ's flesh and blood in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper' (in Art. XXIX.), were likewise omitted.

__________________________________________________________________

[1167] See Cranmer's letters of invitation to Calvin, Bullinger, and Melanchthon, in Cox's edition of Cranmer's Works, Vol. II. pp. 431-433.

[1168] 'Articuli de quibus in Synodo Londinensi, A.D. M.D.LII. ad tollendam opinionum dissensionem et consensum veræ religionis firmandum, inter Episcopos et alios Eruditos Viros convenerat.' 'Articles agreed on by the Bishopes, and other learned menne in the Synode at London, in the yere of our Lorde Godde, M.D.LII., for the auoiding of controuersie in opinions, and the establishment of a godlie concorde, in certeine matters of Religion.' They are printed in Hardwick, Append. III. pp. 277-333, in Latin and English, and in parallel columns with the Elizabethan Articles. The Latin text is also given by Niemeyer, pp. 592-600. On minor points concerning their origin, comp. Hardwick, pp. 73 sqq.

[1169] Palmer, Burnet, and others maintain the latter; Hardwick (p. 107), the former.

[1170] John Knox and the other royal chaplains were also consulted; see Lorimer, 1.c. pp. 126 sqq. Knox did not object to the doctrines of the Articles, but to the rubric on kneeling in the eucharistic service of the Liturgy, and his opposition led to the 'Declaration on Kneeling,' which is a strong protest against ubiquitarianism and any idolatrous veneration of the sacramental elements. It was inserted as a rubric by order of Council in 1552, was omitted to 1559, and restored in 1662.

[1171] 'Qui Millenariorum fabulam revocare conantur, sacris literis adversantur, et in Judaica deliramenta sese præcipitant (cast themselves headlong into a Juishe dotage).' Comp. the Augsburg Confession, Art. XVII., where the Anabaptists and others are condemned for teaching the final salvation of condemned men and devils, and the Jewish opinions of the millennium.

[1172] 'Hi quoque damnatione digni sunt, qui conantur hodie perniciosam opinionem instaurare, quod omnes, quantumvis impii, servandi sunt tandem, cum definito tempore a justitia divina pænas de admissis flagitiis luerunt.'

[1173] 'Nam corpus [Christi] usque ad resurrectionem in sepulchro jacuit, Spiritus ab illo emissus (his ghost departing from him) cum spiritibus qui in carcere sive in inferno detinebantur, fuit, illisque prædicavit, quemadmodum testatur Petri locus. (At suo ad inferos descensu nullos a carceribus aut tormentis liberavit Christus Dominus.)' __________________________________________________________________

§ 80. The Elizabethan Articles. A.D. 1563 and 1571.

After the temporary suppression of Protestantism under Queen Mary, the Reformed hierarchy, Liturgy, and Articles of Religion were permanently restored, with a number of changes, by Queen Elizabeth.

In 1559, Archbishop Parker, with the other prelates, set forth, as a provisional test of orthodoxy, Eleven Articles, taken in part from those of 1553, but differing in form and avoiding controverted topics. [1174] They were superseded by the Thirty-nine Articles.

THE LATIN EDITION, 1563.

At the first meeting of the two Convocations, which were summoned by Elizabeth in January, 1563, Parker submitted a revision of the Latin Articles of 1553, prepared by him with the aid of Bishop Cox of Ely, Bishop Guest of Rochester, and others, who had already taken an active part in the revision of the Prayer-book. [1175] After an examination by both houses, the Articles, reduced to the number of thirty-nine, were ratified and signed by the Bishops and the members of the lower house, and published by the royal press, 1563.

It is stated that Elizabeth 'diligently read and sifted' the document before giving her assent. To her influence must probably be traced two characteristic changes of the printed copy as compared with the Parker MS.--namely, the insertion of the famous clause in Art. XX., affirming the authority of the Church in matters of faith--and the omission of Art. XXIX., which denies that the unworthy communicants partake of the body and blood of Christ. [1176] The latter Article, however, was restored by the Bishops, May 11, 1571, and appears in all the printed copies since that time, both English and Latin.

THE ENGLISH EDITION, 1571.

The authorized English text was adopted by Convocation in 1571, and issued under the editorial care of Bishop Jewel of Salesbury. It presents sundry variations from the Latin edition of 1563. Both editions are considered equally authoritative and mutually explanatory. [1177]

THE ROYAL DECLARATION OF 1628.

After the Synod of Dort, to which James I. sent a strong delegation, the Arminian controversy spread in England, and caused such an agitation that the king, who, according to his own estimate and that of his flatterers, was equal to Solomon in wisdom, ordered Archbishop Abbot (Aug. 4, 1622) to prohibit the lower clergy from preaching on the five points. [1178] Charles I., in concert with Archbishop Laud (who sympathized with Arminianism), issued a Proclamation (1626) of similar import, deploring the prevalence of theological dissension, and threatening to visit with severe penalties those clergymen who should raise, publish, or maintain opinions not clearly warranted by the formularies of the Church.

As this proclamation did not silence the controversy, Charles was advised by Laud to order the republication of the thirty-nine Articles with a Preface regulating the interpretation of the same. This Preface, called 'His Majesty's Declaration,' was issued in 1628, and has ever since accompanied the English editions of the Articles. [1179] Its object was to check Calvinism (although it is not named), and the quinquarticular controversy ('all further curious search' on 'those curious points in which the present differences lie'), and to restrict theological opinions to the 'literal and grammatical sense' of the Articles. [1180] It was greeted by Arminians and High-Churchmen, who praise its moderation, [1181] but was resisted by Calvinists and the Puritan party then prevailing in the House of Commons, which declared its determination to suppress both 'Popery and Arminianism.' [1182] The subsequent history of England has shown how little royal and parliamentary proclamations and prohibitions avail against the irresistible force of ideas and the progress of theology.

Subscription.

Queen Elizabeth was at first opposed to any action of Parliament on questions of religious doctrine, which she regarded as the highest department of her own royal supremacy; but in May, 1571, she was forced by her council, in view of popish agitations, to give her assent to a bill of Parliament which required all priests and teachers of religion to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles. [1183]

Subscription was first rigidly enforced by Archbishop Whitgift (in 1584, which is noted as 'the woful year of subscription'), and by Bancroft (1604).

This test of orthodoxy was even applied to academical students. At Oxford a decree of Convocation, in 1573, required students to subscribe before taking their degrees, and in 1576 this requirement was extended to students above sixteen years of age on their admission. At Cambridge the law was less rigid.

The Act of Uniformity under Charles II. imposed with more stringency than ever subscription on the clergy and every head of a college. But the Toleration Act of William and Mary gave some relief by exempting dissenting ministers from subscribing to Arts. XXXIV--XXXVI. and a portion of XXVII. Subsequent attempts to relax or abolish subscription resulted at last in the University Tests Act of 1871, by which 'no one, at Oxford, Cambridge, or Durham, in order to take a degree, except in divinity, or to exercise any right of graduates, can be required to make any profession of faith.' [1184]

Relation To The Edwardine Articles.

The Elizabethan Articles differ from the Edwardine Articles, besides minor verbal alterations--

(1.) In the omission of seven Articles (Edwardine X., XVI., XIX., XXXIX. to XLII.). The last four of them reject certain Anabaptist doctrines, which had in the mean time disappeared or lost their importance. [1185] Art. XIX. of the old series, touching the obligation of the moral law, was transferred in substance to Art. VII. of the new series.

(2.) In the addition of four Articles, viz.: On the Holy Ghost (Eliz. V.); on good works (XII.); on the participation of the wicked in the eucharist (XXIX.); on communion in both kinds (XXX.).

(3.) In the partial curtailment or amplification of seventeen Articles. Among the amplifications are to be noticed the list of Canonical and Apocryphal Books (VI.), and of the Homilies (XXXV.); the restriction of the number of sacraments to two (XXV.); the condemnation of transubstantiation, and the declaration of the spiritual nature of Christ's presence (XXVIII.); the disapproval of worship in a foreign tongue (XXIV.); the more complete approval of infant baptism (XXVII.), and clerical marriage (XXXII.).

The difference of the two series, and their relation to the Thirteen Articles, will be more readily seen from the following table:

Thirteen Articles. 1538 Forty-two Articles. 1553 Thirty-nine Articles. 1571 1. De Unitate Dei et Trinitate Personarum. 1. Of faith in the holie Trinitie. 1. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. 2. De Peccato Originali. 2. That the worde, or Sonne of God, was made a very man. 2. Of Christ the Son of God, which was made very man. 3. De duabus Christi Naturis. 4. De Justificatione. 3. Of the goying doune of Christe into Helle. 3. Of the Going down of Christ into Hell. 5. De Ecclesia. 6. De Baptismo. 4. The Resurrection of Christe. 4. Of the Resurrection of Christ. 7. De Eucharistia. 8. De Poenitentia.

5. Of the Holy Ghost. 9. De Sacramentorum Usu. 5. The doctrine of holie Scripture is sufficient to Saluation. 6. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scripture for Salvation. 10. De Ministris Ecclesiæ. 11. De Ritibus Ecclesiasticis. 6. The olde Testamente is not to be refused. 7. Of the Old Testament. 7. The three Credes. 8. Of the Three Creeds. 12. De Rebus Civilibus. 8. Of originall or birthe sinne. 9. Of Original or Birth Sin. 13. De Corporum Resurrectione et Judicio Extremo. 9. Of free wille. 10. Of Free Will. 10. Of Grace. 11. Of the Justification of manne. 11. Of the Justification of man. [This order follows, as far as it goes, the order of the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession.]

12. Of Good Works. 12. Workes before Justification. 13. Of Works before Justification. 13. Workes of Supererogation. 14. Of Works of Supererogation. 14. No man is without sinne, but Christe alone. 15. Of Christ alone without sin. 15. Of sinne against the holie Ghoste. 16. Of Sin after Baptism. 16. Blasphemie against the holie Ghoste. 17. Of predestination and election. 17. Of Predestination and Election. 18. We must truste to obteine eternal salvation onely by the name of Christ. 18. Of obtaining Salvation by the name of Christ. 19. All men are bound to kepe the moral commaundementes of the Lawe. 20. Of the Church. 19. Of the Church. 21. Of the aucthoritie of the Churche. 20. Of the Authority of the Church. 22. Of the aucthoritie of General Counsailes. 21. Of the Authority of General Councils.

23. Of Purgatorie. 22. Of Purgatory. 24. No manne maie minister in the Congregation except he be called. 23. Of Ministering in the Congregation. 25. Menne must speake in the Congregation in soche toung as the people understandeth. 24. Of Speaking in the Congregation in such a tongue as the people understandeth. 26. Of the Sacramentes. 25. Of the Sacraments. 27. The wickednesse of the Ministres dooeth not take awaie the effectuall operation of Goddes ordinances. 26. Of the Unworthiness of Ministers which hinder not the effect of the Sacraments. 28. Of Baptisme. 27. Of Baptism. 29. Of the Lordes Supper. 28. Of the Lord's Supper. 29. Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper. 30. Of Both Kinds. 30. Of the perfeicte oblacion of Christe made upon the crosse. 31. Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the cross. 31. The state of single life is commaunded to no man by the worde of God. 32. Of the Marriage of Priests, 32. Excommunicate persones are to bee auoided. 33. Of Excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided. 33. Tradicions of the Churche. 34. Of the Traditions of the Church. 34. Homelies. 35. Of Homilies. 35. Of the booke of Praiers and Ceremonies of the Churche of England. 36. Of Consecrating of Bishops and Ministers. 36. Of Ciuile Magistrates. 37. Of Civil Magistrates. 37. Christien mennes gooddes are not commune. 38. Of Christian men's goods, which are not common. 38. Christien menne maie take an oath. 39. Of a Christian man's oath. 39. The Resurrection of the dead is not yeat brought to passe. The Ratification. 40. The soulles of them that departe this life doe neither die with the bodies nor sleep idlie. 41. Heretickes called Millenarii. 42. All men shall not bee saved at the length. __________________________________________________________________

[1174] They are printed by Hardwick in Append. IV. pp. 337-339.

[1175] A manuscript copy of this revision, with numerous corrections and autograph signatures of Matthæus Cantuar.' (Parker), and other prelates (including some of the northern province), is preserved among the Parker MSS. in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was published by Dr. Lamb in 1829. The handwriting (as Mr. Lewis, the librarian, informed me when there on a visit in July, 1875) is probably Jocelin's, the secretary of Parker. The copy contains also the older Articles Nos. 40-42, but marked by a red line as to be omitted. This copy is probably the same which Parker submitted to Convocation, but it presents several variations (especially in Art. XX.) from the copy of the Convocation records. Comp. Hardwick, pp. 125 and 135 sqq.

[1176] Hardwick, pp. 143 sqq.

[1177] This is the view of Burnet and Waterland, adopted by Hardwick, p. 158. Waterland says {Works, Vol. II. pp. 316, 317): 'As to the Articles, English and Latin, I may just observe for the sake of such readers as are less acquainted with these things: first, that the Articles were passed, recorded, and ratified in the year 1562 [1563], and in Latin only. Secondly, that those Latin Articles were revised and corrected by the convocation of 1571. Thirdly, that an authentic English translation was then made of the Latin Articles by the same convocation, and the Latin and English adjusted as nearly as possible. Fourthly, that the Articles thus perfected in both languages were published the same year, and by the royal authority. Fifthly, subscription was required the same year to the English Articles, called the Articles of 1562, by the famous act of the 13th of Elizabeth.--These things considered, I might justly say with Bishop Burnet, that the Latin and English are both equally authentical. Thus much, however, I may certainly infer, that if in any places the English version be ambiguous, where the Latin original is clear and determinate, the Latin ought to fix the more doubtful sense of the other (as also vice versa), it being evident that the Convocation, Queen, and Parliament intended the same sense in both.'

[1178] One of the directions reads: 'That no preacher of what title soever, under the degree of a Bishop, or Dean at least, do from henceforth presume to preach in any popular auditory the deep points of predestination, election, reprobation, or the universality, efficacy, resistibility or irresistibility of divine grace; but leave those themes to be handled by learned men, and that moderately and modestly, by way of use and application, rather than by way of positive doctrine, as being fitter for the schools and Universities than for simple auditories.'--Wilkins, Vol. IV. p. 465; Hardwick, p. 202.

[1179] It disappeared, of course, in the American editions. It is printed in Vol. III. p. 486.

[1180] 'No man shall either print or preach or draw the Article' [the previous sentence speaks of the Articles generally, perhaps Art. XVII. on predestination is meant particularly] 'aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof; and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.' In a 'Declaration' of Charles on the dissolution of Parliament (March 10, 1628), he says, concerning his intention in issuing the Declaration before the Articles: 'We did tie and restrain all opinions to the sense of these Articles that nothing might be left to fancies and invocations' [probably an error for 'innovations']. 'For we call God to record, before whom we stand, that it is, and always hath been, our chief heart's desire, to be found worthy of that title, which we account the most glorious in all our crown, Defender of the Faith.'--Hardwick, p. 206.

[1181] Hardwick says (p. 205): 'A document more sober and conciliatory could not well have been devised.' Bishop Forbes goes further, and thinks that it was 'the enunciation of the Catholic sense of the Articles,' and that Newman's Tract XC. and Pusey's Irenicon are 'legitimate outcomes of the King's Declaration' (1.c. Vol. I. p. xi.).

[1182] The House passed the following vote and manifesto on the royal Declaration: 'We, the Commons in Parliament assembled, do claim, protest, and avow for truth, the sense of the Articles of Religion which were established by Parliament in the thirteenth year of our late Queen Elizabeth, which by the public act of the Church of England, and by the general and current expositions of the writers of our Church, have been delivered unto us. And we reject the sense of the Jesuits and Arminians, and all others, wherein they differ from us.'--Hardwick, p. 206.

[1183] Stat. 13 Eliz. c. 12. It enacts 'by the authority of the present Parliament, that every person under the degree of a bishop, which doth or shall pretend to be a priest or minister of God's holy Word and Sacraments, by reason of any other form of institution, consecration, or ordering, than the form set forth by Parliament in the time of the late King of most worthy memory, King Edward the Sixth, or now used, . . . shall . . . declare his assent, and subscribe to all the Articles of Religion, which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments comprised in a book entitled Articles, . . . put forth by the Queen's authority.' The subscription to the Articles was urged by the Puritanic party in Parliament in opposition to Romanism. See Hardwick, pp. 150 sq. The wording of the statute was made use of to confine assent to the doctrinal Articles ('which only concern,' etc.), and to relieve the conscience of the Puritans who objected to the royal supremacy, the surplice, and other 'defiled robes of Antichrist.'

[1184] The various acts enforcing and relaxing subscription are conveniently collected in the Prayer-Book Interleaved, London, 7th ed. 1873, pp. 360 sqq. See also chap. xi. of Hardwick's History of the Articles.

[1185] See p. 615. __________________________________________________________________

§ 81. The Interpretation of the Articles.

The theological interpretation of the Articles by English writers has been mostly conducted in a controversial rather than an historical spirit, and accommodated to a particular school or party. Moderate High-Churchmen and Arminians, who dislike Calvinism, represent them as purely Lutheran; [1186] Anglo-Catholics and Tractarians, who abhor both Lutheranism and Calvinism, endeavor to conform them as much as possible to the contemporary decrees of the Council of Trent; [1187] Calvinistic and evangelical Low-Churchmen find in them substantially their own creed. [1188] Continental historians, both Protestant and Catholic, rank the Church of England among the Reformed Churches as distinct from the Lutheran, and her Articles are found in every collection of Reformed Confessions. [1189]

The Articles must be understood in their natural grammatical and historical sense, from the stand-point and genius of the Reformation, the public and private writings of their compilers and earliest expounders. In doubtful cases we may consult the Homilies, the Catechism, the several revisions of the Prayer-book, the Canons, and other contemporary documents bearing on the reformation of doctrine and discipline in the Church of England.

In a preceding section we have endeavored to give the historical key for the understanding of the doctrinal character of the English Articles. A closer examination will lead us to the following conclusions:

1. The Articles are Catholic in the oecumenical doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, like all the Protestant Confessions of the Reformation period; and they state those doctrines partly in the very words of two Lutheran documents, viz., the Augsburg Confession and the Würtemberg Confession.

2. They are Augustinian in the anthropological and soteriological doctrines of free-will, sin, and grace: herein likewise agreeing with the Continental Reformers, especially the Lutheran.

3. They are Protestant and evangelical in rejecting the peculiar errors and abuses of Rome, and in teaching those doctrines of Scripture and tradition, justification by faith, faith and good works, the Church, and the number of sacraments, which Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin held in common.

4. They are Reformed or moderately Calvinistic in the two doctrines of Predestination and the Lord's Supper, in which the Lutheran and Reformed Churches differed; although the chief Reformed Confessions were framed after the Articles.

5. They are Erastian in the political sections, teaching the closest union of Church and State, and the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical as well as civil; with the difference, however, that the Elizabethan revision dropped the title of the king as 'supreme head in earth,' and excluded the ministry of the Word and Sacraments from the 'chief government' of the English Church claimed by the crown. [1190] All the Reformation Churches were more or less intolerant, and enforced uniformity of belief as far as they had the power; but the Calvinists and Puritans were more careful of the rights of the Church over against the State than the Lutherans.

6. Art. XXXV., referring to the Prayer-book and the consecration of archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, is purely Anglican and Episcopalian, and excited the opposition of the Puritans.

We have now to furnish the proof as far as the doctrinal articles are concerned.

The Articles And The Augsburg Confession.

The Edwardine Articles were based in part, as already observed, upon a previous draft of Thirteen Articles, which was the joint product of German and English divines, and based upon the doctrinal Articles of the Augsburg Confession. Some passages were transferred verbatim from the Lutheran document to the Thirteen Articles, and from these to the Forty-two (1553), and were retained in the Elizabethan revision (1563 and 1571). This will appear from the following comparison. The corresponding words are printed in italics.

Augsburg Confession. 1530. Art. I. De Deo. Thirteen Articles. 1538. Art. I. De Unitate Dei et Trinitate Personarum. Thirty-nine Articles. 1563. Art. I. De Fide in Sacrosanctum Trinitatem. Ecclesiæ magno consensu apud nos docent, Decretum Nicænæ Synodi, de unitate essentiæ divinæ et de tribus personis, verum et sine ulla dubitatione credendum esse. Videlicet, quod sit una essentia divina, quæ et appellatur et est Deus, æternus, incorporeus impartibilis, immensa potentia, sapientia, bonitate, creator et conservator omnium rerum, visibilium et invisibilium; et tamen tres sint personæ, ejusdem essentiæ et potentiæ, et coæternæ, Pater, Filius et Spiritus Sanctus. Et nomine personæ utuntur ea significatione, qua usi sunt in hac causa scriptores ecclesiastici, ut significet non partem aut qualitatem in alio, sed quod proprie subsistit. De Unitate Essentiæ Divinæ et de Tribus Personis, censemus decretum Nicenæ Synodi verum, et sine ulla dubitatione credendum esse, videlicet, quod sit una Essentia Divina, quæ et appellatur et est Deus, æternus, incorporeus, impartibilis, immensa potentia, sapientia, bonitate, creator et conservator omnium rerum visibilium et invisibilium, et tamen tres sint personæ ejusdem essentiæ et potentiæ, et coæternæ, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus; et nomine personæ utimur ea significatione qua usi sunt in hac causa scriptores ecclesiastici, ut significet non partem aut qualitatem in alio, sed quod proprie subsistit. Unus est vivus et verus Deus æternus, incorporeus impartibilis, impassibilis, immensæ potentiæ, sapientiæ ac bonitatis: creator et conservator omnium tum visibilium tum invisibilium. Et in unitate huius divinæ naturæ tres sunt Personæ ejusdem essentiæ, potentiæ, ac æternitatis, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. [1191] Damnant omnes hæreses, contra hunc articulum exortas, ut Manichæos, qui duo principia ponebant, Bonum et Malum; item Valentinianos, Arianos, Eunomianos, Mahometistas, Damnamus omnes hæreses contra hunc articulum exortas, ut Manichæos, qui duo principia ponebant, Bonum et Malum: item Valentinianos, Arianos, Eunomianos, Mahometistas,

et omnes horum similes. Damnant et Samosatenos, veteres et neotericos, qui, cum tantum unam personam esse contendant, de Verbo et de Spiritu Sancto astute et impie rhetoricantur, quod non sint personæ distinctæ, sed quod Verbum significet verbum vocale, et Spiritus motum in rebus creatum. et omnes horum similes. Damnamus et Samosatenos, veteres et neotericos, qui cum tantum unam personam esse contendant, de Verbo et Spiritu Sancto astute et impie rhetoricantur, quod non sint personæ distinctæ, sed quod Verbum significet verbum vocale, et Spiritus motum in rebus creatum.

Art. III. De Filio Dei. Art. III. De Duabus Christi Naturis. Art. II. Verbum Dei verum hominem esse factum. Item, docent, quod Verbum, hoc est, Filius Dei, assumpserit humanam naturam in utero beatæ Mariæ virginis, ut sint duæ naturæ, divina et humana, in unitate personæ inseparabiliter conjunctæ, unus Christus, vere Deus et vere homo, natus ex virgine Maria, vere passus, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, ut reconciliaret nobis Patrem, et hostia esset non tantum pro culpa originis, sed etiam pro omnibus actualibus hominum peccatis. Item docemus, quod Verbum, hoc est Filius Dei, assumpserit humanam naturam in utero beatæ Mariæ virginis, ut sint duæ naturæ, divina et humana, in unitate personæ inseparabiliter conjunctæ, unus Christus, vere Deus, et vere homo, natus ex virgine Maria, vere passus, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, ut reconciliaret nobis Patrem, et hostia esset non tantum pro culpa originis, sed etiam pro omnibus actualibus hominum peccatis. Filius, qui est Verbum Patris ab æterno a Patre genitus verus et æternus Deus, ac Patri consubstantialis, in utero Beatæ virginis ex illius substantia naturam humanam assumpsit: ita ut duæ naturæ, divina et humana integre atque perfecte in unitate personæ, fuerint inseparabiliter coniunctæ: ex quibus est unus Christus, verus Deus et verus homo: qui vere passus est, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, ut Patrem nobis reconciliaret, essetque hostia non tantum pro culpa originis, verum etiam pro omnibus actualibus hominum peccatis. Idem descendit ad inferos, et vere resurrexit tertia die, deinde ascendit ad coelos, ut sedeat ad dexteram Patris, et perpetuo regnet et dominetur omnibus creaturis, sanctificet credentes in ipsum, misso in corda eorum Spiritu Sancto, qui regat, consoletur ac vivificet eos, ac defendat adversus diabolum et vim peccati. Item descendit ad inferos, et vere resurrexit tertia die, deinde ascendit ad coelos, ut sedeat ad dexteram Patris et perpetuo regnet et dominetur omnibus creaturis, sanctificet credentes in ipsum, misso in corde eorum Spiritu Sancto, qui regat, consoletur, ac vivificet eos, ac defendat adversus diabolum et vim peccati.

Idem Christus palam est rediturus, ut judicet vivos et mortuos, etc., juxta Symbolum Apostolorum. Idem Christus palam est rediturus ut judicet vivos et mortuos, etc., juxta Symbolum Apostolorum.

Art. IV. De Justificatione. Art. IV. De Justificatione. Art. XI. De Hominis Iustificatione. Item docent, quod homines non possint justificari coram Deo propriis viribus, meritis aut operibus, sed gratis justificentur propter Christum per fidem, cum credunt se in gratiam recipi, et peccata remitti propter Christum, qui sua morte pro nostris peccatis satisfecit. Hanc fidem imputat Deus pro justitia coram ipso. Rom. III. et IV. [Art. IV. of the Augsburg Confession is enlarged, and Art. V. added. In this case the English Articles do not give the language, but the sense of the Lutheran symbols, with the unmistakeable 'sola fide,' which was Luther's watchword.] Tantum propter meritum Domini ac Servatoris nostri Iesu Christi, per fidem, non propter opera et merita nostra, iusti coram Deo reputamur. Quare sola fide nos iustificari, doctrina est saluberrima, ac consolationis plenissima: ut in Homilia de Iustificatione hominis fusius explicatur. Art. VII. De Ecclesia. Art. V. De Ecclesia. Art. XIX. De Ecclesia. Item docent, quod una Sancta Ecclesia pepetuo mansura sit. Est autem Ecclesia congregatio Sanctorum [Versammlung aller Gläubigen], in qua Evangelium recte [rein] docetur, et recte [laut des Evangelii] administrantur Sacramenta. Et ad veram unitatem Ecclesiæ satis est consentire de doctrina Evangelii et administratione Sacramentorum. Nec necesse est ubique esse similes traditiones humanas, seu ritus aut ceremonias, ab hominibus institutas. Sicut inquit Paulus (Eph. iv. 5, 6): Una fides, unum Baptisma, unus Deus et Pater omnium, etc. [This Article is much enlarged, and makes an important distinction between the Church as the 'congregatio omnium sanctorum et fidelium,' (the invisible Church), which is the mystical body of Christ, and the Church as the 'congregatio omnium hominum qui baptizati sunt' (the visible Church).] Ecclesia Christi visibilis, est coetus fidelium, in quo verbum Dei purum prædicatur, et sacromenta, quoad ea quæ necessario exiguntur, iuxta Christi institutum recte administrantur. [1192] Sicut erravit Ecclesia Hierosolymitana, Alexandrina et Antiochena: ita et erravit Ecclesia Romana, non solum quoad agenda et cæremoniarum ritus, verum in his etiam quæ credenda sunt. [Compare Art. XXXIII., which treats of ecclesiastical traditions, and corresponds in sentiment to the second clause in Art. VII. of the Augsburg Confession.] Art. XIII. De Usu Sacramentorum. Art. IX. De Sacramentorum Usu. Art. XXV. De Sacramentis. De usu Sacramentorum docent, quod Sacramenta instituta, sint, non modo ut Docemus, quod Sacramenta quæ per verbum Dei instituta sunt, non tantum Sacramenta a Christo instituta non tantum sunt notæ professionis Christianorum,

sint notæ professionis inter homines, sed magis ut sint signa et testimonia voluntatis Dei erga nos, ad excitandam et confirmandam fidem, in his, qui utuntur, proposita. Itaque utendum est Sacramentis ita, ut fides accedat, quæ credat promissionibus, quæ per Sacramenta exhibentur et ostenduntur. Damnant igitur illos, qui docent, quod Sacramenta ex opere operato justificent, nec docent fidem requiri in usu Sacramentorum, quæ credat remitti peccata. sint notæ professionis inter Christianos, sed magis certa quædam testimonia et efficacia signa gratiæ, et bonæ voluntatis Dei erga nos, per quæ Deus invisibiliter operatur in nobis, et suam gratiam in nos invisibiliter diffundit, siquidem ea rite susceperimus; quodque per ea excitatur et confirmatur fides in his qui eis utuntur. Porro docemus, quod ita utendum sit sacramentis, ut in adultis, præter veram contritionem, necessario etiam debeat accedere fides, quæ credat præsentibus promissionibus, quæ per sacramenta ostenduntur, exhibentur, et præstantur. Neque, etc. sed certa quædam potius testimonia, et efficacia signa gratiæ atque bonæ in nos voluntatis Dei, per quæ invisibiliter ipse in nobis operatur, nostramque fidem in se, non solum excitat, verum etiam confirmat.

Besides these passages, there is a close resemblance in thought, though not in language, in the statements of the doctrine of original sin, [1193] and of the possibility of falling after justification. [1194] Several of the Edwardine Articles, also, which were omitted in the Elizabethan revision, were suggested by Art XVII. of the Augsburg Confession, which is directed against the Anabaptists.

THE ARTICLES AND THE WÜRTEMBERG CONFESSION.

In the Elizabethan revision of the Articles another Lutheran Confession was used (in Arts. II., V., VI., X., XI., and XX.)--namely, the Confessio Würtembergica, drawn up by the Suabian Reformer, Brentius (at a time when he was still in full harmony with Melanchthon), in the name of Duke Christopher of Würtemberg (1551), and presented by his delegates to the Council of Trent (Jan. 24, 1552). [1195] Soon after the accession of Elizabeth the negotiations with the German Lutherans (which had been broken off in 1538) were resumed, with a view to join the Smalcaldian League, but led to no definite result. It was probably during these negotiations that the Würtemberg Confession became known in England; and as it had acquired a public notoriety by its presentation at Trent, and was a restatement of the Augsburg Confession adapted to the new condition of things, it was very natural that it should be compared in the revision of the Articles. Melanchthon's 'Saxon Repetition of the Augsburg Confession' would indeed have answered the same purpose equally well, but perhaps it was not known in time.

Confessio Würtembergica, 1552. Thirty-nine Articles, 1563. Art. II. De Filio Dei (Heppe, p.492). Art. II. Verbum Dei verum hominem esse factum. Credimus et confitemur Filium Dei, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, ab æterno a Patre suo genitum, verum et æternum Deum, Patri suo consubstantialem, et in plenitudine temporia factum hominem, etc. Ab æterno a Patre genitus, verus et æternus Deus, ac Patri consubstantialis. Art. III. De Spiritu Sancto (Heppe, p. 493). Art. V. De Spiritu Sancto. Credimus et confitemur Spiritum Sanctum ab æterno procedere a Deo Patre et Filio, et esse ejusdem cum Patre et Filio essentiæ, majestatis, et gloriæ, verum ac æternum Deum. Spiritus Sanctus, a Patre et Filio procedens, ejusdem est cum Patre et Filio essentiæ, majestatis, et gloriæ, verus ac æternus Deus. Art. XXX. De Sacra Scriptura (Heppe, p. 540). Art. VI. Divinæ Scripturæ doctrina sufficit ad salutem. Sacram Scripturam vocamus eos Canonicos libros veteris et novi Testamenti, de quorum authoritate in Ecclesia nunquam dubitatum est. . . . Sacræ Scripturæ nomine eos Canonicos libros veteris et novi Testamenti intelligimus, de quorum auctoritate in Ecclesia nunquam dubitatum est.

Art. IV. De Peccato (Heppe, p.498). Art. X. De Libero Arbitrio. Quod autem nonnulli affirmant homini post lapsum tantam animi integritatem relictam, ut possit sese, naturalibus suis viribus et bonis operibus, ad fidem et invocationem Dei convertere ac præparare, haud obscure pugnat cum Apostolica doctrina, et cum vero Ecclesiæ Catholicæ consensu. Ea est hominis post lapsum Adæ conditio, ut sese, naturalibus suis viribus et bonis operibus, ad fidem et invocationem Dei convertere ac præparare non possit. [The next clause, 'Quare absque gratia Dei,' etc., is taken almost verbatim from Augustine, De gratia et lib. arbitrio, c. 17 (al. 33).] Art. V. De Justificatione (Heppe, p. 495). Art. XI. De Hominis Justificatione. Homo enim fit Deo acceptus, et reputatur coram eo justus, propter solum Filium Dei, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, per fidem. Tantum propter meritum Domini ac Servatoris nostri Jesu Christi, per fidem, non propter opera et merita nostra, justi coram Deo reputamur. Art. VIII. De Evangelio Christi (Heppe, p. 500. Nec veteris nec novi Testamenti hominibus contingat æterna salus propter meritum operum Legis, sed tantum propter meritum Domini nostri Jesu Christi, per fidem. Art. VII. De Bonis Operibus (Heppe, p. 499). Art. XII. De Bonis Operibus. Non est autem sentiendum, quod iis bonis operibus, quæ per nos facimus, in judicio Dei, ubi agitur de expiatione peccatorum, et placatione divinæ iræ, ac merito æternæ salutis, confidendem sit. Omnia enim bona opera, quæ nos facimus, sunt imperfecta, nec possunt severitatem divini judicii ferre. Bona opera, quæ sunt fructus fidei, et justificatos sequuntur, quanquam peccata nostra expiare, et divini judicii severitatem ferre non possunt, Deo tamen, grata sunt et accepta in Christo. . . . Art. XXXII. De Ecclesia (Heppe, p. 544). Art. XX. De Ecclesiæ Autoritate. Credimus et confitemur, quod una sit Sancta Catholica et Apostolica Ecclesia, juxta symbolum Apostolorum et Nicænum. . . . Habet Ecclesia ritus sive ceremonias statuendi jus, et in fidei controversiis auctoritatem, quamvis Ecclesiæ non licet quicquam instituere, quod verbo Dei scripto adversetur nec unum Scripturæ locum sic exponere potest ut alteri contradicat Quod hæc Ecclesia habeat jus judicandi de omnibus doctrinis, juxta illud, Probate spiritus, num ex Deo sint. Quod hæc Ecclesia habeat jus interpretandæ Scripturæ.

The Articles And The Reformed Confessions.

We now proceed to those doctrines in which the Lutheran and the Reformed Churches differed and finally separated--namely, the doctrines of predestination and the eucharistic presence. Here we find the English Articles on the Reformed side. The authors and revisers formed their views on these subjects partly from an independent study of the Scriptures and Augustine, partly from contact with the Swiss divines.

The principal Reformed Confessions were indeed published at a later date--the Gallican Confession in 1559; the Belgic in 1561; the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563; the Second Helvetic Confession in 1566. But Zwingli's and Bullinger's works, Calvin's Institutes (1536), and his Tract on the Lord's Supper (1541), the Zurich Consensus (1549), and the Geneva Consensus (1552), must have been more or less known in England. Bishop Hooper had become a thorough disciple of Bullinger by a long residence in Zurich before the accession of Edward VI., and was consulted on the Articles. Cranmer (as previously mentioned) embraced, with Ridley, the Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper as early as 1548; he corresponded with the Swiss Reformers, as well as with Melanchthon, and invited them (March 1552) to England to frame a general creed; and he was in intimate personal connection with Bucer, Peter Martyr, John Laski, and Knox at the time he framed the Articles. [1196] From the same period we have a remarkable witness to the influence of Calvin's tracts in defense of the doctrine of predestination. [1197] Bartholomew Traheron, then Dean of Chichester, and librarian to King Edward, wrote to Bullinger from London, Sept. 10, 1552, as follows: [1198] 'I am exceedingly desirous to know what you and the other very learned men who live at Zurich think respecting the predestination and providence of God. If you ask the reason, there are certain individuals here who lived among you some time, and who assert that you lean too much to Melanchthon's views. [1199] But the greater number among us, of whom I own myself to be one, embrace the opinion of John Calvin as being perspicuous, and most agreeable to holy Scripture. And we truly thank God that that excellent treatise of the very learned and excellent John Calvin against Pighius and one Georgius Siculus should have come forth at the very time when the question began to be agitated among us. [1200] For we confess that he has thrown, much light upon the subject, or rather so handled it as that we have never before seen any thing more learned or more plain. We are anxious, however, to know what are your opinions, to which we justly allow much weight. We certainly hope that you differ in no respect from his excellent and most learned opinion. At least you will please to point out what you approve in that treatise, or think defective, or reject altogether, if indeed you do reject any part of it, which we shall not easily believe.' To this letter Bullinger replied at length, but not to the satisfaction of the Dean, who wrote to him again, June 3, 1553, as follows: [1201] 'You do not approve of Calvin, when he states that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity, but that he also at his own pleasure arranged it. But unless we allow this, we shall certainly take away both the providence and the wisdom of God altogether. I do not indeed perceive how this sentence of Solomon contains any thing less than this: "The Lord hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov.xvi.4). And that of Paul: "Of him and through him, and to him are all things" (Rom. xi. 36). I pass over other expressions which the most learned Calvin employs, because they occur everywhere in the holy Scriptures.'

The Elizabethan revision was the work of the Marian exiles, who felt themselves in complete theological harmony with the Swiss divines, especially with Bullinger of Zurich, who represented an improved type of Zwinglianism, and agreed with Calvin on the subject of the Lord's Supper (as expressed in the Consensus Tigurinus, 1549), but was more moderate and guarded on the subject of predestination. [1202] His writings seem to have been better known and exerted more influence in the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign than those of Calvin, which were more congenial to the Scotch mind; but they became all-powerful even in England towards the close of the sixteenth century.

On this point we have the explicit testimonies of the very men who were the chief assistants of Archbishop Parker in the revision of the Articles. Bishop Horn, of Winchester, wrote to Henry Bullinger, Dec. 13, 1563, soon after the adoption of the Latin revision: 'We have throughout England the same ecclesiastical doctrine as yourselves. . . . The people of England entertain on these points' [the sacraments, and 'against the ubiquitarianism of Brentius'] 'the same opinions as you do at Zurich.' [1203] Bishop Grindal, of London, afterwards (1575) the successor of Parker in the primacy, wrote to Bullinger, Aug. 27, 1566: 'We, who are now bishops, most fully agree in the pure doctrines of the gospel with your churches, and with the Confession you have lately set forth' [i.e., the Second Helvetic Confession, which appeared in the same year]. 'And we do not regret our resolution; for in the mean time, the Lord giving the increase, our churches are enlarged and established, which under other circumstances would have become a prey to the Ecebolians, Lutherans, and semi-papists.' [1204] In a letter to Calvin, dated June 19, 1563, Grindal says: 'As you and Bullinger are almost the only chief pillars remaining, we desire to enjoy you both (if it please God) as long as possible. I purposely omit mention of Brentius, who having undertaken the advocacy of the very worst of causes' [ubiquitarianism], 'seems no longer to acknowledge us as brethren.' [1205] The letters of Bishop Cox, of Ely, to Bullinger and Peter Martyr, though not so explicit, breathe the same spirit of grateful respect and affection. The strong testimony of Bishop Jewel of Salesbury, the final reviser of the English text and chief author of the Second Book of Homilies, we have already quoted. [1206]

Predestination And Election.

On the premundane mystery of predestination, which no system of philosophy or theology can satisfactorily solve in this world, and which ought to be approached with profound reverence and humility, all the Reformers, in their private writings, followed originally the teaching of the great Augustine and the greater St. Paul; meaning thereby to cut human merit and pride at the roots, and to give all the glory of our salvation to God alone. But the Lutheran symbols (with the exception of the later Formula of Concord) are silent on the subject, while most of the Reformed standards, under the influence of Calvin, give it a prominent place. The English Articles handle it with much wisdom and moderation, dwelling exclusively on the election of saints or predestination to life. We give the XVIIth Article in its original form with the later amendments; the clauses which were omitted in the Elizabethan revision are printed in italics, the words which were inserted or substituted are inclosed in brackets.

Art. XVIII.

Of Predestination And Election.

Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen [in Christ] [1207] out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor. Wherefore, such as have [they which be endued with] so excellent a benefit of God given unto them, be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons [of God] by adoption: they be made like the image of God's [his] only begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.

As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: so, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil may [doth] thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.

Furthermore, although the Decrees of Predestination are unknown unto us, yet we must receive God's promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture; and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.

This Article can not be derived from the Augsburg Confession, nor from the Thirteen Articles, nor from the Würtemberg Confession--for they omit the subject of predestination altogether [1208] --nor from Melanchthon's private writings, for he abandoned his former views, and suggested the synergistic theory as early as 1535, and more fully in 1548. [1209] It can not be naturally understood in any other than an Augustinian or moderately Calvinistic sense. It does not, indeed, go as far as the Lambeth Articles (1595), which the stronger Calvinism of the rising generation thought necessary to add as an explanation. It omits the knotty points; it is cautiously framed and guarded against abuse. [1210] But it very clearly teaches a free eternal election in Christ, which carries with it, by way of execution in time, the certainty of the call, justification, adoption, sanctification, and final glorification (Rom. viii. 29, 30).

This is all that is essential, and a matter of dogma in the Reformed Churches; the rest of what is technically called Calvinism, in distinction from Arminianism, is logical inference, and belongs to the theology of the school. It should be remembered that all the Reformed Confessions (even the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Confession, and the Helvetic Consensus Formula) keep within the limits of infralapsarianism, which puts the fall under a permissive decree, and makes man alone responsible for sin and condemnation; the most authoritative, as the Helvetic Confession of Bullinger, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Brandenburg Confessions (also the Scotch Confession of 1560) teach only the positive and comforting part of predestination, and ignore or deny a separate decree of reprobation; thus taking the ground practically that all that are saved are saved by the free grace of God, while all that are lost are lost by their own guilt. They also teach that God's promises and Christ's redemption are general, and that we must abide by the revealed will of God, which sincerely offers the gospel salvation to all who repent and believe. [1211]

The remarks of the Article about the 'sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort' of our election in Christ, and the caution against abuse by carnal persons, are consistent only with the Calvinistic interpretation, and wholly inapplicable to Arminian views, which are neither comfortable nor dangerous, and have never thrust any man 'into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living.' [1212]

The view here taken is confirmed by the contemporary testimonies already quoted, and by the first learned commentator of the Articles, Thomas Rogers, who was chaplain to Archbishop Bancroft, and did not sympathize with the Puritan party. He draws the following propositions from the XVIIth Article, and fortifies them with abundant Scripture passages: [1213]

'1. There is a predestination of men unto everlasting life.

'2. Predestination hath been from everlasting.

'3. They who are predestinate unto salvation can not perish.

'4. Not all men, but certain, are predestinate to be saved.

'5. In Christ Jesus, of the mere will and purpose of God, some are elected, and not others, unto salvation.

'6. They who are elected unto salvation, if they come unto years of discretion, are called both outwardly by the Word and inwardly by the Spirit of God.

'7. The predestinate are both justified by faith, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and shall be glorified in the life to come.

'8. The consideration of predestination is to the godly-wise most comfortable, but to curious and carnal persons very dangerous.

'9. The general promises of God, set forth in the holy Scriptures, are to be embraced of us.

'10. In our actions, the Word of God, which is his revealed will, must be our direction.'

To this theological comment I add the judgment of an impartial and well-informed secular historian. Henry Hallam [1214] declares that the Articles on predestination, original sin, and total depravity, 'after making every allowance for want of precision, are totally irreconcilable with the scheme usually denominated Arminian.' He justly appeals in confirmation of this judgment to contemporary and other early authorities, and adds: 'Whatever doubts may be raised as to the Calvinism of Cranmer and Ridley, there can surely be no room for any as to the chiefs of the Anglican Church under Elizabeth. We find explicit proofs that Jewel, Nowell, Sandys, and Cox professed to concur with the Reformers of Zurich and Geneva in every point of doctrine. The works of Calvin and Bullinger became the text-books in the English universities. Those who did not hold the predestinarian theory were branded with reproach by the name of Free-willers and Pelagians; and when the opposite tenets came to be advanced, as they were at Cambridge about 1590, a clamor was raised as if some unusual heresy had been broached.'

The Arminian interpretation of the Article under consideration is an anachronism and a failure. The Lutheran interpretation is more plausible, but true only so far as the Lutheran system is itself Augustinian. The Tractarian interpretation, which identifies eternal election with ecclesiastical calling, and the elect with the baptized, is contrary both to the spirit and letter of the Article. It must in all fairness be admitted that Art. XVII., in connection with Arts. X. and XIII., implies the infralapsarian scheme, and that the Lambeth Articles are not a reaction, but a legitimate though one-sided development.

Note.--The anti-Calvinistic interpretation began after the Synod of Dort with Archbishop Laud, or his biographer, Peter Heylin (in his Historia Quinqu-Articularis, London, 1660, which was answered and refuted by Henry Hickman, in his Historia Quinqu-Articularis Exarticulata, 1673). It was maintained, with hesitation, by Waterland (1721), more decidedly by Dr. Winchester, d. 1780 (Dissertation on the XVIIth Article, new ed. London, 1808); by Dean Kipling (The Articles of the Church of England proved not to be Calvinistic, Cambridge, 1802); by Bishop Tomline, d. 1827 (A Refutation of Calvinism, London, 1811); and, with considerable learning, by Archbishop Laurence, d. 1839 (Bampt. Lect., Lect. VII. and VIII., Oxford, 1834, 3d ed. 1838), and by Hardwick (Hist. of the Articles).

Laurence and Hardwick, as already remarked, trace Article XVII to Lutheran sources, but they overlook the difference between the Lutheran system (which admits the Augustinian premises, and even the doctrine of unconditional election of grace--see the formula of Concord, ch. xi.) and the Arminian system (which denies the Augustinian anthropology, and makes both election and reprobation conditional), and show more dislike than real knowledge of Calvin. It is little less than a caricature when Laurence says of Calvin that his 'love of hypothesis' was superior to his great talent and piety (p. 43); that his 'vanity induced him to frame a peculiar system of his own' (pp. 262, 263), and that 'no man, perhaps, was ever less scrupulous in the adoption of general expressions, and no man adopted them with more mental reservations' (p. 375). Principal Cunningham has exposed this unfairness (The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformers, 1866, pp. 179 sqq.).

Bishop Burnet (who was an Arminian and Latitudinarian) and Bishop Browne (a moderate High-Churchman) hesitate between the Augustinian and the Arminian interpretation. Burnet, after calmly reviewing the different theories of predestination, says (p. 236, Oxford ed.): 'It is not to be denied, but that the Article seems to be framed according to St. Austin's doctrine: it supposes men to be under a curse and damnation, antecedently to predestination, from which they are delivered by it; so it is directly against the supralapsarian doctrine; nor does the Article make any mention of reprobation--no, not in a hint; no definition is made concerning it. The Article does also seem to assert the efficacy of grace--that in which the knot of the whole difficulty lies is not defined; that is, whether God's eternal purpose or decree was made according to what he foresaw his creatures would do, or purely upon an absolute will, in order to his own glory. It is very probable that those who penned it meant that the decree was absolute; but yet since they have not said it, those who subscribe the Articles do not seem to be bound to any thing that is not expressed in them; and, therefore, since the Remonstrants do not deny but that God having foreseen what all mankind would, according to all the different circumstances in which they should be put, do or not do, he upon that did by a firm and eternal decree lay that whole design in all its branches, which he executes in time; they may subscribe this Article without renouncing their opinion as to this matter. On the other hand, the Calvinists have less occasion for scruple, since the Article does seem more plainly to favor them. The three cautions that are added to it do likewise intimate that St. Austin's doctrine was designed to be settled by the Articles for the danger of men's having the sentence of God's predestination always before their eyes, which may occasion either desperation on the one hand, or the wretchedness of most unclean living on the other, belongs only to that side; since these mischiefs do not arise out of the other hypothesis. The other two, of taking the promises of God in the sense in which they are set forth to us in holy Scriptures, and of following that will of God that is expressly declared to us in the Word of God, relate very visibly to the same opinion.

Bishop Browne, after a long discussion, comes to the conclusion (p. 425) that 'the Article was designedly drawn up in guarded and general terms, on purpose to comprehend all persons of tolerably sober views. . . . I am strongly disposed to believe that Cranmer's own opinions were certainly neither Arminian nor Calvinistic, nor probably even Augustinian; yet I can hardly think that he would have so worded this Article had he intended to declare very decidedly against either explanation of the doctrine of election.'

Bishop Forbes, a Tractarian, admits the Article to be 'Augustinian, but not Calvinistic' (p. 252), and identifies the baptized with the elect, saying (p. 254), 'God's predestination is bestowed on every baptized Christian. . . . The fact of God bringing men to baptism is synonymous with his choosing them in Christ out of mankind.'

John Wesley, unable to reconcile Art. XVII. with his Arminianism, omitted it altogether from his revision of the Articles.

Baptismal Regeneration And Fall From Grace.

The Articles teach also the possibility of falling away from grace (XVI.) and the doctrine of general baptismal regeneration (XXVII.). This seems to exclude an absolute decree of election 'to everlasting life,' which involves final perseverance as a necessary means to a certain end. Hence the attempts to explain away either the one or the other in order to save the logical consistency of the formulary. [1215]

In Article XVI. there is no real difficulty. It is directed against the Anabaptists, who 'say they can no more sin,' and the modern Novatians, who 'deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent,' and accords with a similar article in the Augsburg Confession. [1216] It simply teaches the possibility of a temporary fall of the baptized and regenerated, but not a total and final fall of the elect, as is clear from the addition, 'and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our lives.' This is quite consistent with Augustinianism, and even with the most rigorous form of Calvinism. [1217]

On the subject of baptism the Anglican Church agrees much more with the Lutheran than with the Calvinistic creed. She retained the Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration, but rejected the opus operatum theory, and the doctrine that baptism destroys the nature of original sin as well as its guilt. Baptismal regeneration is taught indefinitely in Article XXVII., [1218] more plainly in the Catechism, [1219] and in the baptismal service of the Liturgy, which pronounces every child after baptism to be regenerated. [1220]

This doctrine seems to be contradicted by the undeniable fact that multitudes of baptized persons in all churches, especially in those where infant baptism is indiscriminately practiced, show no signs of a holy life or real change of heart, and belie their baptismal engagements.

To remove this difficulty, some Anglicans take the language of the baptismal service, not in a real and literal, but in a hypothetical or charitably presumptive meaning. [1221] Others make a distinction between baptismal or ecclesiastical regeneration (i.e., incorporation into the visible Church) and moral or spiritual regeneration (which includes renovation and conversion). Still others distinguish between the regenerate and the elect, and thus harmonize Art. XXVII. with Art. XVII. Augustine regards the elect as an inner circle of the baptized; and holds that, in addition to the baptismal grace of regeneration, the elect receive from God the gift of perseverance to the end, which puts into execution the eternal and unchangeable decree of election. The reason why God grants this grace to some and withholds it from others is unknown to us, and must be traced to his inscrutable wisdom. 'Both the grace of the beginning,' he says, 'and the grace of persevering to the end is not given according to our merits, but according to a most secret, just, wise, and beneficent will.' 'Wonderful indeed, very wonderful, that to some of his own sons, whom he has regenerated, and to whom he has given faith, hope, and charity, God does not give perseverance.' [1222]

Here is a point where Calvin differs from Augustine, at least in logic, although they agree in the result--namely, the non-salvation of the non-elect, whether baptized or not. Calvin likewise brings baptism into close connection with regeneration, [1223] but he draws a sharper distinction between the outward visible sign and seal (Rom. iv. 11) and the inner invisible grace; he takes moreover a higher view of regeneration as a thorough moral renovation, and identifies the truly regenerate with the elect. He consequently restricts the regenerating efficacy of the Spirit to the elect, and makes it so far independent of the sacramental act that it need not always coincide with it, but may precede or follow the same. Thus the Westminster Confession calls baptism 'a sign and a seal of the covenant of grace, of his [the baptized person's] ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life.' But it adds that 'grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it [baptism], as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it (Rom. iv. 11; Acts x. 2, 4, 22, 31, 45, 47); or, that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated (Acts viii. 13, 23). The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered (John iii. 8): yet, notwithstanding by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such (whether of age, or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's own will, in his appointed time (Gal. iii. 27; Tit. iii. 5; Eph. v. 25, 26; Acts ii. 38, 41).' [1224]

The objection to the Calvinistic view is that it resolves the baptism of the non-elect into an empty ceremony (not to say solemn mockery); while the Augustinian view turns the baptismal regeneration of the non-elect into a failure. The former sacrifices the universality of baptismal grace to the particularism of election, the latter sacrifices the higher view of regeneration to the claims of baptism. The real difficulty of both theories lies in the logical incompatibility of a limited election and a universal baptismal grace. The predestinarian system and the sacramental system are two distinct lines of thought, which neither Augustine nor Calvin have been able satisfactorily to adjust and to harmonize.

Necessity Of Baptism.

As to the necessity of baptism for salvation, the Anglican Church at first followed, but afterwards softened the rigor of the Augustinian and Roman Catholic doctrine, which excludes even unbaptized infants dying in infancy from heaven, and assigns them to the limbus infantum, on the borders of hell. In the second of the Ten Articles of Henry VIII. (1536), it is asserted that 'infants and children dying in infancy shall undoubtedly be saved thereby [by baptism], and else not.' In the first revision of the Liturgy, the introductory prayer that the child may be received by baptism into the ark of Christ's Church contains the exclusive clause 'and so saved from perishing.' [1225] But in the revision of 1552 this clause was omitted; for Cranmer, who framed the Liturgy, had in the mean time changed his opinion, as we may infer from the treatise upon the 'Reformation of Ecclesiastical Laws,' composed under his superintendency, where the 'scrupulous superstition' of the necessity of infant baptism for infant salvation is rejected. [1226] This change must be traced to the influence of Zwingli and Bullinger, who first boldly asserted that all infants dying before committing actual sin, whether baptized or not, whether of Christian or heathen parents, are saved in consequence of the universal merit of Christ ('propter remedium per Christum exhibitum'), which holds good until rejected by unbelief. [1227] Calvin likewise taught the possibility of salvation without baptism, but confined it to the elect. Thomas Becon (chaplain to Cranmer, and one of the six preachers of Canterbury Cathedral, died 1567) is very explicit on this subject. As many Jewish children, he says, were saved without circumcision, so many Christian children, and even Turks and heathens, may be spiritually baptized and saved without water baptism. 'Besides all these things, what shall we say of God's election? Can the lack of outward baptism destroy and make of none effect the election of God; so that when God hath chosen to everlasting salvation, the want of an external sign shall cast down into everlasting damnation? . . . As many people are saved which never received the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, so likewise are many saved though they were never outwardly baptized with water; forasmuch as the regeneration of the Christian consisteth rather in the spirit than in the flesh. This text, therefore, of Christ, "Except a man be born of water," etc., is to be understood of such as may conveniently be baptized, and yet, notwithstanding, contemptuously refuse baptism, and despise the ordinance of Christ.' [1228] Bishop Jewel says: 'The grace of God is not tied to any sacraments. He is able to work salvation both with them and without them.' [1229] Hooker is much more cautious and churchly. 'Predestination,' he says, 'bringeth not to life, without the grace of external vocation, wherein our baptism is implied, . . . which both declareth and maketh us Christians. In which respect we justly hold it to be the door of our actual entrance into God's house; the first apparent beginning of life; a seal, perhaps, to the grace of election, before received (Calvin, Instit. iv. 15, 22), but to our sanctification here a step that hath not any before it. . . . If Christ himself which giveth salvation do require baptism (Mark xvi. 16), it is not for us that look for salvation to sound and examine him, whether unbaptized men may be saved, but seriously to do that which is required, and religiously to fear the danger which may grow by want thereof.' Yet, touching infants who die unbaptized, he inclines, at least in regard to the offspring of Christian parents, to a charitable presumption of 'the great likelihood of their salvation,' for the reasons that 'grace is not absolutely tied unto sacraments;' that 'God bindeth no man unto things altogether impossible;' that 'there is in their Christian parents, and in the Church of God, a presumed desire that the sacrament of baptism might be given them;' and that 'the seed of faithful parentage is holy from the very birth (1 Cor. vii. 14).' [1230]

The Anglican Church, then, as far as we may infer from her authoritative declarations, makes certain the salvation of all baptized infants dying in infancy, and leaves the possibility of salvation without baptism an open question, with a strong leaning towards the liberal view. The Roman Church makes infant salvation without baptism impossible; the Lutheran Church makes it at least improbable; the Calvinistic Churches make it certain in the case of all the elect, without regard to age, and decidedly incline to the charitable belief that all children dying in infancy belong to the number of the elect.

The doctrine of the absolute necessity of baptism for salvation has always been based upon two declarations of our Lord, Mark xvi. 16, and John iii. 5 (on the assumption that 'water' refers to baptism). But in the first passage our Lord, after declaring that faith followed by baptism saves, states the negative without adding, and is not baptized; intimating by this omission, that only the want of faith or the refusal of the gospel, not the want of baptism, condemns. In the discourse with Nicodemus he does not say that water baptism is regeneration, nor that every one that is born of water is also born of the Spirit (which was certainly not the case with Simon Magus, who, notwithstanding his baptism, remained 'in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity'); he simply lays down two conditions for entering into the kingdom of God, and puts the emphasis on being born of the Spirit. This is evident from the fact that in that discourse 'water' is mentioned but once, but the Spirit four times. The most that can be inferred from the two passages is the ordinary necessity of baptism where it can be had--that is, within the limits of the Christian Church. We are bound to God's ordinances, but God's Spirit is free and 'bloweth where it listeth.' We should never forget that the same Lord was the special friend of children, and declared them to belong to the kingdom of heaven, without any reference to baptism or circumcision, adding these significant words, 'It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish' (Matt. xviii. 14).

The Lord'S Supper.

If the Articles on Predestination and Baptism leave room for different interpretations, there can be no reasonable doubt about the meaning of Art. XXVIII. on the Lord's Supper. It clearly teaches the Reformed doctrine of the spiritual presence and spiritual eating by faith only, in opposition both to transubstantiation and consubstantiation, which imply a corporal presence and an oral manducation by all communicants, both good and bad, although with opposite effects.

The wide departure from the Lutheran formularies, otherwise so freely consulted, may be seen from the following comparison:

Augsburg Confession. 1530. Art. X. Thirteen Articles. 1538. Art. VII. Thirty-nine Articles. 1563 and 1571. Art. XXVIII. De coena Domini docent, quod corpus et sanguis Christi vere adsint, et distribuantur vescentibus in cæna Domini; et improbant secus docentes. De Eucharistia constanter credimus et docemus, quod in sacramento corporis et sanguinis Domini vere, substantialiter, [1231] et realiter adsint corpus et sanguis Christi sub speciebus panis et vini. [1232] Et quod sub ejusdem speciebus vere et realiter exhibentur et distribuuntur illis qui sacramentum accipiunt, sive bonis sive malis. Corpus Christi datur, accipitur, et manducatur tantum coelesti et spirituali ratione (only after an heavenly and spiritual manner). Medium, autem quo Corpus Christi accipitur et manducatur in coena, fides est (and the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is faith).

The clause here quoted from the Elizabethan revision was wanting in the Edwardine Articles, and was inserted on motion of Bishop Guest of Rochester. [1233] Both series contain the assertion that the bread which we break is a communion of the body of Christ 'to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same,' which was meant to exclude the oral manducation. Both strongly condemn transubstantiation. The Edwardine Articles protest also against the Lutheran hypothesis of the ubiquity of Christ's body. [1234] This same protest against ubiquity is found substantially in the Parker MS. of the Latin revision of 1563, but it was struck out in the Convocation. [1235] Instead of it a new Article was added in the English revision of 1571, denying that the unworthy partake of Christ in the communion. [1236]

The Catechism likewise limits the reception of Christ's body and blood to the 'faithful,' and declares the benefit of the Lord's Supper to be 'the strengthening and refreshing of our souls.' The communion service does not rise above this view, and the distribution formula, inserted in the revision of 1552, expresses the commemorative theory. The rubric on kneeling, at the close of the service, which was inserted in the second Prayer-Book of Edward VI. (1552) by Cranmer, through the influence of Hooper and Knox (one of the royal chaplains), [1237] then omitted in Elizabeth's reign from regard to the Catholics, but which was again restored in the Reign of Charles II. (1662) to conciliate the Puritans, explains the kneeling at the communion not to mean an adoration of the sacramental bread and wine, or any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood. 'For the natural body and blood of Christ are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one.' This is a plain declaration against consubstantiation and ubiquity.

Before the Articles were framed a public disputation on the eucharistic presence was held before the royal commissioners at the University of Oxford, May, 1549, in which Peter Martyr, then professor of theology, defended the figurative interpretation of the words, 'This is my body,' and the commemorative character of the ordinance. The acts of the disputation were published by Cranmer, with a preface and discourse of Peter Martyr. [1238] In June of the same year a disputation on the same subject, in which Bucer took part, was held in the University of Cambridge. [1239]

Cranmer, after holding first to transubstantiation, then to consubstantiation, adopted at last the Calvinistic theory of a spiritual real presence and a spiritual reception by faith only, and embodied it in the Articles and the second revision of the Liturgy. [1240] He openly confessed this change at a public disputation held in London, Dec. 14, 1548, in the Parliament house, 'in the presence of almost all the nobility of England.' [1241] He wrote an elaborate exposition and defense of his final view against the attacks of Gardiner. [1242] He does not allude to Calvin's writings on the eucharist, although he can hardly have been ignorant of them, but quotes largely from Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, Theodoret, and other fathers who seem to favor a figurative interpretation, and approvingly mentions Bertram, Berengarius, and Wycliff among mediæval divines, and Bucer, Peter Martyr, Zwingli, OEcolampadius among the Reformers, as teaching substantially the same doctrine. [1243] He also expressed his unqualified approbation of Bullinger's 'Tract on the Sacraments,' which was by his desire republished in England (1551) by John à Lasco, to whom he remarked that 'nothing of Bullinger's required to be read and examined previously.' [1244] But he traced his change directly to Bishop Ridley, [1245] and Ridley derived his view not so much from Swiss sources as from Bertram (Ratramnus), who, in the middle of the ninth century, wrote with great ability against the magical transubstantiation theory of Paschasius Radbertus, and in favor of a spiritual and dynamic presence. [1246] Cranmer's last utterances on this subject, shortly before his condemnation and martyrdom, were made in the Oxford disputations with the Romanists to which he, with Ridley and Latimer, was summoned from prison, April (and again in September), 1555. He declared there that Christ's 'true body is truly present to them that truly receive him, but spiritually. And so it is taken after a spiritual sort. . . . If ye understand by this word "really," re ipsa, i.e., in very deed and effectually, so Christ, by the grace and efficacy of his passion, is in deed and truly present to all his true and holy members. But if ye understand by this word "really" corporaliter, i.e., corporally, so that by the body of Christ is understanded a natural body and organical, so the first proposition doth vary, not only from usual speech and phrase of Scripture, but also is clean contrary to the holy Word of God and Christian profession: when as both the Scripture doth testify by these words, and also the Catholic Church hath professed from the beginning, Christ to have left the world, and to sit at the right hand of the Father till he come unto judgment.' [1247]

We add the last confessions of the other two English Reformers at their examination in Oxford.

Bishop Latimer declared 'that there is none other presence of Christ required than a spiritual presence; and this presence is sufficient for Christian man, as the presence by the which we both abide in Christ, and Christ in us to the obtaining of eternal life, if we persevere in his true gospel.' [1248]

Bishop Ridley said: 'I worship Christ in the sacrament, but not because he is included in the sacrament: like as I worship Christ also in the Scriptures, not because he is really included in them. . . . The body of Christ is present in the sacrament, but yet sacramentally and spiritually (according to his grace) giving life, and in that respect really, that is, according to his benediction, giving life.The true Church of Christ doth acknowledge a presence of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper to be communicated to the godly by grace, and spiritually, as I have often showed, and by a sacramental signification, but not by the corporal presence of the body of his flesh. [1249]

Revision Of The Articles.

The Thirty-nine Articles have remained unchanged in England since the reign of Elizabeth. The objections of Nonconformists to some of the Articles (XXIV., XXV., the affirmative clause of XX., and a portion of XXVII) have been removed since 1688 by relaxation and exemption; and the difficulties arising from the development of theological schools with widely divergent tendencies, within the bosom of the Church of England itself, have been met by liberal decisions allowing a great latitude of interpretation.

During the reign of William III., in 1689, a thorough revision of the Book of Common Prayer was undertaken and actually made in the interest of an agreement with Protestant Dissenters, by an able royal commission of ten bishops and twenty divines, including the well-known names of Stillingfleet, Patrick, Tillotson, Sharp, Hall, Beveridge, and Tenison. But the revision has never been acted upon, and was superseded by the toleration granted to Dissenters. The alterations did not extend to the Articles directly, but embraced some doctrinal features in the liturgical services--namely, the change of the word Priest to 'Presbyter' or 'Minister;' Sunday to 'Lord's Day;' the omission of the Apocryphal Lessons in the calendar of Saints' days, for which chapters from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes were substituted, a concession to conscientious scruples against kneeling in receiving the sacrament, and an addition to the rubric before the Athanasian Creed, stating that 'the condemning clauses are to be understood as relating only to those who obstinately deny the substance of the Christian faith. [1250] __________________________________________________________________

[1186] So Archbishop Laurence, of Cashel, and Hardwick, in their learned works on the Articles.

[1187] Newman, Pusey, Forbes. Archbishop Laud had prepared the way for this Romanizing interpretation.

[1188] Even the Puritans accepted the doctrinal Articles, and the Westminster Assembly first made them the basis of its Calvinistic Confession.

[1189] From the Corpus et Syntagma down to the collections of Niemeyer and Böckel. The Roman Catholic Möhler likewise numbers the Articles among the Reformed (Calvinistic) Confessions, Symbolik, p. 22. On the other hand, the Articles have no place in any collection of Lutheran symbols; still less, of course, could they be included among Greek or Latin symbols.

[1190] The modification of the royal supremacy in Art. XXXVII., as compared with Art XXXVI. of Edward, was intended to meet the scruples of Romanists and Calvinists. Nevertheless this article, and the two acts of supremacy and uniformity, form the basis of that restrictive code of laws which pressed so heavily for more than two centuries upon the consciences of Roman Catholic and Protestant dissenters. Comp. the third chapter of Hallam's Constitutional History of England (Harper's ed. pp. 71 sqq.).

[1191] The same passage occurs in the Reformatio Legum ecclesiasticarum (De Summa Trinitate, c. 2), a work prepared by a committee consisting of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and six others, 1551. It was edited by Cardwell, Oxford, 1850, and serves as a commentary on the Articles. See Hardwick, pp. 82 and 371.

[1192] The silence of this Article concerning the episcopal succession was observed by Joliffe, prebendary at Worcester, who added among the marks of the Church, 'legitima et continua successio vicariorum Christi.'

[1193] Conf. Aug. Art. II., English Art. IX., from Augustine.

[1194] Conf. Aug. Art. XII. ('Damnant Anabaptistas qui negant semel justificatos posse amittere Spiritum Sanctum,' etc.), English Art. XVI.

[1195] Printed in the Corpus et Syntagma Conf., and in Dr. Heppe's Bekenntniss-Schriften der altprotestantischen Kirche Deutschlands, Cassel, 1855, pp. 491-554. See above, § 47, pp. 343 sq. Archbishop Laurence (Bampton Lectures, pp. 40 and 233 sqq.) first discovered and pointed out this resemblance. Hardwick (pp. 126 sqq.) and the 'Interleaved Prayer-Book' speak of the Confession of Brentius alternately as the 'Saxon' Confession, and the 'Würtemberg' (or Wirtemburg!) Confession, as if the Saxon city of Wittenberg and the Duchy (now Kingdom) of Würtemberg were one and the same. The 'Saxon Confession,' so called, or the 'Repetition of the Augsburg Confession,' is a different document, written about the same time and for the same purpose by Melanchthon, in behalf of the Wittenberg and other Saxon divines. See above, p. 340, and the Oxford Sylloge, which incorporates the Saxon but not the Würtemberg Confession.

[1196] One of the last letters of Cranmer was written from his prison, 1555, to Peter Martyr, who was a decided Calvinist. See Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. I. p. 29.

[1197] See above, p. 474.

[1198] Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. I. p. 325.

[1199] From this we might infer that Melanchthon's influence, in consequence of his abandonment of absolute predestinarianism, was declining in England, while Calvin's was increasing.

[1200] He means the Consensus Genevensis de æterna Dei prædestinatione, which appeared in 1552, and acquired semi-symbolical authority in Geneva. Calvin had also previously (1543) written a tract against Pighius on the doctrine of free-will, and dedicated it to Melanchthon, who gratefully acknowledged the compliment, but modestly intimated his dissent and his inability to harmonize the all-ruling providence of God with the action of the human will. See Stähelin, Calv. Vol. I. p. 241.

[1201] Zurich Letters, First Series, Vol. I. p. 327. Bullinger's tract De providentia, which was occasioned by Traheron, is still extant in MS. in Zurich, and is fully noticed by Schweizer. See above, p. 475.

[1202] On Bullinger's intimate personal relations with English divines, which began before the reign of Edward and continued till his death (1575), compare Pestalozzi's Heinrich Bullinger, pp. 441 sqq.

[1203] Zurich Letters, Second Series, Vol. I. (A.D. 1558-1579), p. 135.

[1204] Ibid. p. 169. Ecebolus was a sophist of Constantinople in the fourth century, who followed the Emperor Julian in his apostasy.

[1205] Ibid. Vol. II. p. 97. Brentius advocated the absolute ubiquity of Christ's body, and fiercely attacked the Reformed in several tracts, from 1560 to 1564 (ten years after he wrote the Würtemberg Confession). He was answered by Bullinger and Peter Martyr. See above, p. 290.

[1206] See his letter to his revered teacher, Peter Martyr, p. 603. Grindal called him after his death (Sept. 22, 1571), 'the jewel and singular ornament of the Church, as his name implies.'--Zurich Letters, Second Series, Vol. I. p. 260. An adversary, Moren, said of him : 'I should love thee, Jewel, if thou wert not a Zwinglian; in thy faith I hold thee an heretic, but surely in thy life thou art an angel.' Queen Elizabeth ordered a copy of Jewel's 'Apology of the Church of England' (1562) to be chained in every parish church.

[1207] The insertion 'in Christ' is Scriptural and in accordance with all the Reformed Confessions. There is no election out of Christ or apart from Christ.

[1208] With the exception of an incidental allusion to the absolute freedom of divine grace in the Augsburg Confession, Art. V., De Ministerio: 'Per verbum et sacramenta tamquam per instrumenta donatur Spiritus Sanctus, qui fidem efficit, ubi et quando visum est Deo, in iis qui audiunt evangelium.' Compare with this the expression of the Form. Concordiæ (Sol. decl. Art. II. de lib. arbitr. p. 673): 'Trahit Deus hominem, quem convertere decrevit.' It is significant that in the altered edition of 1540 Melanchthon omitted the words ubi et quando visum est Deo,' as also the words 'non adjuvante Deo' in Art. XIX. The brevity of allusion shows that even in 1530, although still holding to the Augustinian scheme, he laid less stress on it than in the first edition of his Loci. This appears also from a letter to Brentius, Sept. 30, 1531 (Corp. Ref. Vol. II. p. 547), where Melanchthon says: 'Sed ego in tota Apologia fugi illam longam et inexplicabilem disputationem de prædestinatione. Ubique sic loquor, quasi prædestinatio sequatur nostram fidem et opera.'

[1209] See above, pp. 262 sqq., and Schweizer, Centraldogmen, Vol. I. p. 384. There is not a trace of synergism in the XVIIth Art, and Art. X. expressly denies the freedom of will, while Melanchthon asserts it in the later editions of his Loci ('Liberum arbitrium esse in homine facultatem applicandi se ad gratiam'). Laurence (p. 179) and Hardwick (p. 383) derive the last clause about the 'general' promises and the 'revealed will' from Melanchthon, but the same sentiments are found in Calvin, Bullinger, and the Reformed Confessions. See below.

[1210] This element of caution and modesty is well expressed by Bishop Ridley: 'In these matters [of God's election] I am so fearful that I dare not speak further, yea, almost none otherwise than the very text doth, as it were, lead me by the hand.' Ridley's Works (Parker ed.), p. 368. He thus wrote in a letter of sympathy to his friend and chaplain, Bradford, who in prison, at London, had a dispute with a certain 'free-willer,' Henry Hart, and wrote an excellent 'Defense of Election.' This treatise was approved by his fellow-prisoners, and shows what an unspeakable comfort they derived from this doctrine. See The Writings of John Bradford, Martyr, 1555 (Parker Soc. ed.), pp. 307 sqq.

[1211] Conf. Helv. post., cap. X.: 'Bene sperandum est de omnibus. Vestrum non est de his curiosius inquirere. . . . Audienda est prædicatio evangelii, eique credendum est, et pro indubitato habendum, si credis ac sis in Christo, electum te esse. . . . "Venite ad me omnes," etc. . . . "Sic Deus dilexit mundum," etc. . . . "Non est voluntas Patris, ut quisque de his pusillis pereat." . . . Promissiones Dei sunt universales fidelibus' (not electis), etc. Heidelb. Cat., Qu. 37: 'Christ bore the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race (1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 John ii. 2, etc.).' Conf. Belg., Art. XIII.: 'Sufficit nobis ea duntaxat discere quæ ipse verbo suo nos docet, neque hos fines transilire fas esse ducimus.' Calvin himself often warns against idle curiosity and speculation on the secret will of God, and exhorts men to abide by the revealed will of God. See the passages quoted by Stähelin, Vol. II. p. 279. Comp. the remarks of Dr. Julius Müller on the Reformed Confessions concerning predestination, in his work, Die evang. Union (1854), p. 214, and his Dogmat. Abhandlungen (1870), p. 194.

[1212] Dr. Cunningham (The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, p. 194), says: 'It is only the Calvinistic, and not the Arminian doctrine that suggests or requires such guards or caveats; and it is plainly impossible that such a statement could ever have occurred to the compilers of the Articles as proper and necessary, unless they had been distinctly aware that they had just laid down a statement which at least included the Calvinistic doctrine.'

[1213] The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England, etc., first published, London, 1586, Parker Society ed. (by J. J. S. Perowne), 1854, p. 143. This important work has not been even alluded to by any writer I have consulted on the subject.

[1214] Constit. History of England, ch. vii. p. 230 (Amer. ed.).

[1215] Dr. Goode, in his learned work, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the case of Infants (1849), labors to show that inasmuch as the founders of the Church of England were Calvinists, they can not have held the Tractarian doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which is incompatible with Calvinism. Archdeacon Wilberforce, who afterwards seceded to Rome, showed, in his Doctrine of Holy Baptism (London, 1849), in opposition to Goode, that the formularies of the Church of England do clearly teach baptismal regeneration. J. B. Mozley, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, in his able work on The Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration (London, 1856), takes a middle ground, viz., that the Church of England imposes the doctrine 'that God gives regenerating grace to the whole body of the baptized,' and tolerates the doctrine 'that God gives grace sufficient for salvation only to some of this body' and 'that these two positions can not really be in collision with each other, though apparently they are.' Mozley grapples with the difficulties of the problem, but has after all not succeeded in making it clear.

[1216] Comp. Augs. Conf., Art. XII.: 'Damnant Anabaptistas, qui negant semel justificatos posse amittere Spiritum Sanctum. . . . Damnantur et Novatiani qui nolebant absolvere lapsos post baptismum redeuntes ad poenitentiam.' Also Bullinger's Confes. Helv., cap. XIV.: 'Damnamus et veteres et novos Novatianos, atque Catharos.'

[1217] See the defense of this Article by Dean Bridges, of Sarum, quoted by Hardwick, p. 211.

[1218] 'Baptism is . . . a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly, are grafted into the Church.' The language of this Article bears a Reformed or Calvinistic interpretation. Bishop Hooper and several of the Marian exiles were Zwinglians, but the views of Cranmer and Ridley, in their private writings, on the effects of baptism and baptismal grace, agree substantially with those of Luther. See Browne on Art. XXVII. pp. 668 sq.; the passages collected by Jones, Expos. of the Art. pp. 157 sqq.; also Hardwick, pp. 393-395.

[1219] The second question: 'Who gave you this name? Ans. My godfather and godmother in baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.'

[1220] After the public baptism of infants, the priest shall say: 'Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks to Almighty God for these benefits,' etc. And in the prayer which follows: 'We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church.' The same prayer is prescribed for the office of private baptism of infants. The baptismal service is derived from the Sarum Manual and from the 'Consultation' of Archbishop Hermann of Cologne, which was borrowed from Luther's Taufbüchlein. See Daniel, Cod. Liturg. Eccl. Luth. p. 185, and Procter, History of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 371, 11th ed. (1874). Among the eight particulars in the Prayer-Book, which Baxter and his Nonconformist brethren objected to as sinful, the fourth was 'that ministers be forced to pronounce all baptized infants to be regenerate by the Holy Ghost, whether they be the children of Christians or not' (Procter, p. 133). The last clause intimates that baptized children of Christian parents were regarded by them as regenerate.

[1221] So Mozley, who endeavors to fasten this meaning upon the fathers, and the standard Anglican writers, including Hooker. But the strong language of the Greek and Latin fathers, who almost identify baptism with regeneration, and seem to know no other regeneration but that by baptism (which they call anagennesis, palingenesia, theogenesis, photismos, regeneratio, secunda nativitas, renascentia, illuminatio), must be understood chiefly of adult baptism, which in the first four centuries of the Church was the rule, while infant baptism was the exception, and which was administered to such only as had passed through a course of catechetical instruction, and professed repentance and faith in Christ. The same is true of the passages of the New Testament on baptism.

[1222] See his tract De dono perseverantiæ, and Mozley's Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination (Lond. 1855), pp. 191 sqq., and the Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, pp. 113 sqq. Mozley thinks that Augustine means by baptismal regeneration only capacity for goodness and holiness. Browne (on Art. XXVII.) presents a somewhat different view, viz., that Augustine uses the term regeneration sometimes in a wider, sometimes in a stricter and deeper sense. 'At one time he speaks of all the baptized as regenerate in Christ, and made children of God by virtue of that sacrament; at another time he speaks of baptismal grace as rather enabling them to become, than as actually constituting them God's children; and says that, in the higher and stricter sense, persons are not to be called sons of God unless they have the grace of perseverance, and walk in the love of God' (p. 660). There is no doubt that Augustine wished to adhere to the traditional orthodox view of baptism, and yet he could not help seeing that his new doctrine of predestination required a modification, which, however, he did not fully and clearly carry out.

[1223] This is undoubtedly the case in the New Testament wherever Christian baptism is mentioned: John iii. 5; Acts ii. 38; Rom. vi. 3, 4; Gal. iii. 27; Col. ii. 12; Eph. v. 26; Tit. iii. 5; 1 Pet. iii. 21. Calvin's exposition of some of these passages in his commentaries should be compared with his teaching in the 'Institutes.'

[1224] Chap. xxviii. 1, 5, 6.

[1225] Borrowed from the Lutheran service composed by Melanchthon and Bucer for Cologne: 'That being separated from the number of the ungodly, he may be kept safe in the holy ark of thy Church (in sancta Ecclesiæ, tuæ Arca tutus servari possit).' See Laurence, p. 71; Procter, p. 374. The Augsburg Confession (Art. IX., Latin ed.) teaches quod baptismus sit necessarius ad salutem, and condemns the Anabaptists for teaching that infants may be saved without baptism.

[1226] Reformat. Leg., De Baptismo: 'Illorum etiam videri debet scrupulosa superstitio, qui Dei gratiam et Spiritum Sanctum tantopere cum sacramentorum elementis colligant, ut plane affirment, nullum Christianorum infantem salutem esse consecuturum, qui prius morte fuerit occupatus, quam ad Baptismum adduci potuerit; quod longe secus habere judicamus.'

[1227] See above, p. 378. Zwingli was not quite so positive about the salvation of heathen children, but he declared it at least 'probabilius ut gentium liberi per Christum salventur quam ut damnentur.' Bullinger held the same view, though not so clearly expressed. See the passages quoted by Laurence, pp. 266, 267, who agrees on this subject with the Zurich Reformers.

[1228] Quoted by Jones, 1.c. pp. 167 sq.

[1229] Ibid. p. 171.

[1230] Eccles. Polity, Book V. ch. 60 (Vol. II. pp. 341, 342, 346, 347, Keble's ed.).

[1231] The term substantialiter is borrowed from the Apology of the Augsburg Conf., Art. X.

[1232] Sub speciebus panis et vini, from the German edition of the Augsburg Conf. (unter Gestalt des Brotes und Weines).

[1233] This is inferred from a letter to Cecil, Dec. 22, 1566, where Guest justifies the use of the word 'only' by saying that he did not intend to exclude 'the presence of Christ's body from the sacrament, but only the grossness and sensibleness in the receiving thereof.' Hardwick, p. 130.

[1234] 'Forasmuch as the truth of man's nature requireth that the body of one and the self-same man can not be at one time in diverse places, but must needs be in some one certain place: therefore the body of Christ can not be present at one time in many and diverse places. And because (as holy Scripture doth teach) Christ was taken up into heaven, and there shall continue unto the end of the world, a faithful man ought not either to believe or openly to confess the real and bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ's flesh and blood, in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.'

[1235] Hardwick regards this omission as a protest against Zwinglianism. But the leading Elizabethan bishops, especially Horn, Jewel, and Grindal, assure Bullinger and Peter Martyr of their full agreement with them against the ubiquitarian hypothesis, which was at that time defended by Brentius and Andreae, and opposed by the Swiss. See pp. 603 and 632.

[1236] Art. XXIX. 'Of the wicked which do not eat the body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper. The wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as St. Augustine saith) the sacrament [i.e., the sacramental sign] of the body and blood of Christ: yet in no way are they partakers of Christ, but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing.' This Article is wanting in the Latin edition of 1563, having probably been withdrawn from the Convocation records in compliance with the desire of the Queen and her council to deal gently with the adherents of the 'old learning' (whether Romish or Lutheran); but it was inserted in the Latin editions after the year 1571. See Hardwick, pp. 144 and 315.

[1237] See the lengthy discussion of this subject in Lorimer's John Knox, pp. 100-136.

[1238] Tractatio de sacramento Eucharistiæ habita in celeberrima Universitate Oxoniensi. Ad hæc: Disputatio de eodem sacramento in eadem Universitate habita. London, 1549; also in Zurich, 1552, and an English translation, 1583. See an account in Dr. C. Schmidt, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Leben und ausgewählte Schriften (Elberfeld, 1858), pp. 91-100, 105.

[1239] Schmidt, p. 106. Ridley's Works, pp. 171 sqq.

[1240] See above, p. 601. Cranmer admits the charge of his opponents, Bishop Gardiner and Dr. Smith, that he was upon this point first a Papist, then a Lutheran, and at last a Zwinglian. 'After it hath pleased God,' he says, 'to show unto me, by his holy Word, a more perfect knowledge of his Son Jesus Christ, from time to time as I grew in knowledge of him, by little and little I put away my former ignorance. And as God of his mercy gave me light, so through his grace I opened mine eyes to receive it, and did not willfully repugn unto God and remain in darkness. And I trust in God's mercy and pardon for my former errors, because I erred but of frailness and ignorance.' Answer to Smith's Preface, Works, Vol. I. p. 374.

[1241] Of this recantation Bartholomew Traheron wrote to Bullinger from London, Dec. 31, 1548, as follows: 'I can not refrain, my excellent Bullinger, from acquainting you with circumstances that have lately given us the greatest pleasure, that you and your fellow-ministers may participate in our enjoyment. On the 14th of December, if I mistake not, a disputation was held at London concerning the eucharist, in the presence of almost all the nobility of England. The argument was sharply contested by the Bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury, contrary to general expectation, most openly, firmly, and learnedly maintained your opinion upon this subject. His arguments were as follows: The body of Christ was taken up from us into heaven. Christ has left the world. "Ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always," etc. Next followed the Bishop of Rochester [Ridley], who handled the subject with so much eloquence, perspicuity, erudition, and power, as to stop the mouth of that most zealous papist, the Bishop of Worcester [Heath]. The truth never obtained a more brilliant victory among us. I perceive that it is all over with Lutheranism, now that those who were considered its principal and almost only supporters have altogether come over to our side. We are much indebted to the Lord who provides for us also in this particular.' In a postscript to this letter, John of Ulmis adds: 'The foolish Bishops have made a marvelous recantation.' The same 'notable disputation of the sacrament' is mentioned in King Edward's Journal as having taken place in the Parliament house. See Zurich Letters, 1537-1558, pp. 322, 323.

[1242] An Answer unto a Crafty and Sophistical Cavillation, devised by Stephen Gardiner, Doctor of Law, late Bishop of Winchester, against the True and Godly Doctrine of the most holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ (1550). The sacramental writings of Cranmer fill the first volume of the Parker Society's edition of his works (Cambridge, 1844).

[1243] Works, Vol. I. pp. 14, 173, 196, 225, 374.

[1244] See a letter of John à Lasco to Bullinger, dated London, April 10, 1551; Cardwell's Liturgies of Edward VI. (Preface), and Lorimer's John Knox, p. 49.

[1245] See a letter of John à Lasco to Bullinger, dated London, April 10, 1551; Cardwell's Liturgies of Edward VI. (Preface), and Lorimer's John Knox, p. 49.

[1246] Bishop Browne correctly says (p. 710): 'Ridley, indeed, refused to take the credit of converting Cranmer, but Cranmer himself always acknowledged his obligations to Ridley.' In his last examination at Oxford, before Bishop Brooks of Gloucester (Sept., 1555), Cranmer said that 'Doctor Ridley, by sundry persuasions and authorities drew me quite from my opinion' (on the real presence). Works, Vol. II. p. 218. Brooks on the same occasion remarked: 'Latimer leaneth to Cranmer. Cranmer to Ridley, and Ridley to the singularity of his own wit;' to which Ridley replied, that this was 'most untrue, in that he was but a young scholar in comparison of Master Cranmer.' Ridley's Works, pp. 283, 284.

[1247] Works, Vol. I. pp. 394, 395.

[1248] Jones, l.c. p. 176, where also the passages of the leading divines and bishops of the Elizabethan age on the subject of the Lord's Supper are collected.

[1249] Ridley's Works, pp. 235 sq. Jewel expresses the same views very fully in his controversy with Harding, Works, Vol. I. pp. 448 sqq. (Parker Soc. ed. 1845). Bishop Browne (p. 715) says that all the great luminaries of the Church of England (naming Mede, Andrewes, Hooker, Taylor, Hammond, Cosin, Bramhall, Ussher, Pearson, Patrick, Bull, Beveridge, Wake, Waterland) agree with the doctrine of the formularies in denying a corporal and acknowledging a spiritual feeding in the Supper of the Lord.

[1250] A revision of the Book of Common Prayer was adopted by the National Church Assembly, July, 1927, the vote being 34 to 4 bishops, 255 to 37 clergymen, 230 to 92 laymen, but rejected by the House of Commons, Dec., 1927, by a vote of 238 to 205. A second revision was rejected by the Commons, June 14, 1928, by an increased majority, 266 to 220. The revision seemed to permit the reservation of the sacrament and introduced after the consecration of the elements the epiclesis of the Greek Church, stating the change of the bread and wine. The Revised Book is issued by the S. P. C. K.--Ed. __________________________________________________________________

§ 82. American Revision of the Thirty-nine Articles, A.D. 1801.

William White, D.D. (first Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the diocese of Pennsylvania; d. 1836): Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. New York, 1820; 3d ed. by De Costa, 1880.

William Stevens Perry, D.D. (Secretary of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States): A Hand-book of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, giving its History and Constitution, 1785--1874. New York, 1874. The same: Journals of the General Convention, etc., 1785--1835. Claremont, N. H., 1874.

Also Samuel Wilberforce (late Bishop of Oxford): A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America (1844); Caswall: History of the American Church (2d ed. 1851); and Procter: A History of the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 162 sqq. (11th ed. 1874).

For the colonial history, comp. the Historical Collections relating to the American Colonial Church, ed. by Dr. Perry. Hartford, 1871 sqq. 3 vols. 4to.

The members of the Church of England in the American Colonies, from the first settlement of Virginia (1607) till after the War of the Revolution, belonged to the diocese of the Bishop of London, who never visited the country, and could exercise but an imperfect supervision. Several attempts were made, by the friends of the Church, to establish colonial bishoprics, but failed.

The separation from the crown of England necessitated an independent organization, which assumed the title of The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The first steps towards such an organization were taken by a meeting of clergy and laity in New Brunswick, New Jersey, May 11, 1784, and by another and larger one, held in New York, Oct. 6 and 7, of the same year. The first General Convention, consisting of sixteen clerical and twenty-six lay deputies, assembled in Philadelphia, Sept. 27 and 28, 1785, Dr. White presiding, adopted a constitution and such changes in the Book of Common Prayer as were deemed necessary to conform it 'to the American Revolution and the Constitutions of the respective States,' and petitioned the English hierarchy to consecrate such bishops for the independent Church as may be elected by the separate dioceses. [1251] The revised provisional Liturgy was rather hastily prepared and published, 1786. It is called the 'Proposed Book.' [1252] It contains, besides many necessary ritual changes and improvements, Twenty Articles of Religion, based upon the Thirty-nine Articles, but differing widely from them, being a mutilation rather than an improvement. [1253] The alterations and omissions were made in the interest of an unchurchly latitudinarianism which then prevailed. The Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed, which Art. VIII. of the English series acknowledges, were entirely omitted in Art. IV. of the new series; the Apostles' Creed was retained, but without the clause 'He descended into hell.'

The book failed to give general satisfaction at home or abroad. The English Archbishops demanded the restoration of the three OEcumenical Creeds in their integrity. [1254]

The General Convention held at Wilmington, Del., Oct. 11, 1786, complied with this request so far as the Nicene Creed and the discretionary use of the clause of the descent in the Apostles' Creed were concerned. [1255] The omission of the Athanasian Creed was adhered to, [1256] and subsequently acquiesced in by the English Bishops. The obstacle of the oath of allegiance required in England having been removed by act of Parliament, the Rev. Drs. White, of Pennsylvania, and Provoost, of New York, received the long-sought 'Apostolical succession,' in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, Feb. 4, 1787. At one time this result seemed so doubtful that steps were taken to secure ordination, with a broken succession, from the Lutheran bishops of Denmark, and the consent of the Danish government had actually been obtained, when the difficulties in England were removed.

In the Special Convention of Philadelphia, June, 1799 (the General Convention having been prevented in the preceding year by an epidemic), a new revision of the Articles of Religion, reduced to seventeen, was considered, but not finally acted upon by the House of Deputies, and was printed as an Appendix to the Journal of that House. [1257] But it gave no satisfaction, and shared the same fate with the previous draft of twenty Articles.

Finally, the General Convention held at Trenton, New Jersey, Sept. 3-12, 1801, settled the question by adopting the Thirty-nine Articles in the form which they have since retained in the American Episcopal Church, and are incorporated in its editions of the Prayer-Book. [1258] The only doctrinal difference is the omission of the Athanasian Creed from Art. VIII.; the remaining changes are political, and adapted to the separation of Church and State. Otherwise even 'the obsolete diction' is retained. The following is the action of this Convention: [1259]

'Resolutions of the Bishops, the Clergy, and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in Convention, in the city of Trenton, the 12th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1801, respecting the Articles of Religion.

'The Articles of Religion are hereby ordered to be set forth with the following directions, to be observed in all future editions of the same; that is to say--

'The following to be the title, viz.:

'"Articles of Religion, as established by the Bishops, the Clergy, and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in Convention, on the 12th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1801."

'The Articles to stand as in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, with the following alterations and omissions, viz.:

'In the 8th Article, the word "three" in the title, and the words "three--Athanasius' creed" in the Article, to be omitted, and the Article to read thus:

'"Art. VIII. Of the Creeds.

'"The Nicene Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture."

'Under the title "Article 21," the following note to be inserted, namely,

'"The 21st of the former Articles is omitted, because it is partly of a local and civil nature, and is provided for, as to the remaining parts of it, in other Articles."

'The 35th Article to be inserted with the following note, namely,

'"This Article is received in this Church, so far as it declares the Books of Homilies to be an explication of Christian doctrine, and instructive in piety and morals. But all references to the constitution and laws of England are considered as inapplicable to the circumstances of this Church: which also suspends the order for the reading of said homilies in churches until a revision of them may conveniently be made, for the clearing of them, as well from obsolete words and phrases, as from the local references."

'The 36th Article, entitled "Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers," to read thus:

'"The Book of Consecration of Bishops, and ordering of Priests and Deacons, as set forth by the General Convention of this Church in 1792, doth contain all things necessary to such consecration and ordering: neither hath it any thing that, of itself, is superstitious and ungodly. And, therefore, whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to said form, we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered."

'The 37th Article to be omitted, and the following substituted in its place:

'"Art. XXXVII. Of the Power of the Civil Magistrate.

'"The power of the civil magistrate extendeth to all men, as well Clergy as Laity, in all things temporal; but hath no authority in things purely spiritual. And we hold it to be the duty of all men who are professors of the gospel, to pay respectful obedience to the civil authority, regularly and legitimately constituted." [1260]

'Adopted by the House of Bishops.

WILLIAM WHITE, D.D., Presiding Bishop.

'Adopted by the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies.

ABRAHAM BEACH, D.D., President.

On the nature and aim of this action, Bishop White remarks: [1261]

'The object kept in view, in all the consultations held, and the determinations formed, was the perpetuating of the Episcopal Church, on the ground of the general principles which she had inherited from the Church of England; and of not departing from them, except so far as either local circumstances required, or some very important cause rendered proper. To those acquainted with the system of the Church of England, it must be evident that the object here stated was accomplished on the ratification of the Articles.'

The only change in the Prayer-Book which has a doctrinal bearing, besides the omission of the Athanasian Creed, is the insertion of the Prayer of Oblation and Invocation from the Scotch (and the First Edwardine) Prayer-Book, through the influence of Bishop Seabury, who had been consecrated in the Scotch Episcopal Church. __________________________________________________________________

[1251] Shortly before the Convention, Bishop Seabury, of Connecticut, had received consecration at Aberdeen from three Bishops of Scotland (Nov. 14, 1784), but he did not attend the Convention, and was opposed from High-Church principles to the introduction of lay representation and the limitation of the power of the episcopate.

[1252] It is sometimes also called 'Bishop White's Prayer-Book,' who was the chairman of the committee of revision, Dr. William Smith, of Maryland, and Dr. Wharton, of Delaware, being the other members. Smith is made chiefly responsible for the changes by Perry, p. 23. The book was printed in Philadelphia, 1786, in London, 1789, and again (with omission of the amended Articles of Religion) in New York, Dec., 1873, for provisional use in the new Reformed Episcopal Church,' which has since adopted a new revision.

[1253] Given by Perry, Hand-book, pp. 34-39, from the original MSS. in the Convention archives. He calls the Proposed Book a 'hasty, crude, and unsatisfactory compilation, which failed utterly to establish itself in the American Church' (p. 42).

[1254] See their letter in Perry, pp. 50-55.

[1255] In the first edition of the new Prayer-Book, 1790, the objectionable clause was printed in italics, and put in parentheses. But the General Convention of 1792 left it discretionary to use it, or to omit it, or to substitute for it the words, 'He went into the place of departed spirits,' as being equivalent to the words in the Creed.

[1256] Bishop Seabury was very zealous for the Athanasian Creed; and in the Convention of 1789 the House of Bishops agreed to its permissory use, but the House of Deputies 'would not allow of the Creed in any shape.' Bishop White favored a compromise--viz., to leave it in the Prayer-Book as a doctrinal document, but not to read it in public worship. See his Memoirs, pp. 149, 150, and a letter of White, quoted by Perry, p. 76.

[1257] Perry, pp. 90-95.

[1258] See Vol. III. pp. 477 sqq., where they are given in full.

[1259] Perry, pp. 99-101.

[1260] This Art. appears as the last in the XVII. Articles of 1799.

[1261] Memoirs, p. 33. __________________________________________________________________

§ 83. The Catechisms of the Church of England. A.D. 1549 and 1662.

Literature.

The Church Catechism is contained in all the English and American editions of the Book of Common Prayer, between the baptismal and the confirmation services, and is printed in this work with the American emendations, Vol. III. pp. 517 sqq. The authentic text of the final revision of 1662 is in the corrected copy of the Black-Letter Prayer-Book, which was attached to the Act of Uniformity, and has been republished in fac-simile, Lond. 1871. (It was supposed to be lost, when in 1867 it was discovered in the Library of the House of Lords.)

Archibald John Stephens: The Book of Common Prayer, with notes legal and historical. Lond. 1854 Vol. III. pp. 1449-1477.

Francis Procter: A History of the Book of Common Prayer, 11th ed. Lond. 1874, ch. V. sect. i (pp. 397 sqq.).

See other works on the Anglican Liturgy, noticed by Procter, p. viii.

Earlier Catechisms.

The English Church followed the example of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches on the Continent in providing for regular catechetical instruction. English versions and expositions of the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, with some prayers, were known before the Reformation, and constituted the 'Prymer,' which is commonly mentioned in the fifteenth century as a well-known book of private devotion. [1262] In 1545 Henry VIII. set forth a Primer which was 'to be taught, learned, and read, and none other to be used throughout all his dominions. [1263] During his reign the curates were frequently enjoined to teach the people the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, sentence by sentence, on Sundays and Holydays, and to make all persons recite them when they came to confession.

Cranmer'S Catechism.

'Cranmer's Catechism,' which appeared with his sanction in 1548, was for the most part a translation of the Latin Catechism of Justus Jonas, and retains the Catholic and Lutheran consolidation of the first and second commandments, and the sacrament of penance or absolution; but it was soon superseded. [1264] Cranmer changed about that time his view of the real presence.

The Catechism Of The Prayer-Book.

When the Reformation was positively introduced under Edward VI., and the Book of Public Worship was prepared, a Catechism was embodied in it, to insure general instruction in the elements of the Christian religion. In the Prayer-Books of Edward VI. (1549, 1552) and Elizabeth (1559) this Catechism bears the title 'Confirmation, wherein is contained a Catechism for Children.'

This work has undergone, with other parts of the Prayer-Book, sundry alterations. The commandments were given, first very briefly (as in King Henry's Primer), then in full with a Preface in the edition of 1552. The explanation of the sacraments was added in 1604 by royal authority, in compliance with the wish of the Puritans expressed at the Hampton Court Conference, [1265] and is attributed to Bishop Overall, then Dean of St. Paul's. In the last revision of the Prayer-Book, in 1661, the title was changed into 'A Catechism,' and two emendations were introduced in the answer on Baptism, as follows:

Earlier Editions. Edition of 1661 (1662) What is the outward visible sign or form in Baptism? What is the outward visible sign or form in Baptism? Water; wherein the person baptized is dipped or sprinkled with it, in the name, etc. Water; wherein the person is baptized, in the name, etc. Why then are infants baptized when by reason of their tender age they can not perform them [repentance and faith]? Why then are infants baptized, when by reason of their tender age they can not perform them? Yes; they do perform them by their Sureties, who promise and vow them both in their names: which when they come to age themselves are bound to perform. Because they promise them both by their Sureties; which promise, when they come to age, themselves are bound to perform.

In the explanation of the Commandments the words 'the King and his Ministers' were so changed as to read 'the King and all that are put in authority under him.'

This Catechism is a considerable improvement on the mediæval primers, but very meagre if we compare it with the Catechisms of Luther, Calvin, and other Continental Reformers.

The Nonconformist ministers at the Savoy Conference (April, 1661), in reviewing the whole Liturgy, objected to the first three questions of the Catechism, and desired a full exposition of the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Commandments, and additional questions on the nature of faith, repentance, the two covenants, justification, adoption, regeneration, and sanctification. These censures were not heeded. [1266]

The American Episcopal Church adopted, with the body of the Book of Common Prayer, the Catechism also, substituting 'the civil authority' for 'the King,' and omitting several directions in the appended rubrics.

Outside of the Anglican communion the Catechism is used only by the Irvingites who more nearly approach that Church, especially in their liturgy, than any other.

Larger Catechisms.

The need of a fuller Catechism for a more advanced age was felt in the Church of England. Such a one was prepared by Poynet, Bishop of Winchester, and published, together with the Forty-two Articles, in Latin and English, in 1553, [1267] apparently with the approval of Cranmer and the Convocation. [1268] On the basis of this, Dean Nowell, of St. Paul's, prepared another in 1562, which was amended, but not formally approved by Convocation (Nov. 11, 1562), and published (1570) in several forms--larger, middle, and smaller. The smaller differs but slightly from that in the Prayer-Book. [1269]

Besides these English productions, the Catechisms of OEcolampadius, Leo Judæ, and especially those of Calvin and Bullinger were extensively used, even in the Universities, during the reign of Elizabeth. [1270] __________________________________________________________________

[1262] The earliest known copy, belonging to the latter part of the 14th century, has been published by Maskel in Monumenta ritualia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, Vol. II. It contains Matins and Hours of our Lady; Evensong and Compline; the seven Penitential Psalms; the Psalmi graduales (Psa. CXX.-CXXXIV.); the Litany; Placebo (Vespers); Dirge (the office for the departed); the Psalms of Commendation; Pater noster; Ave Maria; Creed; Ten Commandments; the seven deadly sins. See Procter, p. 15.

[1263] It contained, besides the contents of the older Primers, the Salutation of the Angel, the Passion of our Lord, and several prayers. See Procter, p. 15, and Barton, Three Primers, pp. 437 sqq.

[1264] So Hardwick (Hist. of the Reform. p. 194) and other Episcopal writers. This matter needs further investigation. The very existence of a Catechism of Jonas is doubted by Langemack and Mönckeberg, who have written with authority on Luther's Catechism. But it is a fact that Luther, before be prepared his own Catechisms (1529), charged with this task his colleagues and friends Justus Jonas and Agricola of Eisleben (who afterwards became the leader of Antinomian views in opposition to Luther), for he wrote to Hausmann, Feb. 2, 1525: 'Jonæ et Eislebio mandatas est catechismus puerorum parandus' (De Wette, Vol. II. p. 621). This is probably the Catechism which appeared in the same year in a Latin translation anonymously under the title 'Quo pacto statim a primis annis, pueri debeant in Christianismo institui. Libellus perutilis.' At the close: 'Impressum Wittembergæ per Georgium Rhaw. An. 1525.' The original German edition has not been traced, but Dr. Schneider has discovered a copy of an improved German edition, under the title 'Ein Buchlein fur die kinder gebessert und gemehret. Der Leyen Biblia. Wittemberg, 1528,' and has reproduced it in the appendix to his critical edition of Luther's Small Catechism, 1853. He leaves it, however, uncertain whether it was composed by Jonas. Comp. his Introduction, pp. xx sqq. It consists of a brief exposition of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Sacrament of Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, with an addition on Confession; and so far it anticipates the order of Luther's Catechism. This must be the basis of Cranmer's Catechism; but as the Parker Soc. edition of his works gives only his dedicatory Preface to King Edward (Vol. II. p. 418), I can not verify the identity. It seems strange that Cranmer did not translate rather the far more perfect Catechism of Luther. The reason was, no doubt, his personal acquaintance with the author's son, Justus Jonas, jun., who was recommended to him by Melanchthon, was very kindly treated by him, and seems to have been the chief medium of his communication with the German Lutherans. See Strype's Memoir of Cranmer, Vol. II. p. 581; Laurence, p. 17; and Cranmer's Works, Vol. II. p. 425.

[1265] Dr. Reynolds said at that Conference: 'The Catechism in the Common Prayer-Book is too brief, and that of Mr. Nowell (late Dean of St. Paul's) too long for novices to learn by heart. I request, therefore, that one uniform Catechism may be made, and none other generally received.' To this King James replied: 'I think the doctor's request very reasonable, yet so that the Catechism may be made in the fewest and plainest affirmative terms that may be,--not like the many ignorant Catechisms in Scotland, set out by every one who was the son of a good man.'--Fuller's Church History of Britain, Vol. V. p. 284.

[1266] Dr. Shields, in his edition of the Book of Common Prayer as amended by the Savoy Conference (Phila. 1867), has inserted the Shorter Westminster Catechism in the place of the Anglican Catechism. But it does not harmonize with the genius of the Prayer-Book.

[1267] Both editions are reprinted by the Parker Society in Liturgies, etc., of Edward VI.

[1268] 'Catechismus brevis Christianæ disciplinæ summam continens:' 'A short Catechism, or plain instruction, containing the sum of Christian learning, set forth by the King's Majesty's authority, for all schoolmasters to teach.' The authority of this Catechism was afterwards disputed. See Hardwick, Hist. of the Articles, p. 109.

[1269] The larger Catechism appeared first in Latin under the title 'Catechismus, sive prima institutio disciplinaque pietatis Christianæ, latine explicata. Reprinted in Bishop Randolph's Enchirid. Theolog. See Churton's Life of Nowell, pp. 183 sq., and Lathbury, History of Convoc. pp. 167 sq.

[1270] Procter says (p. 400): 'Even in 1578, when the exclusive use of Nowell's Catechism had been enjoined in the canons of 1571, those of Calvin, Bullinger, and others were still ordered by statute to be used in the University of Oxford.' __________________________________________________________________

§ 84. THE LAMBETH ARTICLES, A.D. 1595.

Literature.

Articuli Lambethani. London, 1651. Appended to Ellis's Artic. XXXIX. Eccl. Angl. Defensio; reprinted 1720.

Peter Heylin (Arminian): Historia Quinqu-Articularis. London, 1660. Chaps. xx.-xxii. Also his History of the Presbyterians.

Strype: Life and Acts of John Whitgift, Vols. II. and III. (Oxford ed. 1822).

Thomas Fuller: Church History of Britain, Vol. V. pp. 219-227 (Oxford ed. of 1845).

R. Hooker's Works, ed. Keble, Vol. I. p. cii.; Vol. II. p. 752.

Collier: An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, Vol. VII. pp. 184-195.

Neale: History of the Puritans, Vol. I. pp. 208 sqq. (Harper's ed.).

Hardwick: History of the Articles of Religion, chap. vii. pp. 162-180, 343-347.

The Lambeth Articles are printed in Vol. III. p. 523, and also in Strype, Fuller, Collier, and Hardwick, l.c.

The Lambeth Articles have never had full symbolical authority in the Church of England, but they are of historical interest as showing the ascendency of the predestinarian system of Calvin in the last decade of the sixteenth century. [1271]

As Calvin became more fully known in England, he acquired an authority over the leading divines and the Universities almost as great is that of St. Augustine during the reign of Edward VI., or, in the language of Hooker, as that of the 'Master of Sentences' in the palmy days of scholasticism, 'so that the perfectest divines were judged they which were skillfullest in Calvin's writings.' Hardwick, speaking of the latter part of the Elizabethan period, admits that 'during an interval of nearly thirty years the extreme opinions of the school of Calvin, not excluding his theory of irrespective reprobation, were predominant in almost every town and parish.' The stern, bold, uncompromising predestinarianism of the Geneva Reformer seemed to furnish the best antidote to the twin errors of Pelagianism and Popery. The Puritan party without an exception, and the great majority of the conforming clergy, understood the Articles of Religion as teaching his doctrines of free-will, election, and perseverance; but some of them thought them not strong enough.

The University of Cambridge was a stronghold of the Calvinistic system. It was taught there by Thomas Cartwright, the Margaret Professor of Divinity (who, however, was deposed in 1571 for Puritanic sentiments--d. 1603); William Perkins, Fellow and Tutor of Christ's College (d. 1602); [1272] and especially by Dr. William Whitaker (Whittaker), the Regius Professor of Divinity (d. 1595). [1273]

But in the same University there arose an opposition which created great stir. It began with Baro (Baron), a French refugee, who, by the favor of Burghley, was promoted to the Margaret Professorship of Divinity (1574). He inferred from the history of the Ninevites that God predestinated all men to eternal life, but on condition of their faith and perseverance. [1274] For this opinion, which he more fully explained in a sermon, he was cited before Dr. Goade, the Vice-Chancellor of the University; and although the proceedings were stopped by the interposition of Burghley, he retired to London (1596), where he died a few years afterwards. The same cause was taken up more vigorously by William Barrett, a fellow of Caius College, who, in a 'concio ad clerum,' preached in Great St. Mary's Church, April 29, 1595, indulged in a virulent attack on the honored names of Calvin, Beza, Peter Martyr, and Zanchius, and their doctrine of irrespective predestination.

The academic controversy was carried by both parties first to the Vice-Chancellor and heads of Colleges, and then to Archbishop Whitgift, of Canterbury. Whitgift, a High-Churchman and an enemy of Puritanism, seemed at first inclined to take part with Barrett, but yielded to the pressure of the University. Barrett was obliged to admit his ignorance and mistake, and to modify his dogmatic statements. He left England and joined the Church of Rome.

To settle this controversy, and to prevent future trouble, the heads of the University sent Dr. Whitaker and Dr. Tyndal (Dean of Ely) to London, to confer with the Archbishop and other learned divines. The result was the adoption of Nine Articles, at Lambeth, Nov. 20, 1595. [1275] They contain a clear and strong enunciation of the predestinarian system, by teaching--

1. The eternal election of some to life, and the reprobation of others to death.

2. The moving cause of predestination to life is not the foreknowledge of faith and good works, but only the good pleasure of God.

3. The number of the elect is unalterably fixed.

4. Those who are not predestinated to life shall necessarily be damned for their sins.

5. The true faith of the elect never fails finally nor totally.

6. A true believer, or one furnished with justifying faith, has a full assurance and certainty of remission and everlasting salvation in Christ.

7. Saving grace is not communicated to all men.

8. No man can come to the Son unless the Father shall draw him, but all men are not drawn by the Father.

9. It is not in every one's will and power to be saved.

The Articles were drawn up by Whitaker (who died soon afterwards), and somewhat modified by the Bishops to make them less objectionable to anti-Calvinists. Thus the fifth Article originally stated that true faith could not totally and finally fail 'in those who had once been partakers of it;' while in the revision the words 'in the elect' (i.e., a special class of the regenerated) were substituted. [1276] The Articles thus amended were signed by Archbishop Whitgift, Dr. Richard Fletcher, [1277] Bishop of London, Dr. Richard Vaughan, Bishop elect of Bangor, and others. They were also sent to Dr. Hutton, Archbishop of York, and Dr. Young, Bishop of Rochester. Hutton indorsed the first Article with 'verissimum,' and approved the rest with the remark that they could all be plainly collected or fairly deduced from the Scriptures and the writings of St. Augustine.

Whitgift sent the Lambeth Articles to the University of Cambridge (Nov. 24), not as new laws and decrees, but as an explanation of certain points already established by the laws of the land. But inasmuch as they had not the Queen's sanction (though he states that the Queen was fully persuaded of the truth of them, which is inconsistent with her conduct), they should be used privately and with discretion. [1278]

Queen Elizabeth, who had no special liking for Calvinism and dogmatic controversies, was displeased with the calling of a Synod without her authority, which subjected the Lambeth divines to prosecution. [1279] She commanded the Archbishop to recall and suppress those Articles without delay. At the Hampton Court Conference of King James and several prelates with the leaders of the Puritans (Jan., 1604), Dr. Reynolds made the request that 'the nine orthodoxal assertions concluded on at Lambeth might be inserted into the Book of Articles.' [1280] It is stated that they were exhibited at the Synod of Dort by the English deputies, as the judgment of their Church on the Arminian controversy. But the anti-Calvinistic reaction under the Stuarts gradually deprived them of their force in England, while in Ireland they obtained for some time a semi-symbolical authority.

It is interesting to compare with the Lambeth Articles a brief predestinarian document of Calvin, recently discovered by the Strasburg editors of his works, [1281] and a fragment of Hooker on free-will, predestination, and perseverance. The former is stronger, the latter is milder, and presents the following slight modification of those Articles: [1282]

'It followeth therefore [says Hooker, at the close of his fragment]--

'1. That God hath predestinated certain men, not all men.

'2. That the cause moving him hereunto was not the foresight or any virtue in us at all.

'3. That to him the number of his elect is definitely known.

'4. That it can not be but their sins must condemn them to whom the purpose of his saving mercy doth not extend.

'5. That to God's foreknown elect final continuance of grace is given.

[Art. 6 of the Lambeth series is omitted by Hooker.]

'6. [7.] That inward grace whereby to be saved is deservedly not given unto all men.

'7. [8.] That no man cometh unto Christ whom God by the inward grace of his Spirit draweth not.

'8. [9.] And that it is not in every, no, not in any man's own mere ability, freedom, and power, to be saved, no man's salvation being possible without grace. Howbeit, God is no favorer of sloth; and therefore there can be no such absolute decree touching man's salvation as on our part includeth no necessity of care and travail, but shall certainly take effect, whether we ourselves do wake or sleep.' __________________________________________________________________

[1271] Fuller says (Vol. V. p. 227): 'All that I will say of the credit of these Articles is this: that as medals of gold and silver, though they will not pass in payment for current coin, because not stamped with the King's inscription, yet they will go with goldsmiths for as much as they are in weight; so, though these Articles want authentic reputation to pass for provincial acts, as lacking sufficient authority, yet will they be readily received of orthodox Christians for as far as their own purity bears conformity to God's Word. . . . Their testimony is an infallible evidence what was the general and received doctrine of England in that age about the forenamed controversies.'

[1272] He wrote the Golden Chain, or Armilla aurea (1592), which contains a very clear, logical exposition of the predestinarian order of the causes of salvation and damnation. His works were published in 3 vols. London, 1616-18.

[1273] He wrote the best defense of the Protestant doctrine of the Scriptures against Bellarmine and Stapleton. His works were published in Latin at Geneva (1610), 2 vols., and in part republished by the Parker Society, Cambridge, 1849.

[1274] Prælect. in Ionam Prophetam, London, 1579, and Concio ad Clerum, preached in 1595. See the Letter of the heads of Cambridge, March 8, 1595, to Secretary Lord Burghley (Cecil), Chancellor of the University, in Collier, Vol. VII. p. 193.

[1275] This is the correct date, given by Strype from the authentic MS. copy which is headed, 'Articuli approbati a reverendissimis dominis D. D. Ioanne archiepiscopo Cantuariensi, et Richardo episcopo Londinensi, et aliis Theologis, Lambethæ, Novembris 20, anno 1595.' Heylin and Collier give the 10th of November.

[1276] See the original draft and the comments thereon, in Hardwick, p. 345, where we find the remark: 'In autographo Whitakeri verba erant, "in iis qui semel ejus participes fuerunt;" pro quibus a Lambethanis substituta sunt "in electis," sensu plane alio, et ad mentem Augustini; cum in autographo sint ad mentem Calvini. Augustinus enim opinatus est, "veram fidem quæ per dilectionem operatur, per quam contingit adoptio, justificatio et sanctificatio, posse et intercidi et amitti: fidem vero esse commune donum electis et reprobis, sed perseverantiam electis propriam:" Calvinus autem, "veram et justificantem fidem solis salvandis et electis contingere."'

[1277] Not Richard Bancroft, as Fuller states; for Bancroft was not made Bishop of London till 1597.

[1278] Heylin endeavors to relieve Whitgift from the odium of signing the Lambeth Articles by casting doubt on his honesty. Whitgift sided with Hooker against Travers, and entertained Dr. Harsnet in his family, who derided the doctrine of unconditional reprobation in a sermon at St. Paul's Cross (1584). See Collier, pp. 186, 189. But while he may have been opposed to strict Calvinism, as he certainly was to Puritanism, he seems to have been in full accord with the Augustinian infralapsarianism.

[1279] Fuller (Vol. V. p. 222) relates that the Queen, in her laconic style, reminded the Primate, half in jest, that by his unauthorized call of a council he had 'incurred the guilt of præmunire.'

[1280] See Fuller, who gives a minute account of this famous Conference, Vol. V. p. 275.

[1281] It is printed in Vol. III. pp. 524 sq. of this work.

[1282] Hooker's Works, ed. Keble, Vol. II. pp. 752 sq. __________________________________________________________________

§ 85. THE IRISH ARTICLES. A.D. 1615.

Literature.

Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, D.D., Lord Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all Ireland. With a Life of the Author, and an Account of his Writings. By Charles Richard Elrington, D.D. Dublin, 1847, 16 Vols. See Vol. I. pp. 38 sqq. and Appendix IV.

Ch. Hardwick: A History of the Articles of Religion, pp. 181 sqq., 351 sqq.

James Seaton Reid, D.D.: History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Belfast, 1834, 3 vols.

W. D. Killen, D.D. (Presb. Prof. of Eccles. Hist. at Belfast): The Ecclesiastical History of Ireland from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. London, 1875, 2 vols. (Vol. I. pp. 492 sqq.; Vol. II. pp. 17 sqq.)

The Irish Articles are printed in Vol. III. pp. 526 sqq. of this work, in Dr. Elrington's Life of Ussher (Vol. I. Append. IV.), in Hardwick (Append. VI.), and in Killen (Vol. I. Append. III.).

The Protestant clergy in Ireland accepted the English Prayer-Book in 1560. Whether the Elizabethan Articles of Religion were also adopted is uncertain. [1283] At all events, they did not fully satisfy the rigorous Calvinism which came to prevail there for a period even more extensively than in England, and which found an advocate in an Irish scholar and prelate of commanding character and learning.

The first Convocation of the Irish Protestant clergy, which took place after the model of the English Convocation, adopted a doctrinal formula of its own, under the title 'Articles of Religion, agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops, and the rest of the clergy of Ireland, in the Convocation holden at Dublin in the year of our Lord God 1615, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions, and the establishing of consent touching true religion.'

They were drawn up by James Ussher, [1284] head of the theological faculty and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all Ireland. He was born in 1580, died 1656, and was buried in Westminster Abbey by order of Cromwell. He was the greatest theological and antiquarian scholar of the Episcopal Church of his age, and was highly esteemed by Churchmen and Puritans, being a connecting link between the contending parties. He was elected into the Westminster Assembly of Divines, but the King's prohibition and his loyalty to the cause of the crown and episcopacy forbade him to attend. He had an extraordinary familiarity with Biblical and patristic literature, and, together with his friend Vossius of Holland, he laid the foundation for a critical investigation of the oecumenical creeds. Whether formally commissioned by the Convocation or not, he must, from his position, have had the principal share in the preparation of those Articles. They are 'in strict conformity with the opinions he entertained at that period of his life.' [1285]

By a decree of the Synod appended to the Dublin Articles, they were to be a rule of public doctrine, and any minister who should publicly teach any doctrine contrary to them, and after due admonition should refuse to conform, was to be 'silenced and deprived of all spiritual promotions.' The Viceroy of Ireland, in the name of King James, gave his approval. James, with all his high notions of episcopacy and hatred of Puritanism, was a Calvinist in theology, and countenanced the Synod of Dort. It is stated that the adoption of this Confession induced Calvinistic ministers of Scotland to settle in Ireland. [1286]

But in the reign of Charles I. and his adviser, Archbishop Laud, a reaction set in against Calvinism. An Irish Convocation in 1635, under the lead of the Earl of Strafford, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and his chaplain, John Bramhall (one of the ablest High-Church Episcopalians, who was made Bishop of Londonderry, 1634, and Archbishop of Armagh, 1661--died, 1663), adopted the Thirty-nine Articles 'for the manifestation of agreement with the Church of England in the confession of the same Christian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments.' This act was intended quietly to set aside the Irish Articles; and hence they were ignored in the canons adopted by that convocation. [1287] Ussher, however, who continued to adhere to Calvinism, though on terms of friendship with Laud, required subscription to both series, and in a contemporary letter to Dr. Ward he says: 'The Articles of Religion agreed upon in our former Synod, anno 1615, we let stand as we did before. But for the manifestation of our agreement with the Church of England, we have received and approved your Articles also, concluded in the year 1562, as you may see in the first of our Canons.' [1288] After the Restoration the Dublin Articles seem to have been lost sight of, and no mention was made of them when, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the English and Irish establishments were consolidated into 'the United Church of England and Ireland.' [1289]

The Irish Articles are one hundred and four in number, arranged under nineteen heads. They are a clear and succinct system of divinity, in full harmony with Calvinism, excepting the doctrine of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown (which is retained from the English Articles). They incorporate the substance of the Thirty-nine Articles and the Lambeth Articles, but are more systematic and complete. They teach absolute predestination and perseverance, denounce the Pope as Antichrist, inculcate the Puritan view of Sabbath observance, and make no mention of three orders in the ministry, nor of the necessity of episcopal ordination. In all these particulars they prepared the way for the doctrinal standards of the Westminster Assembly. They were the chief basis of the Westminster Confession, as is evident from the general order, the headings of chapters and subdivisions, and the almost literal agreement of language in the statement of several of the most important doctrines. [1290] __________________________________________________________________

[1283] Archbishop Ussher, in a sermon preached before the English House of Commons, 1621, declared: 'We all agree that the Scriptures of God are the perfect rule of our faith: we all consent in the main grounds of religion drawn from thence; we all subscribe to the Articles of Doctrine agreed upon in the Synod of the year 1562.' But he must have understood this in the general sense of assent, as he was addressing laymen who never subscribed the Articles. Elrington, p. 43, and Hardwick, p. 182. The Irish Church adopted, in 1566 (1567), a 'Brief Declaration' in XII. Articles of Religion; but these are substantially the same as the XI. Articles prepared by Archbishop Parker, 1559 or 1560, and provisionally used in England till 1563. In Ireland they continued in force till 1615. See Elrington, Append.; Hardwick, pp. 122, 337; and Killen, Vol. I. pp. 395, 515-520.

[1284] He and his family spell the name with double s (Latin, Usserius), but it is often spelled Usher.

[1285] Dr. Elrington, Life of J. Ussher, pp. 43, 44. Comp. also the 'Body of Divinity,' which was published in Ussher's name during the sessions of the Westminster Assembly, and which, he admitted to have compiled, in early life, from the writings of others.

[1286] Killen, Vol. I. p. 495.

[1287] Killen, Vol. II. p. 23: 'The silence of the canons in respect to the Calvinistic formulary, now nearly twenty years in use, was fatal to its claims, and thus it was quietly superseded. Heylin errs in stating (Life of Laud) that the Dublin Articles were actually 'called in.'

[1288] Elrington, Life, p. 176.

[1289] Hardwick, p. 190.

[1290] This agreement has been proved by Professor Mitchell, D.D., of St. Andrews, in his tract The Westminster Confession of Faith, 3d ed., Edinburgh, 1867, and in the Introduction to his edition of the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, 1874, pp. xlvi. sqq. We shall return to the subject more fully in the section on the Westminster Confession. __________________________________________________________________

§ 86. The Articles of the Reformed Episcopal Church. A.D. 1875.

Literature.

I. Articles of Religion of the Reformed Episcopal Church, as adopted by the General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church, on the 18th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1875. New York (38 Bible House), 1876. They are printed in the last section of the third volume of this work.

II. The Book of Common Prayer of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Adopted and set forth for use by the Second General Council of the said Church, held in the City of New York, May, 1874. Philadelphia (James A. Moore), 1874. (This took the place of the 'Proposed Book' of 1785, republished for provisional use in Dec., 1873.)

III. Journal of the First General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church, held in New York, Dec. 2, 1873. New York, 1873.

Journal of the Proceedings of the Second General Council of the Ref. Epis. Church, held in New York. Philadelphia, 1874.

Journal of the Proceedings of the Third General Council of the Ref. Epis. Church, held in Chicago, Illinois, May 12 to May 18, 1875. Philadelphia, 1875.

IV. Bishop George David Cummins: Primitive Episcopacy: A Return to the Old Paths of Scripture and the Early Church. A Sermon preached in Chicago, Dec. 14, 1873, at the Consecration of the Rev. Charles Edward Cheney, D.D., as a, Bishop in the Ref. Epis. Church. New York, 1874.--By the same: The Lord's Table, and not the Altar. New York, 1875.

Bishop Chas. Edw. Cheney: The Evangelical Ideal of a Visible Church (a sermon). Philadelphia, 1874.

James A. Latane: Letter of Resignation to Bishop Johns of Virginia. Wheeling, Va., 1874.

Bishop W. R. Nicholson: Reasons why I became a Reformed Episcopalian. Philadelphia, 1875.

Benj. Aycrigg: Memoirs of the Ref. Epis. Church, and of the Prot. Epis. Church. N.Y., 1875; 2d ed., 1889.

Before closing this section we must notice a recent American reconstruction of the English Articles of Religion, which goes much farther than the revision of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and is disowned by it, but must still be considered as an offshoot from the same root. We mean the 'Articles of Religion' set forth in 1875 by the Reformed Episcopal Church.

ORIGIN.

This body seceded from the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States under the lead of the Rev. Dr. George David Cummins, Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky (d. 1876). The reason of his sudden and unexpected resignation was his dissatisfaction with High-Church ritualism and exclusiveness, and his despair of checking their progress within the regular Episcopal Church. The occasion was the manifestation of this exclusiveness in a public protest of the Bishop of the diocese of New York against the General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance in Oct., 1873, and against the interdenominational communion services, in which Bishop Cummins, together with the Dean of Canterbury (with the full approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury), had taken a prominent part [1291] He compared his conduct with the Old Catholic reaction against modern Romanism. [1292] He desired simply to organize the theology and polity of the Low-Church party on the historic basis of the American Episcopal Church itself in its initial stage, as represented by Bishop White and the first bishops of Virginia and New York. Hence his return to the 'Proposed Book' of 1785, and to the labors of the Royal Commission in 1689.

The resignation of Bishop Cummins was followed by his canonical deposition. The majority of his brethren preferred to fight the battle within the old Church, or quietly to wait for a favorable reaction, and strongly disapproved of his course. [1293] Others deprecated from principle the multiplication of denominations, and feared that the new sect might become narrower than the old. Still others, though unwilling to share the risk and responsibility, wished it well, in the hope that it might administer a wholesome rebuke to the hierarchical spirit. A small number of Low-Church clergymen and laymen followed his example. A new ecclesiastical organization, under the name of the Reformed Episcopal Church, was effected at a council held in the Young Men's Christian Association building, at New York, Dec. 2, 1873. [1294] It set forth the following

Declaration Of Principles

I. The Reformed Episcopal Church, holding 'the faith once delivered unto the saints,' declares its belief in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God, and the sole Rule of Faith and Practice; in the Creed 'commonly called the Apostles' Creed;' in the divine institution of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; and in the doctrines of grace substantially as they are set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.

II. This Church recognizes and adheres to Episcopacy, not as of divine right, but as a very ancient and desirable form of church polity.

III. This Church, retaining a Liturgy which shall not be imperative or repressive of freedom in prayer, accepts the Book of Common Prayer, as it was revised, proposed, and recommended for use by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, A.D. 1785, reserving full liberty to alter, abridge, enlarge, and amend the same, as may seem most conducive to the edification of the people, 'provided that the substance of the faith be kept entire.'

IV. This Church condemns and rejects the following erroneous and strange doctrines as contrary to God's Word:

First, That the Church of Christ exists only in one order or form of ecclesiastical polity.

Second, That Christian ministers are 'priests' in another sense than that in which all believers are 'a royal priesthood.'

Third, That the Lord's Table is an altar on which the oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ is offered anew to the Father.

Fourth, That the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper is a presence in the elements of Bread and Wine.

Fifth, That Regeneration is inseparably connected with Baptism.

The next work was the revision of the Liturgy on the basis of the 'Proposed Book' of 1785, by the Second Council, held at New York, 1874. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed were retained, but the clause 'He descended into hell' was stricken out from the former. In the baptismal service, thanksgiving for the regeneration of the child was omitted. Throughout the book the words 'minister' and 'Lord's table' were substituted for 'priest' and 'altar'--a change which had been proposed long before by the English commission of 1689.

The Articles Of Religion.

A considerable number of the Western members of this new denomination were in favor of adopting simply the Apostles' Creed and the Nine Articles of the Evangelical Alliance. But the majority insisted on retaining the Thirty-nine Articles with a few changes. The revision was intrusted to a Committee of Doctrine and Worship, consisting of Rev. W. R. Nicholson, D.D. (since consecrated Bishop, March, 1876), Rev. B. B. Leacock, D.D., Rev. Joseph D. Wilson, and some laymen. The report of the committee was amended and adopted at the Third General Council, held in Chicago, May 12-18, 1875.

The Articles of Religion are thirty-five in number. They follow the order of the Thirty-nine Articles, and adhere to them in language and sentiment much more closely than the Twenty Articles of the 'Proposed Book' of 1785 and the Seventeen Articles of the Episcopal Convention of 1799. Articles 1 and 2, of the Trinity and Incarnation, are retained with slight verbal alterations. Art. 3, of the descent of Christ into Hades, is omitted. Art. 3, of the Resurrection 'and the Second Coming' of Christ, Art. 4, of the Holy Ghost, and Art. 5, of the Holy Scriptures, are enlarged. Art. 8, of the old series, concerning the three creeds, is omitted; but in Art. 22 the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed are acknowledged. The Articles of free-will, justification, and good works are retained, with some enlargements on justification by faith alone (which Bishop Cummins regards with Luther as the article of a standing or falling Church). Art. 18 is an abridgment of Art. 17, but affirms, together with predestination and election, also the doctrine of human freedom and responsibility, without attempting a reconciliation. The Articles of the Church and Church Authority are enlarged, but not altered in sense. Art. 24 wholly rejects the doctrine of 'Apostolic Succession' as 'unscriptural and productive of great mischief;' adding, 'This Church values its historic ministry, but recognizes and honors as equally valid the ministry of other Churches, even as God the Holy Ghost has accompanied their work with demonstration and power.' Baptism is declared to be only 'a sign of regeneration ' (not an instrument). Art. 27 rejects consubstantiation as well as transubstantiation, as 'equally productive of idolatrous errors and practices,' but otherwise agrees with Art. 28 of the old series. Arts. 31 and 32 reject purgatory, the worship of saints and images, confession for absolution, and other Romish practices. Art. 34, of the power of tie civil authority, is the same as Art. 37 of the Protestant Episcopal Church (retained from the draft of 1799), except that the words 'as well clergy as laity' are exchanged for 'as well ministers as people.' __________________________________________________________________

[1291] In his letter of resignation to Bishop B. B. Smith, of Kentucky, dated Nov. 10, 1873, Cummins alludes to those solemn services, and adds: 'As I can not surrender the right and privilege thus to meet my fellow-Christians of other Churches around the table of our dear Lord, I must take my place where I can do so without alienating those of my own household of faith. I therefore leave the communion in which I have labored in the sacred ministry for over twenty-eight years, and transfer my work and office to another sphere of labor.'

[1292] There is, however, this material difference, that the Episcopal Church as a body has not altered her creed, nor added new dogmas, as the Roman Church has done in the Vatican Council.

[1293] Though a gentleman of unblemished moral character, he was publicly charged by one of his evangelical fellow-bishops with the threefold crime of breaking his ordination vows, creating a schism, and consecrating, single-handed, a deposed clergyman (Dr. Cheney, of Chicago) to the episcopate. The last act was considered the crowning offense; for thereby he destroyed the monopoly of the apostolic succession, which, in the estimation of many modern Episcopalians, is the article of a standing or falling Church.

[1294] It has since grown steadily, though by no means rapidly. It numbers now (1884) ten bishops, ninety-eight presbyters, and about as many congregations in the United States, Canada, British Columbia, Bermuda Islands, and England. The number of communicants is about 7000. See art. Episcopal Church, Reformed, by Rev. W. T. Sabine, in Schaff-Herzog Encycl. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

Vi. The Presbyterian Confessions Of Scotland.

§ 87. The Reformation in Scotland.

Literature.

I. Confessions.

[Wm. Dunlop]: A Collection of Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, Directories, Books of Discipline, etc., of publick Authority in the Church of Scotland. Edinburgh, 1719-22, 2 vols.

Horatius Bonar: Catechisms of the Scottish Reformation. With Preface and Notes. London, 1866.

Alexander Taylor Innes (Solicitor before the Supreme Court of Scotland): The Law of Creeds in Scotland. A Treatise on the Legal Relation of Churches in Scotland, established and not established, to their Doctrinal Standards. Edinburgh, 1867 (pp. 495).

II. History of the Reformation and Church in Scotland.

Wodrow Society's Publications: 24 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1842 sqq. Comprising Knox's Works, Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, Autobiography of Robert Blair (1593-1636), Scott's Apologetical Narration (1560-1633), Twedie's Select Biographies, The Wodrow Correspondence, and other works. (The Wodrow Society was founded in 1841, in honor of Robert Wodrow, an indefatigable Scotch Presbyterian historian, b. 1679, d. 1734, for the publication of the early standard writings of the Reformed Church of Scotland.)

Spottiswoode Society's Publications. 16 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1844 sqq. Comprising Keith's History (to 1568), the Spottiswoode's History and Miscellany, etc.

John Knox (1505-1572): Historie of the Reformation of Religioun in Scotland (till 1567). Edinburgh, 1584; London, 1664; better ed. by McGavin, Glasgow, 1831. Best ed. in complete Works, edited by David Laing, Edinburgh, 1846-64. 6 vols. (The first two vols. contain the History of the Reformation, including the Scotch Conf. of Faith and the Book of Discipline.)

George Buchanan (1506-1682): Rerum Scoticarum Historia. Edinburgh, 1582; Aberdeen, 1762; in English, 1690.

John Spottiswoode: History of the Church and State of Scotland (from 203 to the death of James VI.). London, 1668; 4th ed. 1677: ed. by the Spottiswoode Society, Edinburgh, 1847-51, in 3 vols. (John Spotswood, or Spottiswoode, was b. 1565; Archbishop of Glasgow, 1603, and then of St. Andrew's, 1615, and Chancellor of Scotland, 1635; the first in the succession of the modified Scotch episcopacy introduced by James; was obliged to retire to England, and died in London, 1639.)

David Calderwood (a learned and zealous defender of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, d. 1650): The History of the Kirk of Scotland. (London, 1678.) New ed. by Thomas Thomson. Edinburgh, 1842-49, 8 vols. (Wodrow Soc.)

Sir James Balfour (King-at-arms to Charles I. and II.): Historical Works published from the Original MSS. Edinburgh, 1824, 4 vols. (Contains the Annals and Memorials of Church and State in Scotland, from 1057 to 1652.)

Robt. Keith (Primus Bishop of the Scotch Episcopal Church, Bishop of Fife, d. 1757): History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland, from the Beginning of the Reformation to the Retreat of Queen Mary into England, 1568. Edinburgh, 1734, fol. (reprinted by the Spottiswoode Soc. in 2 vols. 8vo). By the same: An Historical Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops down to the year 1688. New ed. by M. Russell. Edinburgh, 1824.

Gilbert Stuart (d. 1786): History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland (1517-1561). London, 1780 and 1796. By the same: History of Scotland from the Establishment of the Reformation till the Death of Queen Mary. London, 1783, 1784, 2 vols. (In vindication of Queen Mary.)

George Cook: History of the Reformation in Scotland. Edinburgh, 2d ed. 1819, 2 vols. By the same: History of the Church of Scotland, from the Reformation to the Revolution. Edinburgh, 1815, 2d ed. 1819, 3 vols.

Thomas M'Crie (d. 1835): Life of John Knox. Edinburgh, 1811, 2 vols. 5th ed. 1831, and often; Philadelphia, 1845; Works of M'Crie, 1858. By the same: Life of Andrew Melville. London, 1819; 1847, 2 vols.

Thomas M'Crie, Jun.: Sketches of Scottish Church History. 2d ed. 1843.

Prince Alex. Labanoff: Lettres, Instructions, et Mémoirs de Marie Stuart. London, 1844, 7 vols.

Thomas Stephen: History of the Church of Scotland from the Reformation to the Present Time. London, 1843-45, 4 vols.

W. M. Hetherington (Free Church): History of the Church of Scotland till 1843. 4th ed. Edinburgh, 1853 (also New York, 1845), 2 vols.

Gen. Von Rudloff: Geschichte der Reformation in Schottland. Berlin, 1847-49, 2 vols. 2d ed. 1854.

G. Weber: Gesch. der akatholischen Kirchen u. Secten in Grossbritannien. Leipzig, 1845 and 1853 (Vol. I. pp. 607-652; Vol. II. pp. 461-660).

John Cunningham (Presbyt.): Church History of Scotland to the Present Time. 1859. 2 vols.

John Lee: Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland. Edinburgh, 1860, 2 vols.

George Grubb (Liberal Episcopalian): Ecclesiastical History of Scotland. London, 1861, 4 vols.

A. Teulet: Relation politiques de la France et de l'Espagne avec l'Ecosse, en 16me siècle. Paris, 1862, 5 vols.

Fr. Brandes: John Knox, der Reformator Schottlands. Elberfeld, 1862. (The 10th vol. of Fathers and Founders of the Reformed Church.)

Merle d'Aubigne (d. 1872): History of the Reformation in Europe, in the Time of Calvin. Vol. VI. (1876), chaps. i.-xv. (to 1546). Comp. also his Three Centuries of Struggle (1850).

Dean Stanley (Broad-Church Episcopalian): Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland, delivered in Edinburgh in 1872 (with a sermon on the Eleventh Commandment, preached in Greyfriars' Church). London and New York, 1872.

Prof. R. Rainy (Free-Church Presbyterian): Three Lectures on the Church of Scotland (against Stanley's praise of Moderatism). Edinburgh, 1872.

Geo. P. Fisher: History of the Reformation, pp. 351 sqq. (New York, 1873).

Peter Lorimer, D.D. (Prof. in the English Presbyterian College, London): Patrick Hamilton (London, 1857); The Scottish Reformation (1860); John Knox and the Church of England (London, 1875).

Compare also the general and secular Histories of Scotland by Robertson (1759 and often, 2 vols.); Pinkerton (1814, 2 vols.); P. F. Tytler (1828-43, 9 vols., new ed. 1866, 10 vols.); John Hill Burton (from Agricola's Invasion to the Revolution of 1688. London, 1867-70, 7 vols.--From 1689 to 1748. 1870, 2 vols.); the chapters relating to Scotland in the Histories of England by Hume, Lingard (Rom. Cath.), Knight, Ranke, Froude.

The Reformation in Scotland was far more consistent and radical than in England, and resulted in the establishment of Calvinistic Presbyterianism under the sole headship of Christ. While in England politics controlled religion, in Scotland religion controlled politics. The leading figure was a plain presbyter, a man as bold, fearless, and uncompromising as Cranmer was timid, cautious, and conservative. In England the crown and the bishops favored the Reformation, in Scotland they opposed it; but Scotch royalty was a mere shadow compared with the English, and was, during that crisis, represented by a woman as blundering and unfortunate as Elizabeth was sagacious and successful. George Buchanan, the Erasmus of Scotland, the classical tutor of Mary and her son James, maintained, as the Scotch doctrine, that governments existed for the sake of the governed, which in England was regarded at that time as the sum of all heresy and rebellion. [1295] When James became king of England, he blessed God's gracious goodness for bringing him 'into the promised land, where religion is purely professed, where he could sit amongst grave, learned, and reverend men; not as before, elsewhere, a king without state, without honor, without order, where beardless boys would brave him to the face.' [1296]

The Scotch Reformation was carried on, agreeably to the character of the people of that age and country, with strong passion and violence, and in close connection with a political revolution; but it elevated Scotland at last to a very high degree of religious, moral, and intellectual eminence, which contrasts most favorably with its own mediæval condition, as well as with the present aspect of Southern Roman Catholic countries, once far superior to it in point of civilization and religion. [1297]

In the middle of the sixteenth century the Scotch were still a semi-barbarous though brave and energetic race. Their character and previous history are as wild and romantic as their lochs, mountains, and rapids, and show an exuberance of animal life, full of blazing passions and violent commotions, but without ideas and progress. The kings of the house of Stuart were in constant conflict with a restless and rebellious nobility and the true interests of the common people. The history of that ill-fated dynasty, from its fabulous patriarch Banquo, in the eleventh century, down to the execution of Queen Mary (1587), and the final expulsion of her descendants from England (1688), is a series of tragedies foreshadowed in Shakspere's 'Macbeth,' where crimes and retributions come whirling along like the rushing of a furious tempest. The powerful and fierce nobility were given to the chase and the practice of arms, to rapine and murder. Their dress was that of the camp or stable; they lived in narrow towers, built for defense, without regard to comfort or beauty. They regarded each other as rivals, the king as but the highest of their own order, and the people as mere serfs, who lived scattered under the shadow of castles and convents. The patriarchal or clan system which prevailed in the Highlands, and the feudal system which the Norman barons superinduced in the south, kept the nation divided into a number of jealous and conflicting sections, and made the land a scene of chronic strife and anarchy.

In this unsettled state of society morals and religion could not flourish. The Church kept alive the faith in the verities of the supernatural world, restrained passion and crime, distributed the consolations of religion from the cradle to the grave, and built such monuments as the Cathedral of Glasgow and the Abbey of Melrose; but it left the people in ignorance and superstition. It owned the full half of all the wealth of the nation from times when land was poor and cheap, and it had the controlling influence in the privy council, the parliament, and over the people. But this very wealth and political power became a source of corruption, which rose to a fearful height before the Reformation. The law of celibacy was practically annulled, and the clergy were shamefully dissolute and disgracefully ignorant. Some priests are said to have regarded Luther as the author of the New Testament. The bishops and abbots, by frequently assisting the king against the nobles, and rivaling with them in secular pomp and influence, excited their envy and hatred, which hastened their ruin.

Owing to its remoteness, poverty, and inhospitable climate, Scotland was more free than England from the interference of the pope and his Italian creatures. But this independence was rather a disadvantage, for without preventing the progress of the native corruptions, it kept off the civilizing influences of the Continent, and removed the check upon the despotism of the king. James III. usurped the right of filling the episcopal vacancies without the previous election of the chapters and the papal sanction, and consulted his temporal interest more than that of religion. Simony of the most shameful kind became the order of the day. James V. (1528-42) provided for his illegitimate children by making them abbots and priors of Holyrood House, Kelso, Melrose, Coldingham, and St. Andrew's. Most of the higher dignities of the Church were in the hands of the royal favorites and younger sons of the nobility, who were sometimes not ordained, nor even of age, but who drew, nevertheless, the income of the cathedrals and abbeys, and disgraced the holy office. 'By this fraudulent and sacrilegious dealing'--says an impartial old authority--'the rents and benefices of the Church became the patrimony of private families, and persons in no ecclesiastical orders, and even boys too, were, by the presentation of our kings and the provision of the popes, set over the episcopal sees themselves. The natural result of this was that by far too many of these prelates, being neither bred up in letters, nor having in them any virtuous dispositions, did not only live irregularly themselves, but through neglect of their charge did likewise introduce by degrees such a deluge of ignorance and vice among the clergy and all ranks of men that the state of the Church seemed to call loudly for a reformation of both.'

The first impulse to the Reformation in Scotland came from Lutheran writings and from copies of Tyndale's New Testament. The first preachers and martyrs of Protestantism were Patrick Hamilton, who had studied in Wittenberg and Marburg, and was burned (1528), George Wishart, who shared the same fate (1546), and the aged Walter Mill, who predicted from the flames (Aug. 28, 1558), 'A hundred better men shall rise out of the ashes of my bones, and I shall be the last to suffer death in Scotland for this cause.'

In the mean time God had prepared the right man for this crisis. __________________________________________________________________

[1295] His book, De jure regni apud Scotos (1569), was burned at Oxford in 1683, together with the works of Milton.

[1296] So he addressed the English prelates at the Hampton Court Conference. Fuller, Church History of Britain, Vol. V. pp. 267 sq.

[1297] Thomas Carlyle calls the Scotch Reformation 'a resurrection from death to life. It was not a smooth business; but it was welcome surely, and cheap at that price; had it been far rougher, on the whole, cheap at any price, as life is. The people began to live; they needed first of all to do that, at what cost and costs soever. Scotch literature and thought, Scotch industry; James Watt, David Hume, Walter Scott, Robert Burns: I find Knox and the Reformation acting in the heart's core of every one of these persons and phenomena; I find that without the Reformation they would not have been. Or what of Scotland? The Puritanism of Scotland became that of England, of New England. A tumult in the High Church of Edinburgh spread into a universal battle and struggle over all these realms; then came out, after fifty years' struggling, what we call the glorious Revolution, a Habeas-Corpus Act. Free Parliaments, and much else!'--Heroes, Lect. IV. __________________________________________________________________

§ 88. John Knox.

Literature.

Besides the works of Knox, the excellent biography of M'Crie, and Lorimer's monograph quoted in the preceding section, comp. Froude's Lecture on The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish Character, 1865 (in Short Studies on Great Subjects, Vol. I. pp. 128 sqq.), and an exceedingly characteristic essay of Thomas Carlyle on the Portraits of John Knox, which first appeared in Fraser's Magazine for April, 1875, and then as an appendix to his Early Kings of Norway. London, 1875 (pp. 209-307), and New York (Harper's ed. pp. 173-257). Brandes follows M'Crie very closely. Laing, in the first vol. of his edition of Knox's History of the Reformation (pp. xiii.-xliv.), gives a convenient chronological summary of the chief events of his life.

John Knox (1505-1572), the Luther of Scotland, was educated in the University of Glasgow, and ordained to the Romish priesthood (1530), but became a convert to Protestantism (1545, the year of Wishart's martyrdom [1298] through the study of the Bible and the writings of Augustine and Jerome. He went at once to the extreme of opposition, as is often the case with strong and determined characters of the Pauline type. He abhorred the mass as an 'abominable idolatry and profanation of the Lord's Supper,' and popery as the great anti-Christian apostasy and Babylonish harlot predicted in the Bible. [1299]

After preaching awhile to the Protestant soldiers in the garrison of St. Andrew's, he was taken prisoner by the French fleet (1547), and made a galley-slave for nineteen months, 'going in irons, miserably entreated and sore troubled by corporal infirmity.' Regardless of danger, he remained true to his faith. When called upon to kiss an image of the Holy Virgin, he declared that it was 'no mother of God, but a painted piece of wood, fit for swimming rather than being worshiped;' and he flung the picture into the river Loire.

On obtaining his liberty, he labored five years (1549-1554) in England as a pioneer of English Puritanism. He preached in Berwick, on the borders of Scotland, in Newcastle, and in London. He was elected one of the six chaplains of Edward VI. (1551), was consulted about the Articles of Religion and the revision of the Liturgy, and was offered the bishopric of Rochester, which he declined from opposition to the large extent of dioceses, the secular business, vestments, and 'other popish fooleries remaining.' [1300]

After the accession of Bloody Mary he fled among the last, at the urgent request of friends, to the Continent, and spent five years (from January, 1554, to January, 1559, interrupted by a journey to Scotland, November, 1555, to July, 1556), at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and especially at Geneva. Here he found 'the most perfect school of Christ that ever was since the days of the Apostles.' Though four years older, he sat an admiring pupil at the feet of John Calvin, and became more Calvinistic than the great Reformer. He preached to a flock of English exiles, took part in the Geneva version of the Bible, and aided by his pen the cause of evangelical religion in England and Scotland.

The accession of Queen Elizabeth opened the way for his final return and crowning work, although she refused him passage through her dominion, and never forgave him his 'blast' at the dignity and ruling capacity of her sex. [1301]

The remaining twelve years of his life were devoted to the fierce struggle and triumph of the Reformation in his native land, which he has himself so vividly, truthfully, and unselfishly described in his History. [1302] Shortly before his death he heard the news of the terrible massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's night, and summoning up the remainder of his broken strength, he thundered from the pulpit in Edinburgh his indignation and the vengeance of God against 'that cruel murderer and false traitor, the King of France' (Charles IX.). His last sermons were on our Lord's crucifixion, a theme on which he wished to close his ministry. He presided at the installation of Lawson as his colleague and successor, and made an impressive address and prayer. As he left the church a crowd of people lined the street and followed him to his house to take farewell of their pastor. He found his last comfort in the sacerdotal prayer, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and some psalms, 'hearing' what was read, and 'understanding far better.' He died, weary of life and longing for heaven, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, in peace, without a struggle, lamented by the clergy, the nobles, and the people (Nov. 24, 1572). He could conscientiously say on his death-bed, before God and his holy angels, that he never made merchandise of religion, never studied to please men, never indulged his private passions, but faithfully used his talents for the edification of the Church over which he was called to watch. He was buried in the graveyard of St. Giles's; no monument was erected; a plain stone with his name marks the spot.

Knox was the greatest of Scotchmen, as Luther the greatest of Germans. He was the incarnation of all the noble and rugged energies of his nation and age, and devoted them to the single aim of a thorough reformation in doctrine, worship, and discipline, on the basis of the Word of God. [1303] In genius, learning, wealth of ideas, and extent of influence, he was inferior to Luther and Calvin, but in boldness, strength, and purity of character, fully their equal. [1304] He was the most heroic man of a heroic race. His fear of God made him fearless of man. Endowed with a vigorous and original intellect, he was eminently a man of action, with the pulpit for his throne and the word for his sword. A statesman as well as a theologian, he possessed rare political sagacity and intuitive knowledge of men. Next to Calvin, he is the chief founder of the Presbyterian polity, which has proved its vitality and efficiency for more than three centuries. Like St. Paul and Calvin, he was small in person and feeble in body, but irresistible in moral force. [1305] 'He put more life into his hearers from the pulpit in an hour than six hundred trumpets.' [1306] When old and decrepit, leaning on his staff and the arm of his faithful servant, he had to be lifted to the pulpit; but before the close he became so animated and vigorous that he seemed 'likely to ding the pulpit in blads [to beat it in pieces] and flie out of it.' [1307] Well did the Earl of Morton, the newly elected regent, characterize him over his open grave in that sentence which has since been accepted as the best motto of his life: 'Here lies he who never feared the face of man.' [1308] And in a different spirit, James VI paid the same tribute to his fearless character, when with uplifted hands he thanked God that the three surviving bairns of Knox were all lasses; 'for if they had been three lads,' he said to Mrs. Welch, 'I could never have bruiked [enjoyed] my three kingdoms in peace.' [1309]

Knox had the stern and uncompromising spirit of a Hebrew prophet. He confronted Queen Mary as Elijah confronted Jezebel, unmoved by her beauty, her smiles, or her tears. He himself relates the four or five interviews he had with that graceful, accomplished, fascinating, but ill-fated lady, whose charms and misfortunes still excite fresh feelings of sympathy in every human heart. It is difficult to imagine a more striking contrast: Knox the right man in the right place, Mary the wrong woman in the wrong place; he intensely Scotch in character and aim, she thoroughly French by education and taste; he in the vigor of manhood, she in the bloom of youth and beauty; he terribly in earnest, she gay and frivolous; he a believer in God's sovereignty and the people's right and duty to disobey and depose treacherous princes, she a believer in her own absolute right to rule and the subject's duty of passive obedience; he abhorring her religion as idolatry and her policy as ruin to Scotland, she fearing him as a rude fanatic, an impertinent rebel and sorcerer in league with Beelzebub. [1310] We must not judge from his conversations with the Queen that he was a woman-hater: he respected right women in their proper sphere, as he was respected by them, and his correspondence reveals a vain of tenderness and kindly genial humor beneath his severity. [1311] But in this case he sacrificed all personal considerations to what he believed to be his paramount duty to God and his Church.

The pulpit proved mightier than the throne. The suicidal blunders of the Queen, who had more trouble from her three husbands--two of them handsome but heartless and worthless ruffians and murderers--than her grand-uncle Henry VIII. had from his six wives, are the best vindication of the national policy, if not the personal conduct, of the Reformer. Had Mary's popish policy triumphed, there would have been an end to Protestantism and liberty in Scotland, and probably in England too; while Knox, fighting intolerance with intolerance, laid the solid foundation for future liberty. He felt at that turning-point of history that, what is comparatively harmless now, 'one mass was more dangerous to Scotland than an army of ten thousand enemies.' [1312]

If Knox lacked the sweet and lovely traits of Christian character, it should be remembered that God wisely distributes his gifts. Neither the polished culture of Erasmus, nor the gentle spirit of Melanchthon, nor the cautious measures of Cranmer could have accomplished the mighty change in Scotland. Knox was, beyond a doubt, the providential man for his country. Scotland alone could produce a Knox, and Knox alone could reform Scotland. If any man ever lived to some purpose, and left the indelible impress of his character upon posterity, it was John Knox. His is to this day the best known and the most popular name in Scotland. Such fearless and faithful heroes are among the best gifts of God to the world.

We need not wonder that Knox, like the other Reformers, was pursued by malignant calumny during his life, and even charged with unnatural crimes, which would make him ridiculous as well as hideous. But those who knew him best esteemed him most. Bannatyne, his faithful clerk, calls him, in his journal, 'the light of Scotland, the comfort of the Church, the mirror of godliness, the pattern of all true ministers in purity of life, soundness of doctrine, and boldness in reproving wickedness.' James Melville, who heard his last sermons, speaks of him as 'that most notable prophet and apostle' of Scotland. [1313] Posterity has judged differently, according to the religious stand-point. To some he still appears as a semi-barbarous fanatic, a dangerous heretic, or at best as a 'holy savage;' while Froude regards him as 'the grandest figure in the entire history of the British Reformation,' and Carlyle as 'more than a man of genius--a heaven-inspired prophet and heroic leader of men.' __________________________________________________________________

[1298] This is the date given by Laing, while M'Crie assigns Knox's conversion to the year 1542.

[1299] His first Protestant sermon in the parish church at St. Andrew's was on Dan. vii., to prove that the pope was the last beast, the man of sin, the Antichrist. Some of the hearers said: 'Others hewed at the branches of papistry, but he struck at the root to destroy the whole.' Calderwood, Vol. I. p.230; Knox's Works, Vol. I. p. 192.

[1300] His labors in England, and the reasons for his nolo episcopari, are fully described by Dr. Lorimer, in part from unpublished sources.

[1301] Before his return, while the fires of Smithfield were still burning, he had published anonymously his 'First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment [i.e., regimen or government] of Women,' 1558, which was aimed at the misgovernment of Mary Tudor and Mary of Guise. This singular and characteristic but unfortunate book begins with the sentence, 'To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire, above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and, finally, it is a subversion of all equity and justice.' He appealed to the creation, to the Jews, to St. Paul, to ancient philosophers and legislators, to the fathers, to the Salic and French law. His error was that from some bad examples he drew sweeping conclusions, which were soon confirmed by Mary Stuart, but disproved by Elizabeth (as they are in our day by the reign of Victoria). No wonder that Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were incensed at what they regarded a personal insult. Knox himself foresaw the bad consequences, and expected to be called 'a sower of sedition, and one day perchance to be attainted for treason,' but he was too manly to retract, and retained his opinion to the last, but, not wishing to obstruct the path of Elizabeth, he never published the intended Second and Third Blast. See M'Crie's J. Knox, pp. 141-147 (Philadelphia ed.), and Carlyle, l.c. pp. 230 sqq.

[1302] Knox wrote four Books of his History of the Reformation, down to 1564, at the request of his friends. The Fifth Book is not found in any MS. copy, and was first published by David Buchanan in 1644; it relates the affairs of the most controverted period in Scottish history, from Sept., 1564, to Aug., 1567, when Queen Mary abdicated. Laing thinks that it is mostly derived from Knox's papers by some unknown hand (Works, Vol. II. p. 468). Carlyle regrets that this 'hasty and strangely interesting, impressive, and peculiar History has not been rendered far more extensively legible to serious mankind at large.' Laing has added a vocabulary.

[1303] Thomas Carlyle, himself a typical Scotchman, calls Knox 'the most Scottish of Scots, and to this day typical of all the qualities which belong nationally to the very choicest Scotsmen we have known, or had clear record of: utmost sharpness of discernment and discrimination, courage enough, and, what is still better, no particular consciousness of courage, but a readiness in all simplicity to do and dare whatsoever is commanded by the inward voice of native manhood; on the whole, a beautiful and simple but complete incompatibility with whatsoever is false in word or conduct; inexorable contempt and detestation of what in modern speech is called humbug, . . . a most clear-cut, hardy, distinct, and effective man; fearing God, and without any other fear.' He severely characterizes the patriarchal, long-bearded, but stolid picture of Knox in Beza's Icones (Geneva, 1580), and in Laing's edition, and represents the 'Somerville portrait,' with a sharp, stern face, high forehead, pointed beard, and large white collar, as the only probable likeness of the great Reformer.

[1304] M'Crie (p. 355) well compares him with the three leading Reformers: 'Knox bore a striking resemblance to Luther in personal intrepidity and in popular eloquence. He approached nearest to Calvin in his religious sentiments, in the severity of his manners, and in a certain impressive air of melancholy which pervaded his character. And he resembled Zwinglius in his ardent attachment to the principles of civil liberty, and in combining his exertions for the reformation of the Church with uniform endeavors to improve the political state of the people. Not that I would place our Reformer on a level with this illustrious triumvirate. There is a splendor which surrounds the great German Reformer, partly arising from the intrinsic heroism of his character, and partly reflected from the interesting situation in which his long and doubtful struggle with the Court of Rome placed him in the eyes of Europe, which removes him at a distance from all who started in the same glorious career. The Genevese Reformer surpassed Knox in the extent of his theological learning, and in the unrivaled solidity and clearness of his judgment. And the Reformer of Switzerland, though inferior to him in masculine elocution and in daring courage, excelled him in self-command, in prudence, and in that species of eloquence which steals into the heart, convinces without irritating, and governs without assuming the tone of authority. But although "he attained not to the first three," I know not, among all the eminent men who appeared at that period, any name which is so well entitled to be placed next to theirs as that of Knox, whether we consider the talents with which he was endowed, or the important services which he performed.'

[1305] 'Haud scio an unquam majus ingenium in fragili et imbecillo corpusculo collocarit.' Principal Smeton, as quoted by M'Crie, p. 355.

[1306] So the English embassador, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, wrote to Cecil.

[1307] Thus his eloquence was described, in 1571, by James Melville, then a student and constant hearer of Knox. A lively Frenchman, in the Journal des Debats, gave the following amusing version of this account: 'A Presbyterian fanatic named Knox, . . . old and broken down, . . . began his sermon in a feeble voice and slow action; but soon heating himself by the force of his passion and hatred, he bestirred himself like a madman; he broke his pulpit, and jumped into the midst of his hearers (sautoit au milien des auditeurs).' M'Crie, p. 325.

[1308] Or, in the less graceful but more expressive original phrase, as given by James Melville (the only authority for it), 'He neither feared nor flattered any flesh.'

[1309] Mrs. Welch was a daughter of Knox, and gained admission to the King, in London, 1622, to ask his permission for the return of her sick husband (a worthy Presbyterian minister, who had been exiled for his resistance to the re-establishment of episcopacy) to his native Scotland. James at last yielded on condition that she should persuade him to submit to the bishops; but the lady, lifting up her apron and holding it towards the King, replied, in the genuine spirit of her father, 'Please your Majesty, I'd rather kep [receive] his head there.' Mr. Welch died in London soon after this singular conversation; his widow returned to Ayr, and survived him three years, 'a spouse and daughter worthy of such a husband and such a father.' M'Crie, p. 362. Knox was twice married and had two sons by his first wife, Marjory Bowes, of London, and three daughters by his second wife, Margaret Stewart, of a high noble family in Scotland. The sons were educated at Cambridge, but died young, without issue.

[1310] Carlyle thus speaks of this remarkable chapter in the Scotch Reformation: 'The interviews of Knox with the Queen are what one would most like to produce to readers; but unfortunately they are of a tone which, explain as we might, not one reader in a thousand could be made to sympathize with or do justice to in behalf of Knox. The treatment which that young, beautiful, and high chief personage in Scotland receives from the rigorous Knox, would to most modern men seem irreverent, cruel, almost barbarous. Here more than elsewhere Knox proves himself,--here more than any where bound to do it,--the Hebrew Prophet in complete perfection; refuses to soften any expression or to call any thing by its milder name, or in short for one moment to forget that the Eternal God and His Word are great, and that all else is little, or is nothing; nay, if it set itself against the Most High and His Word, is the one frightful thing that this world exhibits. He is never in the least ill-tempered with her Majesty; but she can not move him from that fixed centre of all his thoughts and actions: Do the will of God, and tremble at nothing; do against the will of God, and know that, in the Immensity and the Eternity around you, there is nothing but matter of terror. Nothing can move Knox here or elsewhere from that standing-ground; no consideration of Queen's sceptres and armies and authorities of men is of any efficacy or dignity whatever in comparison; and becomes not beautiful, but horrible, when it sets itself against the Most High.'

[1311] See his letters of comfort to Mrs. Bowes, his mother-in-law, who suffered much from religious melancholy, in Works by Laing, Vol. III. pp. 337-343, and Vol. VI. p. 513; also in Lorimer, pp. 39 sqq.

[1312] Froude says: 'Toleration is a good thing in its place; but you can not tolerate what will not tolerate you, and is trying to cut your throat. . . . The Covenanters fought the fight and won the victory, and then, and not till then, came the David Humes with their essays on miracles, and the Adam Smiths with their political economies, and steam-engines, and railroads, and philosophical institutions, and all the other blessed or unblessed fruits of liberty' 1.c. pp. 148, 149).

[1313] Beza also calls him 'Scotorum apostolum.' __________________________________________________________________

§ 89. The Scotch Confession of Faith. A.D. 1560.

Literature.

The Scotch Confession in the original Scotch dialect, together with the authorized Latin version of Patrick Adamson (1572), is printed in Vol. III. pp. 427-470, from Dunlop's Collection, Vol. II. pp. 13 sqq. It appeared at Edinburgh, 1561 (Robert Lekprevik), without the marginal Scripture references, in the Minutes of Parliament, in Knox's History of the Reformation (Vol. II. pp. 93 sqq.; Laing's ed.), in Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland (Vol. II. pp. 16 sqq.; Thomson's ed. for the Wodrow Soc.), in Edward Irving's reprint of the Conf. and the Book of Discipline (1831), and (abridged) in Innes, Law of Creeds (pp. 38 sqq.). In the Writings of John Knox, by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Phila., 1842, pp. 237 sqq., it is given in modern English.

A Latin version (less correct and elegant than that of Adamson) appeared in the Corpus et Syntagma Conf., 1612 and 1654, and is reproduced in Niemeyer's Collectio, pp. 340 sqq. Niemeyer's critical notice in the Prolog., p. li., is very brief and meagre. For a German translation, see Böckel, pp. 645 sqq.

The supplementary Scotch Confession of 158O is printed in Vol. III. pp. 470-475.

Origin Of The Scotch Confession.

'The Creed of Scotland and the Church of Scotland emerge into history so nearly at the same moment that it is difficult to say which has the precedence even in order of time. It is at least equally difficult to say which is first in respect of authority; and, indeed; the question whether the Church is founded upon the creed or the creed upon the Church appears to be at the root of most of the legal difficulties that lie before us.' [1314]

The Reformed Church of Scotland was not legally recognized and established by Parliament till 1567, seven years after the Scotch Confession was adopted and the first General Assembly was held; but it existed in fact, under royal protest, as a voluntary body from December 3, 1557, when a number of Protestant nobles and gentlemen signed, at Edinburgh, a 'Covenant' to maintain, nourish, and defend to the death 'the whole Congregation of Christ, and every member thereof.' This was one of those religious bonds or mutual agreements by which the confederation of Protestants of Scotland was so often ratified to secure common privileges. The term Congregation (ekklesia, ecclesia), which afterwards was exchanged for Kirk (kuriakon), then signified the true Church of Christ in opposition to the apostate Papal Church, and the leaders were called the 'Lords of the Congregation.' For a few years the Liturgy of Edward VI. and the 'Order of Geneva' seem to have been used, but there is no record of any formal approval of a doctrinal standard before 1560. [1315]

On the first of August, 1560, after the death of the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, and the expulsion of the French troops, but before the arrival of Queen Mary, the Scotch Parliament convened at Edinburgh to settle the new state of things in this transition period. It proved to be the most important meeting in the history of that kingdom. The Church question came up on a petition to abolish popery, to restore the purity of worship and discipline, and to devote the ecclesiastical revenues to the support of a pious clergy, the promotion of learning, and the relief of the poor. In answer to the first request, the Parliament directed the Protestant ministers to draw up a Confession of Faith. This was done hastily, though not without mature preparation, in four days, by John Knox and his compeers. [1316] The document was read twice, article by article, and ratified by the three estates, August 17, 1560, 'as a doctrine grounded upon the infallible Word of God.' Every member was requested to vote. The papal bishops were charged to object and refute, but they kept silence. The temporal lords all voted for the Confession except three, the Earl of Athole, Lord Somerville, and Lord Borthwick, who declared as their only reason of dissent, 'We will beleve as our fathers belevet.' [1317]

Randolph, the English envoy, wrote to Cecil two days afterwards: 'I never heard matters of so great importance neither sooner dispatched, nor with better will agreed unto. . . . The rest of the Lords, with common consent and as glad a will as ever I heard men speak, allowed the same. . . . Many offered to shed their blood in defense of the same. The old Lord Lindsay, as grave and godly a man as ever I saw, said, "I have lived many years; I am the oldest in this company of my sort; now that it hath pleased God to let me see this day, where so many nobles and others have allowed so worthy a work, I will say with Simeon, Nunc dimittis."' [1318]

The adoption of the Confession was followed (Aug. 24, 1560) by acts abolishing the mass, the jurisdiction of the pope, and rescinding all the laws formerly made in support of the Roman Catholic Church and against the Reformed religion. A messenger was dispatched with the Confession to Queen Mary, in Paris, to secure her ratification, but was not graciously received. Her heart's design was to restore in due time her own religion.

In December of the same year the first General Assembly convened, and approved the Book of Discipline, prepared by the same authors. It was submitted to the state authority, but this refused to ratify it. [1319]

Seven years afterwards (1567), the Parliament formally established the Reformed Church, by declaring the ministers of the blessed Evangel and the people of the realm professing Christ according to the Confession of Faith 'to be the only true and holy Kirk of Jesus Christ within this realm.' Subscription was required from all ministers first in 1572. [1320] From that time till the Revolution of 1688 this native Confession was the only legally recognized doctrinal standard of both the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches in Scotland. The Covenanters, however, during the Commonwealth, adopted the Westminster standards, which have thrown the older Confession into the shade. Besides, the General Assembly approved and recommended also the Second Helvetic Confession, which Beza transmitted to Scotland (1566), Calvin's Catechism, and the Heidelberg Catechism, but no subscription to these foreign confessions was ever exacted.

CONTENTS.

The Scotch Confession consists of twenty-five Articles, and a short Preface, which breathes the spirit of true confessors ready for martyrdom. It begins: 'Long have we thirsted, dear brethren, to have notified unto the world the sum of that doctrine which we profess, and for the which we have sustained infamy and danger;' and it ends with the words: 'We firmly purpose to abide to the end in the confession of this our faith.' But the authors are far from claiming infallibility for their own statements of the truth, and subject them to improvement and correction from the Holy Scriptures. [1321] In harmony with this, the 20th Article denies the infallibility of general councils, 'some of which have manifestly erred, and that in matters of great weight and importance.'

The Confession covers the oecumenical and evangelical doctrines, beginning with God and ending with the Church, the Sacraments, and the Civil Magistrate. It exhibits a clear, fresh, and forcible summary of the orthodox Reformed faith, as then held in common by the Protestants of England, Switzerland, France, and Holland. Though decidedly Calvinistic, it is yet free from the scholastic technicalities and angular statements of the Calvinism of a later generation. The doctrine of the Sacraments is similar to and rather stronger than that of the Thirty-nine Articles. [1322] The Church is declared to be uninterruptedly one from the beginning to the end of the world,' one company and multitude of men chosen of God, who rightly worship and embrace him by true faith in Christ Jesus, who is the only Head of the same Church, which also is the body and spouse of Christ Jesus; which Church is catholic, that is, universal, because it containeth the elect of all ages, all realms, nations, and tongues, who have communion with God the Father, and with his Son, through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.' But this Church is put in strong contrast with the false and apostate Church of the Papacy, and distinguished from it by three marks-- namely, the pure preaching of the gospel, the right administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline. The first two are mentioned in the Augsburg Confession and the English Articles; the third is peculiarly Calvinistic and Presbyterian.

But no particular form of Church government or worship is laid down in this Confession as binding, and freedom is allowed in ceremonies. [1323] Knox himself prepared, after the Geneva model, a liturgy, or Book of Common Order, which was indorsed by the General Assembly (Dec. 26, 1564), and used in Scotland for a long time. [1324] The exclusive theory of a jure divino Presbyterianism dates not so much from Knox as from Andrew Melville, and the aversion to forms of prayer was a reaction against the attempt of Laud to force a foreign episcopacy and liturgy upon the reluctant Scotch.

Edward Irving, himself one of the purest and noblest sons of Scotland, who for several years thrilled the English metropolis with his pentecostal gift of tongues, and to whom Thomas Carlyle, the friend of his youth, paid such a touching tribute, was in the habit of reading the Scotch Confession twice in the year to his congregation, and bestowed this encomium upon it: [1325] 'This document is the pillar of the Reformation Church of Scotland, which hath derived little help from the Westminster Confession of Faith: whereas these twenty-five articles, ratified in the Parliament of Scotland in the year 1560, not only at that time united the states of the kingdom in one firm band against the Papacy, but also rallied the people at sundry times of trouble and distress for a whole century thereafter, and it may be said even until the Revolution, when the Church came into that haven of rest which has proved far more pernicious to her than all the storms she ever passed through; for, though the Westminster Confession was adopted as a platform of communion with the English Presbyterians in the year 1647, it exerted little or no influence upon our Church, and was hardly felt as an operative principle either of good or evil, until the Revolution of 1688; so that the Scottish Confession was the banner of the Church in all her wrestlings and conflicts, the Westminster Confession but as the camp colors which she hath used during her days of peace--the one for battle, the other for fair appearance and good order. This document consisteth of twenty-five articles, and is written in a most honest, straightforward, manly style, without compliment or flattery, without affectation of logical precision and learned accuracy, as if it came fresh from the heart of laborious workmen, all the day long busy with the preaching of the truth, and sitting down at night to embody the heads of what was continually taught. There is a freshness of life about it which no frequency of reading wears off.' __________________________________________________________________

[1314] Innes, The Law of Creeds in Scotland, p. 4.

[1315] 'The Confession of Faith of the English Congregation at Geneva,' 1558, consists only of four articles: 1, of God the Father; 2, of Jesus Christ; 3, of the Holy Ghost; 4, of the Church and the Communion of Saints. It was probably drawn up by Knox. Chaps. 1 and 4 have some resemblance to the corresponding articles of the Scotch Confession. It is reprinted in Dunlop's Collection, Vol. II. pp. 3-12. The editor says that it was 'received and approved by the Church of Scotland in the beginning of the Reformation.'

[1316] Knox reports (Vol. II. p. 128): 'Commission and charge was given to Mr. John Winram, sub-prior of St. Andrew's, Mr. John Spottiswoode, John Hillock, Mr. John Douglas, rector of St. Andrew's, Mr. John Rowe, and John Knox, to draw in a volume the policy and discipline of the Kirk, as well as they had done the doctrine.' Thus six Johns composed both the Confession of Faith and the Book of Discipline, which breathe the spirit of the Church militant, and are Pauline rather than Johannean. Knox was no doubt the chief author of both. He had experience in the preparation of such documents, as he was consulted about the Edwardine Articles of Religion, prepared the Confession for the English congregations in Geneva, and must have been familiar with the Swiss Confessions.

[1317] Knox, Hist. Vol. II. p. 121; Calderwood, Vol. II. p. 37.

[1318] Knox, Works, Vol. VI. pp. 116-118: Innes, p. 11.

[1319] See 'The Booke of the Universall Kirk of Scotland,' containing the earliest records of the Minutes of the Assembly, published in one volume, 1839; Calderwood, Vol. II. pp. 44 sqq.; Innes, pp. 21 sqq.

[1320] Innes, pp. 30 and 49.

[1321] 'We protest that if any one will note in this our Confession any article or sentence repugnant to God's Holy Word, that it would please him of his gentleness and for Christian charity's sake, to admonish us of the same in writing; and we, upon our honor and fidelity, by God's grace, do promise unto him satisfaction from the mouth of God (that is, from his Holy Scriptures), or else reformation of that which he shall prove to be amiss.' Dean Stanley, in quoting this passage from the Preface (Lectures, etc. p. 113), says that it is the only Protestant Confession which, far in advance of its age, acknowledges its own fallibility. But the First Confession of Basle (1534) does the same in express words in the closing article (see Niemeyer, Collect. pp. 84 and 104); and the changes of the Augsburg Confession (Art. X.), and of the English Articles, imply the recognition of their imperfection on the part of the authors. The 19th Article, in declaring that all Churches have erred in matters of faith, could certainly not intend to exempt the Church of England and her formularies.

[1322] Tytler (History of Scotland, Vol. III. p. 129, ed. of 1872) observes: 'It is worthy of remark that in these holy mysteries of our faith this Confession, drawn up by the primitive Scotch Reformers, keeps in some points at a greater distance from the rationalizing of ultra-Protestantism than the Articles of Edward.' On Knox's view of the eucharist, see Lorimer, 1.c. pp. 129 and 131. He held the Calvinistic view before he came to Geneva, and while still a disciple of Wishart, who learned it from his intercourse with the Swiss Churches to 1540, and translated the First Helvetic Confession of 1536 into English.

[1323] Art. XX.: 'In the Church, as in the house of God, it becometh all things to be done decently and in order: not that we think that one policy, and one order of ceremonies can be appointed for all ages, times, and places; for as ceremonies, such as men have devised, are but temporal, so may and ought they to be changed, when they rather foster superstition than edify the Church using the same.'

[1324] It has been republished by the Rev. John Cumming, London, 1840. Cumming says (p. v.): 'The Scotch Church never objected to a written liturgy in her public worship, provided there was room left in the service for extemporaneous service.' John Knox's Liturgy was never formally abolished, but, like the Scotch Confession, it was silently superseded by the Westminster standards.

[1325] Collected Writings of Edward Irving, London, 1864, Vol. I. p. 601, quoted by Innes, p. 55. __________________________________________________________________

§ 90. The Scotch Covenants and the Scotch Kirk.

Literature.

The Covenants are added to some Scotch editions of the Westminster Standards. The Solemn League and Covenant was often separately printed.

James Aikman: An Historical Account of Covenanting in Scotland, from the first Band in Mearns, 1556, to the Signature of the Grand National Covenant, 1638. Edinburgh, 1848 (82 pp.).

National Covenants or politico-religious agreements for the maintenance and defense of certain principles and privileges are a peculiar and prominent feature in the history of the Kirk of Scotland. They were copied from Jewish precedents. [1326] They originated in critical periods, when the sacred rights and convictions of the people were in imminent danger, and when the religious and national sentiments were inseparably blended. They are not properly confessions of faith, but closely connected with them, and must therefore be noticed here. They are solemn pledges to defend the doctrines and polity of the Reformed Kirk against all hostile attempts from within or from without, and to die rather than surrender. [1327]

The earlier Covenants were safeguards against popery, the later against episcopacy. In the ecclesiastical history of Scotland since the Reformation we may distinguish three main periods: the period of anti-popery (1560 to 1590), the period of anti-prelacy (until 1690), and the period of anti-patronage (until 1875).

The first Covenants were made for mutual protection against the Romanists by a number of Protestant nobles and gentlemen, at Mearns, 1556, at Edinburgh, Dec. 3, 1557, at Perth, Dec. 31, 1559, before the Reformed Kirk was properly organized.

THE NATIONAL COVENANT, 1581 AND 1638.

Far more important is the 'National Covenant,' or the 'Second Scotch Confession,' also called the 'King's Confession,' and the 'Negative Confession.' It was drawn up in English and Latin by the Rev. John Craig, a noble, well-educated, and devoted man, a colleague of Knox and author of two Catechisms, who, after an eventful and romantic career, died in 1600, in the eighty-eight year of his life. It is a solemn indorsement of the Confession of Faith of 1560, with the strongest possible protest against 'all kind of papistry in general and particular heads,' especially against the 'usurped tyranny of the Roman Antichrist upon the Scriptures of God, upon the Kirk, the civil magistrate, and consciences of men; all his tyrannous laws made upon indifferent things, against our Christian liberty; . . . his five bastard sacraments, with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine added to the ministration of the true sacraments without the Word of God; his cruel judgment against infants departing without the sacrament; [1328] his absolute necessity of baptism; his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation; his devilish mass; his blasphemous priesthood; his profane sacrifice for sins of the dead and the quick; . . . his worldly monarchy and wicked hierarchy; his three solemn vows; his erroneous and bloody decrees made at Trent, with all the subscribers and approvers of that cruel and bloody band conjured against the Kirk of God.' No other Protestant Confession is so fiercely anti-popish.

This Covenant was subscribed by King James VI., his household, and a number of nobles and ministers, at Edinburgh, Jan. 28, 1581 (or 1580, old style [1329] ); then by the Assembly and by persons of all ranks in March, 1581; again in 1590, together with a 'General Band for Maintenance of the True Religion and the King's Person or Estate;' it was solemnly renewed, with additions, in 1638 and 1639; ratified by an Act of Parliament in 1640, and signed by King Charles II., in exile, at Spey, June 23, 1650, and again when he was crowned at Scone, in Scotland, Jan. 1, 1651. [1330]

The renewal of the Covenant in 1638, which is more particularly called the National Covenant, marks the Second Reformation. It includes the old Covenant of 1581, the Acts of Parliament condemning popery, and a protest against the government of the Kirk by bishops, all those measures of King Charles I. which 'do sensibly tend to the re-establishment of the Popish religion and tyranny, and to the subversion and ruin of the true Reformed religion, and of our liberties, laws, and estates.' The additions were prepared by Alexander Henderson and Johnston of Warriston, to meet a great crisis. [1331]

The introduction of the semi-presbyterian mongrel episcopacy of James was comparatively harmless. But when his son Charles and his spiritual adviser, Archbishop Laud, in criminal ignorance or contempt of public feeling, attempted to force upon the Scots the royal supremacy, with a Romanizing hierarchy and liturgy, it produced a revolution and civil war which extended to England, and culminated in the temporary triumph of Puritanism. Macaulay traces the freedom of England to this 'act of insane bigotry.' In 1633 Laud displayed the most elaborate pomp of ceremonial worship in Holyrood Chapel to impress the descendants of John Knox! His new service-book differed from the English in a marked tendency to popery. When it was first introduced, July 23, 1637, in the cathedral church of St. Giles, in the presence of the privy council, the two archbishops of Scotland, several bishops, and the city magistrates, a poor old woman, named Jenny Geddes, confounding 'colic' and 'collect,' indignantly exclaimed, 'Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug,' and hurled her famous stool at the head of the unfortunate dean, who read 'the black, popish, and superstitious book.' Instantly all was uproar and confusion all over the city. The people shouted through the streets, 'A pope, a pope! Antichrist! The sword of the Lord and Gideon!' The unpremeditated riot extended into a popular revolution. The result was the overthrow of the artificial scheme which bigotry and tyranny had concocted. [1332]

The renewal of the Covenant took place in Greyfriars' Church, in Edinburgh, the 28th of February, 1638, and was a most solemn and extraordinary scene. No less than sixty thousand people flocked to the city from all parts of the kingdom. The dense crowd which filled the church and adjoining graveyard listened with breathless attention to the prayers, the addresses, and the reading of the Covenant. The aged Earl of Sutherland first signed his name with trembling hand upon the parchment roll. Name followed name in swift succession. 'Some wept aloud; some burst into a shout of exultation; some, after their names, added the words, till death; and some, opening a vein, subscribed with their own warm blood. As the space became filled, they wrote their names in a contracted form, limiting them at last to the initial letters, till not a spot remained on which another letter could be inscribed. . . . Never, except among God's peculiar people, the Jews, did any national transaction equal in moral and religious sublimity that which was displayed by Scotland on the great day of her sacred National Covenant.' [1333]

Similar scenes were repeated throughout the Northern Kingdom. Noblemen and gentlemen carried copies of the Covenant in their pockets and portmanteaus, soliciting subscriptions. Women sat in church day and night, from Friday till Sunday, to receive the communion with it. To refuse signature seemed to some denial of Christianity itself. [1334]

THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, 1643.

'The Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defense of Religion, the Honor and Happiness of the King, and the Peace and Safety of the Three Kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland,' is the last and the most important of these national compacts which grew out of the Reformation. It has neither the doctrinal import nor the ring and fervor of the National Covenant of 1580 and 1638, but it had a wider scope and greater effect. It is anti-episcopal as well as anti-papal. It is the connecting link between Scotch Presbyterianism and English Puritanism, between the General Assembly and the Westminster Assembly, between the Scotch Parliament and the Long Parliament. It aimed to secure uniformity of religion in the united realms, while the National Covenant, like the Confession of 1560, was purely Scotch, and never exceeded its original boundary. [1335]

We present first the text in full: [1336]

'We Noblemen, Barons, Knights, Gentlemen, Citizens, Burgesses, Ministers of the Gospel, and Commons of all sorts, in the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland, by the providence of God, living under one King, and being of one reformed religion, having before our eyes the glory of God and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the honor and happiness of the King's Majesty and his posterity, and the true public liberty, safety, and peace of the kingdoms, wherein every one's private condition is included: And calling to mind the treacherous and bloody plots, conspiracies, attempts, and practices of the enemies of God, against the true religion and professors thereof in all places, especially in these three kingdoms, ever since the reformation of religion; and how much their rage, power, and presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised, whereof the deplorable state of the Church and kingdom of Ireland, the distressed estate of the Church and kingdom of England, and the dangerous estate of the Church and kingdom of Scotland are present and public testimonies; we have now at last (after other means of supplication, remonstrance, protestation, and sufferings, for the preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction, according to the commendable practice of these kingdoms in former times, and the example of God's people in other nations), after mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and Solemn League and Covenant, wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the most High God, do swear,

'I. That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of God, endeavor, in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches; and shall endeavor to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for worship and catechising; that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us.

'II. That we shall, in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavor the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (that is, Church government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical Officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness; lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues; and that the Lord may be one, and his name one, in the three kingdoms.

'III. We shall, with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavor, with our estates and lives, mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms; and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority, in the preservation and defense of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just power and greatness.

'IV. We shall also, with all faithfulness, endeavor the discovery of all such as have been or shall be incendiaries, malignants, or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation of religion, dividing the King from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties amongst the people, contrary to this League and Covenant; that they may be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their offenses shall require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall judge convenient.

'V. And whereas the happiness of a blessed peace between these kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is, by the good providence of God, granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments; we shall each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavor that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity, and that justice may be done upon the willful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent article.

'VI. We shall also, according to our places and callings, in this common cause of religion, liberty, and peace of the kingdoms, assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof; and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause which so much concerneth the glory of God, the good of the kingdom, and honor of the king; but shall, all the days of our lives, zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition, and promote the same according to our power against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are not able ourselves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed: all which we shall do as in the sight of God.

'And, because these kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against God and his Son Jesus Christ, as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof, we profess and declare, before God and the world, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these kingdoms; especially, that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the gospel; that we have not labored for the purity and power thereof; and that we have not endeavored to receive Christ in our hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our lives; which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us; and our true and unfeigned purpose, desire, and endeavor for ourselves, and all others under our power and charge, both in public and in private, in all duties we owe to God and man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real reformation; that the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation, and establish these Churches and kingdoms in truth and peace.

'And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God, the searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed; most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his Holy Spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with such success as may be deliverance and safety to his people and encouragement to other Christian Churches, groaning under, or in danger of, the yoke of anti-Christian tyranny, to join in the same or like association and covenant, to the glory of God, the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the peace and tranquillity of Christian kingdoms and commonwealths.'

The immediate origin of this international politico-religious Covenant was the combined application of the English Parliament, then at war with King Charles I., and the Westminster Assembly of Divines, then sitting under its authority, for the effectual aid of the Scots, who occupied a position of neutrality. Six commissioners--four from the Parliament (Sir William Armyn, Sir Harry Vane the younger, Mr. Hatcher, and Mr. Darley) and two from the Westminster Assembly (Stephen Marshall and Philip Nye)--appeared with official and private letters before the Scotch Convention of Estates and the General Assembly at Edinburgh, in August, 1643. The English desired a civil league; the Scotch were for a religious covenant, and made the latter a condition of the former. Alexander Henderson, a highly esteemed minister at Edinburgh, Rector of the University (since 1640), and then for the third time Moderator of the General Assembly, was intrusted with the preparation of the document. He had drawn up a part of the National Covenant five years before. The English suggested some modifications which gave greater prominence to the political feature. The draft was unanimously and enthusiastically adopted by the General Assembly and the Scottish Convention, Aug. 17, 1643. The people, who had not forgotten the Covenant of 1638, manifested their most hearty approval, and went into the new engagement with the 'perfervidum ingenium Scotorum.'

The Solemn League and Covenant became a signal of war and victory in the history of Puritanism. It was followed by the appointment of Scotch commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, who took a leading part in the preparation of the Westminster standards of doctrine, worship, and discipline. It was debated for three or four days in that Assembly, and approved, with a few verbal alterations, by all the members except the Episcopalians. On the 21st of September Parliament ordered it to be published and subscribed throughout England. On the 25th of September the members of the House of Commons (two hundred and twenty-eight) and the divines of the Assembly set the example in St. Margaret's Church, [1337] beneath the shadow of Westminster Abbey. It was one of the strangest and most solemn events in the history of England. It reminds one of the formation of the Swiss Confederacy on the green meadow at Grütli. After prayer and addresses by White of Dorchester, Philip Nye, and Henderson, the Covenant was read, article by article, from the pulpit, and every member, standing up and lifting his right hand to heaven, took the pledge, and then signed his name on the rolls of parchment. The House of Lords followed a few weeks afterwards (Oct. 15). The same solemn scene was re-enacted in almost every English town and parish where the authority of Parliament prevailed. Cromwell among the Commons, and probably, also, Milton as a householder, signed the document, though Cromwell afterwards made war on the Scots, and Milton came to the conclusion that 'new Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.' In vain did the King, from his head-quarters in Oxford, forbid the League (Oct. 9), as 'a traitorous and seditious combination against himself and the established religion of his kingdom.' It became the shibboleth of Puritan religion and patriotism. There were, however, some exceptions. England, after all, was not so zealous for Presbyterianism as Scotland, and not used to covenanting. Richard Baxter raised his voice against the indiscriminate enforcement of the Covenant, and prevented its being taken in Kidderminster and the neighborhood. [1338]

From England the tide flowed back to Scotland, and Scotland, stimulated by the example, outran the neighboring country in zeal for the League. On the 13th of October, 1643, most of the nobles, including eighteen members of the Privy Council, solemnly signed it in Edinburgh, and from that day on for months there was 'a general swearing to the Covenant' by the people of Scotland, as by the Parliamentarians in England, from district to district, from city to city, from village to village, from parish to parish. [1339]

'O'er hill and dale the summons flew,

Nor rest nor pause the herald knew.

Each valley, each sequester'd glen,

Mustered its little horde of men,

That met, as torrents from the height,

In Highland dales, when streams unite,

Still gathering as they pour along,

A voice more loud, a tide more strong.'

On the 29th of November, 1643, the two countries entered into a treaty, by which the Scots promised to furnish an army for the war, the expenses to be refunded after the conclusion of peace. The Scots felt that they were playing the part of the good Samaritan towards the neighbor who had fallen among thieves. 'Surely,' says Baillie, 'it was a great act of faith in God, and huge courage and unheard-of compassion' on the part of the Scotch nation, 'to hazard their own peace and venture their lives and all, for to save a people so irrecoverably ruined, both in their own and in all the world's eyes.'

The united army fought under the banner of the Anglo-Scotch Covenant against royal and episcopal tyranny, and for the establishment of presbyterian uniformity. The negative end was gained, the positive failed. 'Trusting in God and keeping their powder dry,' the Puritans overthrew both monarchy and prelacy, but only to be overthrown in turn by the Nemesis of history. No human power could bring the two kingdoms under one creed and one form of government and worship. Presbyterian uniformity in England was as preposterous as Episcopal uniformity in Scotland.

The Solemn League and Covenant was weakened by the quarrel between the Presbyterians and Independents, and was virtually broken with the destruction of the monarchy and the execution of Charles I. (1648). [1340] The English army put down the Covenant which the Scotch army had set up. After the Restoration it became an object of intense hatred, and was publicly burned by the common hangman in Westminster Hall by order of Parliament (1661). Charles II., who had twice sworn both to the Solemn League and to the National Covenant as a part of his coronation oath in Scotland (June 23, 1650, and Jan. 1, 1651), broke his oath as soon as he ascended the English throne, and established the royal Supremacy and Episcopacy even in Presbyterian Scotland (1662). But the Covenanters fought for the institutions of their fathers with the heroic spirit of martyrdom through all those troubled times,

'Whose memory rings through Scotland to this hour.'

The Scotch Kirk.

After severe struggles Prelacy was again overthrown and Presbyterianism permanently re-established in Scotland by Parliament in 1690, though with a degree of dependence on the state which kept up a constant irritation, and which led from time to time to new secessions.

These secessions from the Established Kirk, down to the great exodus of the Free Church in 1843, were no new departures, but, like the sects in Russia, returns to the old landmarks. The system of Calvinistic Presbyterianism which the great Reformer had established in Geneva found in Scotland a larger and more congenial field of action, and became there more free and independent of the civil power. It was wrought into the bone and sinew of the nation which seems to be predestinated for such a manly, sturdy, God-fearing, solid, persevering type of Christianity. Romanism in the Highlands is only an unsubdued remnant of the Middle Ages, lately reinforced by Irish emigrants to the large cities. Episcopacy is an English exotic for Scotchmen educated in England and associated with the English aristocracy. The body of the people are Presbyterian to the back-bone. The differences between the Established Kirk, the United Presbyterians, the Free Church, and the smaller secession bodies seem insignificant to an outside observer, and turn on questions of psalmody, patronage, and relation to the civil government. The vital doctrines and principles are held in common by all. Differences of opinion, which in other countries constitute merely theological schools or parties in one and the same denomination, give rise in Scotland to separate ecclesiastical organizations. The scrupulous conscientiousness and stubbornness which clothe minor questions with the dignity and grandeur of fundamental principles, and are made to justify separation and schism, are the shadow of a virtue. Scotland is an unconquerable fort of orthodox Protestantism. In no other country and Church do we find such fidelity and tenacity; such unswerving devotion to the genius of the Reformation; such union of metaphysical subtlety with religious fervor and impetuosity; such general interest in ecclesiastical councils and enterprizes; such jealousy for the rights and self-government of the Church; such loyalty to a particular denomination combined with a generous interest in Christ's kingdom at large; such reverence for God's holy Word and holy day, that after the hard and honest toil of the week lights up the poorest man's cottage on 'Saturday night.'

The history of Christianity, since the days of the apostles, furnishes no brighter chapter of heroic and successful sacrifices for the idea of the sole headship of Christ, and the honor and independence of his Church, than the Free-Church movement, whose leaders--Chalmers, Welsh, Candlish, Cunningham, Duncan, Fairbairn, Guthrie, Buchanan, Arnot--have now one by one taken their place among the great and good men of the past, but will continue to live in the memory of a grateful people. Dr. Norman Macleod, himself one of the noblest of Scotchmen, who was a member of the disruption Assembly of 1843, and found it harder to stay in the Established Church as 'a restorer of the breach' than to go out of it amid the huzzas of popular enthusiasm, honored himself as much as Dr. Chalmers, his teacher, when he spoke of him after his death as a man 'whose noble character, lofty enthusiasm, and patriotic views will rear themselves before the eyes of posterity like Alpine peaks, long after the narrow valleys which have for a brief period divided us are lost in the far distance of past history.' [1341] In securing liberty for itself, the Free Church conferred a blessing upon the mother Church by rousing it to greater activity, and setting in motion an agitation which resulted in the total abolition of the Law of Patronage by Act of Parliament (1875). __________________________________________________________________

[1326] Josh. xxiv. 25: 'So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance at Shechem;' 2 Kings xi. 17: 'And Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people, that they should be the Lord's people;' also Isa. xliv. 5.

[1327] Dr. M'Crie says of the Scotch Covenants (p. 120): 'Although they have been condemned as unwarranted in a religious point of view, and dangerous in a political, yet are they completely defensible upon the principles both of conscience and policy. A mutual agreement, compact, or covenant, is virtually implied in the constitution of every society, civil or religious; and the dictates of natural law conspire with the declarations of revelation in sanctioning the warrantableness and propriety of explicit engagements, about any lawful and important matter, and of ratifying these, if circumstances shall require it, by formal subscription, and by a solemn appeal to the searcher of hearts. By strengthening the motives to fidelity and constancy, and thus producing mutual confidence among those who are embarked in the same cause, they have proved eminently beneficial in the reformation of churches and nations, and in securing the religious and political privileges of men. The misapplication of them, when employed in a bad cause and for mischievous ends, can be no argument against their use in a legitimate way, and for laudable purposes. And the reasoning employed to prove that such covenants should not be entered into without the permission of rulers would lead to the conclusion that subjects ought never to profess a religion to which their superiors are hostile, nor make any attempts to obtain the reform of abuses, or the redress of grievances, without the consent and approbation of those who are interested in their support.' From Scotland the custom of covenanting passed to the Puritans in England and New England, and remains to-day in the shape of solemn engagements assumed by individual Christians when they enter into full communion with a church. Such covenants take the place of confirmation vows customary in the Lutheran and Anglican Churches.

[1328] This is the first confessional declaration against the damnation, and, by implication, in favor of the salvation, of unbaptized infants; and agrees with the private opinion previously expressed by Zwingli and Bullinger.

[1329] 'They did not begin the year in Scotland, at that time, till the 25th of March.'--Dunlop's Collection, Vol. II. p. 101.

[1330] See the text in Vol. III. p. 480; and in Calderwood, Vol. III. p. 502. Calderwood thinks (p. 505) that this confession, under the name of 'wicked hierarchy,' condemns episcopal government; but it is evident from the context that the papal hierarchy is meant.

[1331] See the additions in Dunlop's Collection, Vol. II. pp. 125-137, also the Acts of the Assemblies of Glasgow, 1638, and Edinburgh, 1639, pp. 114 sqq.

[1332] 'Never,' says Dean Stanley (p. 82), 'except in the days of the French Revolution, did a popular tumult lead to such important results. The stool which was on that occasion flung at the head of the Dean of Edinburgh extinguished the English Liturgy entirely in Scotland for the seventeenth century, to a great extent even till the nineteenth, and gave to the civil war of England an impulse which only ended in the overthrow of the Church and monarchy.'

[1333] Hetherington, History of the Church of Scotland, p. 91 (3d ed.).

[1334] For fuller particulars, see Baillie's Letters, Vol. I., Rothes's Relation, Aiton's Life of Henderson, Burton (Vol. VI. p. 442). Accounts from the episcopal side, in Thomas Stephen's History of the Church of Scotland, Vol. I. pp. 552 sqq.; Stanley, 1.c. pp. 80 sqq.

[1335] It is surprising that these two Covenants should be confounded by such a scholar as Dean Stanley, in his eloquent description of it, in Lectures on the Church of Scotland, pp. 83-86 (Am. ed.). Dean Hook makes the same mistake--Life of Laud, p. 267.

[1336] From 'The [Westminster] Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, together with the Sum of Saving Knowledge, Covenants, National, and Solemn League,' etc. Edinburgh, 1788, pp. 501 sqq. Masson, in his Life of Milton, Vol. III. p. 13, gives the essential parts of the National Covenant. Fuller inserts it in full, Vol. VI. p. 255, and compares it (p. 259) to 'the superstitious and cruel Six Articles enacted by King Henry VIII.' Comp. Baillie's Letters, Vol. II. pp. 81-90; the Acts of the General Assembly for 1643; Stoughton, The Church of the Civil Wars, pp. 293 and 320; Masson, 1.c. Vol. III. pp. 6-15; Hetherington, l.c. pp. 110 sqq.

[1337] It is still used as a place of worship on special occasions by the Houses of Parliament.

[1338] Marsden (History of the Later Puritans, p. 77): 'Such is the weight of character: one country clergyman prevailed against the rulers of two kingdoms.'

[1339] Stoughton, Vol. I. p. 294; Masson, Vol. III. pp. 12, 13.

[1340] The Westminster Assembly, or what was left of it, sympathized with Presbyterian Scotland in loyalty to the monarchy, and unanimously signified its desire for the King's release. Forty-seven ministers, meeting at Sion College, signed a document addressed to Fairfax, in which they protested most earnestly in the name of religion and the Solemn League and Covenant against the military usurpation and the violence intended to the King's person. Masson, Vol. III. p. 716; Stoughton, Vol. I. p. 529.

[1341] Memoir of Norman Macleod, by his Brother, 1876, Vol. I. p. 263 (N. Y. ed.). __________________________________________________________________

§ 91. The Scotch Catechisms.

Catechetical instruction became soon after the Reformation, and remains to this day, one of the fundamental institutions of Presbyterian Scotland, and accounts largely for the general diffusion of religious information among the people.

The First Book of Discipline, adopted in 1560, prescribes public catechising of the children before the people on Sunday afternoon. The General Assembly of 1570 ordered ministers and elders to give to all the children within their parishes three courses of religious instruction--when they were nine, twelve, and fourteen years of age. Later assemblies enacted similar laws, and enjoined it also upon the heads of families to catechise their children and servants. The Assembly of 1649 renewed the act of the Assembly of 1639 'for a day of weeklie catechising, to be constantly observed in every kirk.' [1342]

The older Catechisms, both domestic and foreign, contain the same system of doctrine in a fresher though less logical form than the Westminster standards, by which they were superseded after the middle of the seventeenth century. 'Our Scottish Catechisms,' says Dr. Bonar, the hymnist,' though gray with the antiquity of three centuries, are not yet out of date. They still read well, both as to style and substance; it would be hard to amend them, or to substitute something better in their place. Like some of our old church-bells, they have retained for centuries their sweetness and amplitude of tone unimpaired. It may be questioned whether the Church has gained any thing by the exchange of the Reformation standards for those of the seventeenth century. . . . In the Reformation we find doctrine, life, action nobly blended. Between these there was harmony, not antagonism; for antagonism in such cases can only arise when the parts are disproportionately mingled. Subsequently the balance was not preserved: the purely dogmatical preponderated. This was an evil, yet an evil not so easily avoided as some think; for, as the amount of error flung upon society increased, the necessity for encountering it increased also; controversy spread, dialectics rose into repute, and the dogmatical threatened to stifle or dispossess the vital.' [1343]

Foreign Catechisms.

The Catechism of Calvin and the Palatinate or Heidelberg Catechism were approved by the Church of Scotland, and much used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. [1344]

An English edition of the former by the translators of the Geneva Bible appeared first at Geneva, 1556, for the use of the congregation of exiles, of which Knox was pastor, and then at Edinburgh, 1564. The latter was printed in Edinburgh, 1591, 1615, and 1621.

Native Catechisms.

The number of these must have been very large. King James remarked at the Hampton Court Conference that in Scotland every son of a good woman thought himself competent to write a Catechism. We mention only those which had ecclesiastical sanction:

1. Two Catechisms of John Craig (1512-1600), an eminent minister at Aberdeen, and then at Edinburgh. [1345] He was the author of the Second Scotch Confession. [1346]

The Larger Catechism of Craig was first printed in Edinburgh, by Henrie Charteris, in 1581, and in London, 1589. The General Assembly of 1590 indorsed it, and ordered an abridgment by the author, which was approved and published in 1591. In this shorter form it was generally used till superseded by the Westminster Catechism. The author says in the Preface (dated July 20, 1581): 'First, I have abstained from all curious and hard questions; and, next, I have brought the questions and the answers to as few words as I could, and that for the ease of children and common people, who can not understand nor gather the substance of a long question or a long answer confirmed with many reasons.' The work begins with some historical questions, and then explains the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer, and ends with the means of grace and the way of salvation. The questions and answers are short, and of almost equal length. We give some specimens from the larger work; which is little known:

First Questions.

Ques. Who made man and woman?

Ans. The eternal God of his goodness.

Ques. Whereof made he them?

Ans. Of an earthly body and an heavenly spirit.

Ques. To whose image made he them?

Ans. To his own image.

Ques. What is the image of God?

Ans. Perfect uprightness in body and soul.

Ques. To what end were they made?

Ans. To acknowledge and serve their Maker.

Ques. How should they have served him?

Ans. According to his holy will.

Ques. How did they know his will?

Ans. By his Works, Word, and Sacraments.

Ques. What liberty had they to obey his will?

Ans. They had free will to obey and disobey.

Of the Sacraments.

Ques. What is a Sacrament?

Ans. A sensible sign and seal of God's favor offered and given to us.

Ques. To what end are the Sacraments given?

Ans. To nourish our faith in the promise of God.

Ques. How can sensible signs do this?

Ans. They have this office of God, not of themselves.

Ques. How do the Sacraments differ from the Word?

Ans. They speak to the eye, and the Word to the ear.

Ques. Speak they other things than the Word?

Ans. No, but the same diversely.

Ques. But the word doth teach us sufficiently?

Ans. Yet the Sacraments with the Word do it more effectually.

Ques. What, then, are the Sacraments to the Word?

Ans. They are sure and authentic seals given by God.

Ques. May the Sacraments be without the Word?

Ans. No, for the Word is their life.

Ques. May the Word be fruitful without the Sacraments?

Ans. Yes, no doubt, but it worketh more plenteously with them.

Ques. What is the cause of that?

Ans. Because more senses are moved to the comfort of our faith.

Baptism.

Ques. What is the signification of baptism?

Ans. Remission of our sins and regeneration.

Ques. What similitude hath baptism with remission of sins?

Ans. As washing cleanseth the body, so Christ's blood our souls.

Ques. Wherein doth this cleansing stand?

Ans. In putting away of sin, and imputation of justice.

Ques. Wherein standeth our regeneration?

Ans. In mortification and newness of life.

Ques. How are these things sealed up in baptism?

Ans. By laying on of water.

Ques. What doth the laying on of the water signify?

Ans. Our dying to sin and rising to righteousness.

Ques. Doth the external washing work these things?

Ans. No, it is the work of God's Holy Spirit only.

Ques. Then the sacrament is a bare figure?

Ans. No, but it hath the verity joined with it.

Ques. Do all men receive these graces with the Sacraments?

Ans. No, but only the faithful.

The Lord's Supper.

Ques. What signifieth the Lord's Supper to us?

Ans. That our souls are fed with the body and blood of Christ.

Ques. Why is this represented by bread and wine?

Ans. Because what the one doth to the body, the same doth the other to the soul spiritually.

Ques. But our bodies are joined corporally with the elements, or outward signs?

Ans. Even so our souls be joined spiritually with Christ his body.

Ques. What need is there of this union with him?

Ans. Otherwise we can not enjoy his benefits.

Ques. Declare that in the Sacrament?

Ans. As we see the elements given to feed our bodies, even so we see by faith Christ gave his body to us to feed our souls.

Ques. Did he not give it upon the Cross for us?

Ans. Yes, and here he giveth the same body to be our spiritual food, which we receive and feed on by faith.

Ques. How receive we his body and blood?

Ans. By our own lively faith only.

Ques. What followeth upon this receiving by faith?

Ans. That Christ dwelleth in us, and we in him.

Ques. Then we receive only the tokens, and not his body?

Ans. We receive his very substantial body and blood by faith.

Ques. How can that be proved?

Ans. By the truth of his Word, and nature of a Sacrament.

Ques. But his natural body is in heaven?

Ans. I no doubt, but yet we receive it in earth by faith.

Ques. How can that be?

Ans. By the wonderful working of the Holy Spirit.

Cause and Progress of Salvation.

Ques. Out of what fountain doth this our stability flow?

Ans. Out of God's eternal and constant [unchanging] election in Christ.

Ques. By what way cometh this election to us?

Ans. By his effectual calling in due time.

Ques. What worketh this effectual calling in us?

Ans. The obedience of faith.

Ques. What thing doth faith work?

Ans. Our perpetual and inseparable union with Christ.

Ques. What worketh this union with Christ?

Ans. A mutual communion with him and his graces.

Ques. What worketh this communion?

Ans. Remission of sins and imputation of justice.

Ques. What worketh remission of sins and imputation of justice?

Ans. Peace of conscience and continual sanctification.

Ques. What worketh sanctification?

Ans. The hatred of sin and love of godliness.

2. A Latin Catechism, entitled Rudimenta Pietatis and Summula Catechismi, for the use of grammar schools. [1347] It is ascribed to Andrew Simpson, who was master of the grammar school at Perth, and the first Protestant minister at Dunbar. It was used in the high-school at Edinburgh down to 1710.

Besides this, the Latin editions of the Heidelberg Catechism and Calvin's Catechism (translated by Patrick Adamson) were also in use.

3. The Catechism of John Davidson, minister at Salt-Preston, approved by the Provincial Assembly of Lowthiane and Tweddale, 1599. [1348]

4. A metrical Catechism by the Wedderburns in the time of Knox. [1349] The sentiment is better than the poetry. The Reformation in Scotland, as well as in France and Holland, called forth metrical versions of the Psalms, while in Germany it produced original hymns. The gospel was sung as well as preached into the hearts of the common people. But a Catechism is for instruction, and requires plain, clear, precise statements for common comprehension. __________________________________________________________________

[1342] Book of Discipline, ch. xi. sect. 3; Buik of Universal Kirk, p. 121 (Peterkin's edition); Horatius Bonar, Catechisms of the Scottish Reformation (London, 1866), Preface, p. xxxvii.

[1343] L.c. p. viii.

[1344] See both in Dunlop's and Bonar's Collections. Comp. above, pp. 467 and 537 sq.

[1345] Both in Bonar, pp. 187-285. The Shorter Catechism is also printed in Dunlop's Collection, Vol. II. pp. 365-377.

[1346] See p. 686; Calderwood, Vol. III. p. 354; M'Crie, J. Knox, pp. 236 sqq.

[1347] In Dunlop's Collection, Vol. II. pp. 378-382, and in Bonar, pp. 289-293.

[1348] Bonar, p. 324.

[1349] Bonar, p. 301. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

Vii. The Westminster Standards.

§ 92. The Puritan Conflict.

Literature.

1. Sources.

1. The Parliamentary Acts, the Minutes and Standards of the Westminster Assembly, the royal Proclamations, Cromwell's Letters, Milton's state papers, and other public documents. See the State Calendars; Rushworth's Collection (1616-1648); Cardwell's Documentary Annals of the Church of England (1546-1716); Camden's Annals of James I. (with the king's own works); Winwood's Memorials of State; and the literature mentioned in § 93 and § 94.

2. The private writings of the Episcopal and Puritan divines during the reigns of Elizabeth and the Stuarts, too numerous even to classify. Much material for history may be drawn from the works of Archbishop Laud (b. 1573, beheaded 1645), especially his Diary (in the first vol. of his Remains, publ. by H. Wharton, 1695-1700, in 2 vols. fol., and in the Anglo-Catholic Library, Oxford, 1847-1850, 5 vols.), and of Richard Baxter (1615-1691), especially in the Narrative of his Life and Times (publ. by Sylvester, 1696, under the title Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, in 1 vol. fol., and by Dr. Calamy, 1713, in 4 vols., and in ed. of his Practical Works, Lond. 1830, 23 vols. Baxter's numerous controversial tracts have never been collected, and have gone, with his medical prescriptions, to 'everlasting rest,' but his practical works will last). Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson's Memoirs of (her husband) Colonel Hutchinson, with Original Anecdotes of many of his most Distinguished Contemporaries, and a Summary Review of Public Affairs (publ. from MS. 7th ed. Lond. 1848), present an admirable picture of the inner and private life of the Puritans.

3. Innumerable controversial pamphlets and tracts for the times, which did the work of the newspapers of to-day. From 1640 to 1660 no less than 30,000 pamphlets on Church government alone are said to have appeared. Milton's tracts surpass all others in eloquence and force.

2. Historical.

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661, Prebendary of Sarum): The Church History of Britain, from the Birth of Christ until the Year 1648. Ed. of Brewer, Oxford, 1845, in 6 vols. (Vols. V. and VI.).

Clarendon (1608-1674, Royalist and Episcopalian): History of the Rebellion. Oxford ed. 1839 and 1849, 7 vols.

Daniel Neal (1678-1743, Independent): History of the Puritans, or Protestant Nonconformists, from the Reformation in 1517 to the Revolution in 1688. Lond. 1732; Toulmin's ed. 1793, 5 vols.; Choules's ed. New York (Harpers), 1858, in 2 vols.

J. B. Marsden (Vicar of Great Missenden): The History of the Early Puritans, from the Reformation to the Opening of the Civil War in 1642. Lond. 1850, 2d ed. 1853. By the same: The History of the Later Puritans, from the Opening of the Civil War in 1642 to the Ejection of the Nonconforming Clergy in 1662. Lond. 1852.

Hallam: Constitutional History of England, 5th ed. ch. vii.-xi.

Th. Carlyle: Life and Letters of Cromwell. Lond. and New York, 1845, 2 vols. ('Edited with the care of an antiquarian and the genius of a poet.'--Green, Hist. of the English People, p. 530.)

Guizot's French works on Charles I. (1625-1649, 2 vols.), Cromwell (1649-1658), the Re-establishment of the Stuarts (1658-1660, 2 vols.), Monk (1660, transl. by Scoble, 1851), the English Revolution of 1640 (transl. by Hazlitt, Lond. 1856).

Samuel Hopkins: The Puritans during the Reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth. Boston, 1859-61, 3 vols.

Principal Tulloch (Scotch Presbyt.): English Puritanism and its Leaders: Cromwell, Milton, Baxter, Bunyan. Lond. 1861.

Dr. John Stoughton (Independent): Ecclesiastical History of England (during the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth, and the Restoration). Lond. 1867-1875, 5 vols. By the same: Church and State Two Hundred Tears ago. A History of Ecclesiastical Affairs in England from 1660 to 1663. Lond. 1862. By the same: Spiritual Heroes; or, Sketches of the Puritans (Ch. VI., The Westminster Assembly, pp. 120 sqq.). Lond. 1850.

Dr. David Masson (Prof. of Rhetoric and English Lit. in the Univ. of Edinb.): The Life of John Milton: Narrated in connection with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Times. Lond. 1859 80, 6 vols. See Vol. II. (1871), Books III. and IV., and Vol. III. (1873), Books I., II., and III.

On the early history of New England Puritanism, see the well-known works of Palfrey, Bancroft, Felt; and Leonard Bacon's Genesis of the New England Churches (New York, 1874)

Protestantism And Civil Wars.

The Reformation has often been charged by Roman Catholic writers with being the mother of the bloody civil wars which grew out of the close union of Church and State, and which devastated Europe for more than a century. But the fault is primarily on the side of Rome. Exclusiveness and intolerance are fundamental principles of her creed, and persecution her consistent practice wherever she has the power. In Italy and Spain Protestantism was strangled in its cradle. In Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland it was reduced to a struggling minority by the civil sword and the Jesuit intrigues. In France it barely escaped annihilation in the massacre of the night of St. Bartholomew, which the pope hailed with a Te Deum; and after fighting its way to the throne, and acquiring the limited toleration of the Edict of Nantes, it was again persecuted almost to extermination by the most Catholic King Louis XIV. In Switzerland the war between the Catholic and Reformed Cantons, in which Zwingli fell, fixed the boundaries of the two religions on a basis of equality. Germany had to pass through the fearful ordeal of the Thirty-Years' War, which destroyed nearly one half of its population, but ended, in spite of the protest of the pope, with the legal recognition of the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The United Provinces of Holland came out victorious from the long and bloody struggle with the tyranny and bigotry of Spain. Scotland fought persistently and successfully against popery and prelacy. England, after the permanent establishment of the Reformation under Elizabeth, was shaken to the base by an internal conflict, not between Protestants and foreign Romanists, but between Protestants and native Romanizers, ultra-Protestant Puritans and semi-Catholic Churchmen.

This conflict marks the most important period in the Church history of that island; it called forth on both sides its deepest moral and religious forces; it made England at last the stronghold of constitutional liberty in Europe, and laid the foundations for a Protestant republic in America. The Puritans were the pioneers in this struggle in Old England, and the fathers of New England beyond the sea. As the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church, so freedom is the sweet fruit of bitter persecution.

Character Of Puritanism.

Puritanism--an honorable name, etymologically and historically, though originally given in reproach, [1350] like Pietism and Methodism--aimed at a radical purification and reconstruction of Church and State on the sole basis of the Word of God, without regard to the traditions of men. It was a second Reformation, as bold and earnest as the first, but less profound and comprehensive, and more radical in its antagonism to the mediæval Church. It was a revolution, and ran into the excesses of a revolution, which called forth, by the natural law of reaction, the opposite excesses of a reactionary restoration; but it differs from more recent revolutions by the predominance of the religious motive and aim. The English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, and the French Huguenots were alike spiritual descendants of Calvin, and represent, with different national characteristics, the same heroic faith and severe discipline. They were alike animated by the fear of God, which made them strong and free. They bowed reverently before his holy Word, but before no human authority. In their eyes God alone was great.

The Puritans were no separate organization or sect, but the advanced wing of the national Church of England, and at one time they became the national Church itself, treating their opponents as Nonconformists, as they had been treated by them before, and as they were treated afterwards in turn. Conformity and Nonconformity were relative terms, which each party construed in its own way and for its own advantage. The Puritan ministers were educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and had bishops, deans, and professors of theology among their leaders and sympathizers. Their intention was not to secede, but simply to reform still further the national Church in the interest of primitive purity and simplicity by legislative and executive sovereignty. The tyrannical measures of the ruling party drove them to greater opposition, and a large portion of them into complete independency and the advocacy of toleration and freedom. But originally they were as intolerant and exclusive as their opponents. The common error of both was that they held to a close union of Church and State, and aimed at one national Church, to which all citizens must conform.

Origin And Progress Of The Controversy.

'Nonconformity,' says Thomas Fuller in his quaint and pithy way, 'was conceived in the days of King Edward, born in the reign of Queen Mary (but beyond the sea, at Frankfort-on-the-Main), nursed and weaned in the reign of Elizabeth, grew up a youth or tall stripling under King James, and shot up under Charles I. to the full strength and stature of a man able not only to cope with, but to conquer the hierarchy, its adversary.'

The open conflict between Puritanism and High-Churchism dates from the closing years of the sixteenth century, but its roots may be traced to the beginning of the Reformation, which embraced two distinct tendencies--one semi-Catholic, conservative and aristocratic; the other anti-Catholic, radical and democratic.

The aristocratic politico-ecclesiastical movement, headed by the monarch and the bishops, grew out of the mediæval conflict of the English crown and Parliament with the foreign papacy, and effected under Henry VIII. the national independence of the English Church, and under Edward VI. a positive though limited reformation in doctrine and ritual.

The democratic religious movement, which sprang from the desire of the people after salvation and unobstructed communion with God and the Bible, had its forerunners in Wycliffe and the Lollards, and was nurtured by Tyndale's English Testament, the writings of the Continental Reformers, and the personal contact of the Marian exiles with Bullinger and Calvin. At first it was nearly crushed under Henry VIII., who would not even tolerate the circulation of the English Bible; but it gained considerable influence under Edward VI., passed through a baptism of blood under Mary, and became a strong party under Elizabeth. It included a number of bishops, pervaded the universities, and was backed by the sympathies of the common people as they were gradually weaned from the traditions of popery.

Under Edward VI. the martyr-bishop Hooper, of Gloucester, a friend of Bullinger, and one of the fathers of Puritanism, opened the ritualistic controversy by refusing to be consecrated in the sacerdotal garments, and to take the customary episcopal oath, which included an appeal to the saints. He was quieted by the representations of the young king, of Bucer, and Peter Martyr, who regarded those externals as things indifferent; but he continued to strive after 'an entire purification of the Church from the very foundation.'

Under Queen Mary the conflict continued in the prisons and around the fires of Smithfield, and was transferred to the Continent with the English exiles, such as Jewel, Grindal, Sandys, Pilkington, Parkhurst, Humphrey, Sampson, Whittingham, Coverdale, Cox, Nowel, Foxe, Horn, and Knox. It produced an actual split in the congregation at Frankfort-on-the-Main. There it turned on the question of the Prayer-Book of Edward VI., whether it should be adhered to, or reformed still further after the model of the simpler worship of Zurich and Geneva. The episcopal and liturgical party was led by Dr. Cox (afterwards bishop of Ely), and formed the majority; the Puritan party was headed by John Knox, who was required to leave, and organized another congregation of exiles at Geneva.

After the accession of Elizabeth both parties flocked back to their native land, and forgot the controversy for a while in the common zeal for the re-establishment of Protestantism. As long as the ruling powers favored the Reformation the Puritans were satisfied, and heartily co-operated in every step. Though badly treated by the proud queen, they were to the last among her most loyal subjects, and prayed even in their dungeons for her welfare. They overlooked her faults for her virtues. They were the strongest supporters of the government and the crown against popish plots and foreign aggression, and helped to defeat the Spanish Armada, whose 'proud shipwrecks' were scattered over 'the Northern Ocean even to the frozen Thule.' But when the anti-Romish current stopped, and the Church of England seemed to settle down in a system of compromise between Rome and Geneva, fortified and hedged in by a cruel penal code against every dissent, the radicals assumed an antagonistic attitude of nonconformity against the rigorous enforcement of conformity, and stood up for the rights of conscience and the progress of ecclesiastical reform.

The controversy was renewed in different ways, between Cartwright and Whitgift, and between Travers and Hooker. In both cases the combatants were unequally matched: Cartwright, the father of Presbyterianism, was a much abler man than Archbishop Whitgift, the father of High-Church episcopacy; while Hooker, the Master of the Temple, far excelled Travers, the Lecturer at the Temple, in learning and depth. Here the question was chiefly whether the Scriptures as interpreted by private judgment, or the Scriptures as interpreted by the fathers of the primitive Church, should be the rule of faith and discipline. With this was connected another question--whether the Roman Church had lost the character of a Christian Church, and was therefore to be wholly disowned, or whether she was still a true though corrupt Church, with valid ordinances, coming down through an unbroken historical succession. The Puritans advocated Scripture Christianity versus historical Christianity, Hooker historical Christianity as consistent with Scripture Christianity. But in substance of doctrine both parties were Augustinians and Calvinists, with this difference, that the Puritans were high Calvinists, the Churchmen low Calvinists. Whitgift advocated even the Lambeth Articles, and Hooker adopted them with some modifications. Arminianism did not make its appearance in England till the close of the reign of James.

The Hampton Court Conference.

The accession of James I. (1603-1625) marks a new epoch. He was no ordinary man. His learning ranged from the mysteries of predestination to witchcraft and tobacco; he had considerable shrewdness, mother-wit, ready repartee, and uncommon sense, but little common-sense, and no personal dignity nor moral courage; he was given to profanity, intemperance, and dissimulation. His courtiers and bishops lauded him as the Solomon of his age, but Henry IV. of France characterized him better as 'the wisest fool in Christendom.' He was brought up in the school of Scotch Presbyterianism, subscribed the Scotch Confession, and once said of the Anglican liturgy that 'it is an ill-said mass in English.' But the Stuart blood was in him, and when he arrived in England he felt relieved of his tormentors, who 'pulled his sleeve as they administered their blunt rebukes to him,' and was delighted by the adulation of prelates who had much higher notions of royalty than Scotch presbyters.

He lost no time in showing his true character. He answered the famous Millenary (or Millemanus) petition, signed by nearly a thousand Puritan ministers, and asking for the reform of certain abuses and offenses in worship and discipline, [1351] by the imprisonment of ten petitioners on the ground that their act tended to sedition and treason, although it contained no demand inconsistent with the established Church. Thus the opportunity for effecting a compromise was lost. He agreed, however, to a Conference, which suited his ambition for the display of his learning and wit in debate.

The Conference was held January 14, 16, and 18, 1604 (old style, 1603), at Hampton Court. The persons summoned were nine bishops, headed by Archbishop Whitgift of Canterbury and Bishop Bancroft of London, and eight deans, on the part of the Conformists, and four of the most learned and moderate Puritan divines, under the lead of Dr. John Reynolds, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. [1352] The King himself acted both as moderator and judge, and took the leading part in the discussion. He laid down his famous pet-principle (which he called his 'aphorism'), 'No bishop, no king;' [1353] and, after browbeating the Puritans, used as his final argument, 'I will make them conform themselves, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse.'

Archbishop Whitgift was so profoundly impressed with the King's theological wisdom that be said, 'Undoubtedly your Majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's Spirit;' and Bishop Bancroft, of London (who first proclaimed the doctrine of a jure divino episcopacy), thanked God on his knees that of his singular mercy he had given to them 'such a king, as since Christ's time the like hath not been.' The same haughty prelate rudely interrupted Dr. Reynolds, one of the most learned men in England, saying, 'May your Majesty be pleased that the ancient canon be remembered--Schismatici contra episcopos non sunt audiendi; and there is another decree of a very ancient council, that no man should be admitted to speak against that whereunto he hath formerly subscribed. And as for you, Doctor Reynolds, and your associates, how much are ye bound to his Majesty's clemency, permitting you, contrary to the statute primo Elizabethæ, so freely to speak against the liturgy or discipline established.'

Fuller remarks 'that the King in this famous Conference went beyond himself, that the Bishop of London (when not in a passion) appeared even with himself, and that Dr. Reynolds fell much beneath himself.' The Nonconformists justly complained that the King invited their divines, not to have their scruples satisfied, but his pleasure propounded--not to hear what they had to say, but to inform them what he would do. Hallam, viewing the Conference calmly from his stand-point of constitutional history, says: 'In the accounts that we read of this meeting we are alternately struck with wonder at the indecent and partial behavior of the King and at the baseness of the bishops, mixed, according to the custom of servile natures, with insolence toward their opponents. It was easy for a monarch and eighteen churchmen to claim the victory, be the merits of their dispute what they might, over four abashed and intimidated adversaries.' [1354]

The Conference, however, had one good and most important result--the revision of our English Bible. The revision was suggested and urged by Dr. Reynolds, who was subsequently appointed one of the revisers, [1355] and it was ordered to be executed by King James, from whom it has its name. [1356]

With all his high notions about royalty, James had not the moral courage to carry them into full practice, and with all his high notions about episcopacy, he had no sympathy with Arminianism, but actually countenanced the Calvinistic Presbyterian Synod of Dort, and sent five delegates to it, among them a bishop. In both these respects Charles went as far beyond James as Laud went beyond Whitgift and Bancroft.

King Charles And Archbishop Laud.

The antagonism was intensified and brought to a bloody issue under Charles I. (1625-1649) and William Laud. They belong to the most lauded and the most abused persons in history, and have been set down by opposite partisans among the saints and among the monsters. They were neither. They were good men in private life, but bad men in public. They might have been as respected and useful in a humble station, or in another age or country, as they were hateful and hurtful at the helm of government in Protestant England. It was their misfortune rather than their crime that they were utterly at war with the progressive spirit of their age. Both were learned, cultured, devout gentlemen and churchmen, but narrow, pedantic, reactionary, haughty aristocrats. The one was constitutionally a tyrant, the other constitutionally a pope or an inquisitor-general. They fairly represented in congenial alliance the principle and practice of political and ecclesiastical absolutism, and the sovereign contempt for the rights of the people, whose sole duty in their opinion was passive obedience. Kingcraft and priestcraft based upon divine right was their common shibboleth. By their suicidal follies they destroyed the very system which they so long defended with a rod of iron, and thus they became the benefactors of Protestantism, which they labored to destroy. Both died as martyrs of despotism, and their last days were their best. 'Nothing in life became them as the leaving it.'

Charles wanted to rule without a Parliament; he did so, in fact, for more than eleven years, and the four Parliaments which he was compelled to convoke he soon arbitrarily dissolved (1625, 1626, 1629, and 1640). He preferred ship-money to legal taxation. He made himself intolerable by his duplicity and treachery. 'Faithlessness was the chief cause of his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was in truth impelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It may seem strange that his conscience, which on occasions of little moment was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached him with this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was perfidious, not only from constitution and from habit, but also on principle. He seems to have learned from theologians whom he most esteemed that between him and his subjects there could be nothing of the nature of mutual contract; and that he could not, even if he would, divest himself of his despotic authority; and that in every promise which he made there was an implied reservation that such promise might be broken in case of necessity, and that of the necessity he was the sole judge.' [1357]

William Laud [1358] rose, like Cardinal Wolsey, by his abilities and the royal favor from humble origin to the highest positions in Church and State. He began his career of innovation early at Oxford, and asserted in his exercise for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity (1604) the absolute necessity of baptism for salvation, and the necessity of diocesan episcopacy, not only for the well-being, but for the very existence of the Church. This position exposed him to the charge of heresy, and no one would speak to him in the street. Under James he was kept back, [1359] but under Charles he rose rapidly, and after the death of Abbot, who was a Puritan, he succeeded him in the primacy of the English Church. When he crossed the Thames to take possession of Lambeth, he met with an ominous accident, which he relates in his Diary (Sept. 18, 1633). The overloaded ferry-boat upset, and his coach sank to the bottom of the river, but he was saved as by water, and 'lost neither man nor horse.'

Laud was of small stature [1360] and narrow mind, but strong will and working-power, hot and irascible in temper, ungracious and unpopular in manner, ignorant of human nature, a zealous ritualist, a pedantic disciplinarian, and an overbearing priest. He was indefatigable and punctilious in the discharge of his innumerable duties as archbishop and prime minister, member of the courts of Star-Chamber and High-Commission, of the committee of trade, the foreign committee, and as lord of the treasury. He was for a number of years almost omnipotent and omnipresent in three kingdoms, looking after every appointment and every executive detail in Church and State. [1361]

His chief zeal was directed to the establishment of absolute outward uniformity in religion as he understood it, without regard to the rights of conscience and private judgment. His religion consisted of High-Church Episcopalianism and Arminianism in the nearest possible approach to Rome, which he admired and loved, and the furthest possible distance from Geneva, which he hated and abhorred. [1362] But while Arminianism in Holland was a protestant growth, and identified with the cause of liberal progress, Laud made it subservient to his intolerant High-Churchism, and liked it for its affinity with the Semipelagianism of the Greek fathers. To enforce this Semipelagian High-Churchism, and to secure absolute uniformity in the outward service of God in the three kingdoms, was the highest aim of his administration, to which he bent every energy. He could not conceive spiritual unity without external uniformity. This was his fundamental error. In a characteristic sermon which he preached at Westminster before Parliament, March 17, 1628, on unity in Church and State (Eph. iv. 3), he says: 'Unity of any kind will do much good; but the best is safest, and that is unity of the Spirit. . . . The way to keep unity both in Church and State is for the governors to carry a watchful eye over all such as are discovered or feared to have private ends. . . . Provide for the keeping of unity, and . . . God will bless you with the success of this day. For this day, the seventeenth of March, Julius Cæsar overthrew Sextus Pompeius. . . . And this very day, too, Frederick II. entered Jerusalem, and recovered whatsoever Saladin had taken from the Christians. But I must tell you, these emperors and their forces were great keepers of unity.' [1363]

In the same year he caused the Royal Declaration to be added to the Thirty-nine Articles to check their Calvinistic interpretation. [1364] From the same motive he displaced, through the agency of Wentworth and Bramhall, the Calvinistic Irish Articles, and neutralized the influence of Archbishop Ussher in Ireland. But the height of his folly, and the beginning of his fall, was the enforcement of his episcopal and ritualistic scheme upon Presbyterian Scotland in criminal defiance of the will of the people and the law of the land. This brought on the Scotch Covenant and hastened the Civil War.

In England he filled all vacancies with Churchmen and Arminians of his own stamp. He kept (as he himself informs us in his Diary) a ledger for the guidance of his royal master in the distribution of patronage: those marked by the letter O (Orthodox) were recommended to all favors, those marked P (Puritans) were excluded from all favors. Bishop Morely, on being asked what the Arminians held, wittily and truthfully replied, 'The best bishoprics and deaneries in England.' He expelled or silenced the Puritans, and shut up every unauthorized meeting-house. 'Even the devotions of private families could not escape the vigilance of his spies.' In his eyes the Puritans were but a miserable 'fraction' of fanatics and rebels, a public nuisance which must be crushed at any price. He made the congregations of French and Dutch refugees conform or leave the land, and forbade the English ambassador in Paris to attend the service of the Huguenots. He restrained the press and the importation of foreign books, especially the favorite Geneva translation of the Bible prepared by the Marian exiles. He stopped several ships in the Thames which were to carry persecuted and disheartened Puritans to New England, and thus tried to prevent Providence from writing the American chapter in history. In this way Oliver Cromwell is said to have been kept at home, that in due time he might overthrow the monarchy.

With equal rigor Laud enforced his ritualism, which was to him not only a desirable matter of taste and propriety, but also an essential element of reverence and piety. He took special care and showed great liberality for the restoration of cathedrals and the full cathedral service with the most pompous ceremonial; he made it a point of vital importance that the communion-tables be removed from the centre of the church to the east end of the chancel, elevated above the level of the pavement, placed altar-ways, railed in, and approached always with the prescribed bows and genuflexions [1365] He called the altar 'the greatest place of God's residence on earth,' and magnified it above the pulpit, because on the altar was Christ's body, which was more than his Word; but he denied the charge of transubstantiation. He introduced pictures, images, crucifixes, candles, and brought put every worn-out relic from the ecclesiastical wardrobe of the Middle Ages. Being himself unmarried, he preferred celibates in the priesthood. In the University of Oxford, to which he was a munificent benefactor, he was addressed as His Holiness, and Most Holy father.

No wonder that he was charged with the intention to reintroduce popery into England. The popular mind, especially in times of excitement, takes no notice of minor shades of distinction, and knows only friend and foe. Laud, no doubt, did the pope's work effectually, but he did it unintentionally. He loved the Roman Church much better than the Protestant sects, but he loved the Anglican Church more. He once dreamed, as he tells us, 'that he was reconciled to the Church of Rome,' but was much troubled by it. [1366] He was twice offered, by some unnamed agent, a cardinal's hat, but promptly declined it. [1367] He preferred to be an independent pope in England, and aped the Roman original as well as he could, with more or less show of real or imaginary opposition that springs from rivalry and affinity. Neal says that he was not 'an absolute papist,' but 'ambitious of being the sovereign patriarch of three kingdoms.' [1368] From his 'Conference' with Fisher the Jesuit, which is by far his ablest and most learned performance, it is very evident that he differed from Rome on several points of doctrine and practice, such as the invocation of Mary and the saints, the worship of images, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, works of supererogation, the temporal power of the pope, and the infallibility of councils; and that his mind, though clear and acute, was not sufficiently logical to admit the ultimate conclusions of some of his own premises. [1369] He regarded the Reformation merely as an incident in the history of the English Church, and rejected only such doctrines of Romanism as he was unable to find in the Bible and the early fathers. In his long and manly defense before the House of Lords he claimed to have converted several persons (Chillingworth among them) from popery, but frankly admitted that 'the Roman Church never erred in fundamentals, for fundamentals are in the Creed, and she denies it not. Were she not a true Church, it were hard with the Church of England, since from her the English bishops derive their apostolic succession. She is, therefore, a true but not an orthodox Church. Salvation may be found in her communion; and her religion and ours are one in the great essentials. I am not bound to believe each detached phrase in the Homilies, and I do not think they assert the pope to be Antichrist; yet it can not be proved that I ever denied him to be so. As to the charge of unchurching foreign Protestants, I certainly said generally, according to St. Jerome, "No bishop, no Church;" and the preface of the book of ordination sets forth that the three orders came from the apostles.' In his last will and testament he says: 'For my faith, I die as I have lived, in the true orthodox profession of the Catholic faith of Christ, foreshadowed by the prophets and preached to the world by Christ himself, his blessed apostles, and their successors; and a true member of his Catholic Church within the communion of a living part thereof, the present Church of England, as it stands established by law.'

In one word, Laud was a typical Anglo-Catholic, who unchurched all non-episcopal Churches, and regarded the Anglican Church as an independent sister of the Latin and Greek communions, and as the guardian of the whole truth as against the 'sects,' and of nothing but the truth as against Rome. The Anglo-Catholicism of the nineteenth century is simply a revival of Laud's system divested of its hateful tyranny and political ambition and entanglements. Dr. Pusey, the father of modern Anglo-Catholicism, is superior to Archbishop Laud in learning, spirituality and charity, but in their theology and logic there is no difference. [**placement of this note is uncertain**] [1370]

The Star-Chamber And The High-Commission Court.

The two chief instruments of this royal episcopal tyranny were the Star-Chamber and the High-Commission Court--two kinds of inquisition--the first political, the second ecclesiastical, with an unlimited jurisdiction over all sorts of misdemeanors, and with the power to inflict the penalties of deprivation, imprisonment, fines, whipping, branding, cutting ears, and slitting noses.

Freedom of speech and the press, which is now among the fundamental and inalienable rights of every Anglo-Saxon citizen, was punished as a crime against society. Prynne, a graduate of Oxford, and a learned barrister of Lincoln's Inn, who published an unreadable book (Histrio-Mastix, the Player' Scourge, or Actors' Tragedie, divided into Two Parts) against theatres, masquerades, dancing, and women actors, with reflections upon the frivolities of the queen, was condemned by the Star-Chamber to be expelled from Oxford and Lincoln's Inn, to be fined £5000, to stand in the pillory at Westminster and Cheapside, to have his ears cut off, his cheeks and forehead branded with hot irons, and to be imprisoned for life. His huge quarto volume of 1006 pages, with quotations from as many authors, was burned under his nose, so that he was nearly suffocated with the smoke. Leighton, a Scotchman (father of the saintly archbishop), Bastwick, a learned physician, and Henry Burton, a B.D. of Oxford, and rector of a church in London, were treated with similar cruelty for abusing in printed pamphlets the established hierarchy. No doubt their language was violent and coarse, [1371] but torture and mutilation are barbarous and revolting. And yet Laud not only thanked the lords of the Star-Chamber for their 'just and honorable sentence upon these men,' but regretted, in a letter to Strafford, that he could not resort to more 'thorough' measures.

The Civil War And The Commonwealth.

The excesses of despotism, sacerdotalism, ceremonialism, intolerance, and cruelty exhausted at last the patience of a noble, freedom-loving people, and kindled the blazing war-torch which burned to the ground the throne and the temple. The indignant nation rose in its majesty, and asserted its inherent and constitutional rights.

The storm burst forth from the North. The Scots compelled the King to abandon his schemes of innovation, and to admit that prelacy was contrary to Scripture. In England the memorable Long Parliament organized the opposition, and assumed the defense of constitutional liberty against royal absolutism. It met Nov. 3, 1640, and continued till April 20, 1653, when it was dissolved by Cromwell to give way to military despotism. The war between the Parliament and the King broke out in August, 1642. For several months the Cavaliers fought more bravely and successfully than the undisciplined forces of the Roundheads; but the fortunes of war changed when Oliver Cromwell, a country gentleman, bred to peaceful pursuits, appeared at the head of his Ironsides, whom he selected from the ranks of the Puritans. It was an army such as England never saw before or since--an army which feared God and hated the pope; which believed in the divine decrees and practiced perseverance of saints; which fought for religion; which allowed no oath, no drunkenness, no gambling in the camp; which sacredly respected private property and the honor of woman; which went praying and psalm-singing into the field of battle, and never returned from it without the laurels of victory. And when these warriors were disbanded at the Restoration, they astonished the royalists by quietly taking their place among the most industrious, thrifty, and useful citizens. [1372]

During the reign of the Long Parliament the Star-Chamber and the High-Commission Court were ignominiously and forever swept out of existence amid the execrations of the people. The episcopal hierarchy and the Liturgy were overthrown (Sept. 10, 1642); about two thousand royalist ministers, many of them noted for incapacity, idleness, and immorality, others highly distinguished for scholarship and piety--as Hammond, Sanderson, Pocock, Byron Walton, Hall, Prideaux, Pearson--were ejected as royalists from their benefices and given over to poverty and misery, though one fifth of the revenues of the sequestered livings was reserved for the sufferers. [1373] This summary and cruel act provoked retaliation, which in due time came with increased severity. The leaders of despotism--the Earl of Strafford (May 12, 1641), Archbishop Laud (Jan. 10, 1645), and at last the King himself (Jan. 30, 1649)--were condemned to death on the block, and thus surrounded by the halo of martyrdom. Their blood was the seed of the Restoration. The execution of Charles especially was in the eyes of the great majority of the English and Scotch people a crime and a blunder, and set in motion the reaction in favor of monarchy and episcopacy.

At first, however, Cromwell's genius and resolution crushed every opposition in England, Ireland, and Scotland. On the ruins of the monarchy and of Parliament itself he raised a military government which inspired respect and fear at home and abroad, and raised England to the front rank of Protestant powers, but which created no affection and love except among his invincible army. The man of blood and iron, the ablest ruler that England ever had, died at the height of his power, on the anniversary of his victories at Dunbar and Worcester (Sept. 3), and was buried with great pomp among the legitimate kings of England in Westminster Abbey (Nov. 23, 1658).' [1374]

The Restoration.

The Puritan Commonwealth was but a brilliant military episode, and died with its founder. His son Richard, amiable, good-natured, weak and incompetent, succeeded him without opposition, but resigned a few months after (April 22, 1659). The army, which under its great commander had ruled the divided nation, was now divided, while the national sentiment in the three kingdoms became united, and demanded the restoration of the old dynasty as the safest way to escape the dangers of military despotism. Puritanism represented only a minority of the English people, and the majority of this minority were royalists. The Presbyterians, who were in the saddle during the interregnum, were specially active for the unconditional recall of the treacherous Stuarts. The event was brought about by the cautious and dexterous management of General Monk, a man of expediency, who had successively served under Charles I. and Cromwell, and worshiped with Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents, and at last returned to the Episcopal Church. Charles II., 'who never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one,' was received with such general enthusiasm on his triumphal march from Dover to London that he wondered where his enemies were, or whether he ever had any. The revolution of national sentiment was complete. The people seemed as happy as a set of unruly children released from the discipline of the school. [1375]

The restoration of the monarchy was followed by the restoration of Episcopacy and the Liturgy with an exclusiveness that did not belong to it before. The Savoy Conference between twenty-one Episcopalians and an equal number of Presbyterians (April 15 till July 25, 1661) utterly failed, and left both parties more exasperated and irreconcilable than before. The Churchmen, once more masters of the situation, refused to make any concessions and changes. [1376] Thus another opportunity of comprehension was lost. In the revision of the Liturgy, which was completed by Convocation at the close of the same year (Dec., 1661), approved by the King, and ratified by Act of Parliament (April, 1662), not the slightest regard was paid to Presbyterian objections, reasonable or unreasonable, although about six hundred alterations were made; on the contrary, all the ritualistic and sacerdotal features complained of were retained and even increased. [1377] The Act of Uniformity, which received the royal assent May 19, 1662, and took effect on the ominous St. Bartholomew's Day, Aug. 24, 1662 (involuntarily calling to mind the massacre of the Huguenots), required not only from ministers, but also from all schoolmasters, absolute conformity to the revised Liturgy and episcopal ordination, or reordination. By this cruel act more than two thousand Puritan rectors and vicars--that is, about one fifth of the English clergy, including such men as Baxter, Howe, Poole, Owen, Goodwin, Bates, Manton, Caryl--were ejected and exposed to poverty, public insult, fines, and imprisonment for no other crime than obeying God rather than men. A proposition in the House of Commons to allow these heroes of conscience one fifth of their income, as the Long Parliament had done in the removal of royalist clergymen, was lost by a vote of ninety-four to eighty-seven. [1378]

Even the dead were not spared by the spirit of 'mean revenge.' The magnates of the Commonwealth, twenty-one in number (including Dr. Twisse, the Prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly), who had been buried in Westminster Abbey since 1641, were exhumed and reinterred in a pit (Sept. 12, 1661). Seven only were exempt; among them Archbishop Ussher, who had been buried there at Cromwell's express desire, and at a cost of £200 paid by him. Cromwell himself, Ireton, and Bradshaw were dug up Jan. 29, 1661, next day dragged to Tyburn, hanged (with their faces turned to Whitehall), decapitated, and buried under the gallows. Cromwell's head was planted on the top of Westminster Hall. [1379]

The Puritans were now a target of hatred and ridicule as well as persecution. They were assailed from the pulpit, the stage, and the press by cavaliers, prelatists, and libertines as a set of hypocritical Pharisees and crazy fanatics, noted for their love of Jewish names, their lank hair, their sour faces, their deep groans, their long prayers and sermons, their bigotry and cant. [1380] And yet the same Puritanism, blind, despised, forsaken, or languishing in prison, produced some of the noblest works, which can never die. It was not dead--it was merely musing and dreaming, and waiting for a resurrection in a nobler form. Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (1667) and Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' (1678) are the shining lights which illuminate the darkness of that disgraceful period. [1381]

With the Restoration rushed in a flood of frivolity and immorality; the King himself setting the example by his shameless adulteries, which he blazoned to the world by raising his numerous mistresses and bastards to the rank and wealth of the nobility of proud old England. 'The violent return to the senses,' says a French writer who has not the slightest sympathy with Puritanism, 'drowned morality. Virtue had the semblance of Puritanism. Duty and fanaticism became mingled in a common reproach. In this great reaction, devotion and honesty, swept away together, left to mankind but the wreck and the mire. The more excellent parts of human nature disappeared; there remained but the animal, without bridle or guide, urged by his desires beyond justice and shame.' [1382]

The Revolution.

Bad as was Charles II. (1660-1685), his brother, James II. (1685-1688), was worse. He seemed to combine the vices of the Stuarts without their redeeming traits. Charles, indifferent to religion and defiant to virtue during his life, sent on his death-bed for a Romish priest to give him absolution for his debaucheries. James openly professed his conversion to Romanism, filled in defiance of law the highest posts in the army and the cabinet with Romanists, and opened negotiations with Pope Innocent XI. At the same time he persecuted with heartless cruelty the Protestant Dissenters, and outraged justice by a series of judicial murders which have made the name of Chief Justice Jeffreys as infamous as Nero's.

At last the patience of the English people was again exhausted, the incurable race of the Stuarts, unwilling to learn and to forget any thing, was forever hurled from the throne, and the Prince of Orange, who had married Mary, the eldest daughter of James, was invited to rule England as William III.

The Result.

The Revolution of 1688 was a political triumph of Puritanism, and secured to the nation constitutional liberty and the Protestant religion. The Episcopal Church remained the established national Church, but the Act of Toleration of 1689 guaranteed liberty and legal protection to such Nonconformists as could subscribe thirty-five and a half of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, omitting those to which the Puritans had conscientious scruples. Though very limited, this Act marked a great progress. It broke up the reign of intolerance, and virtually destroyed the principle of uniformity. The Act of Uniformity of 1662 was intended for the whole kingdom, and proceeded on the theory of an ecclesiastical incorporation of all Englishmen; now it was confined to the patronized State Church. It recognized none but the Episcopal form of worship, and treated non-Episcopalians as disloyal subjects, as culprits and felons; now other Protestant Christians--Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and even Quakers--were placed under the protection of the law, and permitted to build chapels and to maintain pastors at their own expense. The fact was recognized that a man may be a good citizen and a Christian without conforming to the State religion. Uniformity had proved an intolerable tyranny, and had failed. Comprehension of different denominations under one national Church, though favored by William, seemed impracticable. Limited toleration opened the way for full liberty and equality of Christian denominations before the law; and from the soil of liberty there will spring up a truer and deeper union than can be secured by any compulsion in the domain of conscience, which belongs to God alone.

Puritanism did not struggle in vain. Though it failed as a national movement, owing to its one-sidedness and want of catholicity, it accomplished much. It produced statesmen like Hampden, soldiers like Cromwell, poets like Milton, preachers like Howe, theologians like Owen, dreamers like Bunyan, hymnists like Watts, commentators like Henry, and saints like Baxter, who though dead yet speak. It lives on as a powerful moral element in the English nation, in the English Church, in English society, in English literature. It has won the esteem of the descendants of its enemies. In our day the Duke of Bedford erected a statue to Bunyan (1874) in the place where he had suffered in prison for twelve years; and Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents united in a similar tribute of justice and gratitude to the memory of Baxter at Kidderminster (1875), where he is again pointing his uplifted arm to the saints' everlasting rest. The liberal-minded and large-hearted dean of Westminster represented the nobler part of the English people when he canonized those great and good men in his memorial discourses at the unveiling of their statues. Puritanism lives moreover in New England, which was born of the persecutions and trials of its fathers and founders in old England, and gave birth to a republic truer, mightier, and more enduring than the ephemeral military commonwealth of Cromwell. It will continue to preserve and spread all over the Saxon world the love of purity, simplicity, spirituality, practical energy, liberty, and progress in the Christian Church.

On the other hand, it is for the children of the Puritans to honor the shining lights of the Church of England who stood by her in the days of her trial and persecution. That man is to be pitied indeed who would allow the theological passions of an intolerant age to blind his mind to the learning, the genius, and the piety of Ussher, Andrewes, Hall, Pearson, Prideaux, Jeremy Taylor, Barrow, and Leighton, whom God has enriched with his gifts for the benefit of all denominations. It is good for the Church of England--it is good for the whole Christian world--that she survived the fierce conflict of the seventeenth century and the indifferentism of the eighteenth to take care of venerable cathedrals, deaneries, cloisters, universities, and libraries, to cultivate the study of the fathers and schoolmen, to maintain the importance of historical continuity and connection with Christian antiquity, to satisfy the taste for stability, dignity, and propriety in the house of God, and to administer to the spiritual wants of the aristocracy and peasantry, and all those who can worship God most acceptably in the solemn prayers of her liturgy, which, with all its defects, must be pronounced the best ever used in divine service.

While the fierce conflict about religion was raging, there were prophetic men of moderation and comprehension on both sides--

'Whose dying pens did write of Christian union,

How Church with Church might safely keep communion;

Who finding discords daily to increase,

Because they could not live, would die, in peace.'

In a sermon before the House of Commons, under the arched roof of Westminster Abbey, Richard Baxter uttered this sentence: 'Men that differ about bishops, ceremonies, and forms of prayer, may be all true Christians, and dear to one another and to Christ, if they be practically agreed in the life of godliness, and join in a holy, heavenly conversation. But if you agree in all your opinions and formalities, and yet were never sanctified by the truth, you do but agree to delude your souls, and neither of you will be saved for all your agreement.' [1383]

This is a noble Christian sentiment, echoing the words of a greater man than Baxter: 'In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision,'--we may add, neither surplice nor gown, neither kneeling nor standing, neither episcopacy nor presbytery nor independency--' but a new creature.' [1384] __________________________________________________________________

[1350] The name Puritans (from pure, as Catharists from katharos), or Precisians, occurs first about 1564 or 1566, and was employed to brand those who were opposed to the use of priestly vestments, as the cap, surplice, and the tippet (but not the gown, which the Puritans and Presbyterians retained, as well as the Continental Protestant ministers). Shakspere uses the term half a dozen times, and always reproachfully (see Clarke's Shaksp. Concordance and Schmidt's Shaksp. Lexicon, s.v.). In the good sense, it denotes those who went back to the purity and simplicity of apostolic Christianity in faith and morals. Neal defines a Puritan to be 'a man of severe morals, a Calvinist in doctrine, and a Nonconformist to the ceremonies and discipline of the Church, though not totally separated from it'

[1351] Fuller, Vol. V. pp. 305-309. The petition was dated January 14, 1603 (old style), but was presented April 4. The real number of signers was only 825.

[1352] Fuller (Vol. V. pp. 378, 379) speaks in very high terms of Reynolds, who was so unceremoniously snubbed by Bishop Bancroft. He praises his memory, which was 'little less than marvelous,' and 'a faithful index,' as his reason was 'a solid judex of what he read,' and his humility, which 'set a lustre on all; communicative of what he knew to any that desired information herein, like a tree loaded with fruit, bowing down its branches to all that desired to ease it of the burden thereof, deserving this epitaph,

'Incertum est utrum doctior an melior.'

He associates him with Bishop Jewel and Richard Hooker, all born in Devonshire, and educated at Corpus Christi College, and says, ' No one county in England have three such men (contemporary at large), in what college soever they were bred; no college in England bred such three men, in what county soever they were born.' John Reynolds was at first a zealous papist and turned an eminent protestant; while his brother William was as earnest a protestant, and became by their mutual disputation an inveterate papist, which gave occasion to the distich:

'Quod genus hoc pugnæ est? ubi victus gaudet uterque,

Et simul alteruter se superasse dolet.'

'What war is this? when conquer'd both are glad,

And either to have conquer'd other sad.'

[1353] He also said to Dr. Reynolds: 'If you aim at a Scotch presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack, and Tom, and Will, and Dick shall meet and censure me and my council. Therefore I reiterate my former speech, Le roy s'avisera.'

[1354] The accounts of the Hampton Court Conference are mostly derived from the partial report of Dr. William Barlow, Dean of Chester, who was present. It appeared in 1604, and again in 1638. See Fuller, Vol. V. pp. 266-303; Cardwell, Hist. of Conferences, p. 121; Procter, Hist. of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 88; Marsden, Early Puritans, p. 255.

[1355] He was assigned to the company which was charged with the translation of the writings of the greater and lesser Prophets. But he died in 1607, before the completion of the work.

[1356] The discussion bearing upon this subject is likewise characteristic of the King, the Bishop, and the Puritan, and may be added here (from Fuller, Vol. V. pp. 284, 285):

'Dr. Reynolds. "May your Majesty be pleased that the Bible be new translated, such as are extant not answering the original." And he instanced in three particulars: In the Original Ill Translated 'Gal. iv. 25 sustoichei Bordereth. Psalm cv. 28. They were not disobedient. They were not obedient. Psalm cvi. 30. Phinehas executed judgment. Phinehas prayed.

'Bishop of London. "If every man's humor might be followed, there would be no end of translating."

'His Majesty. "I profess I could never yet see a Bible well translated in English; but I think that of all, that of Geneva is the worst. I wish some special pains were taken for an uniform translation; which should be done by the best learned in both universities, then reviewed by the bishops, presented to the privy council, lastly ratified by royal authority to be read in the whole Church, and no other."

'Bishop of London. "But it is fit that no marginal notes should be added thereunto."

'His Majesty. "That caveat is well put in; for in the Geneva translation some notes are partial, untrue, seditious, and savoring of traitorous conceits: as when, from Exodus i. 19, disobedience to kings is allowed in a marginal note; and, 2 Chron. xv. 16, King Asa taxed in the note for only deposing his mother for idolatry, and not killing her. To conclude this point, let errors in matters of faith be amended, and indifferent things be interpreted, and a gloss added unto them; for, as Bartolus de Regno saith, 'Better a king with some weakness than still a change;' so rather a Church with some faults than an innovation. And surely, if these were the greatest matters that grieved you, I need not have been troubled with such importunate complaints."'

[1357] Macaulay, chap. i. p. 65 (Boston ed.). I add the admirable description of Charles by Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, in the Memoirs of her husband (Bohn's ed. p. 84): 'King Charles was temperate, chaste, and serious; so that the fools and bawds, mimics and catamites, of the former court, grew out of fashion; and the nobility and courtiers, who did not quite abandon their debaucheries, yet so reverenced the king as to retire into corners to practice them. Men of learning and ingenuity in all arts were in esteem, and received encouragement from the king, who was a most excellent judge and a great lover of paintings, carvings, gravings, and many other ingenuities, less offensive than the bawdry and profane abusive wit which was the only exercise of the other court. But, as in the primitive times, it is observed that the best emperors were some of them stirred up by Satan to be the bitterest persecutors of the Church, so this king was a worse encroacher upon the civil and spiritual liberties of his people by far than his father. He married a Papist, a French lady, of a haughty spirit, and a great wit and beauty, to whom he became a most uxorious husband. By this means the court was replenished with Papists, and many who hoped to advance themselves by the change turned to that religion. All the Papists in the kingdom were favored, and, by the king's example, matched into the best families; the Puritans were more than ever discountenanced and persecuted, insomuch that many of them chose to abandon their native country, and leave their dearest relations, to retire into any foreign soil or plantation where they might, amidst all outward inconveniences, enjoy the free exercise of God's worship. Such as could not flee were tormented in the bishops' courts, fined, whipped, pilloried, imprisoned, and suffered to enjoy no rest, so that death was better than life to them; and notwithstanding their patient sufferance of all these things, yet was not the king satisfied till the whole land was reduced to perfect slavery. The example of the French king was propounded to him, and he thought himself no monarch so long as his will was confined to the bounds of any law; but knowing that the people of England were not pliable to an arbitrary rule, he plotted to subdue them to his yoke by a foreign force, and till he could effect it, made no conscience of granting any thing to the people, which he resolved should not oblige him longer than it served his turn; for he was a prince that had nothing of faith or truth, justice or generosity, in him. He was the most obstinate person in his self-will that ever was, and so bent upon being an absolute, uncontrollable sovereign that he was resolved either to be such a king or none. His firm adherence to prelacy was not for conscience of one religion more than another, for it was his principle that an honest man might be saved in any profession; but he had a mistaken principle that kingly government in the State could not stand without episcopal government in the Church; and, therefore, as the bishops flattered him with preaching up his sovereign prerogative, and inveighing against the Puritans as factious and disloyal, so he protected them in their pomp and pride, and insolent practices against all the godly and sober people of the land.'

[1358] Born at Reading, Oct. 7, 1573; ordained 1601; Bishop of St. David's, 1621; of Bath and Wells, 1626; of London, 1628; Chancellor of Oxford University, 1630; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1633; impeached of high-treason, 1641; beheaded Jan. 10, 1645.

[1359] 'Because,' as King James said, in keen discernment of his character, 'he hath a restless spirit, and can not see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of reformation, floating in his own brain, which may endanger the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass.' He restrained his early plans 'to make that stubborn [Scotch] Kirk stoop to the English pattern,' for 'he knows not the stomach of that people.'

[1360] He was called 'the little Archbishop.'

[1361] 'His influence extended every where, over every body, and every thing, small as well as great--like the trunk of an elephant, as well suited to pick up a pin as to tear down a tree.'--Stoughton, Vol. I. p. 33.

[1362] I must add, however, that in his book against Fisher the Jesuit there are a few favorable allusions to Calvin as a theologian, especially to his doctrine of the spiritual real presence.

[1363] Works (Oxf. 1847), Vol. I. pp. 161, 167, 180, 181.

[1364] That Laud is the author of this Declaration was charged by Prynne, and is proved by the Oxford editor of his Works, Vol. I. pp. 153 sq. Comp. above, p. 617.

[1365] He informed the king of 'a very ill accident which happened at Taplow, by reason of not having the communion-table, railed in, that it might be kept from profanations. For in the sermon time a dog came to the table and took the loaf of bread prepared for the Holy Sacrament in his mouth, and ran away with it. Some of the parishioners took the same from the dog and set it again on the table. After sermon the minister could not think fit to consecrate this bread, and other fit for the Sacrament was not to be had in that town, so there was no Communion.'--Works, Vol. V. p 367. This brings to mind the grave and curious disputes of the mediæval schoolmen on the question what effect the consecrated wafer would have upon a mouse or a rat.

[1366] Diary, March 8, 1626 (Works, Vol. III. p. 201).

[1367] He relates, in his Diary, Aug. 4, 1633 (on the day of Archbishop Abbot's death), that 'there came one to me, seriously, . . . and offered me to be a Cardinal. I went presently to the King and acquainted him both with the thing and the person.' On the 17th of August, having in the mean time (Aug. 6) been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, he had a second offer of a red hat, and again answered 'that something dwelt within him which would not suffer that till Rome were other than it is' (Works, Vol. III. p. 219). In his Marginal Notes on Prynne's Breviate (p. 266), he adds that his 'conscience' also went against this. But it is by no means certain or even probable that the pope himself (as Fuller states without proof) authorized such an offer. It may have been a trap laid for Laud on the eve of his elevation to the primacy. Lingard, the Roman Catholic historian of England, says that Laud was 'in bad repute in Rome' (Vol. X. p. 139), and Dean Hook, his Anglo-Catholic biographer, asserts that he was 'dreaded and hated at Rome,' and that his death was greeted there with joy (Life of L. p. 233). Lingard adds, however, that 'in the solitude of his cell, and with the prospect of the block before his eyes, Laud began to think more favorably of the Catholic [Roman] Church,' and he shows that Rosetti inquired of Cardinal Barberini whether, if Laud should escape from the Tower, the pope would afford him an asylum in Rome with a pension of 1000 crowns. But this is inconsistent with Laud's last defense. He was then over seventy, and anxious to die.

[1368] Hist. of the Puritans, Vol. I. p. 280.

[1369] The Conference with Fisher (whose real name was Piersey or Percy) took place, by command and in the presence of King James, May 24, 1622, and was edited, with final corrections and additions, by Laud himself in 1639. It was republished 1673 and 1686, and by the Oxford University Press 1839, with an Introduction by Edward Cardwell. It is also included in Vol. II. of the Oxf. ed. of his Works. Laud thought that his way of defense was the only one by which the Church of England could justify her separation from the Church of Rome. He bequeathed £100 for a Latin translation of this book.

[1370] The Works of Laud embrace five volumes in the Oxford 'Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology.' His seven sermons preached on great state occasions abound with his high notions of royalty, episcopacy, and uniformity, but do not rise above mediocrity. His Diary--the chief source of his autobiography--though not 'contemptible' (as Hallam characterizes it), is dry and pedantic, and notices trifling incidents as important occurrences, e.g., the bad state of the weather, his numerous dreams, the marriage of K. C. with a minister's widow, the particular posture of the Elector of the Palatinate at communion 'upon a stool by the wall before the traverse, and with another and a cushion before him to kneel at' (Dec. 25, 1635), and his unfortunate affairs with 'E. B.' (of which he deeply repented; see his Devot. Vol. III. p. 81). His Devotions are made up mostly of passages of the Psalms and the fathers, and reveal the best side of his private character. His last prayer, as he kneeled by the block to receive the fatal stroke, is the crown of his prayers, and worth quoting: 'Lord, I am coming as fast as I can. I know I must pass through the shadow of death before I can come to see Thee. But it is but umbra mortis, a mere shadow of death, a little darkness upon nature; but Thou, by Thy merits and passion, hast broken through the jaws of death. So, Lord, receive my soul, and have mercy upon me; and bless this kingdom with peace and plenty, and with brotherly love and charity, that there may not be this effusion of Christian blood amongst them, for Jesus Christ His sake, if it be Thy will.' The opinions on Laud are mostly tinctured by party spirit. His friend Clarendon says, 'His learning, piety, and virtue have been attained by very few, and the greatest of his infirmities are common to all, even the best of men.' Prynne, who lost his two ears by Laud's influence, calls him the most execrable traitor and apostate that the English soil ever bred ('Canterbury's Doome'). His biographers, Peter Heylin (Cyprianus Anglicanus, Lond. 1671), John Parker Lawson (The Life and Times of William Laud, Lond. 1829, 2 vols.), and Dr. Hook (in the Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. XI. Lond. 1875), are vindicators of his character and policy. May, Hallam, Macaulay, Lingard, Green, Häusser, and Stoughton (Vol. I. pp. 402 sq.) condemn his public acts, but give him credit for his private virtues. May (History of Parliament, approvingly quoted by Hallam, chap. viii. Charles I.) says: 'Laud was of an active, or, rather, of a restless mind; more ambitious to undertake than politic to carry on; of a disposition too fierce and cruel for his coat. He had few vulgar and private vices, as being neither taxed of covetousness, intemperance, nor incontinence; and, in a word, a man not altogether so bad in his personal character as unfit for the state of England.'

[1371] Burton called the bishops step-fathers, cater-pillars, limbs of the beast, blind watchmen, dumb dogs, new Babel-builders, antichristian mushrumps, etc. Prynne called them 'silk and satin divines,' and said that 'Christ himself was a Puritan, and that, therefore, all men should become Puritans.' But their opponents could be equally abusive. Lord Cottington, one of Prynne's judges, said that, in writing the Histrio-Mastix, 'either the devil had assisted Prynne or Prynne the devil.' Another judge, the Earl of Dorset, called him 'omnium malorum nequissimum. '

[1372] One of the noblest specimens of a Puritan officer was Col. Hutchinson, whose character and life have been so admirably described by his widow (pp. 24 sqq. Bohn's ed.).

[1373] Comp. Marsden, The Later Puritans, pp. 40 sqq. Baxter himself allows that 'some able, godly preachers were cast out for the war alone.' Among these was also the excellent Thomas Fuller, the author of the incomparable books on Church History and the Worthies of England, although in the days of Laud he had been stigmatized as a Puritan in doctrine.

[1374] On his last days and utterances, see the Mercurius Politicus for Sept. 2-9,1658, and Stoughton, The Church of the Commonwealth, p. 511. Macaulay pays the following tribute to Cromwell's foreign policy: 'The Protector's foreign policy at the same time extorted the ungracious approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could scarcely refrain from wishing that one who had done so much to raise the fame of the nation had been a legitimate king; and the Republicans were forced to own that the tyrant suffered none but himself to wrong his country, and that, if he had robbed her of liberty, he had at least given her glory in exchange. After half a century, during which England had been of scarcely more weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated terms of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of Christendom on the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land and sea, seized one of the finest West India islands, and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the Protestant interest. All the Reformed Churches scattered over Roman Catholic kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian. The Huguenots of Languedoc. the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps, professed a Protestantism older than that of Augsburg, were secured from oppression by the mere terror of that great name. The pope himself was forced to preach humanity and moderation to popish princes. For a voice which seldom threatened in vain had declared that, unless favor were shown to the people of God, the English guns should be heard in the Castle of Saint Angelo. In truth, there was nothing which Cromwell had, for his own sake and that of his family, so much reason to desire as a general religious war in Europe. In such a war he must have been the captain of the Protestant armies. The heart of England would have been with him. His victories would have been hailed with a unanimous enthusiasm unknown in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would have effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general voice of the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Unhappily for him. he had no opportunity of displaying his admirable military talents except against the inhabitants of the British Isles.'--History of England, ch. i. Carlyle says that Cromwell was the best thing that England ever did.

[1375] 'Almost all the gentry of all parts went--some to fetch him over, some to meet him at the sea-side, some to fetch him into London, into which he entered on the 29th day of May, with a universal joy and triumph, even to his own amazement; who, when he saw all the nobility and gentry of the land flowing in to him, asked where were his enemies. For he saw nothing but prostrates, expressing all the love that could make a prince happy. Indeed, it was a wonder in that day to see the mutability of some, and the hypocrisy of others, and the servile flattery of all. Monk, like his better genius, conducted him and was adored like one that had brought all the glory and felicity of mankind home with this prince.'--Memoirs of the Life of Col. Hutchinson, p. 402.

[1376] The fullest account of the conference held in the Savoy Hospital, London, is given by Baxter, who was a member, in his Autobiography. Comp. Neal, Cardwell, Stoughton (Restor. Vol. I. p. 157), Hallam (Ch. XI. Charles II.), and Procter (History of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 113). Hallam casts the chief blame on the Churchmen, who had it in their power to heal the division and to retain or to expel a vast number of worthy clergymen. But both parties lacked the right temper, and smarted under the fresh recollection of past grievances. Baxter embodied the changes desired by the Puritans in his Liturgy, the hasty work of a fortnight, which was never used, but republished by Prof. Shields of Princeton, Philadelphia, 1867.

[1377] Procter (p. 141): 'Some changes were made, in order to avoid the appearance of favoring the Presbyterian form of Church government; thus, church, or people, was substituted for congregation, and ministers in for of the congregation; priests and deacons were especially named instead of pastors and ministers.' The Apocryphal lessons were retained, and the legend of Bel and the Dragon (omitted in 1604) was again introduced in the Calendar of Daily Lessons, to show contempt for the Puritan scruples. In the Litany the words 'rebellion' and 'schism' were added to the petition against 'sedition.'

[1378] Dr. Stoughton, a well-informed and impartial historian, gives it as the result of his careful inquiry that the persecution and sufferings of the Episcopalians under the Long Parliament and the Commonwealth are not to be compared with the persecution of the Nonconformists under Charles I. and Charles II. (Ch. of the Commonwealth, p. 346). Hallam is of the same opinion. Richard Baxter, one of the ejected ministers, gives a sad account of their sufferings: 'Many hundreds of these, with their wives and children, had neither house nor bread. . . . Their congregations had enough to do, besides a small maintenance, to help them out of prisons, or to maintain them there. Though they were as frugal as possible, they could hardly live; some lived on little more than brown bread and water; many had but eight or ten pounds a year to maintain a family, so that a piece of flesh has not come to one of their tables in six weeks' time; their allowance could scarce afford them bread and cheese. One went to plow six days and preached on the Lord's day. Another was forced to cut tobacco for a livelihood. . . . Many of the ministers, being afraid to lay down their ministry after they had been ordained to it, preached to such as would hear them in fields and private houses, till they were apprehended and cast into gaols, where many of them perished' (quoted by Green, p. 612). Baxter himself was repeatedly imprisoned, although he was a royalist and openly opposed Cromwell's rule. For many details of suffering, see Orme's Life of Baxter (Lond. 1830), pp. 229 sqq.

[1379] Stanley's Hist. Memorials of Westminster Abbey, pp. 191 sq., 247, 320 (3d ed. Lond. 1869).

[1380] Butler's Hudibras fairly reflects the prevailing sentiment of the Restoration period about the Puritans. He caricatures them in his mock-heroic style (Part I. Canto I. vers. 192 sqq.) as

'That stubborn crew

Of errant saints, whom all men grant

To be the true Church militant:

Such as do build their faith upon

The holy text of pike and gun;

Decide all controversy by

Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox

by apostolic blows and knocks;

Call fire, and sword, and desolation

A godly thorough Reformation,

Which always must be carried on,

And still be doing, never done,

As if religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended.'

[1381] 'Puritanism,' says an Oxford historian, 'ceased from the long attempt to build up a kingdom of God by force and violence, and fell back on its truer work of building up a kingdom of righteousness in the hearts and consciences of men. It was from the moment of its seeming fall that its real victory began. As soon as the wild orgy of the Restoration was over, men began to see that nothing that was really worthy in the work of Puritanism had been undone. The revels of Whitehall, the skepticism and debauchery of courtiers, the corruption of statesmen, left the mass of Englishmen what Puritanism had made them--serious, earnest, sober in life and conduct, firm in their love of Protestantism and of freedom. In the Revolution of 1688 Puritanism did the work of civil liberty, which it had failed to do in that of 1642. It wrought out through Wesley and the revival of the eighteenth century the work of religious reform which its earlier efforts had only thrown back for a hundred years. Slowly, but steadily, it introduced its own seriousness and purity into English society, English literature, English politics. The whole history of English progress, since the Restoration, on its moral and spiritual sides, has been the history of Puritanism.'--J. R. Green's Short History of the English People, p. 586.

[1382] Taine's History of English Literature, vol. i. p. 461 (Am. ed.).

[1383] Vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite. Baxter's Works, Vol. XVII. p. 80. Quoted by Stoughton, p. 195. The sermon was preached Apr. 30, 1660, just before the recall of Charles II. See Orme. Life of Baxter, p. 160.

[1384] Gal. vi. 15. __________________________________________________________________

§ 93. The Westminster Assembly.

Literature.

I. Original Sources.

The Westminster Standards--see § 94.

Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (from Nov. 1644 to March, 1649). From Transcripts of the Originals procured by a Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, ed. by the Rev. Alex. F. Mitchell, D.D., and the Rev. John Struthers, LL.D. Edinb. and Lond. 1874. (The MS. Minutes of the Westm. Assembly from 1643 to 1652, formerly supposed to have been lost in the London fire of 1666, were recently discovered in Dr. Williams's library, Grafton St., London, and form 3 vols. of foolscap fol. They are mostly in the handwriting of Adoniram Byfield, one of the scribes of the Assembly. A complete copy was made for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and is preserved in Edinburgh. They are, upon the whole, rather meagre, and give only the results, with brief extracts from the speeches, without the arguments.)

Robert Baillie (Principal of the University of Glasgow, and one of the Scotch delegates to the Assembly of Westminster, b. 1599, d. 1662): Letters and Journals ed. from the author's MSS. by David Laing, Esq. Edinb. 1841-42, 3 vols. (These Letters and Journals extend from Jan. 1637 to May, 1662, and exhibit in a lively and graphic manner 'the stirring scenes of a great national drama,' with the hopes and fears of the time. Vol. II. and part of Vol. III. bear upon the Westm. Assembly.)

John Lightfoot, D.D. (Master of Catharine Hall and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, one of the members of the Westm. Assembly, b. 1602, d. 1675): Journal of the Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines from Jan. 1, 1643 to Dec. 31, 1644. In Vol. XIII. pp. 1-344 of his Whole Works, ed. by John Rogers Pitman (Lond. 1825, in 13 vols.).

George Gillespie (the youngest of the Scotch Commissioners to the Assembly, d. 1648): Notes of Debates and Proceedings of the Westminster Assembly, ed. from the MSS. by David Meek, Edinb. 1846. Comp. also Gillespie's Aaron's Rod Blossoming (a very able defense of Presbyterianism against Independency and Erastianism), Lond. 1646, republ. with his other works and a memoir of his life by Hetherington, Edinb. 1844-46, 2 vols.

Journals of the House of Lords and the House of Commons from 1643 to 1649.

John Rushworth (assistant clerk and messenger of the Long Parliament, and afterwards a member of the House of Commons, d. 1690): Historical Collections of remarkable Proceedings in Parliament. Lond. 1721, 7 vols.

(The 'fourteen or fifteen octavo vols.' of daily proceedings which Dr. Thomas Goodwin, the eminent Independent member of the Assembly, is reported by his son to have written 'with his own hand,' have never been published or identified. They must not be confounded with the three folio vols. of official minutes in Dr. Williams's library.)

Historical.

The respective sections in Fuller (Vol. VI. pp. 247 sqq.), Neal (Part III. chaps. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10), Stoughton (Vol. I. pp. 271, 327, 448 sqq.), Masson (Life of Milton, Vols. II. and III.), and other works mentioned in § 92.

W. M. Hetherington: History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. Edinb. 1843; New York, 1844.

James Reid: Memoirs of the Lives and Writings of those eminent Divines who convened in the famous Assembly at Westminster. Paisley, 1811 and 1815, 2 vols.

Gen. von Rudloff: Die Westminster Synode, 1643-1649. In Niedner's Zeitschrift für die histor. Theologie for 1850, pp. 238-296. (The best account of the Assembly in the German language.)

P. Schaff: Art. Westminster Synode, etc., in Herzog's Real-Encykl. Vol. XVIII. pp. 52 sqq., and Art. on the same subject in his Relig. Encycl. N. Y. 1884, Vol. III. pp. 2499 sqq.

Thos. M'Crie: Annals of English Presbytery from the Earliest to the Present Time. Lond. 1872.

J. B. Bittinger: The Formation of our Standards, in the 'Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review' for July, 1876, pp. 387 sqq.

C. A. Briggs: Art. Documentary History of the Westminster Assembly, in Pres. Rev. for 1889, pp. 127-164.

Alexander F. Mitchell, D.D. (Prof. of Ch. Hist at St. Andrews, and ed. of the Minutes of the Assembly): The Westminster Assembly: its History and Standards. London, 1883. (519 pages.)

Importance Of The Assembly.

It was after such antecedents, and in such surroundings, that the Westminster Assembly of Divines was called to legislate for Christian doctrine, worship, and discipline in three kingdoms. It forms the most important chapter in the ecclesiastical history of England during the seventeenth century. Whether we look at the extent or ability of its labors, or its influence upon future generations, it stands first among Protestant Councils. The Synod of Dort was indeed fully equal to it in learning and moral weight, and was more general in its composition, since it embraced delegates from nearly all Reformed Churches; while the Westminster Assembly was purely English and Scotch, and its standards even to-day are little known on the Continent of Europe. [1385] But the doctrinal legislation of the Synod of Dort was confined to the five points at issue between Calvinism and Arminianism; the Assembly of Westminster embraced the whole field of theology, from the eternal decrees of God to the final judgment. The Canons of Dort have lost their hold upon the mother country; the Confession and Shorter Catechism of Westminster are as much used now in Anglo-Presbyterian Churches as ever, and have more vitality and influence than any other Calvinistic Confession.

It is not surprising that an intense partisan like Clarendon should disparage this Assembly. [1386] Milton's censure is neutralized by his praise, for, although he hated presbytery only less than episcopacy, he called the Assembly a 'select assembly,' 'a learned and memorable synod,' in which 'piety, learning, and prudence were housed.' This was two years after the Assembly had met, when its character was fully shown. He afterwards changed his mind, chiefly for a personal reason--in consequence of the deservedly bad reception of his unfortunate book on 'Divorce,' which he had dedicated in complimentary terms to this very Assembly and to the Long Parliament. [1387]

Richard Baxter, who was not a member of the Assembly, but knew it well, and was a better judge of its theological and religious character than either Clarendon or Milton, pays it this just tribute: 'The divines there congregated were men of eminent learning, godliness, ministerial abilities, and fidelity; and being not worthy to be one of them myself, I may the more freely speak the truth, even in the face of malice and envy, that, as far as I am able to judge by the information of all history of that kind, and by any other evidences left us, the Christian world, since the days of the apostles, had never a synod of more excellent divines (taking one thing with another) than this and the Synod of Dort.' He adds, however, 'Yet, highly as I honor the men, I am not of their mind in every part of the government which they have set up. Some words in their Catechism I wish had been more clear; and, above all, I wish that the Parliament, and their more skillful hand, had done more than was done to heal our breaches, and had hit upon the right way, either to unite with the Episcopalians and Independents, or, at least, had pitched on the terms that are fit for universal concord, and left all to come in upon those terms that would.' [1388]

Hallam censures the Assembly for its intolerant principles, but admits that it was 'perhaps equal in learning, good sense, and other merits to any Lower House of Convocation that ever made a figure in England.' One of the best-informed German historians says of the Assembly: 'A more zealous, intelligent, and learned body of divines seldom ever met in Christendom.' [1389]

The chief fault of the Assembly was that it clung to the idea of a national State Church, with a uniform system of doctrine, worship, and discipline, to which every man, woman, and child in three kingdoms should conform. But this was the error of the age; and it was only after a series of failures and persecutions that the idea of religious freedom took root in English soil.

Appointment Of The Assembly.

Soon after the opening of the Long Parliament the convening of a conference of divines for the settlement of the theological and ecclesiastical part of the great conflict suggested itself to the minds of leading men. The first bill of Parliament to that effect was conceived in a spirit hostile to the Episcopal hierarchy, but rather friendly to the ancient liturgy, and was passed Oct. 15, 1642, but failed for the want of royal assent.

As the king's concurrence became hopeless, Parliament issued on its own responsibility an ordinance, June 12, 1643, commanding that an assembly of divines should be convened at Westminster, in London, on the first day of July following, to effect a more perfect reformation of the Church of England in its liturgy, discipline, and government on the basis of the Word of God, and thus to bring it into nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland and the Reformed Churches on the Continent. Presbyterianism was not mentioned, but pretty plainly pointed at. The Assembly was to consist of one hundred and fifty-one members in all, viz., thirty lay assessors (ten Lords and twenty Commoners), who were named first, [1390] and included such eminent scholars, lawyers, and statesmen as John Selden, John Pym, Boulstrode Whitelocke, Oliver St. John, Sir Benjamin Rudyard, and Sir Henry Vane, and of one hundred and twenty-one divines, who were selected from the different counties, chiefly from among the Presbyterians, with a few of the most influential Episcopalians and Independents. Forty members constituted a quorum.

The Assembly was thus created by State authority. In like manner, the ancient oecumenical councils were called by emperors, and the Synod of Dort by the government of the United Provinces. The English Convocations also can not meet, nor make canons, nor discuss topics without royal license. The twenty-first of the Thirty-nine Articles forbids the calling of General Councils except 'by the command and will of princes.' Parliament now exercised the privilege of the crown, and usurped the ecclesiastical supremacy. It nominated all the members, with the exception of the Scotch commissioners, who were appointed by the General Assembly, and were admitted by Parliament. It fixed the time and place of meeting, it prescribed the work, and it paid the expenses (allowing to each member four shillings a day); it even chose the prolocutor and scribes, filled the vacancies, and reserved to its own authority all final decision; reducing thus the Assembly to an advisory council. Hence even the Westminster Confession was presented to Parliament simply as a 'humble Advice.' But with all its horror of ecclesiastical despotism, engendered by the misgovernment of Laud, the Long Parliament was the most religious political assembly that ever met in or out of England, and was thoroughly controlled by the stern spirit of Puritanism. Once constituted, the Assembly was not interfered with, and enjoyed the fullest freedom of debate. Its standards were wholly the work of competent divines, and received the full and independent assent of ecclesiastical bodies.

The king by proclamation prohibited the meeting of the Assembly, and threatened those who disobeyed his order with the loss of all their ecclesiastical livings and promotions. This unfortunately prevented the attendance of loyal Episcopalians.

Composition And Parties.

It was the intention of Parliament to comprehend within the Assembly representatives of all the leading parties of the English Church with the exception of that of Archbishop Laud, whose exclusive High-Churchism and despotism had been the chief cause of the troubles in Church and State, and made co-operation impossible. [1391] The selection was upon the whole judicious, though some of the ablest and soundest Puritan divines, as Richard Baxter and John Owen, were omitted. Scotland came in afterwards, but in time to be of essential service and to give the Assembly a strong Presbyterian preponderance. The Colonial Churches of New England were invited by a letter from members of Parliament (Sept., 1642) to send the Rev. John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and John Davenport as delegates; but they declined, because compliance would subject them to all the laws that might be made, and might prove prejudicial to them. Hooker, of Hartford, 'liked not the business,' and deemed it his duty rather to stay in quiet and obscurity with his people in Connecticut than to go three thousand miles to plead for Independency with Presbyterians in England. Davenport could not obtain leave from his congregation at New Haven. Cotton, of Boston, would not go alone. [1392]

The Assembly itself, by direction of Parliament, addressed fraternal letters to the Belgic, French, Helvetic, and other Reformed Churches (Nov. 30, 1643), and received favorable replies, especially from Holland, Switzerland, and the Huguenot congregation in Paris. [1393] Hesse Cassel advised against meddling with the bishops. The king issued a counter manifesto from Oxford, May 14, 1644, in Latin and English, to all foreign Protestants, and denied the charge of designing to introduce popery. [1394]

As to doctrine, there was no serious difference among the members. They all held the Calvinistic system with more or less rigor. There were no Arminians, Pelagians, or Antinomians among them.

But in regard to Church government and discipline the Assembly was by no means a unit, although the Scotch Presbyterian polity ultimately prevailed, and became for a brief season, by act of Parliament, even the established form of government in England. The most frequent and earnest debates were on this point rather than on doctrine and worship. This conflict prevented the Assembly, says Neal (an Independent), from 'laying the top stone of the building, so that it fell to pieces before it was perfected.' Hereafter the common name of Puritans gave way to the party names of Presbyterians and Independents.

We may arrange the members of the Assembly under four sections: [1395]

1. The Episcopalians. Parliament elected four prelates, viz.: James Ussher (Archbishop of Armagh and Bishop of Carlisle), Brownrigg (Bishop of Exeter), Westfield (Bishop of Bristol), Prideaux (Bishop of Worcester); [1396] and five doctors of divinity, viz.: Drs. Featley (Provost of Chelsea College), Hammond (Canon of Christ's Church, Oxford), Holdsworth (Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge), Sanderson (afterwards Bishop of Lincoln), and Morley (afterwards Bishop of Winchester). An excellent selection. But with one or two exceptions they never attended, and could not do so without disloyalty and disobedience to the king; besides, they objected to the company with an overwhelming number of Puritans, and a council not elected by the clergy and mixed with laymen. Ussher is said to have attended once, but on no good authority; he was present, however, in spirit, and great respect was paid to his theology by the Assembly. [1397] Brownrigg sent in an excuse for non-attendance. Westfield was present, at least, at the first meeting. Dr. Featley, a learned Calvinist in doctrine, and a violent polemic against the Baptists, was the only Episcopalian who attended regularly and took a prominent part in the proceedings until, after the adoption of the Scotch Covenant, he was expelled by Parliament for revealing, contrary to pledge, the secrets of the Assembly in a letter to Ussher, then in the king's headquarters at Oxford, and was committed to prison (Sept. 30, 1643). This act of severity is strongly condemned by Baxter. Here ends the connection of Episcopacy with the Assembly.

Before this time Parliament had been seriously agitated by the Episcopal question. As early as Nov. 13, 1640, the 'Root and Branch' party sent in a petition signed by 15,000 Londoners for the total overthrow of the Episcopal hierarchy, while 700 clerical petitioners prayed merely for a reduction and modification of the same. Radicalism triumphed at last under the pressure of political necessity and the popular indignation created by Laud's heartless tyranny. First the bishops were excluded from the House of Lords (Feb. 5, 1642), with the reluctant assent of the king; and then the hierarchy itself was decreed out of existence (Sept. 10, 1642), the bill to take effect Nov. 5, 1643, [1398] but the ordinances to carry this measure into full effect were not-passed till Oct. 9 and Nov. 16, 1646. [1399] The old building was destroyed before a new building was agreed upon. This was the very question to be decided by the Assembly; hence the interval between the law and its execution. For nearly twenty years the Episcopal Church, though not legally abolished, from want of royal assent, was an ecclesia pressa el illicita on her own soil.

Among the scores or hundreds of pamphlets which appeared in this war upon the bishops, the five anti-Episcopal treatises of John Milton were the most violent and effective. He attacked the English hierarchy, especially as it had developed itself under the Stuarts, with a force and majesty of prose which is unsurpassed even by his poetry. He went so far as to call Lucifer 'the first prelate-angel,' and treats Ussher with lofty contempt as a mere antiquarian or dryasdust. 'He rolls,' says his biographer, 'and thunders charge after charge; he tasks all his genius for epithets and expressions of scorn; he says things of bishops, archbishops, the English Liturgy, and some of the dearest forms of the English Church, the like of which could hardly be uttered now in any assembly of Englishmen without hissing and execration.' [1400]

2. The Presbyterians formed the great majority and gained strength as the Assembly advanced. Their Church polity is based upon the two principles of ministerial parity, as to ordination and rank (or the original identity of presbyters and bishops), and the self-government of the Church by representative judicatories composed of clerical and lay members. It was essentially the scheme of Calvin as it prevailed in the Reformed Churches on the Continent, and was established in Scotland.

The Scots seemed to be predestinated for Calvinistic Presbyterianism by an effective decree of Providence. The hostility of their bishops to the Reformation, and the repeated attempts of the Stuarts to force English institutions upon them, filled the nation with an intense aversion to Episcopacy and liturgical worship. Bishop Bancroft, of London, the first real High-Church Episcopalian, called English Presbyterianism an 'English Scottizing for discipline.'

In England, on the contrary, Episcopacy and the Prayer-Book were identified with the Reformation and Protestant martyrdom, and hence were rooted in the affections of the people. Besides, the early bishops were in fraternal correspondence with the Swiss Churches. But in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, when Episcopacy took exclusive ground and rigorously enforced uniformity against all dissent, Presbyterianism began to raise its head under the lead of two eminent Calvinists, Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603), Professor of Theology in Cambridge, and Walter Travers (d. 1624), Preacher in the Temple, London, afterwards Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. The former was in conflict with the High-Churchism of Archbishop Whitgift; [1401] the latter with the moderate Churchism of Richard Hooker, who was far his superior in ability, and whom he himself esteemed as 'a holy man.' The first English presbytery within the prelatic Church, as an ecclesiola in ecclesia, was formed at Wandsworth, in Surrey, in 1572, and Cartwright drew up for it a 'Directory of Church-Government,' or 'Book of Discipline,' in 1583, which is said to have been subscribed by as many as five hundred clergymen, and which was printed by authority of Parliament in 1644. [1402]

This anomalous organization was stamped out by authority, but the recollection of it continued through the reigns of James and Charles, and gathered strength with the rising Conflict.

The Westminster divines, with the exception of the Scotch Commissioners and two French Reformed pastors of London, [1403] were in Episcopal orders, and graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, and therefore as a body not opposed to Episcopacy as such. A goodly number inclined to Ussher's scheme of a 'reduced' or limited Episcopacy, i.e., a common government of the Church by presbyters under the supervision of the bishop as primus inter pares. [1404]

Had the moderate Episcopalians attended, the result would probably have been a compromise between Episcopacy and Presbytery. But the logic of events which involved Parliament in open war with the stubborn king, and necessitated the calling in of the aid of Presbyterian Scotland, changed the aspect of affairs. The subscription of the 'Solemn League and Covenant' (Sept., 1643) bound both the Parliament and the Assembly to the preservation of the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the Church of Scotland and the extirpation of popery and prelacy (i.e., the government of the Church by archbishops and bishops).

There were, however, two classes of Presbyterians, corresponding to the Low and High Church Episcopalians. The liberal party maintained that the Presbyterian form of government was based on human right, and 'lawful and agreeable to the Word of God,' but subject to change according to the wants of the Church. The high and exclusive Presbyterians of the school of Andrew Melville maintained that it was based on divine right, and 'expressly instituted or commanded' in the New Testament as the only normal and unchangeable form of Church polity. Twisse, Gataker, Reynolds, Palmer, and many others advocated the jus humanum of Presbytery, all the Scotch Commissioners and the five 'Smectymnuans,' [1405] so called from their famous tract Smectymnuus, in reply to Bishop Hall's defense of Episcopacy (March, 1641), advocated the jus divinum. The latter triumphed, but for the sake of union they had to forego some details of their theory. [1406]

The sequel, however, proved that Presbyterianism, so congenial to Scottish soil, was an artificial plant in England. Milton's prophetic words were fulfilled: 'Woe be to you, Presbyterians especially, if ever any of Charles's race recovers the English sceptre! Believe me, you shall pay all the reckoning.' Independency has ultimately far outgrown Presbytery, and is preferred by the English mind because it comes nearer to Episcopacy in making each pastor a bishop in his own congregation. Baxter says that Ussher agreed with the Independents in this, 'that every bishop was independent, and that synods and councils were not so much for government as concord.' [1407] If Presbyterianism has recently taken a new start and made great progress in London and other cities of England, it is owing mostly to the immigration of energetic and liberal Scotchmen and the high character of its leading ministers.

3. The Independents, called 'the five dissenting brethren' by the Presbyterians. They were, led by Dr. Thomas Goodwin and Rev. Philip Nye. [1408] Though small in number (twelve at the most), they were strong in ability, learning, and weight of character, and possessed the confidence of the rising Cromwell and the army, as well as the distant colonies in New England. Some of them had been driven to Holland by the persecution of Laud and Wren, and had administered to congregations of their expatriated countrymen, which occupied a middle ground between Brownism and Presbytery, after the model of John Robinson's pilgrims in Leyden. They were allowed the use of the Reformed churches, with liberty to ring the bell for service. After their return they advocated congregational independency and toleration, which the Presbyterians abhorred. [1409] The Independents maintained that a Christian congregation should consist of converted believers, and govern itself according to Christ's law, without being subject to the jurisdiction of presbyteries and synods, and that such a congregation had even a right to ordain its own minister. They fought the Presbyterians at every step on the questions of ruling elders, ordination, jurisdiction of presbyteries and synods, toleration, and threatened at times to break up the harmony of the meeting.

The longest debate, called 'the Grand Debate,' which lasted thirty days, was on the divine right of presbytery. And yet the two parties had great respect for each other. 'I wish,' said Gillespie, in the heat of the controversy, 'the dissenting brethren prove to be as unwilling to divide from us as we have been unwilling to divide from them. I wish that, instead of toleration, there may be a mutual endeavor for a happy accommodation,' [1410]

The Independents appealed, rather inconsistently, to Cæsar, and addressed 'An Apologetic Narration to Parliament' (Dec., 1643). Under the Protectorate of Cromwell they became the ruling party, and had great political influence; but after the Restoration they resolved to seek for toleration outside of the National Church rather than for comprehension within it. New England was their Eldorado. [1411]

4. The Erastians [1412] maintained the ecclesiastical supremacy of the civil government in all matters of discipline, and made the Church a department of the State. They held that clergymen were merely teachers, not rulers, and that the power of the keys belonged to the secular magistrate. They hoped in this way to secure national unity and to prevent an imperium in imperio and all priestly tyranny over conscience; but in fact they simply substituted a political for an ecclesiastical despotism, a cæsaropapacy for a hierarchical papacy. They were willing to submit to a jure humano Presbyterianism, but they denied that any particular form of Church government was prescribed in the New Testament, and claimed for the State the right to establish such a form as might be most expedient.

The advocates of Erastianism in the Assembly were Selden, Lightfoot, and Coleman, all distinguished for Hebrew learning, which they used to good advantage. They appealed to the example of Moses and the kings of Israel, and the institutions of the Synagogue. They were backed by the lawyers among the lay-assessors and by the House of Commons, most of whom were (according to Baillie) 'downright Erastians.' The Assembly itself owed its existence to an act of Erastianism.

In strong opposition to them the Presbyterians maintained that the Lord Jesus, as sole King and Head of his Church, has appointed a spiritual government with distinct officers.

The controversy was ably conducted on both sides, and, we may say, exhausted. [1413]

The Independents and Erastians withdrew before the final adoption of the Book of Discipline, and left the field to the Presbyterians. The Presbyterian Church polity was at length established by the English Parliament, which ordained, June 29, 1647, that 'all parishes within England and Wales be brought under the government of congregational, classical, provincial, and national churches, according to the form of Presbyterial government agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster.' Provinces were to take the place of dioceses, and were again divided into classes or presbyteries, and these were to elect representatives to a national assembly. But Parliament retained an Erastian power in its own hand, and would not permit even exclusion from the Lord's table without allowing to the offender recourse to the civil courts. Presbyterianism was nominally the established religion, but only in two provinces, London and Lancashire, was it fairly established, until its overthrow by the Restoration. [1414]

The Leading Members.

Among the 121 divines of the Assembly there was a goodly portion of worthy and distinguished men who had suffered privation and exile under the misgovernment of Laud, who jeopardized their livings by accepting the appointment, notwithstanding the threats of the king, and who had the courage, after the Restoration, to sacrifice all earthly comforts to their conscientious convictions. Not a few of them combined rare learning, eloquence, and piety in beautiful harmony. 'The Westminster divines,' says Dr. Stoughton, 'had learning--Scriptural, patristic, scholastic, and modern--enough and to spare: all solid, substantial, and ready for use. Moreover, in the perception and advocacy of what is most characteristic and fundamental in the gospel of Jesus Christ they were as a body considerably in advance of some who could put in a claim to equal and perhaps higher scholarship.' [1415]

It is sufficient for our purpose to mention the most eminent of the Westminster divines. [1416]

William Twisse, D.D. (Oxon.), Rector of Newbury, Prolocutor or Moderator by appointment of Parliament till his death (July, 1646). He was of German descent, about sixty-nine years of age, noted as a high Calvinist of the supralapsarian school, full of learning and subtle speculative genius, but 'merely bookish,' as Baillie says, and poorly fitted to guide a delicate assembly. Bishop Hall calls him 'a man so eminent in school-divinity that the Jesuits shrunk under his strength.' Thomas Fuller says: [1417] 'His plain preaching was good, solid disputing better, pious living best of all good.'

Charles Herle (d. 1659), an Oxford scholar, and Rector of Winwick in Lancashire, succeeded Twisse as Prolocutor. He was a moderate Presbyterian, and, in the language of Fuller, 'so much Christian, scholar, and gentleman that he could unite in affection with those who were disjoined in judgment from him.' He wrote against independency, but remarked in the Preface: 'The difference between us is not so great; at most it does but ruffle a little the fringe, not any way rend the garment of Christ.' [1418]

John White (Oxon., d. 1648) and Dr. Cornelius Burgess (Oxon., d. 1665), the two Assessors, enjoyed general esteem. White was surnamed 'the patriarch of Dorchester,' but he 'would willingly contribute his shot of facetiousness on any just occasion' (Fuller). He was the great-grandfather of the Wesleys on the maternal side. Burgess was 'very active and sharp,' bold and fearless, an eminent debater and valiant defender of Presbyterianism and royalty.

Dr. Arrowsmith, head of St. John's College, Cambridge, 'a man with a glass eye,' having lost one by an arrow-shot, a 'learned divine' and 'elegant Latinist,' and long remembered in Cambridge for his 'sweet and admirable temper,' and Dr. Tuckney (d. 1670), Vice-Chancellor of the University, an inspiring teacher and bountiful friend of the poor, must be mentioned together as the chief composers of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. They were both friends of the broad-minded Whichcote, who calls Arrowsmith 'the companion of his special thought.' [1419] Dr. Tuckney, when requested by some members of Parliament to pay special regard to piety in his elections in Cambridge, made the sensible reply: 'No man has a greater respect than I have for the truly godly; but I am determined to choose none but scholars. They may deceive me in their godliness--they can not in their scholarship.' He is said to be the author of the exposition of the Ten Commandments in the Larger Catechism.

Edmund Calamy, B.D. (Cantab.), one of the four representatives of the London clergy, was a very popular preacher and a leader in the Presbyterian party. 'He was the first openly to avow and defend the Presbyterian government before a committee of Parliament; and though tempted afterwards with a bishopric, he continued stanch to his principles to his dying day.' [1420] He died soon after the great fire in London (1666). His grandson, of the same name, was still more celebrated.

Joseph Caryl, M.A. (Oxon., 1602-1673), was a moderate Independent, a distinguished preacher, and 'a man of great learning, piety, and modesty' (Neal). He became afterwards one of Cromwell's Triers, was ejected in 1662, and lived privately, preaching to his congregation as the times would permit. He is chiefly known as the indefatigable author of a commentary on Job, in twelve volumes, 4to (Lond. 1648-1666), which is an excellent school of its chief topic, the virtue of patience. [1421]

Thomas Coleman (Oxon.) was called 'Rabbi Coleman' for his profound Hebrew learning. Baillie describes him as half-scholar and half-fool, and of small estimation. He died during the heat of the Erastian debate (1647).

Thomas Gataker, B.D. (Cantab., d. 1654, aet. eighty), a devourer of books, and equally esteemed for learning, piety, and sound doctrine. He refused various offers of preferment.

Thomas Goodwin, D.D. (Cantab., d. 1680, aet. eighty), one of the two *patriarchs of English Independency,' Philip Nye being the other. He was Vicar of Trinity Church, Cambridge, relinquished his preferments in 1634, was pastor of a congregation of English exiles at Arnheim, Holland, then in London, [1422] and afterwards President of Magdalen College, in Oxford, till the Restoration, when he resigned. He was the favorite minister of Cromwell, eloquent in the pulpit, orthodox in doctrine, and exemplary in life, but 'tinctured with a shade of gloom and austerity' (M'Crie). 'Though less celebrated than Owen, his great attainments in scholarship and the range and variety of his thoughts astonish us when we read his writings, showing how familiar he was with all forms of theological speculation, ancient and modern' (Stoughton). [1423]

Dr. Joshua Hoyle (Oxon., d. 1654), Divinity Professor in Dublin, afterwards Master of University College, Oxford, was the only Irish divine of the Assembly, 'a master of the Greek and Latin fathers,' who 'reigned both in the chair and in the pulpit.'

John Lightfoot, D.D. (Cantab.), the greatest rabbinical scholar of his age, whose Horæ Hebraicæ et Talmudicæ are still familiarly quoted in illustration of the New Testament. His Journal is one of the chief sources for the history of the Assembly, especially for exegetical and antiquarian aspects of the Erastian controversy. In 1649 he became Master of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, and retained his post till he died, 1675, aged seventy-three.

Stephen Marshall, B.D. (Cantab.), Lecturer at St. Margaret's, Westminster, was 'the best preacher in England' (Baillie), a fearless leader in the political strife, a great favorite in the Assembly, 'their trumpet, by whom they sounded their solemn fasts' (Fuller). One of his royalist enemies called him 'the Geneva bull, a factions and rebellions divine.' He was buried in Westminster Abbey, 1655, but disinterred with the other Puritans after the Restoration.

Philip Nye (Oxon., d. 1672), minister of Kimbolton, who had been in exile with his friend Goodwin, took a leading part, as a Commissioner of Parliament, in soliciting the assistance of the Scots, and securing subscription to the Covenant; but he conceived a dislike to their Church polity and gave them a world of trouble. He kept them for three weeks debating on the superior propriety, as he contended, of having the elements handed to the communicants in their own seats instead of calling them out to the table. He was a stanch Independent, a keen debater, and a 'great politician, of uncommon depth, and seldom if ever outreached' (Neal). He was one of the Triers under Cromwell, and the leader of the Congregational Savoy Conference. After the Restoration lie declined tempting offers, and preached privately to a congregation of Dissenters till he died, seventy-six years of age.

Herbert Palmer, B.D. (Cantab.), Vicar of Ashwell, afterwards Master of Queen's College, Cambridge, was a little man with a childlike look, but very graceful and accomplished, a fluent orator in French as well as English, and a model pastor. He spent his fortune in works of charity, and his delicate frame in the cure of souls. He had scruples about the divine right of ruling elders, but became a convert to Presbyterianism. He is the real author of the 'Christian Paradoxes,' which have so long been attributed to Lord Bacon. [1424]

Dr. Edward Reynolds (Oxon., d. 1676), 'the pride and glory of the Presbyterian party' (Wood), was very learned, eloquent, cautious, but lacking backbone. He accepted from Charles II. the bishopric of Norwich (Jan., 1660), owing, it was said, to the influence of 'a covetous and politic consort' (Wood); but 'he carried the wounds of the Church in his heart and in his bowels to the grave with him.'

Sir Francis Rous (or Rowse, b. 1579, d. 1659), 'an old, most honest' member of Parliament, afterwards a member of Cromwell's Privy Council, was one of the twenty Commoners who were deputed to the Assembly. He innocently acquired an immortal fame by his literal versification of the Psalms, which was first printed in 1643, then revised, and is used to this day in Scotland and in many Presbyterian congregations in America in preference to all other versions and hymns. [1425]

Lazarus Seaman, B.D. (Cantab., 1667), one of the four representatives of the London clergy, a very active member and reputed as an Orientalist, who always carried with him a small Hebrew Bible without points. He is described as 'an invincible disputant' and 'a person of most deep, piercing, and eagle-eyed judgment in all points of controversial divinity, in which he had few equals, if any superiors.' He became Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, but was ejected after the Restoration.

John Selden (1584-1654), one of the lay assessors, and a scholar and wit of European reputation. [1426] His scholarship was almost universal, but lay chiefly in languages, law, and antiquities (hence 'antiquariorum coryphæus'). For a long time he took an active part in the debates, and often perplexed the divines by raising scruples. He liked to correct their 'little English pocket Bibles' from the Greek and Hebrew. Not especially fond of the flesh of the Scriptures, he cast the 'bones' at them 'to break their teeth therewith' (Fuller). He was an Erastian and a clergy-hater, but on his death-bed he declared that 'out of the numberless volumes he had read, nothing stuck so close to his heart, or gave him such solid satisfaction, as the single passage of Paul, 'The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men.'

Richard Vines, Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge (d. 1656), 'an excellent preacher and very powerful in debate, and much respected on all accounts' (Masson).

Thomas Young, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, a Scotchman by birth, Milton's preceptor, and the chief of the five 'Smectymnuans.'

The Scotch Commissioners.

After the adoption of the international League and Covenant, Scotland sent five clerical and three lay commissioners who admirably represented their Church and country. They formed a group by themselves at the right hand of the Prolocutor. They were the only delegates who were elected by proper ecclesiastical authority, viz., the General Assembly of their Church (Aug. 19, 1643), at the express request of the English Parliament; they declined being considered members in the ordinary sense, but they were allowed by warrant of Parliament to be present and to debate, and practically they exerted an influence disproportionate to their number. They arrived in London in September, fresh from the battle 'with lordly bishops, popish ceremonies, and royal mandates,' and full of the 'perfervidum ingenium Scotorum.'

Alexander Henderson, Rector of the University of Edinburgh since 1640, sixty years of age, ranks next to John Knox and Andrew Melville in the history of Scotch Presbyterianism, and was the author of the 'Solemn League and Covenant,' which linked the Scottish and English nations in a civil and religious alliance for the Reformed religion and civil liberty. Being unmarried, he gave himself entirely to the Assembly from Aug., 1643, to Aug., 1646. He has heretofore been too much ignored. 'My researches,' says Masson, [1427] 'have more and more convinced me that he was, all in all, one of the ablest and best men of his age in Britain, and the greatest, the wisest, and most liberal of the Scottish Presbyterians. They all had to consult him; in every strait and conflict he had to be appealed to, and came in at the last as the man of supereminent composure, comprehensiveness, and breadth of brow. Although the Scottish Presbyterian rule was that no churchman should have authority in State affairs, it had to be practically waived in his case; he was a cabinet minister without office.'

Robert Baillie (b. 1599, d. 1662), Professor of Divinity and Principal of the University of Glasgow, did not speak much, but was a regular attendant for fully three years, a shrewd observer, and has been called the Boswell of the Assembly and 'the pleasantest of letter gossips.' His 'Letters and Journals' (not properly edited until 1842) are among the most graphic books of contemporary memoir to be found in any language. His faculty of narration in his pithy native Scotch is nothing short of genius. Whenever we have an account from Baillie of any thing he saw or was present at, it is worth all accounts put together for accuracy and vividness; so in his accounts of Strafford's trial, and so in his account of his first impressions of the Westminster Assembly' (Masson).

George Gillespie, minister of Edinburgh (d. 1648), Was only thirty-one years of age when he entered the Assembly, the youngest, and yet one of the brightest stars, 'the prince of disputants, who with the fire of youth had the wisdom of age.' He first attracted public attention in his twenty-fourth year by 'A Dispute against the English-Popish Ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland' (1637), which helped the revolt against Laud's innovations. He took a leading part in the debates of the Assembly against Erastianism and Independency. According to Scotch tradition he once made even Selden reel and say, 'That young man, by his single speech, has swept away the labors of ten years of my life.' This is probably a patriotic exaggeration. The excessive ardor and activity of his mind wore out his frame, and he returned from the Assembly to die in his native land.

Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), Professor of Divinity and Principal of St. Mary's College in St. Andrews, was one of the most fervid and popular preachers in Scotland, and highly esteemed for his learning and piety. 'The characteristics of his mind were clearness of intellect, warmth and earnestness of affection, and loftiness and spirituality of devotional feeling.' His book, 'Lex Rex,' is considered one of the best expositions of the principles of civil and religious liberty; and his glowing letters of comfort from his prison in Aberdeen (which he called 'Christ's Palace') show him to be 'the true saint and martyr of the Covenant.'

Rev. Robert Douglas never sat. Among the lay commissioners, John Lord Maitland (afterwards Earl of Lauderdale) distinguished himself first by his zeal for the Scotch Covenanters, and afterwards by his apostasy and cruelty against them. Sir Archibald Johnstone, of Warristone, was from 1637 a leader among the Scotch Covenanters, a great lawyer, and a devout Christian, who, as Bishop Burnet, his nephew, narrates, often prayed in his family two hours at a time with unexhausted copiousness. The Marquis of Argyle also, who afterwards suffered death for his loyalty to the Scotch Kirk, sat for some time as an elder in the Assembly.

OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY.

The Assembly was opened on Saturday, July 1, 1643, in the grand national Abbey of Westminster, in the presence of both Houses of Parliament and a large congregation, by a sermon of Dr. Twisse on John xiv. 18: 'I will not leave you comfortless; I will come unto you'--a text which was deemed 'pertinent to these times of sorrow, anguish, and misery, to raise up the drooping spirits of the people of God who lie under the pressure of Popish wars and combustions.' [1428]

After service the members of the Assembly, 'three score and nine' [1429] (twenty-nine more than the required quorum), repaired for organization to the Chapel of Henry VII., that 'most gorgeous of sepulchres,' where the Upper House of Convocation used to meet. The mediæval architecture formed a striking contrast to the Puritan simplicity of worship and dress. The divines appeared in black coats or cloaks, skull-caps, and Geneva bands in imitation of the foreign Protestants, [1430] with the exception of a few Royalists and Episcopalians, who in their canonical gowns seemed 'the only non-Conformists.' [1431] Add to this apparel their solemn looks, the peaked beards and mustaches, and the broad double ruff around the neck, and we have a spectacle of a synod differing as much from a modern Presbyterian Assembly as from an Episcopal Convocation or a Roman Catholic Council. [1432]

Every member had to take the following vow (which was read in the Assembly every Monday morning):

'I do seriously promise and vow, in the presence of almighty God, that in this Assembly, whereof I am a member, I will maintain nothing in point of doctrine but what I believe to be most agreeable to the Word of God; nor in point of discipline, but what may make most for God's glory and the peace and good of his Church.'

THE ASSEMBLY IN THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER.

For several weeks the meetings were held in the Chapel of Henry VII. But when extreme cold weather set in at the close of September, the Assembly repaired to the 'Jerusalem Chamber,' in the Deanery of Westminster. [1433] 'What place more proper for the building of Sion,' asks Fuller, 'than the Chamber of Jerusalem, the fairest of the Dean's lodgings, where King Henry IV. died, and where these divines did daily meet together?' [1434]

This large and venerable hall, furnished with a long table and chairs, and ornamented with tapestry (pictures of the Circumcision, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Passage through the Wilderness), was originally the withdrawing-room of the abbot, and has become famous in romance and history as the cradle of many memorable schemes and events from the Reformation down to the present time.

There, before the fire of the hearth--then a rare luxury in England--King Henry IV., who intended to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, died of a hideous leprosy (March 20, 1413). When informed of the name of the chamber, he exclaimed,

'Laud be to God! even there my life must end.

It hath been prophesied to me many years

I would not die but in Jerusalem;

Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land.

But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie:

In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.' [1435]

There Sir Thomas More was confined (1534), and urged by the abbot to acknowledge the king's ecclesiastical supremacy; and there probably he wrote his appeal to a general council which never met, but may yet meet at some future day.

There, under the genial warmth of the fire which had attracted the dying king, the grave Puritan Assembly prepared its standards of doctrine, worship, and discipline, to be disowned by England, but honored by Scotland and America.

There the most distinguished Biblical scholars of the Church of England, in fraternal co-operation with scholars of Dissenting denominations, both nobly forgetting old feuds and jealousies, are now engaged in the truly catholic and peaceful work of revising the common version of the Bible for the general benefit of English-speaking Christendom. [1436]

BAILLIE'S DESCRIPTION OF THE ASSEMBLY.

The Assembly in actual session in this famous locality, and its order of business, can not be better described than in the graphic language of one of the Scotch Commissioners:

'The like of that Assembly, 'says Professor Baillie, [1437] 'I did never see, and, as we hear say, the like was never in England, nor any where is shortly like to be. They did sit in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, in the place of the Convocation; but since the weather grew cold, they did go to Jerusalem Chamber, a fair room in the Abbey of Westminster, about the bounds of the College forehall, but wider. At the one end nearest the door and on both sides are stages of seats as in the new Assembly-House at Edinburgh, but not so high, for there will be room but for five or six score. At the upmost end there is one chair set on a frame, a foot from the earth, for the Mr. Prolocutor Dr. Twisse. Before it, on the ground, stand two chairs for the two Mr. Assessors, Dr. Burgess and Mr. White. Before these two chairs, through the length of the room, stands a table, at which sit the two scribes, Mr. Byfield and Dr. Roborough. The house is all well hung and has a good fire, which are some dainties at London. Foranent [in front of] the table, upon the Prolocutor's right hand, there are three or four ranks of forms. On the lowest we five do sit. Upon the other, at our backs, the members of Parliament deputed to the Assembly. On the forms foranent us, on the Prolocutor's left hand, going from the upper end of the house to the chimney, and at the other end of the house, and backside of the table, till it comes about to our seats, are four or five stages of forms, whereupon their divines sit as they please, albeit commonly they keep the same place. From the chimney to the door there are no seats, but a void for passage. The Lords of Parliament use to sit on chairs in that void, about the fire. We meet every day of the week but Saturday. We sit commonly from nine to one or two [in the] afternoon. The Prolocutor at the beginning and end has a short prayer. The man, as the world knows, is very learned in the questions he has studied, and very good, beloved by all, and highly esteemed; but merely bookish, and not much, as it seems, acquainted with conceived prayer, [and] among the unfittest of all the company for any action; so after the prayer he sits mute. It was the canny conveyance of those who guide most matters for their own interest to plant such a man of purpose in the chair. One of the Assessors, our good friend Mr. White, has keeped in of the gout since our coming; the other, Dr. Burgess, a very active and sharp man, supplies, so far as is decent, the Prolocutor's place.

'Ordinarily there will be present above threescore of their divines. These are divided into three committees, in one whereof every man is a member; no man is excluded who pleases to come to any of the three. Every committee, as the Parliament gives order in writing to take any purpose into consideration, takes a portion, and in their afternoon meeting prepares matters for the Assembly, sets down their mind in distinct propositions, [and] backs their propositions with texts of Scripture. After the prayer, Mr. Byfield, the scribe, reads the proposition and Scriptures, whereupon the Assembly debates in a most grave and orderly way. No man is called up to speak; but who stands up of his own accord, he speaks so long as he will without interruption. If two or three stand up at once, then the divines confusedly call on his name whom they desire to hear first: on whom the loudest and maniest [most] voices call, he speaks. No man speaks to any but to the Prolocutor. They harangue long and very learnedly. They study the questions well beforehand, and prepare their speeches; but withal the men are exceeding prompt and well-spoken. I do marvel at the very accurate and extemporal replies that many of them usually do make. When, upon every proposition by itself, and on every text of Scripture that is brought to confirm it, every man who will has said his whole mind, and the replies, and duplies, and triplies are heard, then the most part calls "To the question." Byfield, the scribe, rises from the table and comes to the Prolocutor's chair, who, from the scribe's book, reads the proposition, and says, "As many as are of opinion that the question is well stated in the proposition, let them say I;" when I is heard, he says, "As many as think otherwise, say No." If the difference of I's and No's be clear, as usually it is, then the question is ordered by the scribes, and they go on to debate the first Scripture alleged for proof of the proposition. If the sound of I and No be near equal, then says the Prolocutor, "As many as say I, stand up;" while they stand, the scribe and others number them in their mind; when they sit down the No's are bidden to stand, and they likewise are numbered. This way is clear enough, and saves a great deal of time, which we spend in reading our catalogue. When a question is once ordered, there is no more debate of that matter; but if a man will vaige,' [1438] he is quickly taken up by Mr. Assessor, or many others, confusedly crying, "Speak to order, to order." No man contradicts another expressly by name, but most discreetly speaks to the Prolocutor, and at most holds on the general--The reverend brother, who lately or last spoke, on this hand, on that side, above, or below.

'I thought meet once for all to give you a taste of the outward form of their Assembly. They follow the way of their Parliament. Much of their way is good, and worthy of our imitation: only their longsomeness is woeful at this time, when their Church and Kingdom lies under a most lamentable anarchy and confusion. They see the hurt of their length, but can not get it helped; for being to establish a new Platform of worship and discipline to their nation for all time to come, they think they can not be answerable if solidly and at leisure they do not examine every point thereof.'

DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES.

With theological discussion the Assembly combined devotional exercises, and observed with Parliament regular and occasional fasts which are characteristic of the Puritan piety of that age. At the joint meeting of the Parliament and the Assembly in St. Margaret's Church, for the signing of the Covenant (Monday, Sept. 25, 1643), Mr. White 'prayed near upon an hour,' Mr. Nye 'made an exhortation of another hour long,' Mr. Henderson 'did the like;' then there was the reading of the Covenant, a prayer by Dr. Yonge, 'another psalm by Mr. Wilson,' and a concluding prayer, when they 'adjourned till Thursday morning, because of the fast.' [1439]

Baillie describes the fast observed May 17, 1644, at the request of General Essex before his march into the field, as 'the sweetest day' he saw in England, although it lasted eight hours, from nine to five, without interruption. 'After Dr. Twisse,' he writes, 'had begun with a brief prayer, Mr. Marshall prayed large two hours, most divinely, confessing the sins of the members of the Assembly in a wonderfully pathetic and prudent way. After, Mr. Arrowsmith preached one hour; then a psalm; thereafter, Mr. Vines prayed near two hours, and Mr. Palmer preached one hour, and Mr. Seaman prayed near two hours; then a psalm. After, Mr. Henderson brought them to a short, sweet conference of the heart confessed in the Assembly, and other seen faults [1440] to be remedied, and the convenience to preach against sects, especially Anabaptists and Antinomians. Dr. Twisse closed with a short prayer and blessing. God was so evidently in all this exercise that we expect certainly a blessing both in our matter of the Assembly and whole kingdom.' [1441]

We can not read such accounts without amazement at the devotional fervor and endurance of the Puritan divines. And yet, if we consider the length of their prayers and sermons, their austerity in society, dress and manner, their peculiar phraseology and cant, their aversion to the fine arts and public amusements, however innocent, we need not be surprised at the popular rebound to the opposite extreme under the frivolous and licentious Charles II. 'All that was beautiful in Church music, architecture, or ornament, and in personal elegance and refinement, was rigidly proscribed. Even poetry was at a discount; Milton himself, in his lifetime, in more senses than one, "sung darkling;" and the literary style, of the day, unlike either that of the foregoing or the subsequent age, was harsh, stiff, and void of elegance. Even the typography of the period is peculiarly grim and unseemly.' [1442]

It should not be forgotten, however, that there are times when aesthetics must give way to more important matters, and that radical extremes are unavoidable in critical periods. The Catholic Church itself, in the first three centuries, passed through the gloom of the catacombs, and, in its ascetic abhorrence of heathen art and beauty, strangely misconceived even our blessed Lord's personal appearance as homely and repulsive in the days of his humiliation. Tertullian, in his way, went farther than the Puritans.

DURATION AND CLOSE.

The Assembly occupied about five years and six months for the completion of its proper work--the standards of doctrine, worship, and discipline--and held no less than 1163 regular sessions from July 1, 1643, till February 22, 1649, when it ought to have adjourned sine die. It met every day, except Saturday and Sunday, from nine o'clock till one or two--the afternoons being left to committees. After Nov. 9, 1647, we find no mention of the Scotch Commissioners. But the Assembly continued to drag out a shadowy existence, with scanty and irregular attendance, as a standing committee for the examination and ordination of candidates for the ministry, meeting every Thursday, [1443] till March 25, 1652, when it informally broke up before the dissolution of the 'Rump' Parliament by Oliver Cromwell (April 19, 1653). 'It dwindled away by degrees, though never legally dissolved,' says Fuller. It vanished with the Long Parliament which gave it birth. __________________________________________________________________

[1385] It is characteristic that Dr. Niemeyer published his collection of Reformed Confessions, the most complete we have, at first without the Westminster Standards, being unable to find a copy, and issued them afterwards in a supplement. Dr. Winer barely mentions the Westminster Confession in his Symbolik, and never quotes from it. If German Church historians (including Gieseler) were to be judged by their knowledge of English and American affairs, they would lose much of the esteem in which they are justly held. What lies westward is a terra incognita to most of them. They are much more at home in the by-ways of the remote past than in the living Church of the present, outside of Germany.

[1386] Clarendon, who hated Presbyterianism as a plebeian religion unfit for a gentleman, disposes of the Westminster Assembly in a few summary and contemptuous sentences: 'Of about one hundred and twenty members,' he says, 'of which the Assembly was to consist, a few very reverend and worthy persons were inserted; yet of the whole number there were not above twenty who were not declared and avowed enemies of the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England; some were infamous in their lives and conversations, and most of them of very mean parts in learning, if not of scandalous ignorance; and of no other reputation but of malice to the Church of England.' These charges are utterly without foundation, and belong to the many misrepresentations and falsehoods which disfigure his otherwise classical History of the Rebellion. The number of members was 151.

[1387] In his Fragments of a History of England (1670), Milton speaks both of the Long Parliament and the Assembly in vindictive scorn, and calls the latter 'a certain number of divines neither chosen by any rule or custom ecclesiastical, nor eminent for either piety or knowledge above others left out; only as each member of Parliament, in his private fancy, thought fit, so elected one by one.' He charges them with inconsistency in becoming pluralists and nonresidents, and with intolerance, as if 'the spiritual power of their ministry were less available than bodily compulsion,' and the authority of the magistrate 'a stronger means to subdue and bring in conscience than evangelical persuasion.' On his unhappy marriage and his tracts on Divorce growing out of it, see Masson, Vol. III. pp. 42 sqq.

[1388] Life and Times, Pt. I. p. 73. Comp. Orme's Life of Baxter, p. 69.

[1389] General Rudloff, in his article above quoted, p. 263.

[1390] 'There must be some laymen in the Synod to overlook the clergy, lest they spoil the civil work; just as when the good woman puts a cat into the milk-house to kill a mouse, she sends her maid to look after the cat, lest the cat eat up the cream.'--Selden, Table-Talk, p. 169. (Quoted by Stoughton and Stanley.)

[1391] Laud says of the Assembly: 'The greatest part of them were Brownists, or Independents, or New England ministers, if not worse; or at best enemies to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England,' The facts are, that the Independents were a small minority, and that New England was not represented at all.

[1392] Masson, Life of Milton, Vol. II. p. 605; Bancroft, History of the United States of America (Centennial ed. 1876), Vol. I. pp. 331, 332.

[1393] See the correspondence in Neal, Vol. I. pp. 470 sqq. (Harper's ed.).

[1394] Neal, Vol. I. p. 472.

[1395] Comp. the full accounts in Neal, Part III. ch. iv. (Vol. I. pp. 488 sqq.), Hetherington, Stoughton, and Masson.

[1396] Prideaux's name seems to have been omitted in the final ordinance of June, 1643.

[1397] Ussher was a second time appointed by the House of Commons a member of the Assembly when he came to London in 1647, and on his petition received permission to preach in Lincoln's Inn.--Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. V. p. 423 (quoted by Dr. Mitchell).

[1398] 'An act for the utter abolishing and taking away of all archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries,' etc. Clarendon says that marvelous art was used, and that the majority of the Commons were really against the bill; but the writer of the 'Parliamentary Chronicle' says that it passed unanimously, and was celebrated by bonfires and the ringing of bells all over London.--Neal, Vol. I. p. 421. Hallam also follows the latter account.

[1399] Neal, Vol. II. pp. 35 sq.

[1400] Masson, Vol. II. p. 245. Comp. pp. 356 sqq., and the just estimate of Stoughton, The Ch. of the Civil Wars. p. 129.

[1401] Even Whitgift, however, did not go to the extreme of jure divino Episcopacy, but admitted that the Scripture has not set down 'any one certain form of Church government to be perpetual.' Cartwright, on the other hand, was an able and earnest, but radical Presbyterian, and with Calvin and Beza advocated the death penalty for heretics.

[1402] A fac-simile of this Directory was reproduced in London, 1872 (James Nesbit & Co.), for the tercentenary celebration of the Presbytery at Wandsworth, with an introduction by Prof. Lorimer. On Cartwright and the Elizabethan Presbyterianism, comp. Masson, Life of Milton, Vol. II. pp. 581 sqq., and M'Crie, Annals of English Presbytery, pp. 87-131.

[1403] Samuel de la Place and Jean de la March.

[1404] The Reduction of Episcopacy unto the Form of Synodical Government received in the Ancient Church, written in 1641, but not fully published till 1658, and brought forward again after the Restoration; in Ussher's Works by Elrington, Vol. XII. Comp. Masson, Vol. II. p. 230.

[1405] The Smectymnuans were Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young (the chief author), Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow. The oddity and ugliness of the title, composed of the initials of each author, helped the circulation and provoked witty rhymes, such as

'The Sadducees would raise the question,

Who must be Smec at the resurrection.'

[1406] One of the dividing questions was that of ruling elders. 'Sundry of the ablest,' says Baillie (Vol. II. pp. 110 sq.), 'were flat against the institution of any such officer by divine right, such as Dr. Smith, Dr. Temple, Mr. Gataker, Mr. Vines, Mr. Price, Mr. Hall, and many more, besides the Independents, who truly spake much and exceedingly well. The most of the Synod was in our opinion, and reasoned bravely for it; such as Mr. Seaman, Mr. Walker, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Newcomen, Mr. Young, Mr. Calamy. Sundry times Mr. Henderson, Mr. Rutherford, Mr. Gillespie, all three spoke exceedingly well. When all were tired, it came to the question. There was no doubt but we would have carried it by far most voices; yet because the opposites were men very considerable, above all gracious little Palmer, we agreed upon a committee to satisfy, if it were possible, the dissenters.' He afterwards expresses the hope that the advance of the Scotch army 'will much assist our arguments.'

[1407] Quoted by Neal, Vol. I. p. 493.

[1408] The others were Jeremiah Burroughs, William Bridge, and Sydrach Simpson. These five were the signers of the 'Apologetic Narration.' Afterwards William Carter, William Greenhill, John Bond (perhaps also Anthony Burgess), joined them. Baillie (Vol. II. p. 110) counts ten or eleven, including Carter, Caryl, Philips, and Sterry. Among its lay-assessors lord Viscount Say and Seale and Sir Harry Vane sympathized with the Independents. Neal says: 'Their numbers were small at first, though they increased prodigiously and grew to a considerable figure under the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell.'

[1409] Baillie declares 'liberty of conscience and toleration of all or any religion' (as advocated by Roger Williams against John Cotton) to be 'so prodigious an impiety that this religious Parliament can not but abhor the very naming of it.'--Tracts on Liberty of Conscience [published by the Hansard Knollys Society), p. 270, note. But Baillie was opposed to the employment of 'secular violence' in dealing with heretics. See M'Crie, p. 191.

[1410] Minutes, p. 28.

[1411] On the Independent controversy, see Baillie, Gillespie, and Masson (Vol. III. pp. 18 sqq.).

[1412] So called from the Swiss professor and physician, Erastus, properly Liebler, or Lieber, who wrote against Bullinger and Beza, and died at Basle, 1583.

[1413] The chief books on the Erastian side are Selden's De Synedriis and Lightfoot's Journal; on the Presbyterian side, Gillespie's Aaron's Rod Blossoming, or, the Divine Ordinance of Church-Government Vindicated (dedicated to the Westminster Assembly; a very learned book of 590 pages), and Rutherford's Divine Right of Church Government (both published in London, 1646). The Erastian controversy was afterwards transferred to Scotland, and led to several secessions. Comp. Principal Cunningham's Essay on the Erastian controversy in his Historical Theology, Vol. II. pp. 557-588.

[1414] See M'Crie, pp. 189 sqq.

[1415] Church of the Civil Wars, p. 453.

[1416] For a fall list of members, with biographical notices, the reader is referred to D. Masson, Life of John Milton, Vol. II. pp. 516-524, where they are arranged in alphabetical order; and to Dr. Mitchell, in his Introduction to the Minutes, pp. lxxxi.-lxxxiv., where they are given in the order of the ordinance of Parliament calling the Assembly (dated June 12, 1643), with some twenty members subsequently added to fill vacancies. Meek gives various lists in his edition of Gillespie's Notes. Neal's list has several errors. Much information on the leading members may be gathered from Baillie's Journals, Fuller's Church History and Worthies of England, Anthony Wood's Athenæ et Fasti Oxonienses, Neal's History of the Puritans, Stoughton's historical works, and Masson's Milton. Reid gives biographical sketches of the Westminster divines in alphabetical order, with lists of their works.

[1417] Worthies of England, Vol. I. p. 93. Dr. Owen, though he wrote against him, called him, 'the veteran leader, so well trained in the scholastic field; this great man; the very learned and illustrious Twisse.' M'Crie describes him as 'a venerable man, verging on seventy years of age, with a long, pale countenance, an imposing beard, lofty brow, and meditative eye; the whole contour indicating a life spent in severe and painful study' (Annals of the English Presbytery, p. 145). The last words of Twisse were, 'Now at length I shall have leisure to follow my studies to all eternity.'

[1418] 'The presence of such a man in the chair is sufficient to redeem the Assembly from the charge of illiberality or vulgar fanaticism.'--M'Crie, p. 151.

[1419] Tulloch, Rat. Theol. in England, Vol. II. (the Cambridge Platonists), pp. 56 sq.

[1420] M'Crie, p. 155.

[1421] Another edition in two large folio vols. was published in 1676 sq. Darling calls this exposition 'a most elaborate, learned, judicious, and pious work.'

[1422] He founded a Congregational church in London in 1640, which continues to this day, and has recently (under the pastorate of Dr. Joseph Parker) erected the City Temple, with a memorial tablet to Goodwin in the vestibule.

[1423] His austerity gave rise to the story related by Addison, in the Spectator, that Dr. Goodwin, 'with half-a-dozen night-caps on his head and religious horror in his countenance,' overawed and terrified an applicant for examination in Oxford by asking him in a sepulchral voice, 'Are you prepared for death?' His works were published in London, 1681-1704, in 5 vols.

[1424] This fact has recently been discovered by Rev. A. B. Grosart (1864). See Masson, Vol. II. p. 520.

[1425] See Baillie, Vol. II. p. 120; Vol. III. pp. 532 sqq.; and the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, pp. 131, 163, 418.

[1426] Opera omnia, ed. Dav. Wilkins, London, 1726, 3 vols. in folio.

[1427] Vol. III. p. 16.

[1428] From the Parliamentarian newspaper No. 25, for July 3-10, 1643, quoted by Mitchel, p. xi. Lightfoot reports in his Journal (p. 3) that 'a great congregation' was present besides the members of the Assembly and of Parliament.

[1429] This is about the average attendance of the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury,--Stanley, Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 507.

[1430] Neal and Stoughton.

[1431] Fuller.

[1432] M'Crie and Mitchell compare it to a synod of Huguenots as pictured on the title-page of the first volume of Quick's Synodicon. But there the Frenchmen wear broad-brimmed hats.

[1433] The origin of the name is uncertain. Some derive it from the tapestries or pictures of Jerusalem on the wall. Dr. Stoughton, who is well informed in English history and archaeology, informs me (by letter of May 4, 1876) that it probably arose 'from the fact of its adjoining the sanctuary, the place of peace;' and he quotes a passage from the account of King John's death: 'Nec providet quod est Romæ ecclesia Jerusalem dicta, id est, visio pacis; quia quicunque illuc confugerit, cuiuscunque criminis obnoxius, subsidium invenit' (William of Malmesbury, De gestis Angl. Lib. II. p. 67).

[1434] Church Hist. Vol. VI. p. 253.

[1435] Shakspere, Second Part of King Henry IV., act iv. sc. 4.

[1436] For a fuller description of the Jerusalem Chamber, see Dean Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey, pp. 417 sqq. I may be permitted to add from personal experience an interesting recent incident in the history of that chamber. At the kind invitation of the Dean of Westminster, the delegates to the International Council of Presbyterian Churches, then meeting in London for the formation of a Presbyterian Alliance, repaired to the Jerusalem Chamber on Thursday afternoon, July 22, 1875, and, standing around the long table, were instructed and entertained by the Dean, who, modestly taking 'the Moderator's chair,' gave them a graphic historical description of the chamber, interspersed with humorous remarks and extracts from Baillie. He dwelt mainly on the Westminster Assembly, promising, in his broad-Church liberality, at some future time to honor that Assembly by a picture on the northern wall. Dr. McCosh, as Moderator of the Presbyterian Council, proposed a vote of thanks for the courtesy and kindness of the Dean, which was, of course, unanimously and heartily given. The writer of this expressed the hope that the Jerusalem Chamber may yet serve a still nobler purpose than any in the past, namely, the reunion of Christendom on the basis of God's revealed truth in the Bible; and he alluded to the fact that the Dean had recently (in the 'Contemporary Review,' and in an address at Saint Andrews) paid a high compliment to the Westminster Confession by declaring its first chapter, on the Holy Scriptures, to be one of the best, if not the very best symbolical statement ever made.

[1437] In a letter to his cousin, William Spang, dated London, Dec. 7, 1643. See Letters and Journals, Vol. II. pp. 107-109. I have retained the Scotch words, but modernized the spelling. Extracts from this letter are quoted by Neal, Hetherington, Stanley, Stoughton, Mitchell.

[1438] Probably 'wander' (from 'vague').

[1439] Lightfoot, Journal, p. 16.

[1440] Probably a misprint for 'heart-confessed and other seen faults in the Assembly.'

[1441] Letters and Journals, Vol. II. pp. 184 sq.

[1442] M'Crie, Annals of English Presb. p. 173. The last remark applies also to the early editions of the Westminster standards and controversial pamphlets.

[1443] The sessions held after Feb. 22, 1649 (1648), are not numbered. The last regular meetings were likewise devoted merely to executive business. See Minutes, p. 539. __________________________________________________________________

§ 94. The Westminster Confession.

I. Standard Editions.

1. English.

The editio princeps, without Scripture texts, was printed, but not published, Dec. 7, 1646, at London, under the title, 'The Humble | Advice | of the | Assembly | of | Divines, | Now by authority of Parliament | sitting at Westminster, | concerning | a Confession of Faith, | presented by them lately to both Houses | of Parliament. | ... London. Printed for the Company of Stationers.' 1647.

A second edition (of 600 copies) was printed in London, under the same title, 'with the Quotations and Texts of Scripture annexed,' by order of Parliament, dated April 29, 1647.

The first Edinburgh ed. is a reprint of the second London ed. in somewhat different type. Only 300 copies were printed, Aug. 9, 1647, for the use of the General Assembly. See fac-simile in Vol. III. p. 598.

The typography and paper of these early editions are very poor. After the adoption, innumerable editions appeared under the proper title, 'Confession of Faith.' The earliest small ed. of Edinb. appeared 1650; the earliest small ed. in Lond., 1648 or 1649. See Minutes, p. 418, note 4.

The edition which was adopted by the English Parliament, with some changes (similar to those afterwards made in the Savoy Declaration), bears a different title, viz.: Articles | of | Christian Religion, | Approved and Passed by both Houses | of Parliament, | After Advice had with the Assembly | of | Divines | by | Authority of Parliament sitting at | Westminster. | London: | . . . June 27, 1648.

Copies of the earliest and other rare editions I found and compared in the British Museum, in the Libraries of Edinburgh, the Free Church College and the Advocates' Libraries, and that of Union Theol. Seminary in New York. The texts vary but slightly. I used also a London ed. of 1658 (pp. 108), which is a little superior in typography, and still bears the title Humble Advice, etc. It has the Scripture proofs printed out in full.

Prof. Mitchell proposes to publish, with other documents, 'a careful collation of the earlier editions of the Confession' (Minutes, p. 546).

A very good edition of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, together with the Covenants (National and Solemn League), the acts of Parliament and the General Assembly relative to and approving of the same, was printed by authority at Edinburgh (University Press), 1858 (pp. 561).

The American editions differ from the English and Scotch in Chaps. XXIII. and XXXI., and in the close of XX. The changes are given in Vol. III. pp. 600 sqq.

2. Latin.

Confessio Fidei in Conventu theologorum authoritate Parliamenti Anglicani indicto elaborata; eidem Parliamento postmodum exhibita; quin et ab eodem, deinque ab Ecclesia Scoticana cognita et approbata; una cum Catechismo duplici, majori, minorique; e sermone Anglicano summa cum fide in Latinum versa. Cantabrigiæ, 1656 and 1659, small 8vo (229 pp.). Other eds., Edinb. 1670, 1694, 1708, 1711; Glasgow, 1660; in the appendix to Niemeyer's Collectio Conf. 1840. See Vol. III. pp. 600 sqq. The translation is good, but the translator is not named, nor could I ascertain his name from the librarians in Edinburgh and London, not even from the learned Mr. David Laing and Dr. Mitchell. The initials below the preface are 'G. D.' (perhaps G. Dillingham, D.D., of Emanuel College, Cambridge; others surmised G. Duport, of Cambridge).

3. German.

A German translation appeared as early as 1648. A new one in Böckel's Bekenntniss-Schriften der evang. reform. Kirche, pp. 683 sqq. (under the title Das puritanische Glaubensbekenntniss). Another version is published by the Presbyterian Board in Philadelphia.

Historical.

See Literature on Westminster Assembly, § 93.

Dr. Alex. F. Mitchell (Prof. of Ch. Hist, in St. Andrews): The Westminster Confession of Faith: a Contribution to the Study of its Historical Relations and to the Defence of its Teaching. Edinb. 3d ed. 1867. Comp. his valuable Introduction to the Minutes, 1874.

Alex. Taylor Innes: The Law of Creeds in Scotland. Edinburgh, 1867.

Explanatory and Apologetic.

Truth's Victory over Error; or, an Abridgment of the chief Controversies in Religion, etc. [By David Dickson.] Edinb. (1649), 1684; Glasgow, 1725. A catechetical exposition of the Westm. Conf.

A Brief Sum of Christian Doctrine contained in Holy Scripture, and holden forth in the Confession of faith and Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly, etc. [Drawn up by David Dickson.] Edinb. 1693.

Robert Shaw (Minister of the Free Church at Whitburn): An Exposition of the Confession of Faith of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. With an Introduction by W. M. Hetherington. Edinb. 1845.

Archibald Alexander Hodge, D.D. (Prof. of Theol. in Allegheny Seminary): A Commentary on the Confession of Faith. Philad. 1869 (Presbyt. Board).

Critical and Polemical.

W. Parker: The late Assembly of Divines' Conf. of Faith Examined, wherein many of their Excesses and Defects, of their Confusions and Disorders, of their Errors and Contradictions, are presented. Lond. 1651.

James Stark: The Westminster Confession of Faith critically Compared with the Holy Scripture and found wanting. Lond. 1863. A candid but captious critique of all the chapters.

Joseph Taylor Goodsir: The Westminster Confession of Faith Examined on the Basis of the other Protestant Confessions. Lond. 1868. Directed chiefly against Ch. XI., on Justification by Faith.

A. M. Fairbairn: The Westminster Confession of Faith and Scotch Theology. An article in the 'Contemporary Review,' answered by Prof. Mitchell in the Introduction to Minutes of the Westminster Assembly.

William Marshall: The Principles of the Westminster Standards Persecuting. Edinb. 1873.

REVISION OF THE ENGLISH ARTICLES.

The Assembly was at first employed for ten weeks on a revision of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, being directed by an order of Parliament (July 5, 1643) 'to free and vindicate the doctrine of them from all aspersions and false interpretations.' The Puritans regarded the doctrinal Articles as sound and orthodox in substance and spirit, but capable of improvement in the line marked out by the Lambeth Articles and the Irish Articles; in other words, they desired to make them more explicitly Calvinistic.

Fifteen of these Articles, including the most important doctrines, were thus revised, and provided with Scripture proofs. [1444] Very few changes were made. Art. I., on the Trinity, was left untouched. In Art. II., on the Son of God, the word 'all' before 'actual sins of men' is missing, which, if not an oversight, was a misimprovement in the interest of Calvinistic particularism. [1445] In Art. III. the unhistorical interpretation of Christ's descent into Hades, which makes it a mere repetition of the preceding clause in the Creed, is put in. In Art. VI. the allusion to the Apocrypha is omitted. The remaining Articles are retained with some verbal improvements, except Art. VIII. of the three Creeds, which is omitted in almost all the printed copies. But in the original copy which the Assembly sent to Parliament, Art. VIII. was retained with a slight verbal change, [1446] and omitted in the copy which Parliament sent to the King at the Isle of Wight. The Assembly certainly had no objection to the doctrine of the oecumenical creeds, and teaches it in its own standards. And yet the omission of all allusion to them in the Confession of Faith is so far characteristic as it reveals a difference of stand-point. The Puritan Assembly was unwilling to adopt any rule of faith except the Scripture explained by itself; while the Episcopal Church was reformed on the basis of the Scripture as interpreted by the ancient Church, or at all events with respectful reference to primitive creeds and canons.

The work of revision was suspended by an order of Parliament, Oct. 12, 1643, requiring the Assembly to enter upon the work of Church government, and then given up in consequence of an order 'to frame a Confession of Faith for the three kingdoms, according to the Solemn League and Covenant.' The framing of the Westminster Confession is therefore due to Scotch influence and the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant. [1447]

This was a wise conclusion. The alteration or reconstruction of an established creed (except in minor particulars) is in itself a difficult and ungrateful task, and more apt to produce confusion than harmony, as is shown by the history of the Nicene Creed and the Augsburg Confession.

PREPARATION OF THE CONFESSION.

The first appointment of a Committee to prepare matter for a joint Confession of Faith was made Aug. 20, 1644, and embraced, besides the Commissioners of the Church of Scotland, the following Englishmen: Dr. Gouge, Mr. Gataker, Mr. Arrowsmith, Dr. Temple, Mr. Burroughs, Mr. Burges, Mr. Vines, Dr. Goodwin, and Dr. Hoyle. The chairman, Dr. William Gouge, a graduate of Cambridge, was Minister of Blackfriars, London (from 1608), and stood in high veneration among the Puritans, there being 'scarce a lord or lady or citizen of quality in or about the city that were piously inclined but they sought his acquaintance.' [1448] He died Dec. 12, 1653, seventy-nine years of age. The Committee was enlarged Sept. 4, 1644, by adding Messrs. Palmer, Newcomen, Herle, Reynolds, Wilson, Tuckney, Smith, Young, Ley, and Sedgwicke. [1449]

This Committee, it seems, prepared the material and reported in the 434th session, May 12, 1645, when a smaller Committee was appointed to digest the material into a formal draught. The members were taken from the old Committee, with Dr. Gouge as chairman. The Scotch Commissioners were to be again consulted. [1450] On July 7th, 1645, Dr. Temple made a report of a part of the Confession touching the Holy Scripture, which was read and debated. [1451] The following day, Reynolds, Herle, and Newcomen, to whom were afterwards added Tuckney and Whitaker, were appointed a Committee 'to take care of the wording of the Confession, as it is voted in the Assembly from time to time, and report to the Assembly when they think fit there should be any alteration in the words,' after first consulting 'with the Scotch Commissioners or any one of them.' [1452] In the 470th session, July 16, 1645, the heads of the Confession were distributed among three large committees to be elaborated and prepared for more formal discussion. [1453] The chapters were reported, read, and debated, section by section, and sometimes word by word.

The sub-committees sat two days every week, and reported as they progressed. On Sept. 25, 1646, the title was fixed ('The Humble Advice,' etc.) and the first nineteen chapters were sent up to the House of Commons at their request. A few days afterwards (Oct. 1) a duplicate was sent to the House of Lords. [1454] The House of Lords passed these chapters, after a third reading, unanimously (Nov. 6). The House of Commons delayed definite action till the whole was presented. In the 752d Session, Dec. 4, 1646, the Confession was completed and presented to both Houses of Parliament in a copy transcribed with great pains by Dr. Burgess, for which he received a vote of thanks from the Assembly. [1455]

The Confession was thus prepared in two years and three months, amid many interruptions by discussions on the Catechism and on discipline. No other symbolical book cost so much time and labor, except the Tridentine and Vatican Decrees, and perhaps the Lutheran Formula of Concord. Besides the chairman, Drs. Tuckney, Arrowsmith, Reynolds (afterwards bishop), Temple, Hoyle, Palmer, Herle, and the Scotch divines seem to have been the chief authors of the work.

The Confession was first printed Dec., 1646, or Jan., 1647, for the exclusive use of Parliament and the Assembly, without the Scripture proofs. The House of Commons, not satisfied, expressly requested the Assembly to send them the Scripture texts (April 22, 1647), which was promptly done (April 29). [1456] Whereupon the House of Commons ordered 'that six hundred copies, and no more, of the Advice of the Assembly of Divines concerning the Confession of Faith, with the quotations and texts of Scripture annexed, presented to this House, and likewise six hundred copies of the Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines upon the Nine-and-thirty Articles of the Church of England, be forthwith printed for the service of both Houses and of the Assembly of Divines; and the printer is enjoined at his peril not to print more than six hundred copies of each, or to divulge or publish any of them.' [1457] At the same time a vote of thanks to the Assembly was passed 'for their great pains in these services.' This second edition. appeared May, 1647, and contains the received and ecclesiastically authorized text. It must not be confounded with the revised text of Parliament.

THE ACTION OF THE PARLIAMENT.

The House of Commons began, May 19, 1647, the consideration of the 'Humble Advice,' chapter by chapter, resumed it in October, and completed it March 22, 1648. It made some alterations in the governmental chapters, and gave the document the title, 'Articles of Christian Religion approved and passed by both Houses of Parliament, after Advice had with the Assembly of Divines by authority of Parliament sitting at Westminster.' [1458]

The House of Lords agreed to all the alterations, excepting to that on marriage, June 3, 1648. Whereupon the House of Commons, on the 20th of June, ordered 'that the Articles of Christian Religion sent from the Lords with some alterations, the which were this day read, and upon the question agreed unto, be forthwith printed and published.' The next day it was resolved 'that the texts of Scripture be printed with the Articles of Faith.'

A copy of the authorized edition of these Articles is preserved in the British Museum. It differs from the Assembly's Confession by the omission of the entire Ch. XXX. (on Church Censures) and Ch. XXXI. (on Synods and Councils), and parts of Ch. XX. (§ 4) and Ch. XXIV. (§§ 5, 6, and part of 4).

When, after Cromwell's death, the Long Parliament was restored in 1659, it adopted the Confession with the exception of Ch. XXX. and Ch. XXXI., and requested Dr. Reynolds, Mr. Calamy, and Mr. Manton to superintend the publication (March 5, 1660). [1459]

The English Parliament thus twice indorsed the Westminster Confession as to its doctrinal articles, but retained an Erastian control over matters of discipline. With the restoration of the monarchy the Confession shared the fate of Presbyterianism in England.

THE ACTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF SCOTLAND.

The Confession was at once brought to Scotland, and most favorably received. [1460] The General Assembly at Edinburgh, Aug. 27, 1647, after careful examination, adopted it in full as it came from the hands of the Westminster divines, declaring it 'to be most agreeable to the Word of God, and in nothing contrary to the received doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of this Kirk,' and thankfully acknowledging the great mercy of the Lord, 'in that so excellent a Confession of Faith is prepared, and thus far agreed upon in both kingdoms.' The Scotch Parliament indorsed this action, Feb. 7, 1649.

Thus the Confession, as well as the two Catechisms, received the full sanction of the highest ecclesiastical and civil authorities of Scotland. But the royal sanction was not obtained till 1690, under William and Mary. [1461]

It is a very remarkable fact that this Confession failed in its native land, and succeeded in foreign lands. The product of English Puritans became the highest standard of doctrine for Scotch and American Presbyterians, and supplanted the older Confession of their own Reformers. The Shorter Catechism, however, was for a long time extensively used in England.

Another remarkable fact is that the English authors, with their sad experience of the laws of uniformity, never intended to make their Confession binding upon the conscience as a document for subscription, while the Scots adopted it at once. [1462] Dr. M'Crie accounts for this difference partly 'by national idiosyncrasies, partly by the extreme desire of the Scots to obtain that "covenanted uniformity" for which England was not prepared, but which Scotland, with a Church fully organized and a Parliament favorably disposed, regarded as the sheet-anchor of her safety, and to which afterwards, as a sacred engagement, she resolutely clung, in hope and against hope, in days of darkness and storms. In England Presbytery had yet to be organized, and at every step it encountered conflicting and neutralizing influences.' __________________________________________________________________

[1444] The revised Fifteen Articles have been reprinted from the copy as approved by Parliament, in Hall's Harmony of Protestant Confessions; in Appendix No. VII. to Neal's History of the Puritans; in Stoughton, Church of the Commonwealth, Append. pp. 228 sqq.

[1445] The 'all' was in the original edition of 1563 and the edition of 1628, but is missing in the edition of 1630 and other English editions, and also in the American Episcopal revision; see Vol. III. p. 478.

[1446] 'The three creeds that go under the name of the Nicene Creed, Athanasius' Creed,' etc., instead of 'The three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed,' etc. Ussher and Vossius had proved the post-Athanasian origin of the creed which bears his name. Lightfoot (Journal, p. 10) notices, probably from an earlier stage of the debate, another change, viz.: 'for that the matter of them [for they] may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.' He adds that 'at last it was concluded that the Creeds should be printed at the end of the Thirty-nine Articles.' Comp. Mitchell, in Minutes, p. 542.

[1447] See this important document and its history above, pp. 689 sqq. Marsden says (Later Puritans, p. 90): 'The taking of the Covenant in Scotland was perhaps the most solemn scene in the history of nations. The forced imposition of it in England was an insult and a burlesque.' Fuller refutes it at length from his English and Episcopal stand-point (Church Hist. Vol. VI. pp. 259 sqq.). It certainly turned out to be a blunder in England, but it was a sublime blunder for a noble end, and not without important results, among which is the one mentioned in the text.

[1448] Masson, Vol. II. p. 518. Gouge's Commentary on Hebrews was republished, 1866, at Edinburgh, in 3 vols., with a memoir, in which he is called 'the father of the London ministers and the oracle of his time' (p. xii.).

[1449] See excerpts from Vol. II. of the MS. Minutes, in Mitchell's ed. of Minutes (which begin Nov. 18, 1644), p. lxxxvi.

[1450] Minutes, p. 91.

[1451] Ibid. p. 110.

[1452] Minutes, p. 110.

[1453] Ibid. p. 114.

[1454] Ibid. pp. 290, 291; Journals of the H. of Commons, Vol. IV. p. 677; and the H. of Lords, Vol. VIII. pp. 505, 588.

[1455] Minutes, p. 308; Journals of the H. of Commons, Vol. IV. p. 739; of the Lords, Vol. VIII. p. 597.

[1456] Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. V. p. 151; Minutes, p. 352. Baillie (in a letter to Spang, Jan. 20, 1647, Vol. III. p. 2) ascribes this request of Parliament to the 'retarding party,' and as a change of tactics of the opponents, and remarks that the Assembly omitted the Scripture proofs at first 'only to eschew the offense of the House, whose practice hitherto has been to enact nothing of religion on divine right or Scriptural ground, but upon their own authority alone.'

[1457] Journals, Vol. V. p. 156, and Minutes, p. 354.

[1458] The original title, 'A Confession of Faith,' was voted down by sixty-one to forty-one.--Minutes, p. 415.

[1459] Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. VII. p. 862; Mitchell, in Minutes, p. 417. Mitchell gives no information of copies of this edition.

[1460] Baillie brought a copy of the first edition, without proofs, in January (Letters, Vol. III. p. 2); Gillespie probably a copy of the second ed., with proofs, in July, when he returned. The Assembly ordered an edition of 300 copies to be printed at Edinburgh, for the use of the members.--Minutes, p. 419.

[1461] See the Acts of the Scotch Assembly and Parliament, and of the English Parliament, in Minutes, pp. 419 sqq.; in the Edinb. ed. of the Conf., 1855; and in Innes, The Law of Creeds, pp. 95 sqq.

[1462] Dr. Tuckney, one of the chief authors of the Confession and Catechisms, says: 'For the matter of imposing upon I am not guilty. In the Assembly I gave my vote with others that the Confession of Faith put out by authority should not be required to be either sworn or subscribed to--our having been burnt in the hand in that kind before; but [only] so as not to be publicly preached or written against' (quoted by M'Crie, Annals, p. 221). Baxter, also, while highly recommending the Westminster Standards, expressed the hope that 'the Assembly intended not all that long Confession and those Catechisms to be imposed as a test of Christian communion, nor to disown all that scrupled every word in it [them]. If they did, I could not have commended it for any such use, though it be useful for the instruction of families' (Sylvester's Life of Baxter, p. 122, quoted by M'Crie, p. 222). __________________________________________________________________

§ 95. Analysis of the Westminster Confession.

SOURCES.

The Westminster Confession sets forth the Calvinistic system in its scholastic maturity after it had passed through the sharp conflict with Arminianism in Holland, and as it had shaped itself in the minds of Scotch Presbyterians and English Puritans during their conflict with High-Church prelacy. The leading ideas, with the exception of the theory of the Christian Sabbath, were of Continental growth, but the form was entirely English.

The framers of the Confession were no doubt quite familiar with Continental theology; Latin was then still the theological language; the Arminian controversy had excited the greatest attention in England, and agitated the pulpit and the press for years; the English Church was well represented at the Synod of Dort; several divines of the Assembly had spent some time in Holland, where they found a hospitable refuge from persecution under Charles I., and were treated with great respect by the Dutch ministers and divines. [1463]

But while the Confession had the benefit of the Continental theology, and embodied the results of the Arminian controversy, it was not framed on the model of any Continental Confession, nor of the earlier Scottish Confessions, notwithstanding the presence and influence of the Commissioners from the Church of Scotland. On the contrary, it kept in the track of the English Articles of Religion, which the Assembly was at first directed to revise, and with which it was essentially agreed. It wished to carry on that line of development which was begun, several years before the Arminian controversy, by the framers of the Lambeth Articles (1595), and which was continued by Archbishop Ussher in the Irish Articles (1615). [1464] It is a Calvinistic completion and sharper logical statement of the doctrinal system of the Thirty-nine Articles, which stopped with the less definite Augustinian scheme, and left a considerable margin for different interpretations. In point of theological ability and fullness it is far superior to its predecessors.

The Westminster Confession agrees more particularly with the Articles which were adopted by the Protestant Church in Ireland, but afterwards set aside by Archbishop Laud through the Earl of Strafford. This is manifest in the order and arrangement, in the titles of chapters, in phraseology, and especially in the most characteristic features of Calvin's theology--the doctrine of Predestination and of the Sacraments. The resemblance is so striking that it must have been intended for the purpose of showing the essential agreement of the Assembly with the doctrinal standards of the English and Irish Reformation. Ussher himself had pursued the same course and incorporated in his work the substance of the English Articles and the full text of the Lambeth Articles. He was a doctrinal Puritan, and although he declined the invitation to a seat in the Assembly, he was highly esteemed by the members for his learning, orthodoxy, and piety. His friend, Dr. Hoyle, Professor of Divinity at Dublin, belonged to the committee which framed the Confession. [1465]

The following tables will illustrate the relation of the Westminster Confession to the preceding standards of the English and Irish Church.

WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 1647. IRISH ARTICLES. 1615. Chapter I.--Of Holy Scripture. Of Holy Scripture. VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. 5. Although there be some hard things in the Scripture, . . . yet all things necessary to be known unto everlasting salvation are clearly delivered therein; and nothing of that kind is spoken under dark mysteries in one place which is not in other places spoken more familiarly and plainly, to the capacity both of learned and unlearned. Chapter II.--Of God and of the Holy Trinity. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. I. There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, etc. 8. There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, etc. III. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity--God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. And in unity of this Godhead, there be three persons of one and the same substance, power, and eternity--the Father the Son, and the Holy Ghost. [English Art. I.] Chapter III.--Of God's Eternal Decree. Of God's Eternal Decree and Predestination. I. God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. 11. God, from all eternity, did, by his unchangeable counsel, ordain whatsoever in time should come to pass: yet so as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures, and neither the liberty nor the contingency of the second causes is taken away, but established rather. III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. 12. By the same eternal counsel God hath predestinated some unto life, and reprobated some unto death: of both which there is a certain number known only to God, which can neither be increased nor diminished. Lambeth Art. I. and III.] IV. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it can not be either increased or diminished. V. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as 13. Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed in his secret counsel to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor. 14. The cause moving God to predestinate

conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace. unto life is not the foreseeing of faith, or perseverance, or good works, or of any thing which is in the person predestinated, but only the good pleasure of God himself. For all things being ordained for the manifestation of his glory, and his glory being to appear both in the works of his mercy and of his justice, it seemed good to his heavenly wisdom to choose out a certain number towards whom he would extend his undeserved mercy, leaving the rest to be spectacles of his justice. VI. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ; are effectually called to faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. 15. Such as are predestinated unto life, be called according unto God's purpose (his Spirit working in due season) and through grace they obey the calling, they be justified freely, they be made sons of God by adoption, they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy they attain to everlasting felicity. But such as are not predestinated to salvation shall finally be condemned for their sins. [English Art. XVII.; Lambeth Art. II.] VII. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice. [Comp. Irish Art. § 14: 'leaving the rest to be spectacles of his justice.'] 32. None can come unto Christ unless it be given unto him, and unless the Father draw him. And all men are not so drawn by the Father that they may come unto the Son. Neither is there such a sufficient measure of grace vouchsafed unto every man whereby he is enabled to come unto everlasting life. [Lambeth Art. VII., VIII., IX.] VIII. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending to the will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. 17. We must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth unto us in Holy Scripture; and in our doings, that will of God is to be followed which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God. [English Art. XVII.] So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation, to all that sincerely obey the gospel. 16. The godlike consideration of predestination and our election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, etc. [English Art. XVII.] Chapter V.--Of Providence. Of the Fall of Man, etc. IV. [His providence] extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as has joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them in a manifold dispensation to his own holy ends: yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin. 28. God is not the author of sin; howbeit he doth not only permit, but also by his providence govern and order the same, guiding it in such sort by his infinite wisdom as it turneth to the manifestation of his own glory, and to the good of his elect. Chapter VI.--Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, etc. Of Original Sin. V. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated: 24. This corruption of nature doth remain even in those that are regenerated; . . . And

and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself and all the motions thereof are truly and properly sin. howsoever for Christ's sake there be no condemnation to such as are regenerate and do believe, yet doth the apostle acknowledge that in itself this concupiscence hath the nature of sin. [English Art. IX.] Chapter VIII.--Of Christ the Mediator. Of Christ, the Mediator of the Second Covenant. II. The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin: being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ; the only Mediator between God and man. 29. The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the true and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, were inseparably joined in one person, making one Christ very God and very Man. [English Art. II.] Chapter XVI.--Of Good Works. Of Sanctification and Good Works. I. Good works are only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention. 42. The works which God would have his people to walk in are such as he hath commanded in his Holy Scripture, and not such works as men have devised out of their own brain, of a blind zeal and devotion, without the warrant of the Word of God. Chapter XVII.--Of the Perseverance of the Saints. Of Justification and Faith. I. They whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace; but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved. 38. A true, lively, justifying faith, and the sanctifying Spirit of God, is not extinguished, nor vanisheth away, in the regenerate, either finally or totally. [Lambeth Art. V.] Chapter XXI.--Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day. Of the Service of God. II. Religious worship is to be given to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and to him alone. 54. All religious worship ought to be given to God alone. VIII. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men . . . do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy. 56. The first day of the week, which is the Lord's day, is wholly to be dedicated unto the service of God; and therefore we are bound therein to rest from our common and daily business, and to bestow that leisure upon holy exercises, both public and private. Chapter XXIII.--Of the Civil Magistrate. Of the Civil Magistrate. III. The Civil Magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and 58. . . . Neither do we give unto him hereby the administration of the Word and sacraments,

sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. or the power of the keys, etc. [See English Art. XXXVII.] Chapter XXV.--Of the Church. Of the Church, etc. I. The Catholic or Universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ, the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him who filleth all in all. 68. There is but one Catholic Church, out of which there is no salvation: containing the universal company of all the saints that ever were, are, or shall be gathered together in one body, under one head, Christ Jesus. Chapter XXVIII.--Of Baptism. Of Baptism. I. Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church; but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ to walk in newness of life. 89. Baptism is not only an outward sign of our profession, . . . but much more a sacrament of our admission into the Church, sealing unto us our new birth (and consequently our justification, adoption, and sanctification) by the communion which we have with Jesus Christ. [English Art. XXVII.] Chapter XXIX.--Of the Lord's Supper Of the Lord's Supper I. The sacrament of his body and blood . . . for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death, the sealing all the benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him. 92. The Lord's Supper is not only a sign, but much more a sacrament of our preservation in the Church, sealing unto us our spiritual nourishment and continual growth in Christ. [English Art. XXVIII.] VII. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the bread and wine, yet as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to the outward senses. 94. But in the inward and spiritual part the same body and blood is really and substantially presented unto all those who have grace to receive the Son of God, even to all those that believe in his name. And unto such as in this manner do worthily and with faith repair unto the Lord's table, the body and blood of Christ is not only signified and offered, but also truly exhibited and communicated. VIII. Although ignorant and wicked men receive the outward elements in this sacrament, yet they receive not the thing signified thereby; but by their unworthy coming thereunto are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, to their own damnation. Wherefore, all ignorant and ungodly persons, as they are unfit to enjoy communion with him, so are they unworthy of the Lord's table, and can not, without great sin against Christ, while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries, or be admitted thereto. 96. The wicked, and such as want a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly (as St. Augustine speaketh) press with their teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they made partakers' of Christ; but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing. [English Art. XXIX.]

CONTENTS.

Neal says: 'Though all the divines were in the anti-Arminian scheme, yet some had a greater latitude than others. I find in my MS. the dissent of several members against some expressions relating to reprobation, to the imputation of the active as well as passive obedience of Christ, and to several passages in the chapter on liberty of conscience and Church discipline; but the Confession, as far as related to articles of faith, passed the Assembly and Parliament by a very great majority.' [1466] Neal does not specify the differences to which he alludes. Since the publication of the Minutes we are enabled to ascertain them, at least to some extent, from the meagre and broken reports of debates on election and reprobation, on the fall of Adam, on the Covenants, on providence, free-will, creation, justification, sanctification, the sacraments, and other topics. In most cases the fact is simply mentioned that there was a debate; in others brief extracts of speeches are given which reveal minor differences of views, though not of parties, or even of schools. The debates on Church government were much more serious and heated. The harmony of so many scholars from all parts of England and Scotland, on a whole scheme of divinity, is truly surprising, and accounts for their sanguine hopes of securing a doctrinal uniformity in the three kingdoms.

The Confession consists of thirty-three chapters, which cover, in natural order, all the leading articles of the Christian faith from the creation to the final judgment. It exhibits the consensus of the Reformed Churches on the Continent and in England and Scotland, which was one of the objects of Parliament intrusted to the Assembly.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Following the precedent of most of the Continental Reformed Confessions and the Irish Articles, the Westminster formulary properly begins with the Bible, on which all our theology must be based, and sets forth its divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency as an infallible rule of faith and practice, in opposition both to Romanism, which elevates ecclesiastical tradition to the dignity of a joint rule of faith, and to Rationalism, which teaches the sufficiency of natural reason. It excludes the Jewish Apocrypha entirely from the Canon, while in the English and Irish Articles they are at least enumerated, though distinguished from the canonical books. [1467] The Confession gives to reason, or the light of nature, its proper place, distinguishes between the original Scripture and the translations, maintains the true exegetical principle of the self-interpretation of Scripture in the light of the Spirit that inspired it, and carefully avoids committing itself to any mechanical or magical or any other particular theory concerning the mode and degrees of inspiration, or obstructing the investigation of critical questions concerning the text and the authorship (as distinct from the canonicity) of the several books. [1468] It rests the authority of the Bible on its own intrinsic excellence and the internal testimony of the Spirit rather than the external testimony of the Church, however valuable this is as a continuous witness. [1469]

No other Protestant symbol has such a clear, judicious, concise, and exhaustive statement of this fundamental article of Protestantism. It has been pronounced equal in ability to the Tridentine decree on justification. [1470] It may more aptly be compared to the Tridentine decree on Scripture and tradition (Sess. IV.) and the recent Vatican decree on the dogmatic constitution of the Catholic faith (Sess. III.), as far as this relates to reason and revelation, and may be regarded as the best Protestant counterpart of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the rule of faith. The Confession plants itself exclusively on the Bible platform, without in the least depreciating the invaluable aid of human learning--patristic, scholastic, and modern --in its own proper place, as a means to an end and an aid in ascertaining the true sense of the mind of the Holy Spirit, who through his own inspired Word must alternately decide all questions of the Christian faith and duty. It is clear that Protestantism must sink or swim with this principle. Criticism, philosophy, and science may sweep away human traditions, confessions, creeds, and other outworks, but they can never destroy the fortress of God's Word, which liveth and abideth forever.

THEOLOGY AND CHRISTOLOGY.

Ch. II., 'Of the Trinity,' and Ch. XVIII., 'Of Christ the Mediator,' contain one of the best statements of the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity and of the Chalcedonian Christology, as held by all orthodox Churches. On these articles the evangelical Protestant Confessions are entirely agreed.

PREDESTINATION.

Ch. III., 'Of God's Eternal Decree,' [1471] Ch. V., 'Of Providence,' Ch. IX., 'Of Free Will,' and Ch. XVIII., 'Of the Perseverance of the Saints,' are closely connected. They present a logical chain of ideas which make up what is technically called 'the Calvinistic system,' as developed first by Calvin himself against Romanism, then in Holland and England against Arminianism.

This system had at that time a powerful hold upon the serious religious minds in England and Scotland, including many leading Episcopal divines (not of the Laudian type) who otherwise had no sympathy with Puritanism, and ridiculed it with bitter sarcasm, like Dr. South. Even the authorized English version of the Bible (1611) has been charged by Arminians with a Calvinistic bias, while Calvinists have never complained of any defect in this respect. [1472] The only question in the Assembly was as to the logical extent to which they should carry the doctrine of predestination in a confessional statement. The more consistent and rigorous scheme of supralapsarianism had its advocates in Westminster as well as in Dort, and was favored by Dr. Twisse, the Prolocutor, who followed Beza and Gomarus to the giddy abyss of including the fall itself in the absolute eternal decree as a necessary means for the manifestation of God's justice; but the infralapsarian (or sublapsarian) scheme of Augustine decidedly triumphed. Supralapsarianism has always remained only a private speculation.

The Westminster Confession goes, indeed, beyond the two Helvetic Confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Scotch Confession, and the Thirty-nine Articles; but it goes not a whit further than the Canons of Dort (which had the approval of the delegates of King James), the Lambeth Articles, and the Irish Articles. [1473] It teaches really no more on predestination than the great Catholic Augustine had taught in the fourth century, as well as two archbishops of Canterbury--Anselm in the eleventh, and Bradwardine in the fourteenth century. [1474] It gives, however, a clearer logical shape and greater prominence to the doctrine in the system by placing it among the first articles. It puts the fall with its sinful consequences only under a permissive (as distinct from a causal or effective) decree, and emphatically exempts God from all authorship of sin. [1475] It does not teach the horrible and blasphemous doctrine (so often unjustly and unscrupulously charged upon Calvinism) that God from eternity foreordained men for sin and damnation; but it does teach that out of the fallen mass of corruption God elected a definite number of men to salvation and 'passed by' the rest, leaving them to the just punishment of their sins.

This is severe and harsh enough, but very different from a decree of eternal reprobation, which term nowhere occurs in the Confession. The difference is made more clear from the debates in the 'Minutes.' Several prominent members, as Calamy, Arrowsmith, Vines, Seaman, who took part in the preparation of the doctrinal standards, sympathized with the hypothetical universalism of the Saumur school (Cameron and Amyrauld) and with the moderate position of Davenant and the English delegates to the Synod of Dort. They expressed this sympathy on the floor of the Assembly, as well as on other occasions. They believed in a special effective election and final perseverance of the elect (as a necessary means to a certain end), but they held at the same time that God sincerely intends to save all men; that Christ intended to die, and actually died, for all men; and that the difference is not in the intention and offer on the part of God, but in the acceptance and appropriation on the part of men. [1476]

Another important and modifying feature is that the Confession, far from teaching fatalism or necessitarianism, expressly recognizes the freedom of will, and embraces in the divine decrees 'the liberty or contingency of second causes' (Ch. III., 1). [1477] Herein it agrees with Ussher, Bullinger, and Calvin himself, and favorably differs from the Lutheran Formula of Concord, which (following the strong expressions of Luther and Flacius) unphilosophically represents the human will before conversion to be as passive as a dead log or stone. The Confession makes no attempt to solve the apparent contradiction between divine sovereignty and human freedom, but it at least recognizes both sides of the problem, and gives a basis for the assertion that God's absolute decrees have no causal effect upon the sinful actions of men, for which they alone are responsible.

With the Calvinistic particularism the limitation of redemption [1478] is closely connected. The difference is chiefly one of logical consistency. It refers to the efficiency of redemption or its actual application. All were agreed as to its absolute sufficiency or its infinite intrinsic value. All could subscribe the formula that Christ died sufficienter pro omnibus, efficaciter pro electis. Dr. Reynolds, who seems to have defended the more rigorous view, said in the debate: 'The Synod intended no more than to declare the sufficiency of the death of Christ; it is pretium in se, of sufficient value to all--nay, ten thousand worlds.' [1479]

Nevertheless, behind the logical question is the far more important theological and practical question concerning the extent of the divine intention or purpose, viz., whether this is to be measured by God's love and the intrinsic value of Christ's merits, or by the actual result. On this question there was a difference of opinion among the divines, as the 'Minutes' show, and this difference seems to have been left open by the framers of the Confession. On the one hand, the closing sentences of Ch. III. 6 ('neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only'), and Ch. VIII. 8 ('To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, he doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same'), favor a limited redemption, unless the word redeemed be understood in a narrower sense, so as to be equivalent to saved, and to imply the subjective application or actual execution. [1480] On the other hand, Ch. VII. 3 teaches that under the covenant of grace the Lord 'freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.' This looks like a compromise between conditional universalism taught in the first clause, and particular election taught in the second. This is in substance the theory of the school of Saumur, which was first broached by a Scotch divine, Cameron (d.1625), and more fully developed by his pupil Amyrault, between A.D. 1630 and 1650, and which was afterwards condemned in the Helvetic Consensus Formula (1675). [1481]

ANTHROPOLOGY.

Chapters VI. to IX. present the usual doctrines of the Evangelical Reformed (Augustinian) anthropology, with the new feature of the Covenants. The doctrine of covenants belongs to a different scheme of theology from that of the divine decrees. It is biblical and historical rather than scholastic and predestinarian. It views man from the start as a free responsible agent, not as a machine for the execution of absolute divine decrees.

Ch. VII. distinguishes two covenants of God with man, the covenant of works made with Adam and his posterity on condition of perfect and personal obedience, and a covenant of grace made in Christ with believers, offering free salvation on condition of faith in him. The covenant of grace again is administered under two dispensations, the law and the gospel. In the Old Testament it was administered by promises, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances which forshadowed the future Saviour. Under the New Testament the covenant of grace is dispensed through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments. There are therefore not two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations.

The Scotch Commissioners. (part 2)

The exegetical arguments for the covenant of works are derived chiefly from Gal. iii. 10, 12, 21; Rom. iii. 20; x. 5; but these passages refer to the covenant of the law of Moses, not to a covenant in the primitive state, and lead rather to a distinction between the covenant of the law (which, however, was also a covenant of promise) and the covenant of the gospel (the fulfillment of the law and promise). [1482]

The doctrine of covenants is usually traced to Dutch origin; but it was inaugurated after the middle of the sixteenth century by Caspar Olevianus (d. 1587), one of the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, in a work on 'the Nature of God's Covenant of Mercy with the Elect,' on the basis of Jer. xxxviii. 31-34; Heb. viii. 8-12. [1483] Dr. Mitchell says that the Confession teaches no more on this subject than had been taught before by Rollock in Scotland and Cartwright in England. It is not probable, though not impossible, that the more fully developed theory of the covenants by John Coccejus was already known in England at the time when the Confession was framed. Coccejus likewise distinguishes the foedus operum or naturæ in the state of innocence, and a foedus gratiæ, after the fall, but he views the latter under three stages, the patriarchal or Abrahamic (oeconomia ante legem), the Mosaic (oeconomia sub lege and the Christian (oeconomia post legem). [1484]

SOTERIOLOGY.

Chapters X. to XVIII. contain the best confessional statement of the evangelical doctrines of justification, adoption, sanctification, saving faith, good works, and assurance of salvation. The statement of justification by faith is as guarded and discriminating on the Protestant side of the question as the Tridentine statement of justification by faith and works is on the Roman Catholic side.

ECCLESIOLOGY.

Chapters XXV. and XXVI. In the doctrine of the Church the Protestant distinction between the invisible and visible Church is first clearly formulated, and the purest Churches under heaven are admitted to be 'subject to mixture and error.' Christ is declared to be the only head of the Church--a most important principle, for which the Church of Scotland has contended faithfully against the encroachments of the civil power through years of trial and persecution. On the subject of the independence and self-government of the Church in her own proper sphere, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland (as also the Dissenting Churches in England, and all American Churches) are immeasurably in advance of all the Protestant Churches on the Continent, and even of the Church of England, which is still dependent on the crown and the will of a Parliament composed of professors of all religions and no religion.

But while the Confession claims full freedom for the Church in the management of her own affairs, it claims no authority or superiority over the State like the hierarchical principle. It declares the Pope of Rome, who pretends to be the supreme head of the Church on earth, to be 'that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ and all that is called God' (2 Thess. ii. 3, 4, 8, 9). [1485]

The chapter on the Communion of Saints urges the duty of cherishing and promoting union and harmony with all Christians of whatever part of the visible Church. [1486]

THE SACRAMENTS.

The doctrine of the Sacraments in general, and Baptism, and the Lord's Supper in particular, in Chs. XXVII.-XXIX., is the Calvinistic theory which we have already discussed elsewhere. [1487] It is the same which is taught in all the Reformed Confessions--Continental, Anglican, and Scotch. This is admitted by candid scholars. 'On the doctrine of the sacraments,' says Marsden, an English Episcopalian, 'we do not perceive a shade of difference from the teaching of the Church of England.' [1488] And Dr. Mitchell, a Scotch Presbyterian, says: 'The teaching of the Confession on the Lord's Supper is the teaching of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, of Hooker, Ussher, and many others, . . . as well as of Knox, who from his long residence in England, and with English exiles on the Continent, had thoroughly caught up their warm and catholic utterances. This teaching is as far removed from the bare remembrance theory attributed to the early Swiss Reformers as from the consubstantiation of Luther and the local or supra-local presence contended for by Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics. It is so spiritual, yet so really satisfying, that even some High-Churchmen have owned that it would be difficult to find a better directory in the study of questions relating to this sacrament than is supplied in the Confession of Faith.' [1489]

THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

Ch. XXI., ' Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day,' must be mentioned as (next to the Irish Articles) the first symbolical indorsement of what may be called the Puritan theory of the Christian Sabbath which was not taught by the Reformers and the Continental Confessions, but which has taken deep root in England, Scotland, and the United States, and has become the basis of a far stricter observance of the Lord's day than exists in any other country. This observance is one of the most prominent national and social features of Anglo-American Christianity, and at once strikes the attention of every traveler. [1490]

The way was gradually prepared for it. Calvin's view of the authority of the fourth commandment was stricter than Luther's, Knox's view stricter than Calvin's, and the Puritan view stricter than Knox's. [1491] The Prayer-Book of the Church of England, by incorporating the responsive reading of the Decalogue in the regular service, kept alive in the minds of the people the perpetual obligation of the fourth commandment, and helped to create a public sentiment within the Church of England favorable to the Puritan theory, although practically great desecration prevailed during Elizabeth's reign. The 'judicious' Hooker, who was no Puritan, says: 'We are bound to account the sanctification of one day in seven a duty which God's immutable law doth exact forever.' [1492]

Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the Sabbath question assumed the importance and dignity of a national movement, and of a practical reformation which traveled from England to Scotland and from both countries to North America. The chief impulse to this movement was given in 1595 by Dr. Nicolas Bownd (or Bound), [1493] a learned Puritan clergyman of Norton in Suffolk. He is not the originator, but the systematizer or first clear expounder of the Puritan theory of the Christian Sabbath, namely, that the Sabbath or weekly day of holy rest is a primitive institution of the benevolent Creator for the benefit of man, and that the fourth commandment as to its substance (that is, the keeping holy one day out of seven) is as perpetual in design and as binding upon the Christians as any other of the Ten Commandments, of which Christ said that not 'one jot or one tittle' shall pass away till all be fulfilled. [1494]

The work in which this theory was ably and earnestly vindicated proved to be a tract for the times. Heylin, a High-Church opponent, says 'that in a very little time it grew the most bewitching error, the most popular deceit that had ever been set on foot in the Church of England.' [1495] Fuller dates from it 'the more solemn and strict observance of the Lord's day,' and gives the following description of the effect produced by it:

'It is almost incredible how taking this doctrine was, partly because of its own purity, and partly for the eminent piety of such persons as maintained it, so that the Lord's day, especially in corporations, began to be precisely kept, people becoming a law to themselves, forbearing such sports as [were] yet by statute permitted; yea, many rejoicing at their own restraint therein. On this day the stoutest fencer laid down the buckler, the most skilful archer unbent his bow, counting all shooting besides the mark; May-games and Morris-dances grew out of request, and good reason that bells should be silenced from gingling about men's legs, if their very ringing in steeples were adjudged unlawful; some of them were ashamed of their former pleasures, like children which, grown bigger, blushing themselves out of their rattles and whistles. Others forbore them for fear of their superiors, and many left them off out of a politic compliance, lest otherwise they should be accounted licentious.

'Yet learned men were much divided in their judgments about these Sabbatarian doctrines. Some embraced them as ancient truths consonant to Scripture, long disused and neglected, now seasonably revived for the increase of piety. Others conceived them grounded on a wrong bottom, but because they tended to the manifest advance of religion it was pity to oppose them, seeing none have just reason to complain being deceived into their own good. But a third sort flatly fell out with these positions, as galling men's necks with a Jewish yoke, against the liberty of Christians: that Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, had removed the rigor thereof, and allowed men lawful recreations; that this doctrine put an unequal lustre on the Sunday, on set purpose to eclipse all other holy days, to the derogation of the authority of the Church; that the strict observance was set up out of faction to be a character of difference, to brand all for libertines who did not entertain it.' [1496]

The Puritan Sabbath theory was denounced and assailed by the rising school of High-Churchism as a Sabbatarian heresy and a cunningly concealed attack on the authority of the Church of England, by substituting the Jewish Sabbath for the Christian Sunday and all the Church festivals. [1497] Attempts were made by Archbishop Whitgift in 1599, and by Chief Justice Popham in 1600, to suppress Bownd's book and to destroy all the copies, but 'the more it was called in the more it was called on;' its price was doubled, and 'though the book's wings were clipped from flying abroad in print, it ran the faster from friend to friend in transcribed copies, and the Lord's day, in most places, was most strictly observed. The more liberty people were offered the less they used it. . . . It was sport for them to refrain from sports. . . . Scarce any comment, catechism, or controversy was set forth by the stricter divines, wherein this doctrine (the diamond in this ring) was not largely pressed and proved; so that, as one saith, the Sabbath itself had no rest.' [1498]

At last King James I. brought his royal authority to bear against the Puritan Sabbatarianism so called, and issued the famous 'Book of Sports,' May 24, 1618, which was afterwards republished, with an additional order, by his son, Charles I., no doubt by advice of Archbishop Laud, Oct. 18, 1633. [1499] This curious production formally authorizes and commends the desecration of the evening of the Lord's day by dancing, leaping, fencing, and other 'lawful recreations,' on condition of observing the earlier part by strict outward conformity to the worship of the Church of England. [1500] The professed object of this indulgence to the common people was to check the progress of the Papists and Puritans (or 'Precisians'), and to make 'the bodies more able for war' when his majesty should have 'occasion to use them.' The court set the example of desecration by balls, masquerades, and plays on Sunday evening; and the rustics repaired from the house of worship to the ale-house or the village green to dance around the Maypole and to shoot at butts. To complete the folly, King James ordered the book to be read in every parish church, and threatened clergymen who refused to do so with severe punishment. King Charles repeated the order. But in both cases it became the source of great trouble and confusion. [1501] Several bishops disapproved of it. Archbishop Abbot (the Puritan predecessor of Laud) flatly forbade it to be read at Croydon. The Lord Mayor of London commanded the king's own carriages to be stopped as they were passing through the city on a Sunday. James raged and swore, and countermanded the prohibition. The Lord Mayor yielded, with this answer: 'While I was in my power I did my duty, but that being taken away, it is my duty to obey.' Some clergymen, after reading the book from the pulpit, followed it up by a sermon against it, or by reading the fourth commandment--'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy'--and added, 'This is the law of God, the other the injunction of man.' Those who refused to read the royal Book of Sports were suspended from office and benefice, or even excommunicated by Laud and his sympathizing fellow-bishops. [1502] Many left England, and joined

'The pilgrim bands, who crossed the sea to keep

Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone,

In his wide temple of the wilderness."

This persecution of conscientious ministers for obeying God rather than men gave moral strength to the cause of Sabbath observance, and rooted it deeper in the affections of the people. It was one of the potent causes which overwhelmed Charles and Laud in common ruin. The sober and serious part of the nation were struck with a kind of horror that they should be invited by the highest authorities in Church and State to destroy the effect of public worship by a desecration of a portion of the day consecrated to religion.

On the Sunday question Puritanism achieved at last a permanent triumph, and left its trace upon the Church of England and Scotland, which reappeared after the licentious period of the Restoration. For, although the Church of England, as a body, never committed itself to the Puritan Sabbath theory, it adopted at least the practice of a much stricter observance than had previously obtained under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, and would never exchange it for the Continental laxity, with its disastrous effects upon the attendance at public worship and the morals of the people.

The Westminster Confession, without entering into details or sanctioning the incidental excesses of the Puritan practice, represents the Christian rest-day under its threefold aspect: (1) as a divine law of nature (jus divinum naturale), rooted in the constitution of man, and hence instituted (together with marriage) at the creation, in the state of innocence, for the perpetual benefit of body and soul; (2) as a positive moral law (jus divinum positivum), given through Moses, with reference to the primitive institution ('Remember') and to the typical redemption of Israel from bondage; (3) as the commemoration of the new creation and finished redemption by the resurrection of Christ; hence the change from the last to the first day of the week, and its designation 'the Lord's day' (dies Dominica). And it requires the day to be wholly devoted to the exercises of public and private worship and the duties of necessity and mercy.

To this doctrine and practice the Presbyterian, Congregational, and other Churches in Scotland, England, and America have faithfully adhered to this day. Yea, twenty-seven years before it was formulated by the learned divines of Westminster, the Pilgrim Fathers of America had transplanted both theory and practice first to Holland, and, finding them unsafe there, to the wild soil of New England. Two days after their landing from the Mayflower (Dec. 22, 1620), forgetting the pressing necessities of physical food and shelter, the dreary cold of winter, the danger threatening from wild beasts and roaming savages, they celebrated their first Sunday in America on a barren rock and under the stormy sky of heaven, and, in the exercise of the general priesthood of believers, they offered the sacrifices of contrite hearts and the praises of devout lips to their God and Saviour, on his own appointed day of holy rest; not dreaming that they were the bearers of the hopes and destinies of a mighty future and the founders of a republic stretching across a continent and embracing millions of intelligent Christian freemen. [1503]

The political articles of the Confession touching the power of the civil magistrate and the relation of Church and State will be discussed hereafter (§ 97) in connection with the subject of religious toleration and the changes which have been introduced in later editions. __________________________________________________________________

[1463] Dr. M'Crie (Annals, p. 177) asserts without proof that the 'Westm. Conf. bears unmistakably the stamp of the Dutch theology in the sharp distinctions, logical forms, and judicial terms into which the reformed doctrine had gradually moulded itself under the red heat of the Arminian and Socinian controversies.' This is an error if we look to the direct source. See below.

[1464] See pp. 658 and 662.

[1465] This agreement was first brought to light and set forth in detail by Prof. Mitchell, of St. Andrews, in the pamphlet above quoted, and also in the Introduction to the Minutes, p. xlvii.

[1466] Vol. II. p. 41.

[1467] The Lutheran symbols make no such distinction and give no list of the canonical books. They have no separate article on the Scriptures at all, beyond the important statement in the introduction to the Formula of Concord.

[1468] Thus we find that the Epistle to the Hebrews is named separately, and not included in 'fourteen Epistles of Paul,' as in the Belgic Confession. Canonicity is not necessarily dependent on a traditional view of authorship or genuineness.

[1469] Ch. I. 5: 'We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture, and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.'

[1470] While arguing against creeds and councils, Dean Stanley (in the Contemp. Rev. for Aug. 1874, p. 499) writes: 'Is there any single theological question which any council or synod has argued and decided with an ability equal to that of any of the great theologians, lay or clerical? The nearest approaches to it are the chapters on Justification in the Decrees of Trent, and on the Bible in the Westminster Confession.' Comp. also the remarks of Dr. Mitchell, Introd. to Minutes, p. xlix.

[1471] The English and Scotch editions use the singular, some American editions the plural (as in the Catechisms). There was a dispute in the Assembly about decree and decrees. Several members were opposed to dividing the one, all-comprehending decree of God. Seaman said: 'All the odious doctrine of the Arminians is from their distinguishing of the decrees, but our divines say they are one and the same decree.' Reynolds differed. See Minutes, p. 151. But both Catechisms in all editions have decrees (comprehended under the one purpose of God; see Shorter Catechism, Quest. 7).

[1472] The charge derives some plausibility from the fact that the supralapsarian Beza, by his Greek Testament and his Latin translation and notes, exerted a marked influence on the translators. It is supported chiefly by three passages. In Matt. xx. 23, the words 'it shall be given' are unnecessarily inserted (after the precedent of the Geneva version). In Acts ii. 47, we read, 'The Lord added to the Church such as should be saved,' instead of 'such as were being saved, or in the way of salvation' (tous sozomenous, not tous sothesomenous). In Heb. x. 38--'Now the just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him'--any man is inserted, with Beza ('si quis se subduxerit'), to distinguish the subject of huposteiletai from the dikaios of the first clause, and to evade an argument against the perseverance of saints. But the case here is doubtful.

[1473] See the comparative table, pp. 762, 768. Ussher adhered to his views on predestination, which he had expressed in the Irish Articles. In his 'Method of the Christian Religion,' written in his youth, but revised and republished shortly before his death, he has even a stronger passage on reprobation than the Westminster Confession, viz., 'Did God, then, before he made man, determine to save some and reject others? A. Yes, surely; before they had done either good or evil, God in his eternal counsel set some apart upon whom he would in time show the riches of his mercy, and determined to withhold the same from others, upon whom he would show the severity of his justice.' See Vol. XI. of his Works; and Mitchell, p. liv. note.

[1474] Bradwardine's treatise, De causa Dei adversus Pelagium, which leads even to supralapsarianism, was republished in London in 1618 by Archbishop Abbot, the Calvinistic predecessor of the anti Calvinistic Laud.

[1475] Ch. V. 4: 'God, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.'

[1476] Calamy said, in a sermon before the House of Commons: 'It is most certain that God is not the cause of any man's damnation. He found us sinners in Adam, but made none sinners.' In the debate on redemption in the Assembly, he stated: 'I am far from universal redemption in the Arminian sense, but I hold with our divines in the Synod of Dort that Christ did pay a price for all, [with] absolute intention for the elect, [with] conditional intention for the reprobate in case they do believe; that all men should be salvabiles, non obstante lapsu Adami; that Jesus Christ did not only die sufficiently for all, but God did intend, in giving of Christ, and Christ in giving himself did intend, to put all men in a state of salvation in case they do obey.' . . . 'This universality of redemption does neither intrude upon either doctrine of special election or special grace' (Minutes, p. 152). 'The difference is not in the offer, but in the application. For the word world [in John iii. 16] signifies the whole world' (p. 156). 'It can not be meant of the elect because of that whosoever believeth, and Mark xvi., "Preach the Gospel to every creature"' (p. 154). 'In the point of election I am for special election, and for reprobation I am for massa corrupta; . . . there is ea administratio of grace to the reprobate that they do willfully damn themselves' (p. 153). Seaman said: 'All in the first Adam were made liable to damnation, so all are liable to salvation in the second Adam. Every man was damnnabilis, so is every man salvabilis' (p. 154). Dr. Mitchell (pp. lvi. sqq.) shows that Arrowsmith, Gataker, and other members of the Assembly, in their private writings, agreed with Calamy. His interpretation of kosmos, in John iii. 16, is indeed the only tenable one, and seems to be favored by the exegetical tact of Calvin himself (in loc.), for Calvin the exegete is more fair and free than Calvin the theologian. Dr. Arrowsmith, who was a member of the Committees on the Confession and on the Catechisms, in his explanation of Rom. ix. 22, 23, justly presses the important difference between the passive katertismena and the active proetoimasen 'I desire,' he says, 'to have it punctually observed that the vessels of wrath are only said to be fitted to destruction, without naming by whom--God, Satan, or themselves; whereas, on the other side, God himself is expressly said to have prepared his chosen vessels of mercy unto glory. Which was purposely done (as I humbly conceive) to intimate a remarkable difference between election and preterition, in that election is a proper cause not only of salvation itself, but of all the graces which have any causal tendency thereunto, and therefore God is said to prepare his elect to glory; whereas negative reprobation is no proper cause either of damnation itself or of the sin that bringeth it, but an antecedent only; wherefore the non-elect are indeed said to be fitted to that destruction which their sins in conclusion bring upon them, but not by God. I call it a remarkable difference, because where it is once rightly apprehended and truly believed, it sufficeth to stop the mouth of one of those greatest calumnies and odiums which are usually cast upon our doctrine of predestination, viz., that God made sundry of his creatures on purpose to damn them--a thing which the rhetoric of our adversaries is wont to blow up to the highest pitch of aggravation. But it is soon blown away by such as can tell them, in the words of the excellent Dr. Davenant, "It is true that the elect are severally created to the end and intent that they may be glorified together with their head, Christ Jesus; but for the non-elect, we can not truly say that they are created to the end that they may be tormented with the devil and his angels. No man is created by God with a nature and quality fitting him to damnation. Yea, neither in the state of his innocency nor in the state of the fall and his corruption doth he receive any thing from God which is a proper and fit means of bringing him to his damnation."'--Chain of Principles, pp. 335, 336, etc., edition 1659 (quoted by Mitchell, p. lxi.).

[1477] Comp. Ch. IX. 1: 'God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil (Matt. xvii. 12; Deut. xxx. 19).

[1478] The term atonement is not used in the Confession. The English Bible exceptionally renders Rom. v. 11, katallage (reconciliation), by atonement, which in its old sense (=at-one-ment) means reconciliation, but is now equivalent to expiation, satisfaction (hilasmos). Redemption (apolutrosis) is a wider term. This distinction should be kept in view in the explanation of the Confession.

[1479] Minutes, p. 153. The ablest modern defendants of a limited atonement, Drs. Cunningham and Hodge (see his Theology, Vol. II. pp. 544 sqq.), are as emphatic on the absolute sufficiency as Reynolds. Their arguments are chiefly logical; but logic depends on the premises, and is a two-edged sword which may be turned against them as well. For if the atonement be limited in design, it must be limited in the offer; or if unlimited in offer, the offer made to the non-elect must be insincere and hypocritical, which is inconsistent with the truthfulness and goodness of God. Every Calvinist preaches on the assumption that the offer of salvation is truly and sincerely extended to all his hearers, and that it is their own fault if they are not saved.

[1480] Compare the remarks of Mitchell, p. lvii., who considers the language of the Confession in Ch. III. compatible with the liberal view, while the other passage, strictly construed, excludes it, unless 'redemption' be there taken in the sense of Baxter, as meaning 'that special redemption proper to the elect which was accompanied with an intention of actual application of the saving benefits in time.' The difference of views came up again in the debate on the 68th question of the Larger Catechism. See Minutes, pp. 369, 392, 393.

[1481] See pp. 480 sqq.

[1482] Later federalists based the primitive covenant of works on Hos. vi. 7. See p. 484.

[1483] De substantia foederis gratuiti, etc. See a German version in Sudhoff's Olevianus und Ursinus (Elberfeld, 1857), pp. 573 sqq.

[1484] Coccejus, or Koch, was at first Professor in Bremen (his native place), then at Franeker, 1636, and last at Leyden, 1649, where he died, 1669. His chief work, Summa doctrinæ de foedere et testamento Dei, appeared in 1648 (a year after the Westminster Conf.) and again in 1653. It was the first attempt of a biblical and exegetical theology in distinction from the scholastic orthodoxy which then prevailed in Holland. Coccejus was denounced by the orthodox as a Judaizing and Pelagianizing heretic. Comp. the article Coccejus and his School, by Dr. Ebrard. in Herzog's Real-Encykl. Vol. II. pp. 742 sqq.

[1485] This statement, which is made also in other Protestant Confessions and in the Irish Articles (No. 80; see Vol. III. p. 540), does not unchurch the Church of Rome, or declare her ordinances invalid; for Antichrist sits in the temple of God, and there is a material difference between the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, as there is between the Jewish hierarchy and the people of Israel.

[1486] Presbyterians therefore act in perfect consistency with their Confession if they take a leading part in all Bible Societies, Tract Societies, the Evangelical Alliance, and other catholic societies. They are among the most liberal of orthodox denominations in the support of these societies.

[1487] See pp. 281, 376, 455, 601, 639, 641, 645.

[1488] History of the Later Puritans, p. 84. He then quotes the questions of the Shorter Catechism on the Sacraments.

[1489] Introduction to Minutes, p. lxviii.

[1490] The most recent manifestation of the national American sentiment was the closing of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia (1876) on the Lord's day.

[1491] There is a tradition that Knox once called on Calvin on Sunday, and found him enjoying the recreation of bowling on a green. Knox himself on one occasion had one or two friends taking supper with him on Sunday night, and no doubt considered this innocent (see Randolph's letter to Cecil, Nov. 30, 1562, quoted by Hessey, Bampton Lectures on Sunday, Lond. 1860, p. 270). On the other hand, it is a fact that the designation of 'Sabbath' for Sunday, and the enumeration of 'the breaking of the Sabbath' among the grosser sins, originated with Knox, or at all events in Scotland at his time. The First Book of Discipline, which was drawn up by Knox and five other ministers, abolishes Christmas, Circumcision, and Epiphany, 'because they have no assurance in God's Word,' but enjoins the observance of Sunday in these words: 'The Sabbath must be kept strictly in all towns, both forenoon and afternoon, for hearing of the Word; at afternoon upon the Sabbath, the Catechism shall be taught, the children examined, and the baptism ministered. Public prayers shall be used upon the Sabbath, as well afternoon as before, when sermons can not be had.' The third General Assembly resolved, July 4, 1562, to petition the queen for the punishing of Sabbath-breaking and all the vices which are 'commanded to be punished by the law of God, and yet not by the law of the realm.' Similar acts occur in the Assemblies of 1575, 1590, and 1596. See Gilfillan's work on the Sabbath, and Appendix D to Mitchell's tract on the Westminster Confession, pp. 53 sqq.

[1492] Eccles. Polity, Bk. V. ch. 70, sec. 9. The fifth book came out in 1597, two years after Bownd's book. Ussher, Leighton, Pearson, Beveridge, Cecil, and other leading divines of the Church of England take the same ground on the perpetuity of the fourth commandment, and so far agree with the Puritan theory. But the Puritan practice in Scotland and New England often runs into Judaizing excesses.

[1493] He was a graduate of Cambridge, was suspended with others in 1583 for some act of non-conformity, and died in 1607. Isaac Walton states (in his Life of Hooker) that he was offered by Whitgift the mastership of the Temple, but this seems inconsistent with the Archbishop's hostility to his book. Bownd wrote also The Holy Exercise of Fasting (1604); A Storehouse of Comfort for the Afflicted (1604); and a sermon on the Unbelief of Thomas for the Comfort of all who desire to believe, which armeth us against Despair in the Hour of Death (1608). There is a biographical sketch of Bownd in Brook's Lives of the Puritans, Vol. II. pp. 171-176.

[1494] The first edition of Bownd's book appeared in 1595, and was dedicated to the Earl of Essex (see the title in Vol. V. p. 211 of Fuller's Church History, Brewer's ed.). The second and enlarged edition of 1606 was dedicated to the Bishop of Norwich and the Dean of Ely, and bears the following characteristic title (which somewhat differs from the title of the first): 'Sabbathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti: or, The True Doctrine of the Sabbath, held and practised of the Church of God, both before and under the Law, and in the time of the Gospel: Plainly laid forth and soundly proved by testimonies both of Holy Scripture and also of old and new Ecclesiastical Writers, Fathers and Councils, and Laws of all sorts, both civil, canon, and common. Declaring first from what things God would have us straitly to rest upon the Lord's day, and then by what means we ought publicly and privately to sanctify the same. Together with the sundry Abuses of men in both these kinds, and how they ought to be reformed. Divided into two Books by Nicolas Bownd, Doctor of Divinity; and now by him the second time perused, and enlarged with an Interpretation of sundry points belonging to the Sabbath, and a more ample proof of such things as have been gainsaid or doubted of by some divines of our time, and a more full Answer unto certain objections made against the same: with some other things not impertinent to this argument.' London, 1606, 4to, pp. 479. Having been unable to obtain this rare work, I copied the title from Robert Cox, The Literature of the Sabbath Question (in 2 vols. Edinb. 1865), Vol. I. p. 145. There is a copy in the Bodleian Library, and another in the library of the University of Edinburgh. Cox himself is opposed to the Puritan theory, and holds the Church of England responsible for originating it by requiring the fourth commandment to be read and responded to in the Liturgy. Of Bownd's book he says: 'In the treatise bearing this long title the Sabbatarian opinions of the Puritans, which afterwards found more precise expression in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and are now maintained by the Evangelical sects in this country, were for the first time broadly and prominently asserted in Christendom.' Fuller gives a full account of the contents, Vol. V. pp. 211 sqq. His editor, Brewer, says that Bownd's book 'is written in a truly Christian spirit, and ought by no means to be considered as the fruit of Puritan principles.' The accounts of Collier (Eccl. Hist. Vol. VII. pp. 182 sqq.), Neal (Vol. I. pp. 208 sq.), and Hesse (Sunday, pp. 276 sqq.) are drawn from Fuller.

[1495] Quoted by Hessey, p. 281.

[1496] Vol. V. pp. 214 sqq.

[1497] The chief writers against the Puritan theory were Thomas Rogers, Bancroft's chaplain (in his Preface to the Articles); and afterwards Bishop White of Ely (A Treatise of the Sabbath-Day . . . against Sabbatarian Novelty, Lond. 1635); Peter Heylin, Laud's chaplain (The History of the Sabbath, Lond. 2d ed. 1636); and Dr. John Pocklington (Sunday no Sabbath, Lond. 1636). See extracts from their works by Cox, 1.c. Vol. I. pp. 166 sqq. White and Heylin wrote at the request of Laud. Bishop Prideaux (1622), Bishop Cosin (1635), and Dr. Young (1639) took a more moderate view. Richard Baxter (1671), though strongly leaning to the Puritanic side, tried to mediate between the strict Sabbath theory and the ecclesiastical Sunday theory, and maintained the joyous rather than the penitential character of the Lord's day. See Hessey, pp. 288 sq.

[1498] Fuller, pp. 218, 219.

[1499] Of the first edition no copy is known to exist. The second edition, of which a copy is preserved in the British Museum, bears the title: 'The Kings | Maiesties | Declaration to | His Subjects, | Concerning | lawfull Sports to | bee vsed. | Imprinted at London by | Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings | most Excellent Maiesties And by | the Assignes of John Bill. | M.DC.XXXIII.' 4to, 24 pp. This edition has been reprinted on tinted paper, in exact imitation of the original, at London (Bernard Quaritch), 15 Piccadilly, 1860. The Long Parliament, in 1643, ordered the book to be burned by the common hangman, in Cheapside and other places.

[1500] 'Our expresse pleasure therefore is, that. . . no lawfull Recreation shall bee barred to Our good People, which shall not tend to the breach of Our aforesayd Lawes, and Canons of Our Church: which to expresse more particularly, Our pleasure is, That the Bishop, and all other inferiour Churchmen, and Churchwardens, shall for their parts bee carefull and diligent, both to instruct the ignorant, and conuince and reforme them that are mis-led in Religion, presenting them that will not conforme themselues, but obstinately stand out to Our Judges and Iustices: Whom We likewise command to put the Law in due execution against them. 'Our pleasure likewise is, That the Bishop of that Diocesse take the like straight order with all the Puritanes and Precisians within the same, either constraining them to conforme themselues, or to leaue the Country according to the Lawes of Our Kingdome, and Canons of Our Church, and so to strike equally on both hands, against the contemners of Our Authority, and aduersaries of Our Church. And as for Our good peoples lawfull Recreation, Our pleasure likewise is, That after the end of Diuine Seruice, Our good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawfull recreation, Such as dauncing, either men or women, Archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmelesse Recreation, nor from hauing of May-Games, Whitson Ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting vp of May-poles & other sports therewith vsed, so as the same be had in due & conuenient time, without impediment or neglect of Diuine Seruice.'--Book of Sports, pp. 8 sqq.

[1501] Fuller says (Vol. V. p. 452): 'When this declaration was brought abroad, it is not so hard to believe as sad to recount what grief and distraction thereby was occasioned in many honest men's hearts.'

[1502] Prynne says: 'How many hundred godly ministers have been suspended from their ministry, sequestered, driven from their livings, excommunicated, prosecuted in the High Commission, and forced to leave the kingdom, for not publishing this declaration, is experimentally known to all men.' For particulars, see Neal, Vol. I. pp. 312 sqq.

[1503] Comp. my essay on the Anglo-American Sabbath. New York, 1863. __________________________________________________________________

§ 96. The Westminster Catechisms.

Editions.

The Humble | Advice | of the | Assembly | of | Divines, | Now by Authority of Parliament | sitting at | Westminster; | Concerning | A Larger Catechism: | Presented by them lately to both Houses of Parliament. | Printed at London [Oct. 1647, without Scripture proofs], and reprinted at Edinburgh, by Evan Tyler, Printer to the King's most Excellent Majestie, 1647 [Dec.]. The Edinburgh reprint has fifty-six pages, and no Scripture proofs. See fac-simile in Vol. III. p. 674. Of the London editio princeps, six hundred copies were printed, but not published, by order of Parliament, for its own use. Of the Edinburgh editio princeps, eight hundred copies were ordered by the General Assembly, Dec. 23, 1647. The second ed., which appeared in London [after April 14, 1648], contains the proofs from Scripture.

The Shorter Catechism appeared under the same title (except Shorter for Larger) a little later [after Nov. 25, 1647], by order of Parliament. Mr. John Laing, the obliging librarian of the Free Church College in Edinburgh, informs me that both Catechisms appeared in one vol. of seventy-nine pages, at Edinburgh, Dec. 23,1647, with a general title and a separate title for each. A statement to the same effect I see in the Advertisement to Dunlop's Collection of Confessions, Vol. I. p. clviii., with the additional remark that this edition was sent to the Presbyteries for examination.

The Larger and Shorter Catechisms often appeared in connection with the Westminster Confession, and exist in innumerable English and American editions, especially the Shorter. The textual variations are insignificant, except that the American (General Assembly's) editions of the Larger Catechism omit the words 'tolerating a false religion' in the answer to Question 109.

I have made use of the first Edinb. ed., and a large London ed. of 1658, which contains the Conf. and both Catechisms under their original (three separate) titles (The Humble Advice, etc.), with the Scripture proofs in full. Opposite the special title of the Shorter Catechism is the order of Parliament, dated 'Die Lunæ 15. Septemb., 1648,' directing that the Shorter Catechism 'be forthwith printed and published, wherein Mr. Henry Roborough and Mr. Adoniram Byfield, Scribes of the Assembly of Divines, are requested to use all possible care and diligence.'

The Catechisms have been translated into many languages, especially the Shorter. A Latin version appeared, together with the version of the Confession, in Cambridge, 1656, as has been noted above, p. 753. The Latin text of the Shorter Catechism is printed in Vol. III. pp. 676 sqq. For a German version of both, see Böckel, pp. 716 sqq. A Greek version of the Shorter Catechism (with the Latin), by John Harmar (Regius Professor of Greek In Oxford), was published at London, 1660; a new one by Robert Young (he katechesis suntomotera), Edinburgh, 1854. A Hebrew version by G. Seaman, M.D. (London, 1689), and another by H. S. McKee (Edinb. 1854; Dublin, 1864). Also Syriac, Arabic, modern Greek, Portuguese, Welsh, and other versions.

The largest number of editions and translations are to be found, as far as I know, in the British Museum.

Expositions.

Thomas Lye (Minister in London, d. 1684): An Explanation of the Shorter Catechism. London, 1676.

Hugh Binning (d. 1653, Prof. of Moral Philos., Glasgow): The Common Principles of the Christian Religion. . . . A Practical Catechism. 1671.

Thomas Vincent (Minister in London, d. 1671): An Explanation of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. London, 1708; Edinb. 1799; Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia.

Thomas Watson (Minister in London, d. 1690): A Body of Practical Divinity, consisting of above 176 Sermons on the Shorter Catechism. 5th ed. Glasgow, 1797; Lond. 1807; Glasgow, 1838; N. Y. 1836.

John Flavel, (b. 1627, d. 1691): Exposition of the Catechism. 1692. In his Whole Works, 2 vols. fol. 1701, 7th ed. Edinb. 1762; and in 6 vols. London, 1820.

Thomas Ridgley (b. 1667, d. 1734): A Body of Divinity . . . Being the Substance of Lectures on the Assembly's Larger Catechism, London, 1731-33, 2 vols. fol.; an ed. in 4 vols. 8vo, 1814; Edinb. 1845, 2 vols. 8vo; New York, 1855.

Samuel Willard (b. 1640, d. 1707): A Body of Divinity in 250 Lectures on the Assembly's Catechism. 1 vol. fol. Boston, 1726.

John Willison (Minister of Dundee from 1718 to 1750): An Example of Plain Catechising upon the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. Edinb. 1737; 2d ed. Glasgow, 1764.

Fisher's Catechism: The Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism Explained, by way of question and answer. By some Ministers of the Gospel. The authors are Ralph Erskine (d. 1752), Ebenezer Erskine (d. 1754), and James Fisher (d. Sept. 28, 1775, Secession Minister at Greyfriars, Glasgow). Fisher prepared the second part alone, and issued the third ed. Glasgow, 1753. Hence the whole work is called by his name. 14th ed. Edinb. 1800; 17th ed. Glasgow, 1813; also by the Board of Publication, Philadelphia.

John Brown (Minister at Haddington from 1751 to 1787): Easy Explication of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. 8th ed. Edinb. 1812; 9th ed. Montrose, 1822.

Henry Belfrage (d. 1835): A Practical Exposition of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism, exhibiting a System of Theology in a Popular Form. Edinb. 2d ed. 1834. 2 vols.

Alex. Mair (d.1751): A Brief Explication of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. New ed. Montrose, 1837.

Alex. Smith Paterson: A Concise System of Theology: being the Shorter Catechism Analyzed and Explained. Edinb. 1841; 2d ed. 1844.

Ashbel Green, D.D. (President of Princeton College from 1812 to 1822; d. 1848): Lectures on the Shorter Catechism. Phila. 1841, 2 vols., Presbyt. Board of Publ.

Jonathan Cross: Illustrations of the Shorter Catechism. Proof-texts, Exposition, and Anecdotes. 2 vols. 18mo. Presbyt. Board of Publ.

Edwin Hall, D.D.: The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, with Analysis and Scripture Proofs. Presbyt. Board of Publ.

James R. Boyd, D.D.: The Westminster Shorter Catechism; with Analysis, Proofs, Explanations, and Illustrative Anecdotes. 18mo. Presbyt. Board of Publ.

The Bellefonte Series of Tracts on the Answers to the Shorter Catechism, written by numerous Presbyterian ministers, and edited by the Rev. Wm. T. Wylie. Bellefonte, Pa. 1875.

PREPARATION AND ADOPTION.

Simultaneously with the Confession, the Assembly prepared first one, and afterwards two Catechisms: a larger one for public exposition in the pulpit, according to the custom of the Reformed Churches on the Continent, and a smaller one for the instruction of children, a clear and condensed summary of the former. [1504] Both are amply provided with Scripture proofs. The questions of Church polity and discipline are properly omitted.

The Catechisms were finished and presented to Parliament for examination and approval in the autumn of 1647. [1505] Parliament ordered six hundred copies to be printed, and then examined and approved the Catechisms, with some slight exceptions (Sept. 15, 1648). The General Assembly at Edinburgh adopted the Larger Catechism, July 20, 1648, and the Shorter Catechism, July 28, declaring both to be 'agreeable to the Word of God, and in nothing contrary to the received doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of this Kirk.' These acts were approved by the Scottish Parliament, Feb. 7, 1649, but repealed under Charles II. in 1661. When the Scottish Parliament, in 1690, established Presbyterian government in Scotland, and ratified the Westminster Confession of Faith, no express mention was made of the Catechisms, but both continued in ecclesiastical use, and the Shorter Catechism was often earnestly enjoined upon ministers, teachers, and parents by the General Assembly. [1506]

GENERAL CHARACTER.

The two Catechisms are, in the language of a Scotch divine, 'inimitable as theological summaries; though, when it is considered that to comprehend them would imply an acquaintance with the whole circle of dogmatic and controversial divinity, it may be doubted whether either of them is adapted to the capacity of childhood. . . . Experience has shown that few who have been carefully instructed in our Shorter Catechism have failed to discover the advantage of becoming acquainted in early life, even as a task, with that admirable "form of sound words."' [1507]

Both Catechisms have the peculiarity that each answer embodies the question, and thus forms a complete proposition or sentence in itself.

Both depart from the catechetical tradition by omitting the Apostles' Creed, which in other orthodox Catechisms is the common historical basis of the exposition of the Articles of Faith. It is, however, annexed to the Shorter Catechism,' not as though it were composed by the Apostles or ought to be esteemed canonical Scripture, as the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, but because it is a brief sum of the Christian faith, agreeable to the Word of God, and anciently received in the Churches of Christ.' A note is attached to the article on the descent into Hell (better, Hades or Sheol), to the effect that it simply means Christ 'continued in the state of the dead and under the power of death until the third day.' This explanation (like that of Calvin and the Heidelberg Catechism) misses the true sense of the descent, and ignores its peculiar significance in the work of redemption for the world of the departed (comp. Luke xxiii. 43; Acts ii. 31; Eph. iv. 8, 9; 1 Cor. xv. 55, 57; 1 Pet. iii. 18, 19; iv. 6; Rev. i. 18). The eschatology of the Reformation standards is silent or defective on the middle state, and most Protestant versions of the Bible confound Hell and Hades, which represent separate and distinct though cognate ideas.

THE LARGER CATECHISM.

The Larger Catechism occupied, as the Minutes show, a good deal of the Assembly's attention during the year 1647, and was discussed question by question. It was prepared before the Shorter. [1508] It is chiefly the work of Dr. Anthony Tuckney, Professor of Divinity and Vice-Chancellor at Cambridge. [1509] It is a masterpiece of catechetical skill, superior to any similar work, and exhibits in popular form a complete system of divinity, like the Roman Catechism and the Longer Russian Catechism of Philaret. It also serves in part as a valuable commentary or supplement to the Confession, especially on the ethical part of our religion. But it is over-minute in the specification of what God has commanded and forbidden in the Ten Commandments, and loses itself in a wilderness of details. [1510]

THE SHORTER CATECHISM.

Dr. Tuckney was also the convener of the Committee which prepared the Shorter Catechism, but its concise and severely logical answers are traced to the Rev. John Wallis, M.A., an eminent mathematician, who as a young man fresh from Cambridge was appointed an amanuensis of the Assembly. [1511] He afterwards became Professor of Geometry at Oxford and one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was probably the last survivor of the Westminster divines, for he died 1703, aet. eighty-eight. [1512] Gillespie's name is traditionally connected with the question 'What is God?' He is said to have answered it in prayer, apparently without meditation, when the Assembly were in suspense for words to define the Being of beings. But the Scotch Commissioners had little to do with the Shorter Catechism, as most of them had left before it was discussed in the Assembly. [1513]

The Shorter Catechism is one of the three typical Catechisms of Protestantism which are likely to last to the end of time. It is fully equal to Luther's and to the Heidelberg Catechism in ability and influence, it far surpasses them in clearness and careful wording, and is better adapted to the Scotch and Anglo-American mind, but it lacks their genial warmth, freshness, and childlike simplicity. [1514] It substitutes a logical scheme for the historical order of the Apostles' Creed. It deals in dogmas rather than facts. It addresses the disciple as an interested outsider rather than as a church-member growing up in the nurture of the Lord. Its mathematical precision in definitions, some of which are almost perfect, [1515] though above the capacity of the child, is a good preparation for the study of theology. Its use among three denominations (Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Regular Baptists) proves its solid worth. Baxter called it 'the best Catechism he ever saw, a most excellent sum of the Christian faith and doctrine, and a fit test to try the orthodoxy of teachers.' Thomas Carlyle, in speaking against modern materialism, made this confession (1876): 'The older I grow--and I now stand upon the brink of eternity--the more comes back to me the first sentence in the Catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes: "What is the chief end of man? To glorify God, and to enjoy him forever."' __________________________________________________________________

[1504] The first Catechism of the Assembly, according to Baillie, was nearly agreed on at the end of 1644, but was never published. Perhaps it was the same which is partially inserted in the Minutes; or it may have been the MS. Catechism of Sam. Rutherford, which is preserved in the University library at Edinburgh. In the 774th session, Jan. 14, 1647 (old style, 1646), the Assembly ordered 'that the Committee for the Catechism do prepare a draught of two Catechisms, one more large and another more brief, in which they are to have an eye to the Confession of Faith, and to the matter of the Catechism already begun' (Minutes, p. 321).

[1505] Both Catechisms were first presented to Parliament without Scripture proofs, the Larger before Oct. 25, 1647, the Shorter on Nov. 25, 1647 (Minutes, pp. 485, 486, 492), and were forthwith printed in London and Edinburgh. The Catechisms with Scripture proofs were presented to Parliament on or before April 14, 1648 (Minutes, p. 511).

[1506] Mitchell, Minutes, p. 515. note. Innes (Law of Creeds, p. 195) says: 'The Shorter Catechism has been for many generations the real creed of Scotland, so far as the mass of the people is concerned.'

[1507] M'Crie, Annals, pp. 177 sq. Neal (Vol. II. p. 42) judges similarly. 'The Larger Catechism,' he says, 'is a comprehensive system of divinity, and the smaller a very accurate summary, though it has by some been thought a little too long, and in some particulars too abstruse for the capacities of children.' Baillie was of the same opinion (Letters, III. 59).

[1508] This appears from the Minutes, p. 410. The report on the Shorter Catechism was first called for in the 896th session, Aug. 9, 1647. Mr. Palmer reported, and Messrs. Calamy and Gower were added to the Committee. The opposite view is clearly wrong, though advocated by Neal (Vol. II. p. 42), and even quite recently by Dr. M'Crie, who says (Annals, p. 177): 'The Larger Catechism was not prepared till some time after the Shorter, of which it was evidently intended to form an amplification and exposition.'

[1509] It is based in part on Ussher's catechetical Body of Divinity, perhaps also on the concise theological compendium of John Wolleb, Antistes at Basle (1626).

[1510] Take for example Question 113:

What are the sins forbidden in the third commandment?

'The sins forbidden in the third commandment are, the not using of God's name as is required; and the abuse of it in an ignorant, vain, irreverent, profane, superstitious, or wicked mentioning, or otherwise using his titles, attributes, ordinances, or works, by blasphemy, perjury; all sinful cursings, oaths, vows, and lots; violating our oaths and vows, if lawful; and fulfilling them, if of things unlawful; murmuring and quarreling at, curious prying into, and misapplying of God's decrees and providences; misinterpreting, misapplying, or any way perverting the Word, or any part of it, to profane jests, curious or unprofitable questions, vain janglings, or the maintaining of false doctrines; abusing it, the creatures, or any thing contained under the name of God, to charms or sinful lusts and practices; the maligning, scorning, reviling, or any wise opposing God's truth, grace, and ways; making profession of religion in hypocrisy or for sinister ends; being ashamed of it, or a shame to it, by uncomformable, unwise, unfruitful, and offensive walking or backsliding from it.'

[1511] In the Minutes, p. 488, Wallis is mentioned in connection with the Shorter Catechism. He published an exposition of it.

[1512] Masson's Milton, Vol. II. p. 515.

[1513] The Scotch Commissioners took leave Dec. 25, 1646. The last mention of them is Nov. 9, 1647, when Rutherford took his leave.--Minutes, pp. 471, 487. Dr. Mitchell informs me that the fourth question is probably derived from 'A Compendious Catechism' (by J. F.), printed at London in April, 1645: 'God is a Spirit, One, Almighty, Eternal, Infinite, Unchangeable Being, Absolutely Holy, Wise, Just, and Good.'

[1514] For a fuller comparison, see pp. 543-545.

[1515] For example, Questions 4, 21, 92. __________________________________________________________________

§ 97. Criticism of the Westminster System of Doctrine.

The Westminster Confession, together with the Catechisms, is the fullest and ripest symbolical statement of the Calvinistic system of doctrine. In theological ability and merit it is equal to the best works of the kind, and is not surpassed by the Lutheran Formula of Concord or the Roman Decrees of the Councils of Trent and the Vatican. Its intrinsic worth alone can explain the fact that it has supplanted the older Scottish standards of John Knox and John Craig in the land of their birth, and that it was adopted by three distinct denominations: by the Presbyterians in full, and by the Congregationalists and the Regular Baptists with some slight modifications. Of these the Congregationalists had but a small though very able representation in the Westminster Assembly, the Baptists none at all. It has at this day as much vitality as any of the Protestant symbols and more vitality than most of them. It materially aids in shaping theological thought and religious activity as far as the English tongue prevails. Altogether it represents the most vigorous and yet moderate form of Calvinism, which has found (like Christianity itself) a more congenial and permanent home in the Anglo-Saxon race than in the land of its birth.

The doctrines of the Confession are stated with unusual care, logical precision, clearness, caution, and circumspection, and with an eye to all their various aspects and mutual relations. Where they seem to conflict or can not be harmonized by our finite intelligence--as absolute sovereignty and free agency, the fall of Adam and personal guilt, the infinite divinity and the finite humanity of Christ--both truths are set forth, and room is left for explanations and adjustments by scientific theology within the general limits of the system. The important difference between a public confession of faith and a private system of theology was at least distinctly recognized in principle, although (as we shall see presently) not always consistently carried out. [1516]

The style of the Confession and Catechisms is clear, strong, dignified, and well adapted to the grave subject. The selection of Scripture proofs is careful and judicious, and reveals a close familiarity with the sacred writings.

The merits of the Westminster standards have been admitted not only by Presbyterians, [1517] but also by liberal Episcopalians, [1518] and even by Methodists, who entirely dissent from its theology. [1519]

DEFECTS.

The Westminster standards, like all human productions, including the translations of the Bible itself, have imperfections.

The great revival of the sixteenth century was followed in the Reformed and Lutheran Churches by a dry scholasticism which was more biblical and evangelical than the mediæval scholasticism, but shared with it the defects of a one-sided intellectualism to the exclusion of the mystic and emotional types of Christianity. Scholasticism in the technical sense--whether Roman Catholic or Protestant--is the product of the devout understanding rather than the glowing heart, and approaches the deepest mysteries of faith, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the eternal decrees of election and reprobation of men and angels, with profound reverence indeed, yet with a boldness and assurance as if they were mathematical problems or subjects of anatomical dissection. [1520] It shows usually a marvelous dexterity in analysis, division, subdivision, distinction, and definition, but it lacks the intuition into the hidden depths and transcending heights where the antagonisms of partial truths meet in unity.

The Westminster standards do not go so far in this direction as the Canons of Dort or the Helvetic Consensus Formula, but certainly further than the Reformation symbols, which are less logical and precise, and more fresh and elastic. They reflect the hard severity of Puritanism. They embody too much metaphysical divinity, and overstep the limits which divide a public confession of faith from a scientific treatise of theology. It would be impossible nowadays to pass such an elaborate system through any Protestant ecclesiastical body with a view to impose it upon all teachers of religion. The Confession, however, as already mentioned, was not intended as a yoke by the English framers, nor has subscription ever been required to all its details, but only to the general scheme. The Bible is expressly declared by Calvinists to be 'the only infallible rule of faith and practice,' and the Confession is adopted 'as containing the system of doctrine taught in the holy Scriptures.' [1521]

The chief characteristics of Calvinistic scholasticism as it prevailed in the seventeenth century are that it starts from God's sovereignty and justice rather than from God's love and mercy, and that it makes the predestinarian scheme to control the historical and christological scheme. This brings us to the most assailable point in the Westminster Confession and Larger Catechism, the abstract doctrine of eternal decrees, which will always repel a large portion of evangelical Christendom. We believe that the divine-human person and work of Christ furnish the true key to the full understanding of the plan of salvation and the solid platform for the ultimate agreement of all evangelical creeds.

PRETERITION OF THE REST OF MANKIND.

Absolute predestinarianism is the strength and the weakness of Calvinism. The positive decree of eternal election is its impregnable fort, the negative decree of eternal reprobation its Achilles' heel. Predestination to holiness and happiness, being a gracious purpose of God's love, is full of 'sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons,' [1522] and affords 'matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel.' [1523] Predestination to death and damnation, being a judicial decree of God's wrath on account of Adam's fall, is--whether true or false--a 'decretum horribile' (as Calvin himself significantly calls it, in view of the apparent ruin of whole nations with their offspring), and ought never to be put into a creed or confession of the Church, but should be left to the theology of the school. Hence it is wisely omitted by the Heidelberg Catechism, the Helvetic Confessions, the Thirty-nine Articles, and other Reformed symbols. Even the old Scotch Confession of John Knox does not mention it, and the Second Scotch Confession expressly rejects, as an antichristian error, the horrible popish doctrine of the damnation of unbaptized infants.

The Westminster Confession, it is true, carefully avoids the term reprobation, and substitutes for it the milder idea of preterition. It uses the verb predestinate only with reference to eternal life, while the lost are spoken of as being ordained or judicially condemned to death. Yet it makes the dogmatic assertion that 'God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by the rest of mankind, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.' [1524] Now there are indeed passages in the Old and New Testaments, especially the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, which seem to bear out this statement, [1525] but they must be interpreted in the light of the biblical idea of a God of infinite love and mercy, and in connection with other passages which in their obvious and natural sense declare that God sincerely desires all men to repent and be saved, that Christ is the Saviour of the world, that he is the propitiation not only for our sins, 'but also for the sins of the whole world,' and that he condemns no one absolutely and finally except for unbelief--that is, for the willful rejection of the gospel salvation. [1526] This fundamental doctrine of God's universal love and abundant provision for the salvation of all mankind should be put into a confession of faith rather than the doctrine of reprobation or preterition, which is, to say the least, as objectionable in such a document as the damning clauses in the Athanasian Creed.

The exegetical and theological adjustment of this whole subject of predestination, and of the unequal distribution and partial withholding of the favors of Providence and the means of grace in this world, is involved in insurmountable difficulties, and the contemplation of it should, make us cautious and charitable. A few general remarks may tend to set the problem in its true light, and to open the prospect of at least a partial solution. [1527]

It must in fairness be admitted that the Calvinistic system only traces undeniable facts to their first ante-mundane cause in the inscrutable counsel of God. It draws the legitimate logical conclusions from such anthropological and eschatological premises as are acknowledged by all other orthodox Churches, Greek, Roman, Lutheran, and Reformed. They all teach the condemnation of the human race in consequence of Adam's fall, and confine the opportunity and possibility of salvation from sin and perdition to this present life, [1528] And yet every body must admit that the vast majority of mankind, no worse by nature than the rest, and without personal guilt, are born and grow up in heathen darkness, out of the reach of the means of grace, and are thus, as far as we know, actually 'passed by' in this world. No orthodox system can logically reconcile this stubborn and awful fact with the universal love and impartial justice of God.

The only solution seems to lie either in the Quaker doctrine of universal light--that is, an uncovenanted offer of salvation to all men in this earthly life--or in an extension of the period of saving grace beyond death till the final judgment for those (and for those only) who never had an opportunity in this world to accept or to reject the gospel salvation. But the former view implies a depreciation of the visible Church, the ministry of the gospel, and the sacraments; the latter would require a liberal reconstruction of the traditional doctrine of the middle state such as no orthodox Church, in the absence of clear Scripture light on this mysterious subject, and in view of probable abuse, would be willing to admit in its confessional teaching, even if theological exegesis should be able to produce a better agreement than now exists on certain disputed passages of the New Testament and the doctrine of Hades.

So far, then, the only difference is that, while the other orthodox Confessions conceal the real difficulty, Calvinism reveals it, and thus brings it nearer to a solution.

Moreover, the Calvinistic system, by detaching election from the absolute necessity of water-baptism, has a positive advantage over the Augustinian system, and is really more liberal. All the creeds which teach baptismal regeneration as an indispensable prerequisite of salvation virtually exclude the overwhelming majority of mankind--whole nations, with untold millions of infants dying in infancy--from the kingdom of heaven, whether they expressly say so or not. The Christian heart of the great African father shrunk from this fearful but inevitable conclusion of his logical head, and tried to mitigate it by making a distinction between positive damnation or actual suffering, and negative damnation or absence of bliss, and by subjecting unbaptized infants to the latter only. And this is the doctrine of Roman Catholic divines. The Calvinistic theory affords a more substantial relief, and allows, after the precedent of Zwingli and Bullinger, and in accordance with the analogy of Melchisedek, Job, and other exceptional cases of true piety under the Jewish dispensation, an indefinite extension of God's saving grace beyond the limits of the visible Church and the ordinary means of grace. It leaves room for the charitable hope of the salvation of all infants dying in infancy, and of those adults who, without an historical knowledge of Christ, live up to the light of nature and Providence, and die with a humble and penitent longing after salvation--that is, in a frame of mind like that of Cornelius when he sent for St. Peter. [1529] This was, indeed, not the professed Calvinism of Calvin and Beza, nor of the divines of Dort and Westminster, nor of the older divines of New England; [1530] but it is consistent with the Calvinistic scheme, which never presumed to fix the limits of divine election, and with a liberal interpretation of the Westminster Confession, which expressly acknowledges that elect infants and elect adults are regenerated and saved by Christ without being outwardly called by the gospel. [1531]

Modern Calvinism, at least in America, has decidedly taken a liberal view of this subject, and freely admits at least the probability of the universal salvation of infants, and hence the salvation of the greater part of the human race. Christianity can not be a failure in any sense--it must be a triumphant success, which is guaranteed from eternity by the infinite goodness and wisdom of God. [1532]

But whatever may be the theoretical solution of this deep and dark mystery, there is a practical platform on which evangelical Christians can agree, namely, that all men who are and will be saved are saved by the free grace of God, without any merit of their own (faith itself being a gift of grace); while all who are lost are lost by their own guilt. It has often been said that pious Calvinists preach like Arminians, and pious Arminians pray like Calvinists. In this both may be inconsistent, but it is a happy and a useful inconsistency. The Calvinistic Whitefield was as zealous and successful in converting souls as the Arminian Wesley, and Wesley was as fervent and prevailing in prayer as Whitefield. They parted in this world, but they have long since been reconciled in heaven, where they see the whole truth face to face. We must work as if all depended on our efforts, and we must pray as if all depended on God. This is the holy paradox of St. Paul, who exhorts the Philippians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, for the very reason that it is God who worketh effectively in them both to will and to work of his own good pleasure. God's work in us and for us is the basis and encouragement of our work in him and for him.

INTOLERANCE. [1533]

The principle of intolerance has been charged upon Chaps. XXIII. (Of the Civil Magistrate), XXX. (Of Church Censures), XXXI. (Of Synods and Councils), and the last clause of Ch. XX. (Of Christian Liberty, viz., the words 'and by the power of the civil magistrate'). The same charge applies to a few words in the 109th question of the Larger Catechism, where 'tolerating a false religion' is included among the sins forbidden in the Second Commandment with reference to some passages of the Old Testament and of the Book of Revelation (ii. 2, 16, 20; xvii. 16, 17).

There is no doubt that these passages assume a professedly Christian government, or the union of Church and State as it had come to be established in all Christian countries since the days of Constantine, and as it was acknowledged at that time by Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. [1534] It is on this ground that the Confession claims for the civil magistrate (of whatever form of government) the right and duty not only legally to protect, but also to support the Christian Church, and to prohibit or punish heresy, idolatry, and blasphemy.

The power to coerce and punish implies the principle of intolerance and the right of persecution in some form or other, though this right may never be exercised. For just as far as a civil government is identified with a particular Church, an offense against that Church becomes an offense against the State, and subject to its penal code. All acts of uniformity in religion are necessarily exclusive, and must prohibit the public manifestations of dissent, whatever may be the private thoughts and sentiments, which no human government can reach.

It is a fact, moreover, that the Westminster Assembly was called for the purpose of legislating for the faith, government, and worship of three kingdoms, and that by adopting the Solemn League and Covenant it was pledged for the extirpation of popery and prelacy and all heresy. [1535]

The few Independents demanded a limited toleration, and were backed by Cromwell and his army, which was full of Independents, Baptists, Antinomians, Socinians, New Lights, Familists, Millenarians, and other 'proud, self-conceited, hot-headed sectaries' (as Baxter calls them). All these sectaries, who sprung up during the great religious excitement of the age, but mostly subsided soon afterwards, were of course tolerationists in their own interest. But for this very reason the prevailing sentiment in the Assembly was stoutly opposed to toleration, as the great Diana of the Independents and supposed mother and nurse of all sorts of heresies and blasphemies threatening the overthrow of religion and society. [1536] The Scottish delegation was a unit on the subject, and Baillie wrote a Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time (1645) against toleration, and attacked it in his Letters. [1537] Innumerable pamphlets were published on both sides. The advocates of toleration were defeated, and could only exact from the Assembly the important declaration that God alone is Lord of the conscience.

And yet, if we judge the Westminster standards from the stand point of the seventeenth century, and compare them with similar documents, they must be pronounced moderate.

1. They go no further on the subject of intolerance than the Belgic Confession, [1538] the Gallican Confession, [1539] the English Articles, [1540] and the Irish Articles. [1541] They teach less than is implied in the Anglican doctrine of the royal supremacy, which puts the religion of a whole nation in the hands of the temporal sovereign, and which was employed for the severest measures against all dissenters, Roman Catholic and Protestant.

2. The Presbyterians, during the fifteen years of their domination, [1542] used their power very moderately, with the exception of a wholesale ejectment of a large number of prelatists from office (allowing them, however, one fifth of their income). This was a folly and a crime (viewed from our standpoint), but not nearly as cruel as the hanging and burning, the imprisonment, torture, and mutilation so freely exercised against themselves and other non-conformists before 1640 and after 1661. During the disgraceful period of the Restoration, which they unwisely brought about without exacting any pledges from the faithless Stuart, they suffered for their loyalty to the Westminster standards as much hardship and displayed as much heroism, both in England and Scotland, as any Church or sect in Christendom ever did. [1543]

3. The Confession expresses for the first time among the confessions of faith, whether consistently or not, the true principle of religious liberty, which was made the basis of the Act of Toleration, in the noble sentiment of Ch. XX. 2: 'God alone is Lord of the conscience (James iv. 12; Rom. xiv. 4), and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to his Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship (Acts iv. 19; v. 29; 1 Cor. vii. 23; Matt. xxiii. 8-10; xxv. 9; 2 Cor. 1, 24). So that to believe such doctrines or to obey such commandments out of conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience; and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also' (Isa. viii. 20; Acts xvii. 11).

4. The objectionable clauses in the Confession and Larger Catechism have been mildly interpreted and so modified by the Presbyterian Churches in Europe as to disclaim persecuting sentiments. [1544] The Presbyterian Churches in the United States have taken the more frank and effective course of an entire reconstruction of those chapters, so as to make them expressly teach the principle of religious freedom, and claim no favor from the civil magistrate but that protection which it owes to the lives, liberties, and constitutional rights of all its citizens. [1545]

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

The question in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was about toleration and persecution. But religious freedom requires much more, and is now regarded as one of the fundamental and most precious rights of men, which must be sacredly protected in its public exercise by the civil government, within the limits of order, peace, and public morals. This liberty is the final result and gain of ages of intolerance and persecution.

The history of religious persecution is the darkest chapter in Church history--we may call it the devil's chapter--and the darkest part in it is the persecution of Christians by Christians. It is, however, relieved by the counter-manifestation of the heroic virtues of Christian martyrdom and the slow but steady progress of liberty through streams of martyr blood.

All Christian Churches, except a few denominations of recent date which never had a chance, have more or less persecuted when in power, and must plead guilty. The difference is only one of degree. The Episcopalians were less intolerant than the Roman Catholics, the Presbyterians less intolerant than the Episcopalians, the Independents less intolerant (in theory) than the Presbyterians. But they were all intolerant. Even the Independents of Old England, with the great Cromwell and the great Milton as their leaders, excluded Romanists, Prelatists (i.e., Episcopalians), and Unitarians from their programme of toleration, [1546] and, strange to say, when in power in New England, they expelled Baptists and hanged Quakers on the virgin soil of Massachusetts before and after the Westminster Assembly. On the other hand, however, there is not a Christian Church or sect that has not complained of intolerance and injustice under persecution, and that has not furnished some bold advocates of toleration and freedom, from Tertullian and Lactantius down to Roger Williams and William Penn. This is the redeeming feature in this fearful picture, and must not be overlooked in making up a just estimate.

It is therefore the greatest possible injustice to charge the persecutions to Christianity, which breathes the very opposite spirit of forbearance, forgiveness, love, and liberality; which teaches us to suffer wrong rather than to inflict wrong; and which, by restoring the divine image in man, and lifting him up to the sphere of spiritual freedom, is really the pure source of all that is truly valuable in our modern ideas of civil and religious liberty. Whatever may be said of the severity of the Mosaic legislation, which assumes the union of the civil and ecclesiastical power, Christ and the Apostles, both by precept and example, strictly prohibit the use of carnal means for the promotion of the kingdom of heaven, which is spiritual in its origin, character, and aim. The reminiscence of this spirit lingered in the Church through the darkest ages in the maxim Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem.

It is also wrong to derive intolerance from the strength and intensity of religious conviction--although this undoubtedly may come in as an additional stimulus--and to trace toleration to skepticism and unbelief. [1547] For who had stronger convictions than St. Paul? His Jewish conviction or pharisaical fanaticism made him a bitter persecutor, but his Christian conviction inspired his seraphic description of love (1 Cor. xiii.) and strengthened him for martyrdom. On the other hand, the Deist philosopher, Hobbes, by giving the civil power an absolute right to determine the religion of a nation, taught the extreme doctrine of persecution; and the reign of terror in France proves that infidelity may be as fanatical and intolerant as the strongest faith, and may instigate the most horrible of persecutions.

Intolerance is rooted in the selfishness and ambition of human nature and in the spirit of sectarian exclusiveness, which assumes that we and the sect to which we belong have the monopoly of truth and orthodoxy, and that all who dissent from us must be in error. Persecution follows as a legitimate consequence of this selfishness and bigotry wherever the intolerant party has the power to persecute.

The Roman Church, wherever she controls the civil government, can not consistently tolerate, much less legally recognize, any form of worship besides her own, because she identifies herself with the infallible Church of Christ, out of which there is no salvation, and regards all who dissent from her as damnable schismatics and heretics. [1548] Protestants, who began with the assertion of private judgment against the authority of Rome, and complained bitterly of her persecuting spirit, are inconsistent and more inexcusable if they refuse the same right to others and persecute them for its exercise. For a long time, however, Protestantism clung to the traditional idea of uniformity in religion, and this was the source of untold suffering, especially in England, until it became manifest beyond a doubt that doctrinal and ceremonial uniformity was an impossibility in a nation of intelligent freemen. The Toleration Act of May 24, 1689, for the relief of Dissenters, marks the transition. Since that time religious persecution by the civil power has ceased in the Anglo-Saxon race, and the principle of religious liberty has gradually become a settled conviction of the most advanced sections of the Christian world.

For this change of public sentiment the chief merit is due to the English Non-conformists, who in the school of persecution became advocates of toleration, especially to the Baptists and Quakers, who made religious liberty (within the limits of the golden rule) an article of their creed, so that they could not consistently persecute even if they should ever have a chance to do so. [1549] It was next promoted by the eloquent advocacy of toleration in the writings of Chillingworth, [1550] Jeremy Taylor, [1551] and other Anglican divines of the latitudinarian school; further, by the mingling of creeds and sects in the same country where persecution failed of its aim; and, lastly, by the skeptical philosophy and the religious indifferentism of the eighteenth century, which, however, has repeatedly shown itself most intolerant of all forms of positive belief, and can therefore be no more trusted than the bigotry of superstition. Religious freedom is best guaranteed by an enlightened Christian civilization, a liberal culture, a large-hearted Christian charity, a comprehensive view of truth, a free social intercourse of various denominations, and a wise separation of civil and ecclesiastical government.

During the last stages of the age of persecution Providence began to prepare in the colonies of North America the widest field and the proper social basis for the full exercise of religious liberty and equality by bringing together under one government the persecuted of all nations and sects, so that the enjoyment of the liberty of each depends upon and is guaranteed by the recognition and protection of the liberty of all the rest. __________________________________________________________________

[1516] In the debate on predestination Dr. Reynolds wisely said, 'Let us not put disputes and scholastic things into a confession of faith.'--Minutes, p. 151.

[1517] Principal Baillie wrote (Jan. 26, 1647, Letters, Vol. III. p. 2): 'The Confession is much cried up by all, even many of our greatest opposites, as the best confession yet extant.' The moderate and judicious Richard Baxter esteemed the Westminster Confession and Catechisms the best books in his library next to the Bible, and says (in his Confession, ch. i. § 5): 'I have perused oft the Confession of the Assembly, and verily judge it the most excellent, for fullness and exactness, that I have ever read from any Church; and though the truths therein, being of several degrees of evidence and necessity, I do not hold them with equal clearness, confidence, or certainty; and though some few points in it are beyond my reach, yet I have observed nothing in it contrary to my judgment, if I may be allowed those expositions following.' The saintly Archbishop Leighton, though he left the Church for which his father had suffered such cruelties from Laud, taught the doctrine of the Confession to the end of his life.

[1518] J. B. Marsden (The History of the Later Puritans, 1852, pp. 80, 81), while judging severely of the Assembly on account of its treatment of Episcopacy, thinks the Westminster Confession inferior to none of the Protestant Confessions except in originality, and adds: 'It does not, however, detract from the real merit of these later divines, that they availed themselves of the labors of the Reformation; or that Bullinger and Calvin, especially the latter, should have left them little to accomplish, except in the way of arrangement and compression. The Westminster Confession should be read by those who can not encounter the more ponderous volumes of the great masters from which it is derived. It is in many respects an admirable summary of Christian faith and practice. None can lay it down with a mean opinion of the Westminster divines. The style is pure and good, the proofs are selected with admirable skill, the arguments are always clear, the subjects well distributed, and sufficiently comprehensive to form at least the outline of a perfect system of divinity.' It is but just to add that Marsden goes on to censure what he calls its 'rigid ultra-Calvinism, which has always repelled the great majority of English Christians.' Dean Stanley, who has no theological sympathy with the Westminster Confession, says that of all Protestant Confessions 'it far more nearly approaches the full proportions of a theological treatise, and exhibits far more depth of theological insight, than any other,' He adds, however, that 'it reflects also far more than any other the minute hair-splitting and straw-dividing distinctions which had reached their height in the Puritanical theology of that age, and which in sermons ran into the sixteenthly, seventeenthly sections that so exercised the soul of Dugald Dalgetty as he waited for the conclusion of the discourse in the chapel of Inverary Castle. It accordingly furnished the food for which the somewhat hard and logical intellect of Scotland had a special appetite' (Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland, delivered in 1872, Am. ed. p. 88). In another place Stanley calls the Westminster formulary 'that famous Confession of Faith which, alone within these islands, was imposed by law on the whole kingdom; and which, alone of all Protestant Confessions, still, in spite of its sternness and narrowness, retains a hold on the minds of its adherents, to which its fervor and its logical coherence in some measure entitle it' (Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 513).

The Scotch Commissioners. (part 3)

[1519] Dr. Currey, for many years editor of the 'Methodist Advocate,' of New York, in an editorial on Creeds (Aug. 6, 1874), calls 'the Westminster Confession of Faith the ablest, clearest, and most comprehensive system of Christian doctrine ever framed. That venerable instrument purposely embodies in its unity the dogma of absolute predestination, which necessarily becomes the corner-stone of the edifice, so giving it shape and character. But, despite that capital fault, it is not only a wonderful monument of the intellectual greatness of its framers, but a comprehensive embodiment of nearly all the precious truths of the gospel. If set forth without ecclesiastical authority, for the edification of believers, it would, despite its faults, be a work of inestimable worth; but enforced by such authority, and imposed upon men's consciences, it is a yoke and a chain and a cage of iron. And yet this is the accepted formula of faith of nearly all the Calvinistic Churches of America. Even the Congregationalists in National Council, at Plymouth Rock, only a few years ago, reaffirmed their acceptance of it.'

[1520] Dr. Wallis, the mathematician, who is said to be the chief author of the sharp definitions of the Shorter Catechism (see p. 786), wrote towards the close of the seventeenth century a pamphlet in defense of the doctrine of the Trinity against rising Unitarianism, where he compares the Almighty to a cube with its length, breadth, and height infinitely extended, longum, latum, profundum, which are the equal sides of one substance, and fairly resemble the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He finds nothing mysterious in this doctrine. 'It is,' he says, 'but this, that there be three somewhats, which are but one God, and these somewhats are called Persons.' Quoted by Stoughton, The Church of the Revolution, p. 213.

[1521] This is the American formula of subscription required from ministers. On the Scottish subscription formulas, see Innes, pp. 66, 81, 84, 103, 453.

[1522] Articles of the Church of England, Art. XVII.

[1523] Westm. Conf. Ch. VIII. § 8. This last section is the best in the whole chapter.

[1524] Ch. III. 7. This seventh section is the one dark spot in the Confession, and mars its beauty and usefulness. Comp. Larger Catechism, Quest. 13: 'God hath passed by and foreordained the rest to dishonor and wrath to be for their own sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his justice.' The Shorter Catechism (Quest. 7) wisely omits the negative part of predestination.

[1525] Matt. xi. 25 ('Thou hast hid these things,' etc.); Rom. ix. 17, 18, 21, 22; 2 Tim. ii. 20; Jude 4; 1 Pet. ii. 8--all quoted in the Confession. The ninth chapter of Romans is the exegetical bulwark of the doctrine of reprobation; but it must be explained in connection with the tenth chapter, which brings out the unbelief of the creature as the cause, and with the eleventh chapter, which opens the prospect of a glorious solution of the problem in the conversion of the fullness of the Gentiles and the people of Israel, and ends with the grand declaration that 'God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.' We have no more right to limit the all in the second clause than in the first. Comp. the parallelism in Rom. v. 12 sqq.

[1526] John i. 29; iii. 16; iv. 24; 1 John ii. 2; iii. 8, 16; iv. 14; 1 Tim. ii. 4; Titus ii. 11; 2 Pet. iii. 9; Mark xvi. 16.

[1527] Comp. our remarks, pp. 451 sqq.

[1528] The Roman Catholic doctrine, of purgatory is no exception, for this is confined to members of the Catholic Church who were converted in this life but need further purification before they can enter heaven. The Roman creed is more pronounced than the Greek and the Protestant on the impossibility of salvation outside of the visible Church on earth.

[1529] See above, p. 378.

[1530] The Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, of Malden, Mass., a graduate and tutor of Harvard College (d. 1705), published a popular poem, The Day of Doom (1662; 6th ed. 1715; reprinted as a curiosity by the Amer. News Company, New York, 1867), in which God reasons on the judgment-day with reprobate infants, who 'from the womb unto the tomb were straightway carried,' about the justice of their eternal damnation; and in consideration of their lesser guilt, assigns them (like St. Augustine) 'the easiest room in hell!'

[1531] Ch. X. 3: 'Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth. So are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.' The Confession nowhere speaks of reprobate infants, and the existence of such is not necessarily implied by way of distinction, although it probably was in the minds of the framers as their private opinion, which they wisely withheld from the Confession. I think the interpretation of Dr. A. A. Hodge, of Allegheny, in his Commentary on this section (p. 240), is fairly admissible: 'The Confession affirms what is certainly revealed, and leaves that which revelation has not decided to remain without the suggestion of a positive opinion upon one side or the other.'. He agrees, as to the salvation of all infants dying in infancy, with his father, who asserts that 'he never saw a Calvinistic theologian who held the doctrine of infant damnation in any sense' (System. Theol., Vol. III. p. 605).

[1532] Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, is of the opinion, which would be preposterous in the Augustinian and Roman Catholic system, that the number of those who are ultimately lost is 'very inconsiderable as compared with the whole number of the saved.' This is the closing sentence of his System. Theol., Vol. III. p. 879. That the number of the saved will far exceed the number of the lost may be fairly inferred from the pollo mallon of Paul (Rom. v. 15, 17); but this inference can not well be harmonized with the declaration of our Lord, Matt. vii. 14, that but few enter the strait gate, unless we assume the universal salvation of infants, and look forward to great progress of the gospel in the future.

[1533] On the subject of Toleration and Persecution, with special reference to England, the reader may profitably consult a series of Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, 1614-1661, edited by Edward B. Underhill for the Hansard Knollys Society, London, 1846; W. E. H. Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe. (4th edition, London, 1870; New York edition, 1875, in 2 vols.), ch. iv.; Masson, Life of Milton, Vol. III. pp. 87 sqq., 383 sqq.; Stoughton, The Church of the Revolution (London, 1874), ch. iv. pp. 114 sqq.; and Marshall's book quoted on p. 754.

[1534] The first dissenting voices came from Anabaptists and Socinians, and from Castellio, who had nothing to gain and every thing to lose from the existing alliance of government and religion.

[1535] And yet, in the face of this fact and the whole history of the seventeenth century, Dr. Hetherington (in his Introduction to Shaw's Exposition of the Confession of Faith, pp. xxviii.) broadly denies any taint of intolerance in the Confession.

[1536] Thomas Edwards, a zealous Presbyterian minister at London, published in 1645 a treatise of 60 pages, dedicated to Parliament, under the title, Gangræna; or, a Catalogue and Discovery of many of the Errors, Heresies, Blasphemies, and Pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this Time, in which he collects no less than one hundred and seventy-six miscellaneous 'errors, heresies, and blasphemies,' and enumerates sixteen heretical sects--namely: 1, Independents; 2, Brownists; 3, Millenaries; 4, Antinomians; 5, Anabaptists; 6, Arminians; 7, Libertines; 8, Familists; 9, Enthusiasts; 10, Seekers: 11, Perfectists: 12, Socinians; 13, Arians; 14, Antitrinitarians; 15, Antiscripturists; 16, Skeptics. 'The industrious writer,' says Neal, 'might have enlarged his catalogue with Papists, Prelatists, Deists, Ranters, Behemenists, etc., etc., or, if he had pleased, a less number might have served his turn, for very few of these sectaries were collected into societies; but his business was to blacken the adversaries of Presbyterian uniformity, that the Parliament might crush them by sanguinary methods.' See an account of this book in Neal, Part III. ch. vii. (Vol. II. p. 37), and Masson, Vol. III. pp. 143 sqq.

[1537] Innes (Law of Creeds, pp. 243 and 244) says: 'Toleration was long unknown in the law, as in the history, of Scotland. The intense sentiment of national unity was strongly against it. The nation was one, and the Church became one. The Church claimed to be the Church of Christ in the realm, exclusively and of divine right. . . . The Scottish commissioners went to the Westminster Assembly to work out the "covenanted uniformity in religion," and the new doctrine of the "toleration of sects" which met them there they most earnestly resisted.

[1538] Art. 36. See Vol. III. p. 432.

[1539] Art. 39. See Vol. III. p. 372.

[1540] Art. 37. See Vol. III. p. 512.

[1541] No. 70. See Vol. III. p. 540.

[1542] We exempt the five years of Cromwell's Protectorate (1653-1658), during which the Independents were in the ascendency.

[1543] A recent able writer, who has no sympathy whatever with the faith of Presbyterians, thus describes their persecutions under the Stuarts: 'In Scotland, during almost the whole period that the Stuarts were on the throne of England, a persecution rivaling in atrocity almost any on record was directed by the English government, at the instigation of the Scotch bishops, and with the approbation of the English Church, against all who repudiated episcopacy. If a conventicle was held in a house, the preacher was liable to be put to death. If it was held in the open air, both minister and people incurred the same fate. The Presbyterians were hunted like criminals over the mountains; their ears were torn from the roots; they were branded with hot irons; their fingers were wrenched asunder by the thumbkins; the bones of their legs were shattered in the boots; women were scourged publicly through the streets; multitudes were transported to the Barbadoes; an infuriated soldiery was let loose upon them, and encouraged to exercise all their ingenuity in torturing them.' (Lecky, l.c. Vol. II. p. 48, Amer. ed.)

[1544] The Established Church of Scotland, the Original Secession Church, the English Presbyterian Church, and the Irish Presbyterian Church adhere to the 'whole doctrine' of the Westminster Confession, with a slight qualification of Ch. XXXI. 2. The Reformed Presbyterian Church does the same, but declares in its Testimony that it is 'not pledged to defend every sentiment or expression,' and asserts that 'to employ civil coercion of any kind for the purpose of inducing men to renounce an erroneous creed, or to espouse and profess a sound Scriptural one, is incompatible with the nature of true religion, and must ever prove ineffectual in practice.' The United Presbyterian Church introduces into its Formula of subscription this clause: 'It being understood that you are not required to approve of any thing in these documents which teaches, or is supposed to teach, compulsory or persecuting and intolerant, principles in religion.' The Free Church of Scotland meets the difficulty by a questionable exegesis, declaring (in an 'Act anent Questions and Formula,' June 1, 1846): ' The General Assembly, in passing this Act, think it right to declare that, while the Church firmly maintains the same Scriptural principles as to the duties of nations and their rulers in reference to true religion and the Church of Christ, for which she has hitherto contended, she disclaims intolerant or persecuting principles, and does not regard her Confession of Faith, or any portion thereof, when fairly interpreted, as favoring intolerance or persecution, or consider that her office-bearers, by subscribing it, profess any principles inconsistent with liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment.' See Innes, The Law of Creeds, pp. 453, 461, 463.

[1545] See next section.

[1546] Milton, the independent of Independents and the boldest as well as most eloquent champion of civil and religious liberty in the seventeenth century, was unwilling to tolerate Romanists, because he regarded them as idolaters and as enemies of freedom. See his Areopagitica, of which Lecky (Vol. II. p. 80) says that it is as glorious a monument of the genius of Milton as his Paradise Lost, and that it 'probably represents the very highest point that English eloquence has attained.'

[1547] This is the theory of Lecky.

[1548] The limited toleration in some Roman Catholic countries exists in spite of Romanism, and the liberal opinions and Christian feelings of individual Catholics have no influence on the system, which is the same as ever, as may be inferred from the papal Syllabus of 1864, and from the recent papal protest against even the minimum of religious toleration in Spain (1876). In Protestant countries the Roman Church claims as much liberty as she can get, and advocates toleration in her own interest, but would deny it to others as soon as she attained to power.

[1549] See the 'Fourteenth Proposition' of Barclay, adopted by the Quakers: 'Since God hath assumed to himself the power and dominion of the conscience, who alone can rightly instruct and govern it, therefore it is not lawful for any whatsoever, by virtue of any authority or principality they bear in the government of this world, to force the consciences of others; and therefore all killing, banishing, fining, imprisoning, and other such things, which men are afflicted with, for the alone exercise of their conscience, or difference in worship or opinion, proceedeth from the spirit of Cain, the murderer, and is contrary to the truth; provided always that no man, under the pretense of conscience, prejudice his neighbor in his life or estate, or do any thing destructive to, or inconsistent with, human society; in which case the law is for the transgressor, and justice to be administered upon all, without respect of persons.' This was published in 1675. Bossuet, therefore, was imperfectly informed when at the close of the seventeenth century (1688) he mentioned the Anabaptists and Socinians as the only Christians who did not admit the power of the civil sword 'dans les matières de la religion et de la conscience' (Hist. des Variations, LIV. X. 56).

[1550] The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation, 1637 (or 1638; dedicated in a most humble preface to King Charles I.; 3d ed. 1664; 10th ed. 1742; reprinted in the first two vols. of the Oxford ed. of Chillingworth's Works, 1838, in 3 vols.). This book is a vindication of Protestantism and of the author's return to it, and proclaims that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the religion of Protestants, and that no Church of one denomination is infallible. At Chillingworth's burial, in Jan., 1644, Dr. Cheynell, who had shown him great kindness during his sickness, flung this book into the grave, with the words, 'Get thee gone, thou cursed book; go rot with thy author.' Chillingworth, however, had no idea of civil liberty, and wrote as an extreme royalist on the Unlawfulness of Resisting the Lawful Prince, although most Impious, Tyrannical, and Idolatrous.

[1551] Liberty of Prophesying, written in exile (1647), and unfortunately retracted in part after the Restoration by the author himself, who declared it to have been a ruse de guerre. Coleridge regards this weakness as almost the only stain on Taylor's character. __________________________________________________________________

§ 98. The Westminster Standards in America.

With the Puritan emigration from England and the Presbyterian emigration from Scotland and the North of Ireland, the Westminster standards were planted on the virgin soil of America long before the Declaration of Independence. The most popular is the Shorter Catechism, which has undergone no change except a very slight one among the Cumberland Presbyterians. [1552]

THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND.

The Confession of Faith was first adopted 'for substance of doctrine,' but without the principles of Presbyterian discipline, by the Congregational Synod of Cambridge, in the Colony of Massachusetts, A.D. 1648, one year after its issue in England; then, in the Savoy recension, by the Synod of Boston, Mass., May 12, 1680; and again, in the same form, by the Congregational churches of Connecticut at a Synod of Saybrook, Sept. 9, 1708.

The Smaller Catechism was formerly used as a school-book in New England, but has been thrust into the background by the modern prejudice against catechisms and by a flood of more entertaining but less solid Sunday-school literature.

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES.

The various Presbyterian bodies of English and Scotch descent used at first all the Westminster standards without alteration. The Presbytery of Philadelphia, the oldest in America, was organized in 1706, the Synod of Philadelphia in 1717, and the Synod of New York in 1743. The Synod of Philadelphia, Sept. 19, 1729, adopted the Confession with a liberal construction, in these words:

'Although the Synod do not claim or pretend to any authority of imposing our faith upon other men's consciences, but do profess our just dissatisfaction with and abhorrence of such impositions, and do utterly disclaim all legislative power and authority in the Church, being willing to receive one another as Christ has received us to the glory of God, and admit to fellowship in sacred ordinances all such as we have grounds to believe Christ will at last admit to the kingdom of heaven: yet we are undoubtedly obliged to take care that the faith once delivered to the saints be kept pure and uncorrupt among us, and so handed down to our posterity.

'And [we] do therefore agree that all the ministers of this Synod, or that shall hereafter be admitted to this Synod, shall declare their agreement in and approbation of the Confession of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, as being, in all the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems of Christian doctrine, and do also adopt the said Confession and Catechisms as the confession of our faith.

'And we do also agree that all the Presbyteries within our bounds shall always take care not to admit any candidate of the ministry into the exercise of the sacred function but what declares his agreement in opinion with all the essential and necessary articles of said Confession, either by subscribing the said Confession of Faith and Catechisms, or by a verbal declaration of his assent thereto, as such minister or candidate shall think best. And in case any minister of this Synod, or any candidate for the ministry, shall have any scruple with respect to any article or articles of said Confession or Catechisms, he shall, at the time of his making said declaration, declare his sentiments to the Presbytery or Synod, who shall, notwithstanding, admit him to the exercise of the ministry within our bounds, and to ministerial communion, if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruple or mistake to be only about articles not essential and necessary in doctrine, worship, or government. But if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge such ministers or candidates erroneous in essential and necessary articles of faith, the Synod or Presbytery shall declare them incapable of communion with them. And the Synod do solemnly agree that none of us will traduce or use any opprobrious terms of those that differ from us in these extra-essential and not-necessary points of doctrine, but treat them with the same friendship, kindness, and brotherly love as if they had not differed from us in such sentiments.' [1553]

In the afternoon session the scruples about adopting these standards were solved, and the Synod unanimously declared that they do not receive 'some clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters in any such sense as to suppose the civil magistrate hath a controlling power over Synods with respect to the exercise of their ministerial authority, or power to persecute any for their religion, or in any sense contrary to the Protestant succession to the throne of Great Britain.'

This supplementary action foreshadows the changes which were afterwards made.

When the Synods of Philadelphia and New York united in one body at Philadelphia, May 29, 1758, they adopted, as the first article of the plan of union, the following:

'Both Synods having always approved and received the Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as an orthodox and excellent system of Christian doctrine, founded on the Word of God, we do still receive the same as the confession of out faith; and also adhere to the plan of worship, government, and discipline contained in the Westminster Directory, strictly enjoining it on all our members and probationers for the ministry, that they preach and teach according to the form of sound words in said Confession and Catechisms, and avoid and oppose all errors contrary thereto.' [1554]

THE AMERICAN REVISION.

After the Revolutionary War the united Synod of Philadelphia and New York, which met at Philadelphia, May 28, 1787, appointed a committee to prepare an alteration in the Confession of Faith, Ch. XX. (closing paragraph), Ch. XXIII., 3, and Ch. XXXI., 1, 2, in consequence of the new relation of Church and State. [1555]

The changes proposed were adopted by the joint Synod at a subsequent meeting in Philadelphia, May 28, 1788, in the following action:

'The Synod having fully considered the draught of the form of government and discipline, did, on a review of the whole, and hereby do ratify and adopt the same, as now altered and amended, as the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in America, and order the same to be considered and strictly observed as the rule of their proceedings by all the inferior judicatories belonging to the body. And they order that a correct copy be printed, and that the Westminster Confession of faith, as now altered, be printed in full along with it, as making a part of the Constitution.

'Resolved, That the true intent and meaning of the above ratification by the Synod is, that the Form of Government and Discipline, and the Confession of Faith, as now ratified, is to continue to be our constitution and the confession of our faith and practice unalterable, unless two thirds of the Presbyteries under the care of the General Assembly shall propose alterations or amendments, and such alterations or amendments shall be agreed to and enacted by the General Assembly.' [1556]

On the day following (May 29) the Synod 'took into consideration the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and having made a small amendment of the Larger, did approve, and do hereby approve and ratify the said Catechisms, as now agreed on, as the Catechisms of the Presbyterian Church in the said United States.' At the same time it was ordered that all these standards, as altered and adapted to the wants of the American churches, be printed and bound up in one volume. [1557]

The changes consist in the omission of those sentences which imply the union of Church and State, or the principle of ecclesiastical establishments, making it the duty of the civil magistrate not only to protect, but also to support religion, and giving to the magistrate power to call and ratify ecclesiastical synods and councils, and to punish heretics. Instead of this, the American revision confines the duty of the civil magistrate to the legal protection of religion in its public exercise, without distinction of Christian creeds or organizations. It thus professes the principle of religious liberty and equality of all denominations before the law. This principle has been faithfully and consistently adhered to by the large body of the Presbyterian Church in America, and has become the common law of the land. To facilitate the comparison we present the respective sections in parallel columns:

Original Text. American Text. Ch. XXIII. 3.--Of the Civil Magistrate. Ch. XXIII. 3.--Of the Civil Magistrate. The civil magistrate, may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and Sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; [1558] yet he hath authority, and it is his duty to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and Sacraments; [1559] or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; [1560] or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. [1561] Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the Church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty

and observed. [1562] For the better effecting whereof he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God. [1563] of discharging every part of their sacred functions without violence or danger. [1564] And as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his Church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder the due exercise thereof among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. [1565] It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever; and to take order that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance. [1566] Ch. XXXI.--Of Synods and Councils. Ch. XXXI.--Of Synods and Councils. For the better government and further edification of the Church, there ought to be such assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils. [1567] For the better government and further edification of the Church, there ought to be such assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils. [1568] And it belongeth to the overseers and other rulers of the particular churches, by virtue of their office, and the power which Christ hath given them for edification, and not for destruction, to appoint such assemblies; and to convene together in them, as often as they shall judge it expedient for the good of the Church. [1569] II. As magistrates may lawfully call a synod of ministers and other fit persons to consult and advise with about matters of religion: [1570] so, if magistrates be open enemies to the Church, the ministers of Christ, of themselves, by virtue of their office; or they, with other fit persons, upon delegation from their churches, may meet together in such assemblies. [1571]

In Ch. XX., § 4, the last sentence, 'and by the power of the civil magistrate,' was omitted, so as to read, 'they [the offenders] may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against by the censures of the Church.'

The only change made in the Larger Catechism was the striking out of the words 'tolerating a false religion,' among the sins forbidden in the Second Commandment (Quest. 109).

The example set by the Presbyterian Church in the United States was afterwards (1801) followed by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the revision of the political sections of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.

PRESBYTERIAN REUNION. [1572]

The division of the Presbyterian Church into Old School and New School, which took place at Philadelphia, June 8, 1837, arose chiefly from contentions in consequence of the Plan of Union formed in 1801 between the General Assembly and the Congregational Association of Connecticut, and involved two different constructions of the doctrinal standards--the one more strict and conservative, the other more liberal and progressive--but did not affect the organic law of the Church. [1573] The Old School, it is true, charged the New School with sixteen Pelagian and Arminian errors, which had their origin in recent developments of New England theology; but the New School met the charge with the 'Auburn Declaration' (Aug. 1837), which denied those errors and adopted sixteen 'true doctrines' in essential harmony with the Calvinistic anthropology and soteriology. This Declaration must be regarded as expressing the belief of the New-School body at that time, whatever the views of individual members may have been. [1574]

In the preparatory steps towards a reunion of these two bodies after a separation of thirty-two years, the question of the doctrinal basis took a prominent part. It was proposed that 'in the United Church the Westminster Confession of Faith shall be received and adopted as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures.' It is characteristic of the excellent temper and spirit of concession which prevailed on both sides, that at the 'Presbyterian National Union Convention,' held in November, 1867, at Philadelphia, Dr. Henry B. Smith, of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, a prominent leader of the New School, proposed a defining clause, to satisfy the demands of Old School orthodoxy; [1575] while the Rev. Dr. Gurley, pastor of an Old-School church in Washington City, proposed an additional clause to guarantee the New School liberty of interpretation. [1576] The amendments were received unanimously, with great joy and gratitude.

But after further consideration it was found best to drop both these amendments, and when the reunion was consummated by the two assemblies at Pittsburgh, Pa., Nov. 10, 1869, the following article was unanimously adopted:

'The reunion shall be effected on the doctrinal and ecclesiastical basis of our common Standards; the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments shall be acknowledged to be the inspired Word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice; the Confession of Faith shall continue to be sincerely received and adopted, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and the government and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in the United States shall be approved as containing the principles and rules of our polity.'

Thus the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, which had been unfortunately separated by a permissive decree of God, was happily and, we trust, forever reunited by an efficient and gracious decree of God. [1577]

OTHER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES IN THE UNITED STATES.

In addition to this large Presbyterian Church, there are in the United States a number of smaller ones having distinctively a Scottish origin. Of these and of their relation to the Westminster standards the Rev. G. D. Mathews, of New York, from his own familiar acquaintance with the Presbyterian Churches in Scotland and the United States, kindly furnishes for this work the following account:

'Among the emigrants into this country in the last century were many who had been connected with the Associate Church of Scotland. The fathers of that Church, the Erskines, objected not so much to the constitution of the Established Church as to its administration, especially in reference to patronage and to Church discipline. In 1753 the American Associate Church was organized as a Presbytery subordinate to the Antiburgher Synod of Scotland, equalling if not surpassing the mother Church in its rigid adherence to the doctrinal system of the Westminster standards. Its zeal for these, indeed, served to deepen its opposition to the Scottish Establishment as a Church that had become unfaithful to its religious profession.

'In 1774 a Reformed Presbyterian Presbytery was constituted in America by followers of Cargill, Cameron, and Renwick. These held that the Church of Scotland had marred its standing as a true Church of Christ by entering into union with an immoral government--the government of Great Britain being of this character because not based on Scriptural principles. Of this latter position the proof was alleged to lie in its disregard, as shown by the national acceptance of Episcopacy at the Restoration in 1660, and again at the Revolution in 1688, of that Solemn League and Covenant which had been sworn to in 1643, a Covenant whose engagements were affirmed to be binding on the people of the British Empire until fulfilled. An additional proof lay in the absence from its constitution of any acknowledgment of God as the Author of its existence and the source of its authority, of Jesus Christ as its Ruler, and of the Bible as the supreme law of its conduct.

'Notwithstanding some actual differences, the force of circumstances brought these Churches together, so that in 1782 they became united under the name of the Associate Reformed Church--minorities on both sides refusing to enter the union, and thus perpetuating their respective Churches. In 1799 the Associate Reformed Church issued an edition of the Westminster Confession containing the following changes from the original documents:

Chap. XX. 4.-- . . . faith, worship, conversation, (insert) or the order which Christ hath established in his Church, they may be lawfully called to account, and proceeded against by the censures of the Church; and in proportion as their erroneous opinions or practices, either in their own nature or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace of the Church and of civil society, they may also be proceeded against by the power of the civil magistrate.

Chap. XXII. 3.-- . . . the keys of the kingdom of heaven. (Add) Yet, as the gospel revelation lays indispensable obligations upon all classes of people who are favored with it, magistrates, as such, are bound to execute their respective offices in a subserviency thereto, administering government on Christian principles, and ruling in the fear of God, according to the directions of his Word; as those who shall give an account to the Lord Jesus, whom God hath appointed to be the Judge of the world.

Hence magistrates, as such, in a Christian country are bound to promote the Christian religion, is the most valuable interest of their subjects, by all such means as are not inconsistent with civil rights, and do not imply an interference with the policy of the Church, which is the free and independent kingdom of the Redeemer, nor an assumption of dominion over conscience.

Chap. XXXI. 2.--(Substitute.) The ministers of Christ themselves, and by virtue of their office; or they with other fit persons, upon delegation from their churches, have the exclusive right to appoint, adjourn, or dissolve such synods or councils; though in extraordinary cases it may be proper for magistrates to desire the calling of a synod of ministers and other fit persons, to consult and advise with about matters of religion; and in such cases it is the duly of churches to comply with their desire.

'In the Larger Catechism, under the things forbidden by the Second Commandment, the word authorizing was substituted for "tolerating a false religion."

'In 1858 the Associate Church, which had by this time grown considerably, joined with the Associate Reformed Church, when the name United Presbyterian Church was assumed and the Westminster Confession again altered. The edition used by this Church differs from the original in the following passages:

Chap. XX. 4.-- . . . hath established in the Church, they (add) ought to be called to account, and proceeded against by the censures of the Church, if they belong to her communion, and thus be amenable to her own spiritual authority. And as the civil magistrate is the minister of God for good to the virtuous and a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil, he is therefore bound to suppress individuals and combinations, whatever may be their avowed objects, whether political or religious, whose principles and practices, openly propagated and maintained, are calculated to subvert the foundations of properly constituted society.

Chap. XXIII. 3.-- . . . kingdom of heaven, (add) or in the least interfere to regulate matter's of faith and worship. As nursing fathers, magistrates are bound to administer their government according to the revealed principles of Christianity, and to improve the opportunities which their high station and extensive influence afford in promoting the Christian religion as their own most valuable interest and the good of the people demand, by all such means as do not imply any infringement of the inherent rights of the Church, or any assumption of dominion over the consciences of men. They ought not to punish any as heretics or schismatics. No authoritative judgment concerning matters of religion is competent to them, as their authority extends only to the external works or practices of their subjects as citizens, and not as Christians. It is their duty to protect the Church in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons shall enjoy the free, full, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions without violence or danger. They should enact no law which would in any way interfere with or hinder the due exercise of government and discipline established by Jesus Christ in his Church. It is their duty also to protect the person, good name, estate, natural and civil rights of all their subjects in such a way that no person be suffered, upon any pretense, to violate them; and to take order that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance. God alone being Lord of the conscience, the civil magistrate may not compel any under his civil authority to worship God contrary to the dictates of their own consciences; yet it is competent in him to restrain such opinions and to punish such practices as tend to subvert the foundations of civil society and violate the common rights of men.

Chap. XXXI. 2.--(Substitute.) We declare that as the Church of Jesus Christ is a kingdom distinct from and independent of the state, having a government, laws, office-bearers, and all spiritual power peculiar to herself for her own edification; so it belongs exclusively to the ministers of Christ, together with other fit persons, upon delegation from their churches, by virtue of their office and the intrinsic power committed unto them, to appoint their own assemblies, and to convene together in them as often as they should judge it expedient for the good of the Church.

'In the question of the Larger Catechism, changed in 1799, the original word tolerating was restored.

'At no period has the Associate Church, which still exists, altered the language of the Confession. It has refrained from doing this, "judging it to be improper for one ecclesiastical body to alter any deed of another, making it rather express their own views than those of the body by whom it was originally framed, for hereby the sentiments of one body may be unfairly palmed upon another." Any obscurity or error in the Confession should be remedied by the emitting of a Testimony, in which there could be given a full and accurate statement of the particular truth in question. In 1784, therefore, the Associate Church issued such a Testimony, in which (Articles 15-19), speaking of the civil magistrate, it affirmed that the magistrate, as such, is no ruler in the Church; that he should not grant any privileges to those whom he judges professors of the true religion which may hurt others in their natural rights; that his whole duty, as a magistrate, respects men, not as Christians, but as members of civil society; that any de facto government governing orderly is that ordinance of God which must be obeyed, and that with any such government Christians may lawfully co-operate.

'The Reformed Presbyterian Church has also retained the Westminster Confession unaltered. Adhering to its teaching on the Civil Magistrate, as this was received by the Church of Scotland in the Adopting Act of 1647, it issued in 1806 a Testimony, in which it declared that civil government is a natural institution, but that, to be a lawful one, so that a Christian man may take part in it, God must be acknowledged in its constitution as the fountain of all power and authority, and that Christian rulers, appointed to office according to a righteous civil constitution, have authority from God to rule, in subserviency to the kingdom of Christ. The absence from the American national constitution of any such acknowledgment renders that covenant unscriptural and immoral, and so precludes Christian men from becoming identified with its administration. Another reason for this political dissent is the doctrine of the binding obligation of the Scottish Covenants.

'A difference of opinion that had gradually risen within this Church as to the extent of this precluding led to the formation, in 1833, of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church holding the extremest view of political dissent, and of the General Synod of the same Church, permitting its members to exercise the political franchise.

'As regards the doctrinal articles of the Confession, all these Churches are Calvino Calviniores.' __________________________________________________________________

[1552] See next section.

[1553] Minutes of the Synod of Philadelphia, as published in the Records of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (embracing the Minutes of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and of the Synods of New York and Philadelphia, from 1706 to 1788). Philad. Presbyt. Board of Public. 1841, p. 92. See also W. E. Moore's Presbyterian Digest: a Compend of the Acts and Deliverances of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Philad. Presbyt. Board), second ed. 1873, pp.45 sq.

[1554] See Minutes of the Synod of 1758 as published in the Records of the Presbyterian Church, p. 286. Also Moore's Digest, p. 48; and Gillett, Hist. of the Presbyt. Ch. in the U. S. of America, Vol. I. p. 138.

[1555] See Records of the Presbyterian Church, p. 539, where we find the following minute, dated May 28, 1787: 'The Synod took into consideration the last paragraph of the twentieth chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the third paragraph of the twenty-third chapter, and the first paragraph of the thirty-first chapter; and having made some alterations, agreed that the said paragraphs, as now altered, be printed for consideration, together with the draught of a plan of government and discipline. The Synod also appointed the above-named committee to revise the Westminster Directory for public worship, and to have it, when thus revised, printed, together with the draught, for consideration. And the Synod agreed that when the above proposed alterations in the Confession of Faith shall have been finally determined on by the body, and the Directory shall have been revised as above directed, and adopted by the Synod, the said Confession thus altered, and Directory thus revised and adopted, shall be styled, "The Confession of Faith and Directory for Public Worship of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America."'

[1556] Records of the Presbyterian Church, p. 546; Moore's Digest, p. 51.

[1557] Records, p. 547; Moore's Digest, p. 52. The first edition of the new book appeared Philad. 1789, under the title: 'The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, containing the Confession of Faith, the Catechisms, the Government and Discipline, and the Directory of the Worship of God, ratified and adopted by the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, May 28, 1788. The Assembly of 1792 ordered a new edition with the Scripture texts annexed, and appointed a committee for the purpose. This edition was adopted by the Assembly in 1794 (Moore's Digest, p. 52).

[1558] 2 Chron. xxvi. 18; Matt. xviii. 17; Matt. xvi. 19; 1 Cor. xii. 28, 29; Eph. iv. 7, 12; 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2; Rom. x. 15; Heb. v. 4.

[1559] 2 Chron. xxvi. 18

[1560] Matt. xvi. 19; 2 Cor. iv. 1, 2

[1561] John xviii. 36; Mal. ii. 7; Acts v. 29.

[1562] Isa. xlix. 23; Psa. cxxii. 9; Ezra vii. 23-28; Lev. xxiv. 16; Deut. xiii. 5, 6, 12; 1 Kings xviii. 4; 1 Chron. xiii. 1-9; 2 Kings xxiii. 1-26; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 33; xv. 12, 13.

[1563] 2 Chron. xv. 8-17; xxix. 30; Matt. ii. 4, 5.

[1564] Isa. xlix. 23.

[1565] Psa. cv. 15; Acts xviii. 14, 15, 16.

[1566] 2 Sam. xxiii. 13; 1 Tim. ii. 1; Rom. xiii. 4.

[1567] Acts xv. 2, 4, 6.

[1568] Acts xv. 2, 4, 6.

[1569] Acts xv. 22, 23, 25.

[1570] Isa. xlix. 23; 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2; 2 Chron. xix. 8-12; xxix. and xxx.; Matt. ii. 4, 5; Prov. xi. 14.

[1571] Acts xv. 2, 4, 22, 23, 25.

[1572] For the documentary history of this remarkable movement, see the Minutes of the two General Assemblies for 1867-69, and of the reunited Assembly from 1870 to 1872; also the new edition of Moore's Presbyterian Digest (1873), pp. 57-106; and the Memorial Volume on Presbyterian Reunion, New York, 1870.

[1573] For the documentary history of the separation of the Presbyterian Church and the 'Exscinding Acts' of the Old-School Assembly, see Baird's Collection (O. S.), pp. 710 sqq., and the first edition of Moore's New Digest (N. S.), pp. 456 sqq. In the new edition of Moore's Digest (1873), the chapter on the division is omitted, and the documents on the reunion inserted instead.

[1574] The sixteen errors charged are found in Baird's Collection, pp. 711 and 745 sqq., together with the reply of the New School, which was afterwards, in Aug. of the same year, adopted by a convention of 98 commissioned ministers and 58 laymen (besides 24 corresponding members) at Auburn, N. Y., and is hence called the 'Auburn Declaration.' The latter is also embodied in the third volume of this work, p. 771. On its history, comp. Dr. Morris, in the Amer. Presbyt. Review, for January, 1876.

[1575] The 'Smith amendment' was in these words: 'It being understood that this Confession is received in its proper historical, that is, the Calvinistic or Reformed, sense.' This would exclude, of course, Antinomianism and Fatalism on the one hand, and Arminianism and Pelagianism on the other.

[1576] The 'Gurley amendment' was in these words: 'It is also understood that various methods of viewing, stating, explaining, and illustrating the doctrines of the Confession, which do not impair the integrity of the Reformed or Calvinistic system, are to be freely allowed in the United Church, as they have hitherto been allowed in the separate Churches.'

[1577] See the address of Dr. Masgrave at the meeting in Pittsburgh, Memorial Volume, p. 388. __________________________________________________________________

§ 99. The Westminster Standards in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

Sources.

I. On the part of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church:

The Confession of Faith of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Revised and adopted by the General Assembly, at Princeton, Ky., May, 1829. Nashville, Tennessee (Board of Publ. of the C. P. Ch.), 1875 (pp. 286). The same book contains also the Shorter Catechism, the Form of Government and Discipline, the Directory of Worship, and Manual.

The history of the origin of the schism is contained in the Circular Letter of the late Cumberland Presbytery; the Reply to a Pastoral Letter of West Tennessee Presbytery.

II. On the part of the Presbyterian Church

Samuel Baird: Collection of the Acts, Deliverances, and Testimonies of the Presbyterian Church. Philad. (Presbyt. Board), 1855; second ed. 1859, pp. 640 sqq. Contains the official acts of the General Assembly on the origin and disorders of the Cumberland Presbytery.

Wm. E. Moore: A New Digest of the Acts and Deliverances of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Philadelphia, 1861, p. 95 (on the validity of the Cumberland Presbyterian ordinances), and p. 448 (on terms of correspondence).

Robert Davidson: History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky. New York, 1847 (Ch. ix. pp. 223 sqq., 'The Cumberland Presbyterian Schism').

Historical and Doctrinal.

James Smith: History of the Christian Church, including a History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Nashville, 1835.

H. B. Crisman: Origin and Doctrines of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 1856, new ed. Nashville, Tenn. 1875.

Richard Beard (D.D. and Prof. of Syst. Theol. in Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee): Why am I a Cumberland Presbyterian? Nashville, Tenn. 1872. By the same: Lectures on Systematic Theology, 3 vols. Nashville (Board of Publ.). Comp. his Art. in Johnson's Universal Cyclop. 1876, Vol. I.

F. R. Cossitt: Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing. Louisville, 1853.

HISTORICAL.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, so called from its birth-place, the 'Cumberland Country' in Kentucky and Tennessee, took its rise in an extensive revival of religion which began in the southwestern part of Kentucky in 1797, and reached its height in 1800 and 1801, among a population mostly of Scotch-Irish descent. Methodist ministers took part in it. This revival called for a larger number of ministerial laborers than could be supplied in the regular way by the few Presbyterian institutions of learning then existing. Hence the Presbytery of Cumberland ('at the recommendation of the Rev. Mr. Rice, the oldest Presbyterian minister then residing in Kentucky') licensed and ordained a number of pious men without a liberal education, and allowed them, in subscribing the Westminster Confession, to express their dissent from what they called the doctrine of 'fatality,' i.e., the doctrine of absolute decrees. The Synod of Kentucky demanded a re-examination of these ministers and candidates; this being refused, it dissolved the Cumberland Presbytery in 1806. The General Assembly confirmed the action, but ultimately recognized the Cumberland Presbyterians as an independent organization, and entered into terms of correspondence with them as with other evangelical denominations. [1578]

The dissenters organized an independent 'Cumberland Presbytery,' February 4, 1810, consisting of four regularly ordained ministers, six licentiates, and seven candidates. The presbytery grew into the Cumberland Synod in 1818, and this adopted a Confession, Catechism, and Form of Church Government. The Confession was the work of a committee of which the Rev. Finis Ewing was the leading spirit. The Cumberland Synod was divided into three (1828), and a General Assembly was formed, which held its first session in May, 1829. This Body subjected the Confession of Faith to a final revision. 'In so doing, the Synod and General Assembly only exercised an undeniable right, allowed by the God of the Bible and secured by the civil constitution; and discharged what they conceived to be a duty to the Church and the world. . . . Let the work be tried neither by tradition nor the fathers, but by the holy Scriptures.' [1579]

The Cumberland Church has since spread rapidly, and extends now from Western Pennsylvania to Texas and California. It furnishes the proof that people may be good Presbyterians without being Calvinists.

THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CONFESSION.

The Cumberland Presbyterians differ from the regular Presbyterians in two points--the education for the ministry and the doctrine of predestination. They adopt and use the Westminster Confession in full, with the American amendments in Chs. XXIII. and XXXI., and slight verbal changes, but they depart from it in rejecting the unconditional election and reprobation as taught in Ch. III. [1580] They retain, however, substantially Ch. XVII. on perseverance, although perseverance presupposes unconditional election, and is inconsistent with conditional election. The Cumberland Confession teaches on the one hand conditional election and unlimited atonement, and on the other the final perseverance of the saints. It is an eclectic compromise between Calvinism and Arminianism; it is half Calvinistic and half Arminian, and makes no attempt to harmonize these antagonistic elements. 'Cumberland Presbyterians,' says one of their writers, 'believe as firmly as Arminians do that salvation, in all cases, is conditional. But they believe that every genuine saint will comply with the conditions; and thus salvation becomes certain to saints. It is uncertain to sinners because it is doubtful whether they will comply with the conditions; but certain to saints because it is certain that they will comply with the conditions--"My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me."' [1581] The same writer answers the usual objections to the doctrine of perseverance (the fall of Adam and the angels, of Solomon and Peter, the warnings and exhortations of Scripture, the alleged inconsistency of the doctrine with free agency and the duty of watchfulness), and urges nine reasons against the Arminian view of falling from grace. [1582]

Another departure connected with the former is the affirmation of the salvation of all infants dying in infancy. The old Confession says. Ch. X. 3: 'Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth.' This seems naturally (though not necessarily) to imply the existence of reprobate infants who are not saved. To avoid this interpretation, the Cumberland Confession substitutes all for elect, and thus positively teaches universal infant salvation. In this point it has anticipated what seems now to be the general sentiment among American Presbyterians, who harmonize it with the Westminster Confession either by interpreting that all infants dying in infancy are elect, or that it confines itself to state as an article of faith what is clearly warranted in Scripture, and leaves the rest to private opinion.

The Shorter Catechism of the Assembly has been changed by the Cumberland Presbyterians in Question 7 as follows:

westminster catechism. cumberland catechism. What are the decrees of God? What are the decrees of God? The decrees of God are his eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. The decrees of God are his purpose according to the counsel of his own will, whereby he hath foreordained to bring to pass what shall be for his own glory: sin not being for God's glory, therefore he hath not decreed it.

In Question 20 the words 'God did provide salvation for all mankind' are substituted for 'God, having elected some to everlasting life,' and the phraseology is otherwise changed. In Question 31, for the phrase 'What is effectual calling?' is substituted 'What is the work of the Spirit?'

[Note.--In 1906, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was "reunited" with the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., accepting the Westminster Confession as revised, 1902. A dissenting element retained the old name and has perpetuated the organization with a membership, 1929, of 64,081. At the time of the union, 1906, the Cumberland Church reported 200,000 members in 114 presbyteries.--Ed.] __________________________________________________________________

[1578] In 1825 the General Assembly declared that the ministrations of the Cumberland Presbyterians 'are to be viewed in the same light with those of other denominations' (Baird's Collection, p. 646). In 1849 the General Assembly of the New School entered into correspondence with them, and passed this resolution: 'The General Assembly of each Church shall appoint and receive delegates from the General Assembly of the other Church, who shall be possessed of all the powers and privileges of other members of such Assemblies, except that of voting' (Minutes, p. 184; Moore, p. 448). The Rev. Dr. Alexander J. Baird appeared as a delegate of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church before the United General Assembly in Baltimore, 1873, and was cordially received (Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyt. Church for 1873, p. 485). In the following year the General Assembly at St. Louis sent a salutation to the Cumberland Presbyterian Assembly then in session at Springfield, Mo., with the words: 'Serving the same Lord, we are one in him. May he dwell in us.' To this the Cumberland Assembly responded in the same fraternal spirit (Minutes for 1874, pp. 18 and 20). A committee of conference on union was also appointed, but was discharged by the General Assembly of 1875 (Minutes, p. 480).

[1579] Preface to the Confession.

[1580] See the changes in Vol. III. p. 771.

[1581] Crisman, 1.c. p. 158. Comp. art. of Prof. R. Beard, 1.c.: 'Its theology is Calvinistic, with the exception of the offensive doctrine of predestination so expressed as to seem to embody the old pagan dogma of necessity or fatality.'

[1582] The difficulties of this great problem of predestination have been discussed more fully in § 97, pp. 791 sqq. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

EIGHTH CHAPTER.

MODERN PROTESTANT CREEDS. __________________________________________________________________

§ 100. General Survey.

With the Westminster standards the creed-making period of the Reformed Churches was brought to a close. Calvinism found in them its clearest and fullest exposition. The Helvetic Consensus Formula (1675) was only a weak symbolical after-birth, called forth by the Saumur controversies on the extent of divine election and the inspiration of Hebrew vowel-points. The creative power of Lutheran symbolism had exhausted itself much earlier in the Formula of Concord (1577), and was followed by a period of scholastic analysis and demonstration of the Lutheran system as embodied in its authoritative confessions. The prevailing tendency in these Churches is to greater confessional freedom and catholic expansion rather than sectarian contraction. While the Roman Catholic Church in our age has narrowed its creed by adding two new dogmas of wide range and import, and has doomed to silence every dissent from the infallible decisions of the Vatican, like a machine that is worked by a single motive force, and makes resistance impossible, the Protestant Churches would simplify and liberalize their elaborate standards of former days rather than increase their bulk and tighten their authority. The spirit of the age refuses to be bound by rigorous formulas, and demands greater latitude for private opinion and theological science.

We might therefore close our history of creeds at this point. But evangelical Protestantism extends far beyond the boundaries of Lutheranism and Calvinism.

Since the middle of the seventeenth century there arose, mainly from the fruitful soil of the Reformed Church in England, first amid much persecution, then under the partial protection of the Toleration Act of 1689, a number of distinct ecclesiastical organizations, which, while holding fast to the articles of the oecumenical faith of orthodox Christendom, and the evangelical principles of the Protestant Reformation, differ on minor points of doctrine, worship, and discipline. They have passed through the bloody baptism of persecution as much as the older Churches of the Reformation, and by their fruits they have fully earned a title to an honorable standing in the family of Christian Churches.

The most important among these modern denominations are the Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers, who rose in the seventeenth century, and the Methodists and Moravians, who date from the middle of the eighteenth century. They originated in England, with the exception of the Moravians (who are of Bohemian and German descent), and found from the start a fruitful and congenial soil in the American colonies, which offered an hospitable asylum to all who suffered from religious persecution. The Congregationalists had established flourishing colonies in Massachusetts and Connecticut before they were even tolerated in the mother country. Roger Williams, the patriarch of the American Baptists, though of English birth and training, made Rhode Island his permanent home. The fathers and founders of the Society of Friends--Fox and Penn; of Methodism-- Wesley and Whitefield; of the Moravian Church--Zinzendorf, Spangenberg, Nitschmann--visited America repeatedly, and with such success that they gave to their denominations an Anglo-American stamp. Two of these denominations, the Methodists and Baptists, have in the United States during the nineteenth century numerically far outgrown the older Protestant Churches, and are full of aggressive zeal and energy, both at home and in distant missionary fields. [1583]

On the Continent of Europe these Anglo-American denominations till quite recently were little known, and were even persecuted as intruders and unchurchly sects. National State Churches will allow the widest latitude of theological speculation within the limits of outward conformity rather than grant freedom of public worship to dissenting organizations, however orthodox. [1584]

The nineteenth century has given birth in England to the Irvingites and Darbyites, and in America to the Cumberland Presbyterians, Reformed Episcopalians, and other organizations, which more or less depart from the older Protestant confessions, but adhere to the supernatural revelation in the Bible and the fundamental articles of general orthodoxy. [1585]

The creeds of these modern Protestant denominations (if we except the Savoy Declaration of 1658 and the Baptist Confession of 1688, which contain the body of the Westminster Confession) are thin, meagre, and indefinite as compared with the older confessions, which grew out of the profound theological controversies of the sixteenth century. They contain much less theology; they confine themselves to a popular statement of the chief articles of faith for practical use, and leave a large margin for the exercise of private judgment. In this respect they mark a return to the brevity and simplicity of the primitive baptismal creeds and rules of faith. The authority of creeds, moreover, is lowered, and the absolute supremacy and sufficiency of the Scriptures is emphasized.

In the present age there is, especially in America, a growing tendency towards a liberal recognition and a closer approach of the various evangelical denominations in the form of a free union and co-operation in the common work of the Master, without interfering with the inner organization and peculiar mission of each. This union tendency manifests itself from different starting-points and in different directions, now in the form of voluntary associations (such as Bible and Tract Societies, Young Men's Christian Associations, the Evangelical Alliance, the German Church Diet), now in the form of ecclesiastical confederations (Pan-Anglican Council, Presbyterian Alliance, Anglo-Greek Committees, the Bonn Conferences), now in the form of organic union (the evangelical Union of Lutherans and Reformed Churches in Prussia and other German States, Presbyterian Reunion of Old and New School). The same tendency calls forth efforts, feeble as yet, to formulate the essential consensus of the creeds of congenial sections of Christendom. The old motto, in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas, is struggling to become a practical reality; the age of separation and division is passing away, and the age of the reunion of divided Christendom is beginning to dawn, and to gather the corps of Christ's army, so long engaged in internal war, against the common foe Antichrist. __________________________________________________________________

[1583] The following comparative table of ministers and churches in 1776 and 1876 gives at least an approximate idea of the growth of churches in the United States during its first centennial: Statistics of 1776 (or 1780-90) Statistics of 1876 Denominations. Ministers. Churches. Denominations. Ministers. Churches. Baptists. . 722 872 Baptists. . 13,779 22,924 Congregationalists. 575 700 Congregationalists. 3,333 3,509 Episcopalians. 150 200 Episcopalians. 3,216 4,000 (No bishop.) (61 bishops) Friends (Quakers). 400 500 Friends (Quakers). 865 885 Lutherans (1786). 25 60 Lutherans. 2,662 4,623 Methodists. 24 . . . . Methodists. 20,453 40,000 Moravians. 12(?) 8(?) Moravians. 75 75 Presbyterians (1788). 177 419 Presbyterians. 4,744 5,077 Reformed, Dutch. 40 100 Reformed, Dutch. 546 506 Reformed, German. 12 60 Reformed, German. 644 1,353 Roman Catholics. 26(?) 52(?) Roman Catholics. 5,141 5,046 (56 bishops)

[1584] Under the disparaging name of sects the Methodists and Baptists, and other denominations figure usually in German works on Symbolics that recognize only three Churches or Confessions--the Catholic (Greek and Roman), the Lutheran, and the Reformed (Calvinistic). The late Professor Marheineke, one of the chief writers on Symbolics, after explaining to his catechumens of Trinity Parish, in Berlin, that there are three Churches in Christendom, asked a pupil, 'To what Church do you belong?' and received the answer, 'To Trinity Church.' The science of Symbolics, or Comparative Theology, has thus far been almost exclusively cultivated in Germany, but should be reconstructed on a much more liberal scale in England and America, where all denominations meet in daily intercourse and on terms of equal rights.

[1585] Some of these have already been considered, the Cumberland Presbyterians in connection with the Westminster Confession, the Reformed Episcopalians in connection with the history of the Thirty-nine Articles. __________________________________________________________________

§ 101. The Congregationalists.

Literature.

I. English Congregationalism.

See the sources of the Westminster Assembly, and the historical works of Neal, Stoughton, and others mentioned in §§ 92, 93, and 94.

John Robinson (Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers in Leyden, d. 1626): Works, with Memoir by Robert Ashton. London, 1851, 3 vols.

The Grand Debate concerning Presbytery and Episcopacy in the Westminster Assembly (Lond. 1652).

The works of Drs. Goodwin, Owen, Howe, and other patriarchs of Independency.

Benjamin Brook: The Lives of the Puritans from Queen Elizabeth to 1662. London, 1813, 3 vols.

Benjamin Hanbury: Historical Memorials relating to the Independents or Congregationalists, from their Rise to the Restoration of the Monarchy, A.D. 1660. London (Congreg. Union of England and Wales), 1839-1844, 3 vols.

Jos. Fletcher: History of Independency in England since the Reformation. London, 1847-1849, 4 vols.

George Punchard (of Boston): History of Congregationalism from about A.D. 250 to the Present Time. 2d ed. rewritten and enlarged, New York and Boston (Hurd & Houghton), 1865-81, 5 vols. (The first two vols. are irrelevant.)

John Waddington: Congregational History, 1200-1567. London, 1869-78, 4 vols. Second volume from 1567 to 1700, Lond. 1874. (See a searching and damaging review of this work by Dr. Dexter in the "Congreg. Quarterly" for July, 1874, Vol. XVI. pp. 420 sqq.)

Herbert S. Skeats: A History of the Free Churches of England from l688 to l851. London, 1867; 2d. ed. 1860.

II. American Congregationalism.

(1) Sources.

The works of John Robinson, above quoted, especially his Justification of Separation from the Church of England (1610, printed in 1639).

John Cotton (of Boston, England, and then of Boston, Mass.): The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England. Or the Way of Churches Walking in Brotherly Equality or Co-ordination, without Subjection of one Church to another. Measured by the Golden Reed of the Sanctuary. London, 1645. By the same: The Way of Congregational Churches cleared (against Baillie and Rutherford). London, 1648.

Thomas Hooker (of Hartford, Conn.): A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline. London, 1648.

Robinson, Cotton, and Hooker are the connecting links between English Independency and American Congregationalism. Their rare pamphlets (wretchedly printed, like most works during the period of the civil wars, from want of good type and paper) are mostly found in the Congregational Library at Boston, and ought to be republished in collected form.

Alexander Young: Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth, from 1602 to 1628. Boston, 1841.

Alexander Young: Chronicles of the first Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. From 1623 to 1636. Boston, 1846.

George B. Cheever: The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in New England, in 1620; reprinted from the original volume, with illustrations. New York, 1848.

Nathanael Morton (Secretary to the Court for the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth): New England's Memorial. Boston, 1855 (6th ed. Congreg. Board of Publication). Reprints of Memorial of 1669, Bradford's History of Plymouth Colony, etc.

(2) Histories.

Benjamin Trumbull, D.D.: A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical, from the Emigration of its first Planters, from England, in the year 1630, to the year 1764. New Haven, 1818, 2 vols.

Leonard Bacon: Thirteen Historical Discourses, on the Completion of Two Hundred Years from the Beginning of the First Church in Sew Haven. New Haven, 1839.

Joseph B. Felt: The Ecclesiastical History of New England; comprising not only Religious, but also Moral and other Relations. Boston, Mass. (Congregational Library Association), 1855-1862, 2 vols.

Joseph S. Clark: A Historical Sketch of the Congregational Churches in Massachusetts from 1620 to 1858. Boston, 1858.

Memorial of the Semi-Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Theological Seminary at Andover. Andover, Mass. 1859.

Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut; prepared under the Direction of the General Association to Commemorate the Completion of One Hundred and Fifty Years since its First Annual Assembly. New Haven (publ. by Wm. L. Kingsley), 1861.

Daniel Appleton White: New England Congregationalism in its Origin and Purity; Illustrated by the Foundation and Early Records of the First Church in Salem [Mass.]. Salem, 1861. Comp. Reply to the above, by Joseph B. Felt. Salem, 1861.

The first vols. of G. Bancroft's History of the United States (begun in 1834); last ed. 1876, 6 vols.

John Gorham Palfrey: History of New England. Boston, 1859-1874, 4 vols.

Leonard Bacon: The Genesis of the New England Churches. New York, 1874.

Henry Martyn Dexter: As to Roger Williams and his 'Banishment' from the Massachusetts Plantation; with a few further Words concerning the Baptists, the Quakers, and Religious Liberty. Boston, 1876 (Congregational Publishing Society). A vindication of the Massachusetts Colony against the charge of intolerance.

Numerous essays and reviews relating to the Congregational polity and doctrine and the history of Congregational Churches may be found in the volumes of the following periodicals:

American Quarterly Register. Boston, Mass. 1827-1843, 15 vols.

The Christian Spectator. 1st series monthly; 2d series quarterly. New Haven, 1819-1838, 20 vols.

The New-Englander, quarterly (continued). New Haven, 1843-1876, 34 vols.

The Congregational Quarterly (continued). Boston, Mass. 1st series, 1859-1868, 10 vols.; 2d series, 1869-1876, 8 vols.

The Congregational Year-Book. New York, 1854-1859, 5 vols.

Other light is thrown on the Congregational history and polity by Results of Councils, many of which, in cases of peculiar interest, have been published in pamphlet form.

(3) Congregational Polity.

Congregational Order. The Ancient Platforms of the Congregational Churches of New England, with a Digest of Rules and Usages in Connecticut. Publ. by direction of the General Association of Connecticut. Middletown, Conn. 1843. [Edited by Leonard Bacon, David D. Field, Timothy P. Gillet.]

Thomas C. Upham: Ratio Disciplinæ; or, The Constitution of the Congregational Churches, Examined and Deduced from Early Congregational Writers, and other Ecclesiastical Authorities, and from Usage. 2d edition. Portland, 1844.

Preston Cummings: A Dictionary of Congregational Usages and Principles according to Ancient and Modern Authors; to which are added brief Notices of some of the Principal Writers, Assemblies, and Treatises referred to in the Compilation. Boston, 1852.

George Punchard: A View of Congregationalism, its Principles and Doctrines; the Testimony of Ecclesiastical History in its Favor, its Practice, and its Advantages. [1st edition, 1840.] Third edition, revised and enlarged. Boston (Congreg. Board of Publication), 1856.

Henry Martyn Dexter: Congregationalism: What it is; Whence it is; How it Works; Why it is Better than any other Form of Church Government. Boston, 1865; 5th ed. revised, 1879.

Congregationalism has its name from the prominence it gives to the particular congregation as distinct from the general Church. [1586] It aims to establish a congregation of real believers or converts, and it declares such a congregation to be independent of outward jurisdiction, whether it be that of a king or a bishop or a presbytery. Under the first aspect it has several precedents; under the latter aspect it forms a new chapter in Church history, or at least it carries the protest against foreign jurisdiction a great deal farther than the Reformers, who protested against the tyrannical authority of the papacy, but recognized some governmental jurisdiction over local congregations.

CONGREGATIONS IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE.

In the New Testament the word church or congregation [1587] denotes sometimes the Church universal, the whole body of Christian believers spread throughout the world; [1588] sometimes a particular congregation at Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome, or any other place. [1589] The congregations are related to the Church as members to the body. The denominational and sectarian use of the word is foreign to the Scriptures, which know of no sect but the sect called Christians. [1590] Denominations or Confessions are the growth of history and adaptations of Christianity to the differences of race, nationality, and psychological constitution; and after fulfilling their mission they will, as to their human imperfections and antagonisms, disappear in the one kingdom of Christ, which, however, in the beauty of its living unity and harmony, will include an endless variety.

An organized local congregation in the apostolic age was a company of saints, [1591] or a self-supporting and self-governing society of Christian believers, with their offspring, voluntarily associated for purposes of worship, growth in holiness, and the promotion of Christ's kingdom. The Apostolic churches were not free from imperfection and corruption, but they were separated from the surrounding world of unbelievers, and constantly reminded of their high and holy calling.

THE ANTE-NICENE CHURCHES.

In the ante-Nicene age a distinction was made between the church of believers or communicant members and the church of catechumens or hearers who were in course of preparation for membership, but not allowed to partake of the communion. [1592] Public worship was accordingly divided into the service of the faithful (missa fidelium) and the service of the catechumens (missa catechumenorum).

MIXTURE OF THE CHURCH WITH THE WORLD.

With the union of Church and State since Constantine the original idea of a church of real believers was gradually lost, and became identical with a parish which embraced all nominal Christians in a particular place or district. Baptism, confirmation, and attendance at communion were made obligatory upon all residents, whether converted or not, and every citizen was supposed to be a Christian. [1593] The distinction between the Church and the world was well-nigh obliterated, and the Church at large became a secular empire with an Italian sovereign at its head. Hence the complaint of Dante (in Milton's rendering):

'Ah! Constantine, of how much ill was cause,

Not thy conversion, but those rich domains

That the first wealthy Pope received of thee!'

ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE THE PURITY OF THE CHURCH.

Monasticism was an attempt in the Catholic Church itself to save the purity of the congregation by founding convents and nunneries secluded not only from the world, but also from all ties of domestic and social life. It drained the Church of many of its best elements, and left the mass more corrupt.

The Bohemian Brethren and the Waldenses introduced strict congregational discipline in opposition to the ruling Church.

The Reformers of the sixteenth century deplored the want of truly Christian congregations after the apostolic model, and wished to revive them, but Luther and Zwingli gave it up in despair from the want of material for congregational self-government (which can never be developed without an opportunity and actual experiment).

Calvin was more in earnest, and astonished the world by founding in Geneva a flourishing Christian commonwealth of the strictest discipline, such as had not been seen since the age of the Apostles. But it was based on a close union of the civil and ecclesiastical power, which destroyed the voluntary feature, and ended at last in the same confusion of the Church and the world.

The Anabaptists and Mennonites emphasized the voluntary principle and the necessity of discipline, but they injured their cause by fanatical excesses.

The German Pietists of the school of Spener and Francke realized their idea of ecclesiolæ in ecclesia, or select congenial circles within the outward organization of the promiscuous national Church, from which they never separated. Wesley did originally the same thing, but his movement resulted in a new denomination.

The Moravians went farther, and established separate Christian colonies, which in the period of rationalism and infidelity were like beacon-lights in the surrounding darkness.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM.

English and American Congregationalism, or Congregationalism as a distinct denomination, arose among the Puritans during the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was at first identified with the name of the Rev. Robert Browne, and called Brownism; but, being an unworthy representative and an apostate from his principles, he was disowned. [1594] It had other and more worthy pioneers, such as Barrowe, Greenwood, Johnson, Ainsworth, Penry, and especially John Robinson. [1595] The Independents were, like every new sect, persecuted under the reigns of James and Charles I., and obliged to seek shelter first in Holland and then in the wilderness of New England.

But with the opening of the Long Parliament, which promised to inaugurate a jubilee to all tender consciences, they began to breathe freely, and hastened to return from exile; 'for,' says Fuller, 'only England is England indeed, though some parts of Holland may be like unto it.' [1596] They had a considerable share in the labors of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, especially through Dr. Goodwill and Rev. Philip Nye, who are styled the 'patriarchs' of orthodox Independency. They became the ruling political and religious power in England during the short protectorate of Cromwell, and furnished the majority to his ecclesiastical commission, called the Triers. After the Restoration they were again persecuted, being held chiefly responsible for the execution of King Charles and the overthrow of the monarchy. In 1689 they acquired toleration, and are now one of the most intelligent, active, and influential among the Dissenting bodies in England.

The classical soil of Congregationalism is New England, where it established 'a Church without a bishop and a State without a king.' From New England it spread into the far West, to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and exerted a powerful influence upon other Churches. Puritan Congregationalism is the father of New England and one of the grandfathers of the American Republic, and it need not be ashamed of its children. [1597] It lacks a proper appreciation of historical Christianity and its claims upon our regard and obedience; but by bringing to light the manhood and freedom of the Christian people, and the rights and privileges of individual congregations, it marks a real progress in the development of Protestantism, and has leavened other Protestant denominations in America; for here congregations justly claim and exercise a much larger share, and have consequently a much deeper interest in the management of their own affairs than in the State Churches of Europe. The Congregational system implies, of course, the power of self-government and a living faith in Christ, without which it would be no government at all. It moreover requires the cementing power of fellowship.

INDEPENDENCY AND FELLOWSHIP.

Anglo-American Congregationalism has two tap roots, independency and fellowship, on the basis of the Puritan or Calvinistic faith. It succeeds in the measure of its ability to adjust and harmonize them. It is a compromise between pure Independency and Presbyterianism. It must die without freedom, and it can not live without authority, Independency without fellowship is ecclesiastical atomism; fellowship without Independency leads to Presbyterianism or Episcopacy. [1598]

It starts from the idea of an apostolic congregation as an organized brotherhood of converted believers in Christ. This was the common ground of the Westminster divines. [1599] But they parted on the question of jurisdiction and the relation of the local congregation to the Church general. The Independents denied the authority of presbyteries and synods, and maintained that each congregation properly constituted is directly dependent on Christ, and subject to his law, and his law only. The whole power of the keys is vested in these individual churches.

At the same time, however, it is admitted and demanded that there should be a free fraternal intercommunion between them, with the rights and duties of advice, reproof, and co-operation in every Christian work.

This fellowship manifests itself in the forms of Councils, Associations (in Massachusetts), Consociations (in Connecticut), on a larger scale in 'the Congregational Union of England and Wales,' and 'the National Council of the Congregational Churches in the United States.' It is this fellowship which gives Congregationalism the character of a denomination among other denominations. But the principle of congregational sovereignty is guarded by denying to those general meetings any legislative authority, and reducing them simply to advisory bodies. [1600]

There were from the start two tendencies among Congregationalists--the extreme Independents or Separatists, of whom the 'Pilgrim Fathers' are the noblest representatives, and the more churchly Independents, who remained in the English Church, and who established on a Calvinistic theocratic basis the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. John Robinson, the Moses of American Independency, who accompanied his flock to the deck of the Speedwell, but never saw the promised land himself, was a separatist from the Church of England, though he disowned Brownism with its extravagances. His colony at Plymouth were Separatists. The settlers of Boston, Salem, Hartford, and New Haven, on the other hand, were simply Nonconformists within the Church of England. Their ministers--John Cotton, Richard Mather, Thomas Hooker, John Davenport, Samuel Stone, and others--were trained in the English Universities, mostly in Cambridge, [1601] and had received Episcopal ordination. They rejected the term Independents, and inconsistently relapsed into the old notion of uniformity in religion, with an outburst of the dark spirit of persecution. But this was only temporary. American Congregationalism at present is a compromise between the two tendencies, and vacillates between them, leaning sometimes to the one, sometimes to the other side.

CONGREGATIONALISM AND CREEDS.

The effect of the Congregational polity upon creeds is to weaken the authority of general creeds and to strengthen the authority of particular creeds. The principle of fellowship requires a general creed, but it is reduced to a mere declaration of the common faith prevailing among Congregationalists at a given time, instead of a binding formula of subscription. The principle of independency calls for as many particular creeds as there are congregations. Each congregation, being a complete self-governing body, has the right to frame its own creed, to change it ad libitum, and to require assent to it not only from the minister, but from every applicant for membership. Hence there are a great many creeds among American Congregationalists which have purely local authority; but they must be in essential harmony with the prevailing faith of the body, or the congregations professing them forfeit the privileges of fellowship. They must flow from the same system of doctrine, as many little streams flow from the same fountain.

In this multiplication of local creeds Congregationalism far outstrips the practice of the ante-Nicene age, where we find varying yet essentially concordant rules of faith in Jerusalem, Cæsarea, Antioch, Aquileja, Carthage, Rome.

With these local creeds are connected 'covenants' or pledges of members to live conformably to the law of God and the faith and discipline of the Church. A covenant is the ethical application of the dogmatic creed.

In the theory of creeds and covenants, as on the whole subject of Church polity, the Regular or Calvinistic Baptists entirely agree with the Congregationalists. __________________________________________________________________

[1586] This term is preferable to Independency. In England both terms are used synonymously. The American Congregationalists rather disclaim the designation Independents, except for a small portion of their ancestors, namely, the 'Pilgrim Fathers' of Plymouth. See below.

The Scotch Commissioners. (part 4)

[1587] ekklesia, from ekkaleo, to call out, means (like qhl) any public assembly, but especially a religious assembly.

[1588] Matt. xvi. 18; Acts xx. 28; Gal. i. 13; Eph. i. 22, etc.

[1589] Matt. xviii. 17; Acts v. 11; viii. 3; xv. 41 (in the plural, hai ekklesiai); Gal. i. 22; Rom. xvi. 4, 5, etc.

[1590] Comp. Acts xi. 26; xxvi. 28; 1 Pet. iv. 16. There were parties or sects among the Christians at Corinth which assumed apostolic designations, but Paul rebuked them (1 Cor. i, 10-13; iii. 3, 4). The tribes of Israel may be quoted as a Jewish precedent of the divisions in Christendom, but they formed one nation.

[1591] ekklesiai ton hagion, 1 Cor. xiv. 33.

[1592] Comp. the modern American distinction between church proper and congregation.

[1593] The Jews--like the 'untaxed Indians' in the United States--were excluded from the rights of citizenship, and as unmercifully persecuted during the Middle Ages as the Christians were persecuted by the Jews in the apostolic age.

[1594] Robert Browne, a clergyman of the Established Church and a restless agitator, urged a reformation 'without tarrying for any,' a complete separation from the national Church as an anti-Christian institution, and the formation of independent Christian societies. After suffering persecution and exile (he was imprisoned about thirty times), he returned to the Ministry of the national Church, where he led an idle and dissolute life till his death, in 1630, at the age of eighty years.

[1595] See on these early witnesses and martyrs of Independency, Hanbury (Vol. I. chaps. ii.-xxvi.), Brook (Vol. III.), and Punchard (Vol. III.).

[1596] Vol. VI. p. 280.

[1597] I beg leave to quote from an essay which I wrote and published in the midst of our civil war (1863), when New England was most unpopular, the following tribute to its influence upon American history: 'It seems superfluous, even in these days of sectional prejudice, party animosity, and slander, to say one word in praise of New England. Facts and institutions always speak best for themselves. We might say with Daniel Webster, giving his famous eulogy on Massachusetts a more general application to her five sister States: "There they stand: look at them, and judge for yourselves. There is their history--the world knows it by heart: the past at least is secure." The rapid rise and progress of that rocky and barren country called New England is one of the marvels of modern history. In the short period of two centuries and a half it has attained the height of modern civilization which it required other countries more than a thousand years to reach. Naturally the poorest part of the United States, it has become the intellectual garden, the busy workshop, and the thinking brain of this vast republic. In general wealth and prosperity, in energy and enterprise, in love of freedom and respect for law, in the diffusion of intelligence and education, in letters and arts, in virtue and religion, in every essential feature of national power and greatness, the people of the six New England States, and more particularly of Massachusetts, need not fear a comparison with the most favored nation on the globe. But the power and influence of New England, owing to the enterprising and restless character of its population, extends far beyond its own limits, and is almost omnipresent in the United States. The twenty thousand Puritans who emigrated from England within the course of twenty years, from 1620 to 1640, and received but few accessions until the modern flood of mixed European immigration set in, have grown into a race of several millions, diffused themselves more or less into every State of the Union, and take a leading part in the organization and development of every new State of the great West to the shores of the Pacific. Their principles have acted like leaven upon American society; their influence reaches into all the ramifications of our commerce, manufactures, politics, literature, and religion; there is hardly a Protestant Church or Sabbath-school in the land, from Boston to San Francisco, which does not feel, directly or indirectly, positively or negatively, the intellectual and moral power that constantly emanates from the classical soil of Puritan Christianity.'

[1598] Dr. Emmons, one of the leaders of New England Congregationalism, is credited with this memorable dictum: 'Associationism leads to Consociationism; Consociationism leads to Presbyterianism; Presbyterianism leads to Episcopacy; Episcopacy leads to Roman Catholicism; and Roman Catholicism is an ultimate fact' (Prof. Park, in Memoir of Emmons, p. 163). But there would be equal force in the opposite reasoning from Independency to anarchy, and from anarchy to dissolution. Independents have a right to protest against tyranny, whether exercised by bishops or presbyters ('priests writ large'); but there are Lord Brethren as well as Lord Bishops, and the tyranny of a congregation over a minister, or of a majority over a minority, is as bad as any other kind of tyranny.

[1599] 'The Form of Presbyterial Church Government agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster,' and adopted by the General Assembly of Scotland in 1645, thus defines a local Church: 'Particular churches in the primitive times were made up of visible saints, viz., such as, being of age, professed faith in Christ and obedience unto Christ, according to the rules of faith and life taught by Christ and his apostles, and of their children.' The Form of Government ratified by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in May, 1821, gives this definition (Ch. II. 4): 'A particular church consists of a number of professing Christians, with their offspring, voluntarily associated together for divine worship and godly living, agreeably to the Holy Scriptures, and submitting to a certain form of government.'

[1600] The most serious conflict between the principles of Independency and Fellowship in recent times has grown out of the unhappy Beecher trial, which has shaken American Congregationalism to the very base. See Proceedings of the two Councils held in Brooklyn in 1874 and 1876, which represent both sides of the question (Dr. Storrs's and Mr. Beecher's), though presided over by the same Nestor of American Congregationalism (Dr. Leonard Bacon).

[1601] Masson (Life of Milton, Vol. II. p. 563) says that of seventeen noted ministers who emigrated to New England, fourteen were bred in Cambridge, and only three (Davenport, Mather, and Williams) at Oxford. R. Williams was probably likewise a Cambridge graduate. It was therefore natural that the first college in New England should be called after Cambridge. __________________________________________________________________

§ 102. English Congregational Creeds.

Literature.

A | Declaration | of the | Faith and Order | Owned and practised in the | Congregational Churches | in | England; | Agreed upon and consented unto | by their | Elders and Messengers | in | their Meeting at the Savoy, | Octob. 12, 1658. | London | Printed for D.L. And are to be sold in Paul's Churchyard, Fleet | Street, and Westminster Hall, 1659.

A Latin edition appeared in 1662 at Utrecht, under the title, Confessio nuper edita Independentium seu Congregationalium in Anglia.

The Preface, the Platform, and those doctrinal articles which differ from the Westminster Confession are printed in Vol. III. pp. 707 sqq., from the first London edition. The Savoy Declaration, without the Preface, is also given by Hanbury, Memorials, Vol. III. pp. 517 sqq.; and by Dr. A. H. Quint, in the 'Congregational Quarterly' for July and October, 1866 (Vol. VIII. pp. 241-267 and 341-344).

On the Savoy meeting, comp. Hanbury, Memorials, Vol. III. pp. 515 sqq.

THE SAVOY DECLARATION. A.D. 1658.

We now proceed to the general creeds or declarations of faith which have been approved by the Congregational Churches in England and America. They agree substantially with the Westminster Confession, or the Calvinistic system of doctrine, but differ from Presbyterianism by rejecting the legislative and judicial authority of presbyteries and synods, and by maintaining the independence of the local churches. In the course of time the rigor of old Calvinism has relaxed, both in England and America. 'New England theology,' as it is called, attempts to find a via media between Calvinism and Arminianism in anthropology and soteriology. But the old standards still remain unrepealed.

The first and fundamental Congregational confession of faith and platform of polity is the Savoy Declaration, so called from the place where it was composed and adopted. [1602]

The position of the Congregationalists during the short period of their ascendency under Cromwell's Protectorate (1653-1658) was rather anomalous. They were by no means so strongly committed to the voluntary principle and against a national Church as to refuse appointments in the universities and parish churches, with the tithes and other emoluments connected therewith. Dr. Goodwin was President of Magdalen College, Cambridge; Dr. Owen, Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor at Oxford; Philip Nye, Rector of St. Bartholomew's, London; Joseph Caryl, Rector of St. Mary Magnus; William Greenhill, incumbent of the village of Stepney; William Bridge, town lecturer at Yarmouth; John Howe, parish minister at Torrington, and afterwards court chaplain to Cromwell until his death. [1603] Cromwell himself had no idea of disconnecting the government from religion. Christianity was fully recognized under his rule as part and parcel of the law of the land. It accompanied with its solemn worship the ordinary business of Parliament. Public fasts were frequently appointed by the Protector (to which the Presbyterians objected as an Erastian intrusion), and lasted usually from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. The rights of patronage were not disturbed; the tithes and other provisions for the support of the clergy and the repair of churches were continued. A commission of Triers, or judicial examiners, one fourth of whom were laymen, was appointed to test the fitness of clerical applicants and to remove unworthy incumbents, and Church boards of gentry and clergy were set up in every county for the supervision of ecclesiastical affairs. The Triers took the place of the late Westminster Assembly in its administrative work, but were less numerous, and included Independents, Presbyterians, and Baptists. Dr. Owen, Goodwin, and Manton belonged to them, besides others of less wisdom and charity. They were subject to a certain Erastian control by the Protector and his Council of State, but left to decide each case according to their best judgment, without imposing any creed or canon or statute. The plan seems to have worked well, and furnished the country, as Baxter says, who was no friend of Cromwell, with 'able, serious preachers, who lived a godly life, of what tolerable opinion soever they were.' Cromwell's Protectorate was too short to develop a full system of ecclesiastical polity. It was a government of experiments in accommodation to existing circumstances. Upon the whole, it was more tolerant than any previous reign, but only to Puritanism and such Protestant sects as recognized the Scriptures and the fundamentals of the Christian faith; while it was intolerant to Romanists, Socinians, and Episcopal royalists, who endangered his government. In his foreign policy Cromwell was the boldest protector of Protestantism and religious liberty that England has ever produced. [1604]

Under these favorable circumstances, and in view of the successful establishment of an exclusively Congregational commonwealth by their transatlantic brethren, the Independents might think of repeating in a milder form the experiment of the Westminster Assembly to secure at least a certain degree of religious uniformity in England, with a limited amount of toleration to orthodox dissenters. Their great protector did not seem to favor such a scheme, but shortly before his death he reluctantly gave his consent to 'the humble petition and advice' of influential members of Parliament to issue a confession of faith for the whole kingdom, yet 'without compelling the people thereto by penalties,' and to extend liberty to all Christian professions, except 'popery or prelacy,' or such as 'publish horrid blasphemies or practice or hold forth licentiousness or profaneness under the profession of Christ.' A notice from the clerk of the Council of State summoned the Congregational churches, in and near London, to a meeting in the Savoy, but it was not held till twenty-six days after Cromwell's death. About two hundred delegates from one hundred and twenty congregations attended the Conference, which lasted from Sept. 29 till Oct. 12, 1658. They agreed unanimously upon the Confession and Order of Discipline. It was regarded by them, in the language of the Preface, 'as a great and special work of the Holy Ghost that so numerous a company of ministers and other principal brethren should so readily, speedily, and jointly give up themselves unto such a whole body of truths that are after godliness.'

The Savoy Declaration is the work of a committee, consisting of Drs. Goodwill, Owen, Nye, Bridge, Caryl, and Greenhill, who had been members of the Westminster Assembly, with the exception of Dr. Owen. It contains a lengthy Preface (fourteen pages), the Westminster Confession of Faith with sundry changes (twenty-two pages), and a Platform of Church Polity (five pages).

1. The Preface is prolix and indifferently written, but deserves notice for inaugurating a more liberal view of the authority of creeds and the toleration of other creeds. The chief ideas are these: To confess our faith is an indispensable duty we owe to God as much as prayer. Public confessions are a means of expressing the common faith, but ought not to be enforced. 'Whatever is of force or constraint in matters of this nature causes them to degenerate from the name and nature of Confessions, and turns them into Exactions and Impositions of Faith.' With this we should acknowledge 'the great principle that among all Christian States and Churches there ought to be vouchsafed a forbearance and mutual indulgence unto saints of all persuasions that keep unto and hold fast the necessary foundations of faith and holiness, in all other matters extra-fundamental, whether of faith or order.'

This was a considerable step beyond the prevailing notion of uniformity, although it falls far short of the modern theory of religious liberty. The Preface goes on to guard itself against the charge of indifference or carelessness.

2. The Declaration of Faith. This is a slight modification of the Westminster Confession. 'To this Confession,' the Preface states, 'we fully assent, as do our brethren of New England and the churches also of Scotland, as each in their general synods have testified. A few things we have added for obviating some erroneous opinions, and made other additions and alterations in method here and there, and some clearer explanations as we found occasion.' The Declaration is divided into thirty-two chapters, in the same order as the Westminster Confession, which has thirty-three chapters. In the exceptions taken the Savoy Council followed the example set by the Long Parliament in its edition of the Westminster Confession. The only important changes refer to matters of Church government and discipline. Chaps. XXX., 'Of Church Censures,' and XXXI., 'Of Synods and Councils,' are omitted altogether. Chaps. XXIII. (XXIV.), 'Of the Civil Magistrates,' XXIV. (XXV.), 'Of Marriage and Divorce,' and XXVI., 'Of the Church,' are modified. Chap. XX., 'Of the Gospel,' in the Savoy Declaration, is inserted, and hence the difference in the numbering of the remaining chapters. The change in Chap. XXIV. is a decided improvement, if we judge it from the American theory of Church and State. A similar and more thorough change was subsequently made by the American Presbyterians in the Westminster Confession.

3. The Declaration of 'the Institution of Churches and the Order appointed in them by Jesus Christ' contains the principles of the Congregational Church polity which we have already explained. Similar Platforms of Discipline, as they are called, have been issued from time to time by the American Congregationalists--at Cambridge, 1648, at Saybrook, 1708, and at Boston, 1865.

THE DECLARATION OF 1833.

This is a popular abridgment of the older confessions, and presents a milder form of Calvinism. It was prepared in 1833 by the Rev. Dr. Redford, of Worcester, and other members of a committee of the 'Congregational Union of England and Wales,' which was organized in 1831. It is annually printed in the 'Congregational Year-Book,' but it disclaims any authority as a standard of subscription. [1605]

Note.--The Rev. Dr. John Stoughton, of London, a leading divine and historian among the English Independents, has kindly supplied me with the following statement concerning the prevailing sentiment of that body on the authority of creeds, a statement which applies largely to American Congregationalists in the present age:

'Looking at the principles of Congregationalism, which involve the repudiation of all human authority in matters of religion, it is impossible to believe that persons holding those principles can consistently regard any ecclesiastical creed or symbol in the same way in which Catholics, whether Roman or Anglican, regard the creeds of the ancient Church. There is a strong feeling among English Congregationalists against the use of such documents for the purpose of defining the limits of religious communion, or for the purpose of checking the exercise of sober, free inquiry; and there is also a widely spread conviction that it is impossible to reduce the expression of Christian belief to a series of logical propositions, so as to preserve and represent the full spirit of gospel truth. No doubt there may be heard in some circles a great deal of loose conversation seeming to indicate such a repugnance to the employment of creeds as would imply a dislike to any formal definition of Christian doctrine whatever; but I apprehend that the prevailing sentiment relative to this subject among our ministers and churches does not go beyond the point just indicated. Many consider that while creeds are objectionable as tests and imperfect as confessions, yet they may have a certain value as manifestoes of conviction on the part of religious communities.

'The Westminster Assembly's Catechism never had the authority in Congregational churches which from the beginning it possessed in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and its use in schools and families for educational purposes, once very common, has diminished of late years to a very low degree. The Savoy Declaration, which perhaps never had much weight with Congregationalists, is a document now little known, except by historical students. The Declaration of 1833 was prepared by a committee of the Congregational Union, of which the Rev. Dr. Redford, of Worcester, was a member. He, I believe, drew up the Articles, and it was only in accordance with his well-known character as a zealous antagonist of human authority in religion that he introduced the following passages in the preliminary notes:

'"It is not designed, in the following summary, to do more than to state the leading doctrines of faith and order maintained by Congregational churches in general.

'"It is not intended that the following statement should be put forth with any authority, or as a standard to which assent should be required.

'"Disallowing the utility of creeds and articles of religion as a bond of union, and protesting against subscription to any human formularies as a term of communion, Congregationalists are yet willing to declare, for general information, what is commonly believed among them, reserving to every one the most perfect liberty of conscience."

'It would be well to insert a statement made to me by one who from his official position has the best means of ascertaining the state of opinion in our churches:

'"I do not believe that the Declaration of 1833 could now with success be submitted for adoption to an Assembly of the Congregational Union; in part, because not a few would dispute its position, and in part because many more--I believe the majority--without objecting on strictly doctrinal grounds, would object on grounds of policy."

'I may add to this, in the words of the Dean of Westminster, who wrote them on the authority of "a respected Congregational minister," that, beyond care in the matter of ordination, "no measures are adopted or felt to be either desirable or necessary for preserving uniformity of doctrine, excepting only that the trust-deeds of most of their places of worship contain a reference to leading points of doctrine to which the minister may be required to express his assent. In practice this is merely a provision against any decided departure from the faith as commonly received among us, the trustees of the property having it in their power to refuse the use of the building to any minister whose teaching may be contrary to the doctrines contained in the deed. Such cases, however, are extremely rare."

'In some cases trust-deeds make reference to the Declaration of 1833, as containing the doctrines to be taught in substance within the places of worship secured by such deeds; but in most cases a brief schedule of doctrines is employed, of which the following is an example:

'"1. The divine and special inspiration of the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and their supreme authority in faith and practice.

'"2. The unity of God. The Deity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

'"3. The depravity of man, and the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit's agency in man's regeneration and sanctification.

'"4. The incarnation of the Son of God, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ; the universal sufficiency of the atonement by his death; and the free justification of sinners by faith alone in him.

'"5. Salvation by grace, and the duty of all who hear the gospel to believe in Christ.

'"6. The resurrection of the dead and the final judgment, when the wicked 'shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.'"

'The Secretary of our Chapel Building Society informs me that "one reason for the disuse of the Declaration may be its length, and the circumstance that, to put it beyond question that document is meant, it has been thought it would be needful to embody it in the deed, which would add to the cost."

'It has been remarked, on the authority of one already cited, "that, notwithstanding the absence of tests, there is among Independents a marked uniformity of opinion on all important points." Perhaps this statement, still true on the whole, would require more qualification than it did some years ago. There are among us a few men of mental vigor who have departed very considerably from the published creeds of Congregationalism. There may be a larger number whose opinions are of an Arminian cast; but, again to use language supplied by a friend, in whom I place confidence as to this subject: "It would still be fair, I think, to describe our ministry as moderately Calvinistic. An immense majority of the ministers are so. An impression to the contrary has, I am aware, become prevalent; but that is owing, I believe, to the fact that the greater number of the men who have departed from the Calvinistic type hold prominent positions, and have 'the habit of the pen.'" It is a difficult and delicate task to report the state of large religious communities among whose members there exist some diversities of opinion. One person biased by his own predilections will give one account, and another person under an influence of the same kind will give another.

'In what I have said I have endeavored to be as impartial as possible; and, to give the more weight to my statements, I have sought the assistance of official brethren who have wider means of information than I possess, and who may look at things from points of view not exactly identical with my own.' __________________________________________________________________

[1602] The Savoy, in the Strand, London, is remarkable for its historical associations. The palace, on the banks of the Thames, was built by Peter, Earl of Savoy and Richmond, in 1245; enlarged and beautified by Henry, Duke of Lancaster, 1328. King John II., of France, while a prisoner in England, resided there (1357-63). It was burned in Wat Tyler's insurrection, 1381; rebuilt and endowed as a hospital by Henry VII., 1505. It was the city residence of the Bishop of London. The royal chapel was burned down in 1864, but beautifully restored by Queen Victoria, and reopened Nov. 26, 1865. The Congregational meeting of 1658 must not be confounded with the 'Savoy Conference' between Episcopalians and Presbyterians which was held there from April 15 to July 25, 1661.

[1603] Comp. Stoughton, Church of the Commonwealth, ch. ix. pp. 207 sqq. A number of the Baptists likewise accepted preferments under the Protectorate. See ib. p. 242, and Ivimey's list of Baptists who were ejected at the Restoration, History of Baptists, Vol. I. p. 328.

[1604] Comp. Stoughton, 1.c. pp. 81 sqq. Green (History of the English People, p. 573) judges upon the whole quite favorably of Cromwell's ecclesiastical polity: 'In England, Cromwell dealt with the Royalists as irreconcilable enemies; but in every other respect he carried out fairly his pledge of "healing and settling." . . . From the Church, which was thus reorganized, all power of interference with faiths differing from its own was resolutely withheld. Cromwell remained true to his great cause of religious liberty. Even the Quaker, rejected by all other Christian bodies as an anarchist and blasphemer, found sympathy and protection in Cromwell. The Jews had been excluded from England since the reign of Edward the First; and a prayer which they now presented for leave to return was refused by the commission of merchants and divines to whom the Protector referred it for consideration. But the refusal was quietly passed over, and the connivance of Cromwell in the settlement of a few Hebrews in London and Oxford was so clearly understood that no one ventured to interfere with them.'

[1605] See Vol. III. pp. 730 sqq. __________________________________________________________________

§ 103. American Congregational Creeds.

Literature.

Special essays relating to the creeds and Church order of American Congregationalists.

The Formation of Creeds. Article by the Rev. Joseph P. Thompson in the 'New-Englander,' Vol. IV. pp. 265-274. 1846.

Congregationalism and Symbolism. Article by the Rev. Wm. G. T. Shedd in the 'Bibliotheca Sacra,' Vol. XV. pp. 661-690. 1858. (An argument showing the need of a more positive creed for Congregationalism.)

Confessions of Faith. Article by the Rev. Edward W. Gilman in the 'Congregational Quarterly,' Vol. IV. pp. 179-191. 1862.

Declaration of Faith and the Confession. Article by the Rev. Edward A. Lawrence. Ib. Vol. VIII. pp. 173-190. 1866.

Ancient Confessions of Faith and Family Covenants. By E. W. G. Ib. Vol. XI. pp. 516-527. 1869.

The National Council (of 1871). Article by Dr. A. H. Quint in the 'Cong. Quarterly,' Vol. XIV. pp. 61, 80. 1872.

The American Congregationalists have from time to time adopted the Westminster standards of doctrine, with the exception of the sections relating to synodical Church government. Formerly the Assembly's Shorter Catechism was taught in all the schools of New England; but of late years those standards have gone much out of use, though they have never been disowned.

THE SYNOD OF CAMBRIDGE, 1648. [1606]

The 'Elders and Messengers of the churches assembled in the Synod at Cambridge, in New England,' in June, 1648, adopted the Westminster Confession one year after its publication, in these words: 'This Synod having perused and considered with much gladness of heart, and thankfulness to God, the Confession of Faith published of late by the reverend Assembly in England, do judge it to be very holy, orthodox, and judicious in all matters of faith; and do therefore freely and fully consent thereunto, for the substance thereof. Only in those things which have respect to Church government and discipline [in some sections of Chaps. XXV., XXX., and XXXI.] we refer ourselves to the Platform of Church Discipline agreed upon by this present assembly; and do therefore think it meet that this Confession of Faith should be commended to the churches of Christ among us, and to the honored court, as worthy of their consideration and acceptance. Howbeit, we may not conceal, that the doctrine of vocation, expressed in Chap. X., § 1, and summarily repeated in Chap. XIII., § 1, passed not without some debate. Yet considering that the term of vocation and others by which it is described are capable of a large or more strict sense or use, and that it is not intended to bind apprehensions precisely in point of order or method, there hath been a general condescendency thereunto. Now by this our professed consent and free concurrence with them in all the doctrinals of religion, we hope it may appear to the world that as we are a remnant of the people of the same nation with them, so we are professors of the same common faith, and fellow-heirs of the same common salvation.'

The Cambridge Synod thus anticipated by ten years the work of the Savoy Conference (1658).

The Cambridge Platform, which is said to be the work of the Rev. Richard Mather, sets forth in substance the same principles of independent Church government and discipline as the Savoy Declaration.

THE SYNOD OF BOSTON, 1680.

The Synod of Elders and Messengers of the New England Congregational churches, held in Boston, Mass., May 12, 1680, adopted and published the Savoy recension of the Westminster Confession, together with the Cambridge Platform. It says, in the preface to its Declaration:

'That which was consented unto by the Elders and Messengers of the Congregational churches in England, who met at the Savoy (being for the most part, some small variations excepted, the same with that which was agreed upon first by the Assembly at Westminster, and was approved of by the Synod at Cambridge, in New England, anno 1648, as also by a General Assembly in Scotland), was twice publicly read, examined, and approved of: that little variation which we have made from the one, in compliance with the other, may be seen by those who please to compare them. But we have (for the main) chosen to express ourselves in the words of those reverend Assemblies, that so we might not only with one heart, but with one mouth, glorify God and our Lord Jesus Christ.' [1607]

THE SYNOD OF SAYBROOK, 1708.

The Elders and Messengers of the churches in the Colony of Connecticut assembled at Saybrook, Sept. 9, 1708, agreed that the Boston Confession should 'be recommended to the honorable general assembly of this Colony, at the next session, for their public testimony thereunto, as the faith of the churches of the Colony.' They also accepted 'the Heads of Agreement assented to [in 1692] by the united ministers [of England], formerly called Presbyterian and Congregational,' and so virtually gave indorsement to three creeds as essentially teaching the same system--the doctrinal part of the Articles of the Church of England, the Westminster Confession or Catechisms, and the Confession agreed on at the Savoy.

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF BOSTON, 1865. [1608]

The National Council of Congregational churches of the United States, held in the Old South Meeting-house of the city of Boston after the close of the Civil War (which suggested this Council), in the year 1865 (June 14-24), adopted a 'Declaration of Faith.' This Declaration passed through three transformations:

The first draft was prepared by a committee consisting of three divines (two progressive, one conservative), viz., Dr. Joseph P. Thompson (then Pastor of the Church of the Tabernacle, New York), Dr. Edward A. Lawrence (Prof. in the Theol. Seminary of East Windsor [now at Hartford], Conn.), and Dr. George P. Fisher (Prof. of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College). The Committee declined to give a formulated statement of doctrines, but characterized, in a comprehensive way, the doctrines held in common by the Congregational churches, and referred to the ancient Confessions of Westminster and Savoy, as sufficiently answering the end of a substantial unity in doctrine. This draft was read, discussed, and referred to a larger committee.

The second draft was presented by the Rev. J. O. Fiske, of Bath, Maine, and in conformity with the usage of the councils at Cambridge, 1648, at Boston, 1680, and at Saybrook, 1708, expresses adherence to the Westminster and Savoy Confessions for 'substance of doctrine' and the system of truths commonly known as 'Calvinism,' and emphasizes in opposition to modern infidelity the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, and other fundamental articles of the common Christian faith.

The third draft was read by the Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, by direction of the business committee, at a meeting of the Council held June 22d, on Burial Hill, Plymouth, on the spot where the first meeting-house of the Pilgrims stood, and which Dr. Bacon declared to be to Congregationalists 'the holiest spot of all the earth.' This paper was substantially approved and referred to a committee of revision to improve the form. This committee reported, Friday, June 23, through the Rev. Dr. Stearns, President of Amherst College, a number of slight verbal alterations. In this improved form the Declaration was twice read 'in a distinct and impressive manner,' and after prayer by the Rev. Dr. Ray Palmer, of New York, unanimously adopted by rising. The singing of Dr. Palmer's well-known hymn, 'My faith looks up to thee,' and the old doxology, 'To God the Father, God the Son,' concluded the solemnity. [1609]

The same Council adopted a new Platform of Discipline, called the Boston Platform of 1865, and published by the Congregational Board. This virtually supersedes the Cambridge and Saybrook Platforms.

THE OBERLIN NATIONAL COUNCIL, 1871.

The Oberlin Council of 1871 is the first of a regular triennial series of National Councils of the Congregational churches in the United States. [1610] It adopted a constitution, one paragraph of which briefly refers to the rule of faith in a very general way. [1611]

Note.--Besides the creeds of General Councils, there are in use among American Congregationalists a great number and variety of creeds, concerning which the Rev. Edward W. Gilman, D.D. (Secretary of the American Bible Society) kindly furnishes the following information:

'1. State Associations and Conferences..

'The usage is various. The General Association of Massachusetts, founded in 1803, accepts as a basis of union "the doctrines of Christianity as they are generally expressed in the Assembly's Shorter Catechism." So do the General Convention of Vermont, founded 1796, and the General Association of New Hampshire, founded 1747. The General Association of New York, founded 1834, has separate Articles of Faith. So has the General Association of Illinois. The General Conferences of Maine and Connecticut have no express doctrinal basis.

'2. County Consociations (of twenty or thirty churches).

' The Lincoln and Kennebec Consociation (Maine), 1808, recommended to its constituent churches Articles of "Union, Faith, and Practice." The Northwestern Consociation (Vermont), 1818, recommended to its churches a uniform Confession and Covenant. The Litchfield South Consociation (Conn.), 1828, prepared a Confession and Covenant for the general use of its churches. The New Haven West Consociation (Conn.) admits only churches which accept the doctrinal part of the Saybrook Platform.

'3. Institutions of Learning.

'The Hollis Professor of Divinity in Harvard College must "declare it as his belief that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the only perfect rule of faith and practice," and the first incumbent (1722), being examined by the Corporation, declared his assent to the Confession of Faith in the Assembly's Catechism and to the doctrinal Articles of the Church of England. Assent to the Westminster Confession or the Saybrook Platform was required of Professors in Yale College from 1753 to 1823. In the Theological Institution at Andover both Visitors and Professors are required to subscribe a Declaration of Faith drawn up by the founders in 1808, and to renew this declaration at intervals of five years.

'4. Local Churches.

'The types are various, and while each church is at liberty to construct and alter its own formulas, certain tendencies towards uniformity of usage, at different periods, are noticeable.

'(a) Individual Professions. Such were those made by John Cotton, at Charlestown, in 1630, and by John Davenport, at New Haven, in 1639. (See the latter in Ancient Waymarks, published at New Haven in 1853. See also Cong. Quarterly, 1869, Vol. XI. p. 517.)

'(b) Brief general references, either to the holy Scriptures as the only rule of belief and duty, or to the Westminster Catechism or the Boston (i.e., Savoy) Confession, as agreeable to the Scriptures. This usage came in at an early day, and was current at the beginning of this century.

'(c) Articles of Faith, embracing in theological phraseology the outlines of a system of divinity. After the year 1800 these came into general use as formulas for the reception of members, and great reliance was placed upon them as helps in maintaining the purity of the churches against the inroads of false doctrine. Candidates for admission to Church privileges were required to give their assent to the several propositions, which thus in many cases were made tests of worthiness. Dr. Samuel Worcester (Fitchburg, 1798) and Dr. E. D. Griffin, the first pastor of the Park Street Church, Boston (1811), had much to do in shaping the practice of the churches from their day to the present time. Formulas of this class have, however, been subjected to various modifications, by way of accommodation to individual opinions, or for the sake of denying current error, or of emphasizing truths peculiar to the Calvinistic system, but especially in order to secure brevity in the Church service. In this way it has unfortunately sometimes happened that doctrines fundamental to Christianity have failed to find a place in the formal Confession of Faith.

'(d) Creeds divested of theological terms, and clothed in language so clear and simple and general as to prevent no Christian from giving them his prompt and hearty assent. The revisions of the last twenty years have been looking in this direction, and churches are beginning to be formed with no other symbol of faith than the Apostles' Creed.' __________________________________________________________________

[1606] 'The Congregational Order' above quoted contains the Cambridge Platform and the Saybrook Platform, together with the 'Saybrook Confession of Faith,' i.e., the Savoy Confession as previously adopted by the Synod of Boston.

[1607] The changes are very slight, and in part restorations of the Westminster text. They are noted by Dr. Quint in the 'Congregational Quarterly' for July, 1866, p. 266.

[1608] Debates and Proceedings of the National Council of the Congregational Churches, held at Boston, Mass., June 14-24, 1865. From the Phonographic Report by J. M. W. Yerrinton and Henry M. Parkhurst. Boston, Amer. Cong. Association, 1866 (ed. under the care of the Rev. A. H. Quint and the Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy), pp. 95-98, 344-347, 361-363, 401-403.

[1609] The Boston Declaration is printed in Vol. III. p. 734.

[1610] Formerly General Councils or Synods were held only occasionally (1637, 1646, 1648, 1662, 1680, 1708, 1852, 1865), when some controversy or matter of special concern to all the churches seemed to justify them.

[1611] Printed in Vol. III. p. 737. __________________________________________________________________

§ 104. The Anabaptists and Mennonites.

Literature.

I. On the Anabaptists.

The writings of Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Bullinger, and other Reformers and older divines against the Anabaptists are polemical.

H. W. Erbkam: Geschichte der Protest. Sekten im Zeitalter der Reformation. Hamburg und Gotha, 1848, pp. 479 sqq.

Cornelius: Geschichte des Münsterischen Aufruhrs. Leipz. 1856 and 1860, 2 vols.

Karl Hase: Das Reich der Wiedertäufer. Neue Propheten. 2d edition, Leipz. 1860.

Bouterweck: Zur Liter. und Geschichte der Wiedertäufer. Bonn, 1865.

Gerh. Uhlhorn: Die Wiedertäufer in Münster, in his Vermischte Vorträge. Stuttgart, 1875, pp. 193 sqq.

Comp. also Schreiber's Biography of Hübmaier, in his Taschenbuch f. Geschichte und Alterthum in Süddeutschland, 1839 and 1840.

II. On the Mennonites.

Menno Simons: Fundamentum, 1539, 1558, etc.; Opera, Amst. 1646, 4to; Opera omnia theologica, Amst. 1681, in 1 vol. fol. (Both editions in Dutch.)

Herm. Schyn: Historia Christianorum qui in Belgio foederato Mennonitæ appellantur. Amst. 1723. The same in Dutch, with additions by Gerardus Maatschoen, Amst. 1743-1745, in 3 vols. 12mo. By the same: Histor. Mennonit. plenior Deductio. 1729.

S. Blaupot Ten Cate: Geschiedenis der Doopsgezinden. Amsterdam, 1839-47. 5 vols. 8vo.

Cramer: The Life of Menno Sim. Amst. 1837 (Dutch)

Harder: Leben Menno Simons. Königsberg, 1846.

Roosen: Menno Simons. Leipz. 1848.

Erbkam: Geschichte der Protest. Sekten, pp. 480, 571.

Gieseler: Kirchengeschichte, Vol. III. Part II. pp. 90 sqq.

Henke: Neuere Kirchengeschichte (herausgegeben von Dr. Gass). Halle, 1874, Vol. I. pp. 414 sqq.

The various branches of the Baptist family of Christians [1612] differ very widely, and have little or no connection except that they agree in rejecting infant baptism and in requiring a personal and voluntary profession of faith in Christ as a necessary condition of baptism. Most of them agree also in opposition to sprinkling, or any other mode of baptism but that by total immersion of the body in water. The largest and most respectable denomination of Baptists took its rise in the great religious commotion of England during the seventeenth century, and differed from the Puritans only in the doctrine of baptism and in the steadfast advocacy of religious freedom. But the Baptist movement began a century earlier on the Continent, and this first stage must at least be briefly noticed.

THE ANABAPTISTS.

The early history of the Anabaptists exhibits a strange chaos of peaceful reforms and violent revolutions--separatism, mysticism, millenarianism, spiritualism, contempt of history, ascetic rigor, fanaticism, communism, and some novel speculations concerning the body of Christ as being directly created by God, and different from the flesh and blood of other men. An impartial history, with a careful critical sifting of these incongruous elements, is still a desideratum.

The modern Anabaptists [1613] figure prominently in the history of the Reformation, and meet us in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and England. They were Protestant radicals, who rejected infant baptism as an invention of the Roman Antichrist, and aimed at a thorough reconstruction of the Church. They spread mostly among the laboring classes. Some of their preachers had no regular education, despised human learning, and relied on direct inspiration; but others were learned and eloquent men, as Grebel, Manz, Hetzer, Hübmaier, Denk, Röublin, and Rothmann. They were regarded as a set of dangerous fanatics, who could not be tolerated under a Christian government. Their supposed or real connection with the Peasant War, against the tyranny of landholders (1524), and with the bloody and disastrous excesses at Münster (1534), increased the opposition. Their doctrines were condemned in the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions. The Reformers, even the mildest among them (Melanchthon, Bucer, Bullinger, and Cranmer, as well as Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin), felt that their extermination was necessary for the salvation of the churchly Reformation and social order. And yet they must have known worthy men among them; Calvin himself married the widow of an Anabaptist pastor. Protestant and Roman Catholic magistrates vied with each other in cruelty against them, and put them to death by drowning, hanging, and burning.

But it is the greatest injustice to make the Anabaptists as such responsible for the extravagances that led to the tragedy at Münster. Their original and final tendencies were orderly and peaceful. They disowned the wild fanaticism of Thomas Münzer, John Bockelsohn, and Knipperdolling. They were opposed to war and violence. They were the crude harbingers and martyrs of some truths which have germinated in other ages. They upheld the necessity of discipline and congregational organization on the basis of personal faith in Christ, instead of carnal descent and parochial boundaries. They attacked the doctrine of the eternal damnation of unbaptized infants, and the equally horrible doctrine of persecution. Balthasar Hübmaier (Hübmör, or, as he was called by a Latin name, Pacimontanus), the ablest and most learned among the Anabaptists, a pupil of Dr. Eck (Luther's opponent), and for some time Professor of Catholic Theology at Ingolstadt, then a zealous and eloquent Protestant preacher, was perhaps the first who taught the principle of universal religious liberty, on the ground that Christ came not to kill and to burn, but to save, and condemned the employment of force in his kingdom. He held that those only are heretics who willfully and wickedly oppose the holy Scriptures; and even these ought to be treated by no other than moral means of persuasion and instruction. [1614] He was burned at the stake in Vienna, March 10,1528, and died with pious joy; his wife, who encouraged him in his martyr spirit, was three days afterwards drowned in the Danube.

THE MENNONITES.

Menno Simons, a converted Roman Catholic priest, collected the scattered remnant of the Anabaptists into a well-organized, peaceful, and industrious community in Holland and on the borders of Germany (1536). He gave them a strict system of discipline, and endeavored to revive the idea of a pure apostolic congregation consisting of true believers unmixed with the world. He labored in constant peril of life with untiring patience till his death, Jan. 13, 1561. 'For eighteen years,' he says, 'with my poor feeble wife and little children, has it behooved me to bear great and various anxieties, sufferings, griefs, afflictions, miseries, and persecutions, and in every place to find a bare existence, in fear and danger of my life. While some preachers are reclining on their soft beds and downy pillows, we oft are hidden in the caves of the earth; while they are celebrating the nuptial or natal days of their children with feasts and pipes, and rejoicing with the timbrel and the harp, we are looking anxiously about, fearing the barking of the dogs, lest persecutors should be suddenly at the door; while they are saluted by all around as doctors, masters, lords, we are compelled to hear ourselves called Anabaptists, ale-house preachers, seducers, heretics, and to be hailed in the devil's name. In a word, while they for their ministry are remunerated with annual stipends and prosperous days, our wages are the fire, the sword, the death.' [1615]

His followers were called Mennonites after his death. [1616] They acquired at last toleration, first in Holland from Prince William of Orange, 1572, and full liberty in 1626. They spread to the Palatinate, Switzerland, Eastern Prussia, and by emigration to South Russia, Pennsylvania, and other parts of North America. Quite recently several hundred families left their Russian settlements for America because the privilege of exemption from military service was withdrawn. They are a small, quiet, peaceful, industrious, and moral community, like the Quakers. Their historian, Schyn, labors to show that they have no connection whatever with the fanatical and revolutionary Anabaptists of Münster.

The Mennonites were divided during the lifetime of Menno into two parties on questions of discipline: 1, the 'coarse' Mennonites (die Groben), or Waterlanders, who were more numerous, and flourished in the Waterland district of North Holland; 2, the 'refined' Mennonites (die Feinen), who were chiefly Flemings, Frieslanders, and Germans. The latter adhered to the strict discipline of the founder.

The Mennonites acknowledge 'the Confession of Waterland,' which was drawn up by two of their preachers, John Ris (Haus de Rys) and Lubbert Gerardi (Gerritsz), in the Dutch language. [1617]

It consists of forty Articles, and teaches, besides the common doctrines of Protestant orthodoxy, the peculiar views of this community. It rejects oaths (Art. XXXVIII., on the ground of Matt. v. 37 and James v. 10), war (XVIII.), and secular office-holding, because it is not commanded by Christ and is inconsistent with true Christian character; but it enjoins obedience to the civil magistrate as a divine appointment wherever it does not contradict the Word of God and interfere with the dictates of conscience (XXXVII.). The Church consists of the faithful and regenerate men scattered over the earth, under Christ the Lord and King (XXIV.). Infant baptism is rejected as unscriptural (XXXI.); but the Mennonites differ from other Baptists by sprinkling. [1618] On the Lord's Supper they agree with Zwingli. They admit hereditary sin, but deny its guilt (Art. IV.). They hold to conditional election and universal redemption. [1619] But during the Arminian controversy a portion sided with the strict Calvinists. They reject also law-suits, revenge, every kind of violence, and worldly amusements. In many respects they are the forerunners of the Quakers quite as much as of the English and American Baptists. __________________________________________________________________

[1612] Mennonites, Calvinistic Baptists, Arminian Baptists, Dunkers, River Brethren, Seventh-Day Baptists, Six-Principle Baptists, Disciples or Campbellites. The last are very numerous in the West; they reject all creeds on principle.

[1613] Or Rebaptizers, so called by their opponents because they rebaptized those baptized in infancy, while they themselves denied the validity of infant baptism (some of them Catholic baptism in general), and regarded voluntary baptism in years of discretion as the only true baptism. The ancient Anabaptists or Rebaptizers, headed by Cyprian, denied the validity of heretical baptism, and carried the principle of Catholic exclusivism to a logical extreme, which the Roman Church has always rejected.

[1614] Von Ketzern und ihren Verbrennern. A very rare book.

[1615] Schyn, Plenior Deduct, p. 133 (quoted in Introd. to Baptist Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, p. lxxxii.).

[1616] Or Doopsgezinden, i.e., Dippers. In Menno's writings they are called Gemeente Gods, ellendige, weerloze Christenen, broeders, etc., but never Mennonites, See Gieseler, Vol. III. Pt. II. p. 92.

[1617] Schyn gives a Latin translation, in his Historia Mennonitarum, pp. 172-220, under the title, Præcipuorum Christianæ fidei Articulorum brevis Confessio adornata a Joanne Risio et Lubberto Gerardi. He calls it also Mennonitarum Confessio, or Formula Consensus inter Waterlandos. He says the confessions of the other branches of the Mennonites agree with it in all fundamental articles. Winer (Compar. Darstellung, etc., pp. 24, 25), gives a list of Mennonite Confessions and Catechisms.

[1618] One branch of them, the Collegiants or Rhynsburgers, held, however, to the necessity of immersion. They have recently become extinct, having had among them some men of distinction.

[1619] Art. VII. derives sin exclusively from the will of man, and teaches that God predestinated and created all men for salvation (omnes decrevit et creavit ad salutem), that he provided the remedy for all, that Christ died for all, and saves all who believe and persevere.

[Note.--McGlothlin gives as the earliest Anabaptist articles of the sixteenth century two brief Swiss statements of 1527 which bear solely on practical questions. Two of the teachings inculcate communism and that the Lord's Supper be celebrated 'as often as the brethren come together.' The articles of the Moravian Anabaptists forbade the Lord's Supper to persons having property.--Ed.] __________________________________________________________________

§ 105. The Regular or Calvinistic Baptists.

Literature.

Confessions of Faith and other Public Documents illustrative of the History of the Baptist Churches of England in the Seventeenth Century. Edited for the Hanserd Knollys Society by Edward Bean Underhill. London (Haddon Brothers & Co.), 1854. Contains reprints of seven Baptist Confessions from 1611 to 1688, the Baptist Catechism of Collins, and several letters and other documents from the early history of Baptists in England.

Thos. Crosby: The History of the English Baptists, from the Reformation to the Beginning of the Reign of King George I. London, 1740. 4 vols. Contains important documents, but also many inaccuracies.

Joseph Ivimey: History of the English Baptists, including an Investigation of the History of Baptism in England. London, 1811-23. In 3 vols. 8vo.

Isaac Backus (d. 1806): History of New England, with especial Reference to the Baptists. In 3 vols. A new edition, by David Weston, was published by the Backus Historical Society, Newton Centre, Mass. 1871.

David Benedict (Pastor of the Baptist Church in Pawtucket, R. I.): A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America and other Parts of the World. Boston, 1813, in 2 vols.; new edition, New York, 1848, in 1 vol. (970 pp.). A chaos of facts.

Francis Wayland: Notes on the Principles and Practices of the Baptist Churches. New York (Sheldon, Blakeman, & Co.), 1857.

Sewall S. Cutting: Historical Vindications; . . . with Appendices containing Historical Notes and Confessions of Faith. Boston (Gould & Lincoln), 1859.

J. M. Cramp: Baptist History, from the Foundation of the Christian Church to the Close of the Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia (American Baptist Publication Society), 1868. For popular use.

J. Jackson Goadby: Bye-Paths in Baptist History: A Collection of Interesting, Instructive, and Curious Information, not generally known, concerning the Baptist Denomination. London, 1874 (pp. 375). Chap. VI. treats of Baptist Confessions of Faith.

The Baptists and the National Centennial: A Record of Christian Work, 1776-1876. Edited by Lemuel Moss, D.D. Philadelphia (Baptist Publication Society), 1876. Contains a chapter on 'Doctrinal History and Position,' by Dr. Pepper, pp. 51 sqq.

William R. Williams: Lectures on Baptist History. Philadelphia, 1877.

The English and American Baptists have inherited some of the principles without the eccentricities and excesses of the Continental Anabaptists and Mennonites. [1620] They are radical but not revolutionary in politics and religion, and as sober, orderly, peaceful, zealous, and devoted as any other class of Christians. They rose simultaneously in England and America during the Puritan conflict, and have become, next to the Methodists, the strongest denomination in the United States.

The great body of Baptists are called Regular or Particular or Calvinistic Baptists, in distinction from the smaller body of General or Arminian or Free-Will Baptists. They are Calvinists in doctrine and Independents in Church polity, but differ from both in their views on the subjects and mode of baptism. They teach that believers only ought to be baptized, that is, dipped or immersed, on a voluntary confession of their faith. They reject infant baptism as an unscriptural innovation and profanation of the sacrament, since an infant can not hear the gospel, nor repent and make a profession of faith. They believe, however, in the salvation of all children dying before the age of responsibility. Baptism in their system has no regenerative and saving efficacy: it is simply an outward sign of grace already bestowed, a public profession of faith in Christ to the world, and an entrance into the privileges and duties of church membership. [1621] They also opposed from the start national church establishments, and the union of Church and State, which one of their greatest writers (Robert Hall) calls 'little more than a compact between the priest and the magistrate to betray the liberties of mankind, both civil and religious.' They advocate voluntaryism, and make the doctrine of religions freedom, as an inherent and universal right of man, a part of their creed.

THE BAPTISTS IN ENGLAND.

In England the Baptists were for a long time treated with extreme severity on account of their supposed connection with the fanatical fraction of the German and Dutch Anabaptists. A number of them who had fled from Holland were condemned to death or exiled (1535 and 1539). Latimer speaks, in a sermon before Edward VI., of Anabaptists who were burned to death under Henry VIII., in divers towns, and met their fate 'cheerfully and without any fear.'

Under Edward VI. they became numerous in the south of England, especially in Kent and Essex. Two were burned--a Dutchman, named George van Pare, and an English woman, Joan Boucher, usually called Joan of Kent. These were the only executions for heresy during his reign. The young king reluctantly and with tears yielded to Cranmer, who urged on him from the Mosaic law the duty of punishing blasphemy and fundamental heresy. Joan of Kent, besides rejecting infant baptism, was charged with holding the doctrine of some German and Dutch Anabaptists, that Christ's sinless humanity was not taken 'from the substance of the Virgin Mary,' who was a sinner, but was immediately created by God. She resisted every effort of Cranmer to change her views, and preferred martyrdom (May 2, 1550). Several of the Forty-two Edwardine Articles were directed against the Anabaptists.

Under Elizabeth a congregation of Dutch Anabaptists was discovered in London; twenty-seven members were imprisoned, some recanted, some were banished from the kingdom. The two most obstinate, John Wielmaker and Henry Terwoort, were committed to the flames in Smithfield, July 22, 1575, notwithstanding the petition of John Foxe, the martyrologist, who begged the queen to spare them, not indeed from prison or exile (which he deemed a just punishment for heresy), but from being 'roasted alive in fire and flame,' which was 'a hard thing, and more agreeable to the practice of Romanists than to the custom of Evangelicals.' [1622] These Dutch Anabaptists were charged with 'most damnable and detestable heresies,' such as that Christ took not flesh from the substance of Mary; that infants ought not to be baptized; that it is not lawful for a Christian man to be a magistrate or bear the sword or take an oath. These are evidently doctrines of the Mennonites, afterwards adopted by the Quakers, and now generally tolerated without any injury to society.

During the reigns of James and Charles the Baptists made common cause with the Puritans, especially the Independents, against the prelatical Church, but withdrew more completely from the national worship, and secretly assembled in woods, stables, and barns for religious worship. They began to organize separate congregations (1633), but were punished whenever discovered. Many fled to Holland, and some to America. Their earliest publications were pleas for liberty of conscience. [1623]

With the Long Parliament they acquired a little freedom, though their views were opposed by Presbyterians and Independents, as well as by Episcopalians. They increased rapidly during the civil wars. In 1644 they numbered seven congregations in London, and forty-seven in the country. Cromwell left them unmolested. He had many of them in his army, and some even held positions in his experimental Broad Church. [1624] Milton is claimed by them, on the ground of a passage unfavorable to infant baptism, but with no more justice than Arians, Unitarians, and Quakers may claim him. [1625]

After the Restoration they were again persecuted by fines, imprisonment, and torture. They suffered more severely than any other Non-conformists, except the Quakers. Among their most distinguished confessors, who spent much time in prison, were Vavasor Powell (d. 1670), Hanserd Knollys (d. 1690), [1626] Benjamin Keach, and John Bunyan (d. 1688).

The Act of Toleration (1689) brought relief to the Baptists, and enabled them to build chapels and spread throughout the country. Since then they have become one of the leading branches of Dissenters in England. They have produced some of the most eminent preachers and authors in the English language, such as John Bunyan, Andrew Fuller, Robert Hall, John Foster, Joseph Angus, C. H. Spurgeon.

ROGER WILLIAMS.

Literature.

See Lives of Roger Williams by Knowles (1834), Gammell (1845, 1846, 1854), and Elton (1852); also Arnold's History of Rhode Island (1860), Vol. I.; Palfrey's History of New England, Vols. I. and II.; Bancroft's History of the U. S., Vol. I.; Masson, Life of Milton, Vol. II. pp. 560 sqq., 573 sq.; Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Authors, Vol. III. p. 2747; Dexter, As to Roger Williams and his 'Banishment' from the Massachusetts Plantation (Boston, 1876); J. L. Diman, Monument to R. W. in Providence (Providence, 1877).

The works of Williams were republished by the Narragansett Club (First Series, Vol. I., Providence, 1866), and by Underhill for the Hanserd Knollys Society (London, 1848).

In America the Baptists trace their origin chiefly but not exclusively to Roger Williams (b. probably in Wales, 1599, [1627] d. in Providence, R. I., 1683), the founder of Rhode Island. Originally a clergyman in the Church of England, he became a rigid separatist, a radical come-outer of all Church establishments, an 'arch-individualist,' and an advocate of 'soul-liberty' in the widest acceptation of the term. He was a pious, zealous, unselfish, kind-hearted, but eccentric, 'conscientiously contentions,' and impracticable genius, a real troubler in Israel, who could not get along with any body but himself; and this accounts for his troubles, which, however, were overruled for good. Cotton Mather compared him to a windmill, which, by its rapid motion in consequence of a violent storm, became so intensely heated that it took fire and endangered the whole town.

Pursued out of his land by Bishop Laud, as he says, he emigrated with a heavy heart, in company with his wife Mary, to the colony of Massachusetts, and arrived after a tedious and tempestuous voyage in February, 1631.

He first exercised his ministerial gifts as an assistant to the pastor of Plymouth Colony, and acquired a knowledge of the Indian language. In 1633 he removed to Salem as assistant of Mr. Skelton, and in 1635 he was ordained pastor of Salem Church. But he was even then in open opposition to the prevailing views and customs of the colony, and refused to take the oath of fidelity. Besides this, he was charged with advocating certain opinions supposed to be dangerous, viz., that the magistrate ought not to punish offenses against the first table; that an oath ought not to be tendered to an unregenerate man; that a regenerate man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, though it be his wife or child; that a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament nor after meat. He was unwilling to retract, and advised his church to withdraw from communion with the other churches of the colony, 'as full of anti-Christian pollution.' For these reasons the court banished Williams (Oct., 1635). The question of toleration was implied in the first charge; he denied the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate over matters of conscience and religion, and defended this principle afterwards in a book, 'The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience,' against John Cotton (1644). [1628] His views on baptism were developed afterwards; but they would only have aggravated his case, and in fact his rebaptism brought upon him the sentence of excommunication from the church of Salem, of which he was still nominally a member. [1629]

The banishment was the best thing that could have happened to Williams: it led to the development of his heroic qualities, and gave him a prominent position in American history. He left Salem with a few friends, and made his way in dreary winter through 'a howling wilderness' to the wigwams of his Indian friends, and was sorely tossed in frost and snow among barbarians for fourteen weeks, 'not knowing what bread or bed did mean.' In June, 1636, he founded with five families who adhered to him the town of Providence. He scrupulously bought the land from the Indians, and acted as pastor of this democratic settlement. In 1638 he became a Baptist; he was immersed by Ezekiel Hollyman, and in turn immersed Hollyman and ten others. This was the first Baptist church on the American Continent. But a few months afterwards he renounced his rebaptism on the ground that Hollyman was unbaptized, and therefore unauthorized to administer the rite to him. He remained for the rest of his life a 'Seeker,' cut loose from all existing Church organizations and usages, longing for a true Church of God, but unable to find one on the face of the whole earth. He conceived 'that the apostasy of Antichrist hath so far corrupted all that there can be no recovery out of that apostasy till Christ send forth, new apostles to plant churches anew.'

In 1643 he went to England, and obtained through the Commissioners of Plantation a charter which allowed the planters to rule themselves according to the laws of England, 'so far as the nature of the case would admit.' In 1663 he accepted for the colony another and more successful charter, a patent from the English crown similar to that of Massachusetts, to which he had formerly objected. He kept up friendly relations with the Indians, and twice saved the Massachusetts colony from danger, thus returning good for evil. His fame rests on his advocacy of the sacredness of conscience. Bancroft goes too far when in his eloquent eulogy he calls him 'the first person in modern Christendom who asserted in its plenitude the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions before the law.' The Anabaptists and Mennonites had done the same a hundred years before. But Williams planted the first civil government on the principle of universal 'soul-liberty,' and was followed by William Penn in his Quaker colony in Pennsylvania. Roger Williams has been called 'that noble confessor of religious liberty, that extraordinary man and most enlightened legislator, who, after suffering persecution from his brethren, persevered, amidst incredible hardships and difficulties, in seeking a place of refuge for the sacred ark of conscience.' [1630]

In the other colonies the Baptists were more or less persecuted till the time of the Revolution, but after that they spread with great rapidity.

The American Baptists differ from their English brethren by a stricter discipline and closer communion practice. They are very zealous in missions, education, and other departments of Christian activity. In theology they cultivate especially biblical studies with great success.

BAPTIST CONFESSIONS.

The Baptists, like the Congregationalists, lower the authority of general creeds to mere declarations of faith prevailing at the time in the denomination, to which no one is bound to give assent beyond the pleasure of his conviction; and they multiply the number and elevate the authority of local or congregational creeds and covenants, by which the members of particular congregations voluntarily bind themselves to a certain scheme of doctrine and duty. Notwithstanding the entire absence of centralization in their government, and the unrestrained freedom of private judgment, the Calvinistic Baptists have maintained as great a degree of essential harmony of faith as they themselves deem desirable.

'The Baptist creeds,' says Dr. Joseph Angus, in behalf of English Baptists, [1631] 'were prepared in the first instance for apologetic and defensive purposes. They merely describe the doctrines held by the bodies from which they emanated. They were never imposed on ministers and members of the churches of either section of the Baptists. Even when adopted, as they sometimes were, by any church, as an expression of its sentiments, all sister churches were left free, and in the particular church a considerable latitude of judgment was allowed in interpreting them. They have never been accepted as tests, and merely represent in a general way the sentiment of the body. In trust deeds or in the rules of associations they never appear. Property in trust is held for the use of evangelical Christians maintaining the doctrines commonly held by Particular (or General) Baptists; sometimes these doctrines are enumerated in the briefest possible way--the trinity, the atonement, etc.--and sometimes they are not enumerated at all. Of course, in the event of an appeal to law, the creeds and confessions would be evidence of the faith of the body. Substantially the two sections of the Baptist body believe as of old. But their confessions are not authoritative except as evidence and in matters of property; while in the interpretation of them it is a principle to allow as much freedom as is consistent with a substantial agreement in the same general truth.'

'Confessions of faith,' says Dr. Osgood, with special reference to the Baptists in the United States, [1632] 'have never been held as tests of orthodoxy, as of any authoritative or binding force; they merely reflect the existing harmony of views and the scriptural interpretations of the churches assenting to them. "We believe," says Wayland, "in the fullest sense, in the independence of every individual church of Christ. We hold that each several church is a Christian society, on which is conferred by Christ the entire power of self-government. No church has any power over any other church. No minister has any authority in any church except that which has called him to be its pastor. Every church, therefore, when it expresses its own belief, expresses the belief of no other than its own members. If several churches understand the Scriptures in the same way, and all unite in the same confession, then this expresses the opinions and belief of those who profess it. It, however, expresses their belief because all of them, from the study of the Scriptures, understand them in the same manner, and not because any tribunal has imposed such interpretations upon them. We can not acknowledge the authority of any such tribunal. We have no right to delegate such an authority to any man or to any body of men. It is our essential belief that the Scriptures are a revelation from God, given . . . to every individual man. They were given to every individual that he might understand them for himself, and the word that is given him will judge him at the great day. It is hence evident that we can have no standards which claim to be of any authority over us."' [1633]

I. The Confession of the Seven Churches in London. Dr. Daniel Featley, a prominent Episcopalian of the Puritan party and member of the Westminster Assembly (from which, however, he was expelled for informing the king of its proceedings), had a public disputation with the Baptists in 1644, and published it, with a dedication to the Parliament, under the title, 'The Dippers dipt; or, the Anabaptists Duck'd and Plung'd over Head and Ears at a Disputation in Southwark.' [1634]

This gave rise to a Confession of Faith, on the part of seven London churches, with an Epistle Dedicatory to the two houses of Parliament. It appeared in 1644 (three years before the Westminster Confession), and again with some additions and changes in 1646, under the title, 'A Confession of Faith of Seven Congregations or Churches of Christ in London, which are commonly (but unjustly) called Anabaptists.' [1635] This document consists of fifty-two (51) Articles, and shows that in all important doctrines and principles, except on the sacraments and Church government, the Baptists agreed with the orthodox Reformed Churches. The concluding paragraph admits the fallibility of human confessions, and the readiness of Baptists to receive further light, but also their determination 'to die a thousand deaths rather than do any thing against the least tittle of the truth of God, or against the light of our own consciences.'

II. The Confession of Somerset, 1656. It was signed by the delegates of sixteen churches of Somerset and the adjoining counties. It consists of forty-six Articles. [1636]

III. The Confession of 1688. This is by far the most important and authoritative. It has superseded the two earlier confessions, and is to this day held in the highest esteem. It appeared first in 1677, at London, under the title, 'A Confession of Faith put forth by the Elders and Brethren of many congregations of Christians baptized upon profession of their faith.' It was reprinted in 1688, 1689, and approved and recommended by the ministers and messengers of above a hundred congregations met in London, July 3-11, 1689. [1637] It has been often reprinted. [1638] 'It is still generally received by all those congregations that hold the doctrine of personal election and the certainty of the saints' final perseverance.' [1639] In America it was adopted by the Baptist Association which met in Philadelphia, Sept. 25, 1742, and hence is known also by the name of the Philadelphia Confession.

This Confession consists of thirty-two chapters, beginning with the holy Scriptures and ending with the last judgment. It is simply the Baptist recension of the Westminster Confession, as the Savoy Declaration is the Congregational recension of the same Westminster Confession. It follows the Westminster Confession in sentiment and language, with very few verbal alterations, except in the doctrine of the Church and the Sacraments. The Preface sets forth that the Confession of Westminster is retained in substance for the purpose of showing the agreement of the Baptists with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists 'in all the fundamental Articles of the Christian religion,' and also to convince all that they have 'no itch to clog religion with new words, but do readily acquiesce in that form of sound words which has been, in consent with the holy Scriptures, used by others before us; hereby declaring before God, angels, and men our hearty agreement with them in that wholesome Protestant doctrine which with so clear evidence of Scripture they have asserted.' The Appendix is a defense of the Baptist theory against Pædobaptists.

The Confession differs from that of the Westminster in the chapters on the Church and on the sacraments. It omits the chapter 'Of Church Censuses' (XXX.) and 'Of Synods and Councils.' The chapter 'Of the Church' (XXV.) is adapted to the independent polity; and the chapter 'Of Baptism' is altered to suit the Baptist theory, limiting the right of baptism to those 'who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus,' and declaring 'immersion or dipping of the person in water' to be 'necessary to the due administration of this ordinance' (XXIX.). A chapter, 'Of the Gospel and the Extent of Grace thereof,' is inserted from the Savoy Declaration as Ch. XX. (which causes the change of the numbering of the chapters which follow). [1640]

IV. In 1693 a Catechism based on this Confession was drawn up by William Collins, at the request of the General Assembly which met at London in June of that year. It is taken chiefly from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and follows closely its order and method. It is also called 'Keach's Catechism.' Benjamin Keach was with Collins among the signers of the Confession of 1688, and seems to have had much to do with the work. It is the only Catechism which has found general acceptance among Baptists in England and America. [1641]

During the seventeenth century there were also some private confessions written by John Bunyan, Vavasor Powell, Benjamin Keach, and Elias Keach.

V. The New Hampshire Confession was prepared about 1833 or 1834, by the Rev. J. Newton Brown, of New Hampshire (d. 1868), the editor of a 'Universal Cyclopædia of Religious Knowledge.' It is shorter and simpler than the Confession of 1688, and presents the Calvinistic system in a milder form. It has been accepted by the Baptists of New Hampshire and other Northern and Western States, and is now the most popular creed among American Baptists. [1642] __________________________________________________________________

[1620] Their older scholars claim an origin earlier than the Continental or the English Reformation, going back to the Waldenses and Albigenses, and to the Lollard movement following, in Britain, the labors of Wycliff. The tradition of the Holland Mennonites gave them a Waldensian ancestry. But these points are disputed, and no historical connection can be traced.

[1621] The Campbellites, or Disciples, differ from the other Baptists by identifying baptismal immersion with regeneration, or teaching a concurrence of both acts.

[1622] See Foxe's letter to Queen Elizabeth, in Latin, in Append. III. to Neal's History (Vol. II. p. 439).

[1623] See the Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, republished for the Hanserd Knollys Society by E. B. Underhill (London, 1846), which contains seven Baptist works on this subject from 1614 to 1661. On Roger Williams, see below.

[1624] Samuel Richardson, a Baptist, who knew him personally, speaks very highly of Cromwell, as a man who 'aimeth at the general good of the nation and just liberty of every man, who is faithful to the saints, who hath owned the poor despised people of God, and advanced many to a better way and means of living.' See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, p. 240.

[1625] 'Milton, it seems, withdrew at last from all Church organizations, regarding them with equal respect and indifference, except the Romanists, whom he excludes from toleration as idolaters and enemies of toleration. With his illustrious friend, the younger Sir Henry Vane, whom, as understanding the true relations of Church and State, he praises in one of his most beautiful sonnets, he joined the 'Seekers,' a body looking for a more perfect Church yet to come. Roger Williams, the friend of both poet and statesman, joined them in his last years in occupying the same ground. In 1673, the year before his death, Milton published a treatise on 'True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the Best Means against the Growth of Popery,' in which he defines heresy to be 'a religion taken up and believed from the traditions of men and additions to the Word of God.' In this sense Popery is the only or the greatest heresy; its very name, Roman Catholic, a contradiction; one of the Pope's bulls as universal particular, or catholic schismatic; while Protestants are free from heresy, which is in the will and choice professedly against the Scriptures. He represents four classes of Protestants--Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, and Socinians--as agreed in the articles essential to salvation, and says: 'The Lutheran holds consubstantiation; an error, indeed, but not mortal. The Calvinist is taxed with predestination, and to make God the author of sin, not with any dishonorable thought of God, but it may be overzealously asserting his absolute power, not without plea of Scripture. The Anabaptist is accused of denying infants their right to baptism; again, they say they deny nothing but what Scripture denies them. The Arian and Socinian are charged to dispute against the Trinity; they affirm to believe the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost according to Scripture and the Apostolic Creed. As for terms of trinity, trini-unity, co-essentiality, tri-personality, and the like, they reject them as scholastic notions, not to be found in Scripture, which, by a general Protestant maxim, is plain and perspicuous abundantly to explain its own meaning in the properest words belonging to so high a matter and so necessary to be known; a mystery indeed in their sophistic subtleties, but in Scripture a plain doctrine. Their other opinions are of less moment. They dispute the satisfaction of Christ, or rather the word satisfaction, as not Scriptural, but they acknowledge him both God and their Saviour. The Arminian, lastly, is condemned for setting up free-will against free-grace; but that imputation he disclaims in all his writings, and grounds himself largely upon Scripture only.'

[1626] Knollys fled to Massachusetts (1638), and preached for some time in the extreme northern part of the colony, but, being exposed to danger as a Baptist and Separatist, he returned to England in 1641. The society for the republication of scarce old Baptist tracts is called after him.

[1627] The accounts of the year of his birth vary from 1598 to 1606. He was a protégé of the celebrated judge, Sir Edward Coke. Historians differ as to whether he was Rodericus Williams, from Wales, who entered Jesus College, Oxford, in 1624, or Rogerus Williams, whose name appears in the subscription-book of Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1626. Elton and Masson take the former, Arnold and Dexter the latter view, which better agrees with his Christian name.

[1628] This book was anonymously published in London, when Williams was there occupied in obtaining a charter for Rhode Island, and is exceedingly rare, only six copies being known to exist; but it has been reprinted from the copy in the Bodleian Library by Edward Bean Underhill, together with the Answer to Cotton's Letter and a Memoir of Williams (London, 1848, pp. 439 and xxxvi.). It is written in a kindly and moderate spirit, free from the controversial bitterness of the age, in the form of a conference between Truth and Peace. Williams begins with this sentence: 'The blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.' He maintains that civil government has nothing whatever to do with spiritual matters, over which God alone rules, and that religious liberty should be extended not only to all Christian denominations and sects, but even to 'the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or anti-Christian consciences and worships' (p. 2). John Cotton, his chief opponent, wrote in reply 'The Bloudy Tenent washed, and made white in the Bloud of the Lambe: being discussed and discharged of blood-guiltiness by just Defense' (London, 1647). Williams defended his position in 'The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody by Mr. Cotton's endeavour to wash it white in the Blood of the Lambe' (London, 1652, 4to, pp. 373). John Cotton (1585-1652), who emigrated to America two years after Williams (1633), was one of the patriarchs of New England, and, together with Hooker and Stone, constituted the 'glorious triumvirate' that supplied the Puritans in the wilderness with their three great necessities--'Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their building.'--Cotton Mather's Magnalia, Vol. III. p. 20.

[1629] Dr. Dexter's monograph is a learned and elaborate partisan defense of the action of the young Colony, which, he says, 'was reluctantly compelled to choose between the expulsion of Williams and the immediate risk of social, civil, and religious disorganization' (p. 88). He takes the ground that Williams was banished, not on religious, but on political grounds. But religion and politics were inseparably interwoven in the New England theocracy.

[1630] Mrs. P. S. Elton, in The Piedmontese Envoy; or, The Men, Manners, and Religion of the Commonwealth: A Tale (London, 1852), puts this eulogy into the mouth of John Milton; hence it is sometimes falsely quoted as Milton's (Allibone, Vol. III. p. 2747).

[1631] In a letter to the author.

[1632] Letter to the author.

[1633] F. Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches, pp. 13, 14.

[1634] London, 3d ed. 1645; 7th ed. 1660. The spirit of this book may be judged from the title and the following passage of the Epistle Dedicatory: 'Of all heretics and schismatics, the Anabaptists ought to be most carefully looked into, and severely punished, if not utterly exterminated and banished out of the Church and Kingdom. . . . They preach and print and practice their heretical impieties openly; they hold their conventicles weekly in our chief cities and suburbs thereof, and there prophesy by turns; . . . they flock in great multitudes to their Jordans, and both sexes enter into the river, and are dipt after their manner with a kind of spell, containing the heads of their erroneous tenets. . . , And as they defile our rivers with their impure washings, and our pulpits with their false prophecies and fanatical enthusiasms, so the presses sweat and groan under the load of their blasphemies.'

[1635] Printed in Underhill's Collection, pp. 11-48. The title-pages, which are all given by Underhill, slightly differ in the three editions of 1644, '46, and '51. I have before me a copy of the fourth ed., London, 1652, which has been for more than two hundred years in the family of the Rev. Dr. Holme, a Baptist clergyman of New York. It has the same title as the third ed., but, only fifty-one Articles; Art. XXXVIII., on the support of the ministry by the congregation, being omitted.

[1636] Underhill, pp. 74-106.

[1637] The following certificate was prefixed: 'We, the ministers and messengers of, and concerned for, upwards of one hundred congregations in England and Wales, denying Arminianism, being met together in London, from the third day of the seventh month to the eleventh of the same, 1689, . . . have thought meet for the satisfaction of all other Christians that differ from us in the point of baptism, to recommend to their perusal the confession of our faith, . . . which confession we own, as containing the doctrine of our faith and practice; and do desire that the members of our churches respectively do furnish themselves therewith.' Signed by thirty-seven persons in the name of the whole assembly.

The Scotch Commissioners. (part 5)

[1638] Editions of 1699, 1719, 1720, etc. An American ed. was issued by Benj. Franklin, and one at Pittsburgh (S. Williams), 1831. It is also reprinted by Crosby, Vol. III. Append. II. pp. 56-111; Underhill, pp. 169-246.

[1639] Dr. Angus.

[1640] See Vol. III. pp. 738 sqq.

[1641] Underhill says, p. xv.: 'It is the only Catechism of value among Baptists.' He gives it from the 16th Engl. ed., pp. 247-270, but says nothing of Keach's co-authorship, and ascribes to him another Catechism ('The Child's Instructor: a New and Easy Primer,' 24mo, 1664), for which he was imprisoned under Charles II. The American Baptist Publication Society publishes it under the title, 'The Baptist Catechism commonly called Keach's Catechism; or, A Brief Instruction in the Principles of the Christian Religion, agreeably to the Confession of Faith put forth by upwards of a hundred congregations in Great Britain, July 3, 1689, and adopted by the Philadelphia Baptist Association, Sept. 22, 1742.' Here the name of Collins is omitted. But the Catechism is literally the same as the one in Underhill's Collection.

[1642] It is printed in Vol. III. pp. 742 sqq. __________________________________________________________________

§ 106. Aminian or Free-will Baptists.

IN ENGLAND.

[See Literature on p. 845.]

The General or Arminian Baptists differ from the Particular or Calvinistic Baptists in rejecting unconditional election and the perseverance of saints, and in maintaining the freedom of will and the possibility of falling from grace. So far they followed the Mennonites. They assign greater power to a general assembly of associated churches, and hold three orders--bishops or messengers, pastors or elders, and deacons; while the Particular Baptists, like the Congregationalists, recognize only two--bishops or pastors and deacons (elders being a title applicable to the first or to both).

I. The first Confession of Arminian Baptists was published by English refugees in Holland, under the title, 'A Declaration of Faith of English People remaining at Amsterdam in Holland,' Amsterdam, 1611. [1643] It was drawn up by Smyth and Helwisse. It consists of twenty-seven (26) Articles. The first Article confesses the doctrine of the Trinity in the spurious words of 1 John v. 7. Election is conditioned by foreknown faith, reprobation by foreknown unbelief, and the perseverance of saints is denied. [1644] The Church of Christ is defined (Art. X.) to be 'a company of faithful people separated from the world by the Word and Spirit of God, being knit unto the Lord, and one unto another, by baptism, upon their own confession of the faith.' Baptism is confined to adults, but nothing is said of immersion. The duty of obedience to the magistrate is very earnestly enjoined (Art. XXIV.).

II. The 'London Confession' was approved by more than twenty thousand Baptists, and was presented to Charles II., July 26, 1660. It contains twenty-five Articles. [1645]

III. The 'Orthodox Creed' was published in 1678, by the General Baptists of Oxfordshire and the parts adjacent. It makes a near approach to Calvinism, with a view to unite the Protestants in the fundamental articles against the errors of Rome. [1646]

IN AMERICA.

Literature.

I. D. Stewart: The History of the Free-will Baptists for Half a Century. Dover, 1862 sqq. (Vol. I. from 1780 to 1830). Comp. also the Lives of Randall, Stinchfield, Colby, Thornton, Marks, Bowles, Phinney, and Elias Smith; the Records of Yearly Meetings and Quarterly Meetings, and sundry articles in the religious periodicals and other publications of the Free-will Baptists issued from their Printing Establishment at Dover, New Hampshire.

The American General Baptists are called Free-will Baptists or Free Baptists. They trace their origin to Benjamin Randall (1749-1808), who was converted by one of the last sermons of Whitefield at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Sept. 28, 1770. He was at first a Congregationalist, but in 1776 he united himself with a regular Baptist church in South Berwick, Maine, and entered the ministry. In 1780 he organized, in New Durham, New Hampshire, a Baptist church, which became the nucleus of a new denomination, holding the doctrines of conditional election, free will, and open communion. In government it is congregational.

In 1827 the Free-will Baptists organized a General Conference in New England, and opened correspondence with the Arminian Baptists in England and North Carolina.

Their Confession of Faith, together with a directory of discipline, was prepared by order of the General Conference of 1832, approved 1834, revised by a committee in 1848, 1865, and 1868. It is the clearest and ablest exposition of the principles of the Free-will Baptists. [1647] __________________________________________________________________

[1643] It is reprinted in Crosby's History, Vol. II. Appendix I. pp. 1-9, and in Underhill's Collection, pp. 1-10. A manuscript copy exists in the archives of the Mennonite church at Amsterdam, to which the original subscriptions of forty-two names are appended, preceded by the modest remark, 'We subscribe to the truth of these Articles, desiring further instruction.'

[1644] Art. V.: 'God before the foundation of the world hath predestinated that all that believe in him shall be saved, and all that believe not shall be damned; all which he knew before. And this is the election and reprobation spoken of in the Scriptures, . . . and not that God hath predestinated men to be wicked, and so be damned, but that men being wicked shall be damned.' Art. VII.: 'Men may fall away from the grace of God, and from the truths which they have received and acknowledged.'

[1645] Underhill, pp. 107-120.

[1646] Ibid. pp. 121-168.

[1647] It is published at Dover. N. H., under the title, Treatise, on the Faith and Practice of the Free-will Baptists, and forms a little book of fifty pages. The doctrinal part is printed in Vol. III. pp. 749 sqq. __________________________________________________________________

§ 107. The Society of Friends, or Quakers.

Literature.

I. Sources.

Geo. Fox (founder of the Society of Friends, d. 1690): Works (containing his Journal, Letters, and Exhortations), London, 1694-1706, in 3 vols. fol.; also Philadelphia, in 8 vols. 8vo.

Robert Barclay (the standard divine of the Quakers, d. 1690): Works, edited by William Penn, London, 1692, under the title, 'Truth Triumphant through the Spiritual Warfare, Christian Labors and Writings of that Able and Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Robert Barclay,' etc. The principal of these works are: Apologia Theologiæ vere Christianæ, first in Latin, Amst. 1675; then in English, by the author himself; also in German, Dutch, French, and Spanish. The full title of the English edition is, 'An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, being an Explanation and Vindication of the Principles and Doctrines of the People called Quakers.' (I have a very elegant copy of the eighth edition, Birmingham, 1765.) A Catechism and Confession of Faith, approved of and agreed unto by the General Assembly of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, Christ himself Chief Speaker in and among them. (The answers wholly biblical.) 1673. The same, in Latin (Catechesis et Fidei Confessio, etc.). Rotterdam, 1676. Treatise on Christian Discipline, etc.

William Penn (d. 1718): A Summary of the History, Doctrine, and Discipline of Friends (London, 1692); Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People called Friends (London, 1694); 'Quakerism a New Nickname for Old Christianity;' 'The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Debated and Defended,' etc. Some of Penn's tracts were translated into German by Seebohm (Pyrmont, 1792 and 1798).

II. historical.

Gerard Croese: History of the Quakers, containing the Lives, Tenets, Sufferings, Trials, Speeches, and Letters of all the most Eminent Quakers from the First Rise of the Sect. London, 1696, 8vo.

William Sewel (d. 1725): History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers. London, 1725, fol.; 6th edition, 1834, in 2 vols.; also in Dutch and German. (Charles Lamb pronounced this book 'far more edifying and affecting than any thing of Wesley and his colleagues.')

Joseph Besse: Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers, for the Testimony of a Good Conscience. London, 1753, 2 vols. fol.

John Gough: The History of the Quakers. Dublin, 1789, 4 vols. 8vo.

Sam. M. Janney: History of the Friends. Philadelphia, 1859-1867, 4 vols.

Biographies of G. Fox, by Jonah Marsh (1848), S. M. Janney (1853), W. Tallack (1868).

Biographies of W. Penn, by Marsiliac (1791), Clarkson (1813), Ellis (1852), Janney (1852), Hepworth Dixon (1856).

III. Explanatory and Apologetic.

Thos. Clarkson (d. 1846): A Portraiture of Quakerism. London, 1806; 2d ed. 1807, 3 vols.

Joseph John Gurney (d. 1847): Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends. 7th edition, London, 1834; 2d American from the 7th London edition, New York, 1869.

Thos. Evans: An Exposition of the Faith of the Religious Society of Friends. Philadelphia, 1828. Approved by the Quakers at a meeting held in Philadelphia, Oct. 19, 1827, and often printed. (Manchester edition, 1867.)

The Ancient Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends,... revived and given forth by the Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia in the Fourth Month, 1843. Philadelphia, at Friends' book-store. A summary of orthodox Quakerism, chiefly from the writings of Barclay.

W. I. Allinson: Art. Friends, in M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclop., Vol. III. pp. 667 sqq. (New York, 1870).

Friends' Review, a Religious, Literary, and Miscellaneous Journal. Philadelphia, so far twenty-nine vols. till 1876 (edited by Henry Hartshorne).

IV. Polemical and Critical.

For a full account of the literature against the Quakers, see Jos. Smith's Bibliotheca anti-Quakeriana; or, A Catalogue of Books adverse to the Society of Friends. Alphabetically arranged. With Biographical Notices of the Authors, together with the Answers which ham been given to some of them by Friends and others. London, 8vo, pp. 474.

Möhler (R. C.): Symbolik, pp. 488-532; Rud. Hofmann: Symbolik, pp. 514-520; Schenckenburger, Lehrbegriffe der kleineren protest. Kirchenparteien, pp. 69-102.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

The Religious Society of Friends, as they call themselves--or Quakers, as they are usually called [1648] --originated in the Puritan commotion which roused all the religious energies of England.

It was founded by George Fox (1624-1690), one of the oddest saints in Christendom, a self-taught and half-inspired man of genius, who was called by a higher power from the shepherd's staff to the evangelism of the baptism by fire and by the Spirit. In early youth he felt inclined to ascetic retirement, like the hermits of old. He was a thorough mystic, and desired to get at the naked truth without the obstruction of church, sacrament, ceremonies, theology, and ordinary study, except the Scriptures spiritually understood. He loved to commune with nature and nature's God, to walk in the inward light, to enjoy the indwelling Christ, and to receive inspirations from heaven. He spent much time in fasting and prayer, he wrestled with the devil, and passed through deep mental distress, doubt, and despondency. His moral character was beyond reproach--pure, truthful, unworldly, just, temperate, meek, and gentle, yet bold and utterly regardless of conventional usage and propriety. He began his public testimony in his twenty-third year, and traveled through England, Holland, and the American colonies, preaching and praying with pentecostal fervor and power, revealing hidden truths, boldly attacking pride, formality, and worldliness, and exhorting to repentance, humility, and mercy. He sometimes interrupted the clergymen at public service, and the lawyers in court, and warned them against the wrath to come. He was a stern ascetic, clad in leather, and wearing long hair. He addressed every body 'thou' or 'thee,' and sublimely ignored all worldly honors and dignities. [1649] He was nine times thrown into prison for breaches of the peace and blasphemy, and suffered much hardship and indignity with imperturbable temper; but towards the close of his meteoric career he enjoyed comparative rest. His 'Journal' gives an account of his labors, and is, in the language of Sir James Mackintosh, 'one of the most extraordinary and instructive narratives in the world.' Fox was providentially provided with the best aid in founding his society.

Robert Barclay (1648-1690) was the apologist and theologian of the Quakers, the only one known to fame. Descended from a noble family in Scotland, and educated in Paris, he became a convert first to Romanism, then to Quakerism (1667). He had therefore the advantage of an experimental as well as theoretical knowledge of the Scotch Calvinistic and the Roman Catholic creeds. He made various missionary journeys in company with William Penn; he walked through the streets of Aberdeen in sackcloth and ashes, and was several times imprisoned, but spent his last years in peace on his estate of Ury.

William Penn (1644-1718), the statesman and politician of the Quakers, and the founder of Pennsylvania, was the son of an admiral, and enjoyed the favor of James II. (his father's friend), which he used in the cause of justice and mercy. [1650] He himself was expelled for his religion from the University of Oxford and his father's house, and was twice imprisoned, but ably defended the liberty of conscience, and was acquitted. By his influence more than twelve hundred Quakers were set at liberty. In 1680 he obtained from the king, in payment of a claim of £16,000, an extensive tract of land west of the Delaware River, and organized a colony on the basis of perfect freedom of religion (1682). The city of Philadelphia, or brotherly love, became the chief asylum of persecuted Quakers, a century afterwards the cradle of American independence, and in 1876 the theatre of the most remarkable centennial ever celebrated by any nation. Penn was twice in America, but died in England. He made a treaty with the Indians, of which Voltaire said that it was the only treaty never sworn to and never broken. The United States government would have fared better with the aborigines of the country if it had followed the humane example of Roger Williams and William Penn.

The Quakers, during the first forty years of their history, were more severely persecuted than any sect of Christians had ever been, with the exception of the Waldenses, and bore it with unflinching heroism. Their eccentricities and fanatical excesses, their utter disregard for the courtesies and conventionalities of civilized life, their fierce abuse of the national churches (or 'steeple-houses') and clergymen, their opposition to tithes, salary, the oath, and military service, provoked the combined hostility of magistrates, ministers, and people. Their places of worship were invaded by the populace armed with staves, cudgels, and pitchforks; the windows broken by stones and bullets; their religious services rudely interrupted by hallooing and railing; their property destroyed or sold; their persons ridiculed, buffeted, assailed with stones and filth, dragged by the hair through the streets, or thrown into loathsome prisons and punished as heretics and blasphemers.

Cromwell, who had a tender feeling for all 'godly' radicals and enthusiasts, was rather pleased with George Fox, with whom he had an interview (1654); he allowed him to keep on his hat, and to speak about the mysteries of spiritual experience; and, although he disapproved his disorderly conduct, he pressed his hand and said, 'Come again to my house; if thou and I were together but an hour in every day, we should be nearer one to the other.' But Cromwell could not control the local magistrates and the rabble.

Under Charles II. the Quakers fared much worse, and notwithstanding the influence of Penn upon James II., who favored them for political reasons in the interest of the Roman Catholics, they continued to suffer until the Act of Toleration, in 1689, or rather until 1696, when by a special Act of Parliament their solemn affirmation was recognized as equivalent to an oath.

During the period from 1650 to 1689, according to the patient researches of their historian, Joseph Besse, no less than 13,258 Quakers suffered fine, imprisonment, torture, and mutilation in England, Scotland, and Ireland, 219 were banished, and 360 perished in prisons, some almost literally rotting in pestilential cells.

In New England they were not treated any better: 170 instances of hard usage are enumerated, 47 were banished, and 4 hanged (three men and one woman, Mary Dyer). In explanation, though not in justification, of this severity of the Puritan colony towards them, we should remember those offenses against public decency which led some Quaker men and women to invade churches during divine service, and to promenade the streets of Boston, Cambridge, and Salem in sackcloth and ashes, even in puris naturalibus, for 'a sign and wonder' (in imitation of Isa. xx. 2, 3), to symbolize the 'naked truth,' and to utter a prophetic 'testimony' against the 'hireling priests,' the tyrannical magistrates, and the wicked and perverse generation, warning them of the impending judgments of the Lord, who would come with fire and sword. [1651] Even Roger Williams, in his debate with the Quakers at Newport (1672), with all his liberality, condemned such conduct. [1652]

Notwithstanding these persecutions, the Society of Friends spread rapidly, and numbered about 70,000 members towards the close of the seventeenth century. They afterwards diminished in England, but increased in America, though not as much as other denominations. On the Continent they had only a few adherents in Holland and Germany.

The fanatical heat of the martyr period of the Quakers cooled down with the cessation of persecution. They became a sober, quiet, orderly, and peaceful community. The oddities which they still retain are perfectly harmless, and form an interesting chapter in the history of morals. Quakerism is not so much a new theology as a new mode of Christian life, representing the utmost simplicity in opposition to show, ornament, and amusement.

QUAKER CONFESSIONS.

The Quakers are more radical than the Independents and the Baptists. They utterly broke with historical Christianity, and reject its visible ordinances, which the Independents and the Baptists retained. They kept aloof from the Puritans, and would have nothing whatever to do with the national English or any other Church or sect in Christendom. They oppose all outward authority in religion, though it be the letter of the Bible itself.

With such views they can not consistently recognize any binding standards of doctrine which might obstruct the freedom of interpretation of the divine Word under the direct illumination of the Spirit.

Nevertheless, with all their radicalism, the Quakers retained the substance of the Christian faith, and, following the example of the early Christians, they set forth their tenets in a number of apologies against the misrepresentations of their enemies. The first 'Confession and Profession of Faith in God' was published by Richard Farnsworth in 1658. Similar apologetic documents followed in 1659 and 1661 by George Fox the Younger, in 1662 by John Crook, in 1664 by William Smith, in 1668 by William Penn, in 1671 by Whitehead and Perm, in 1698 by Penn and others, in 1671, 1675, and 1682 by George Fox. [1653]

The ablest and most authoritative exposition of the belief of the Quakers is the 'Apology' of Robert Barclay, written in his quiet retreat in Ury, Scotland, 1675, and addressed to Charles II. It is his most elaborate work, and is still held in the highest estimation by the orthodox Friends. He pays the school-divinity the compliment that, although it takes up almost a man's whole life-time to learn, it 'brings not a whit nearer to God, neither makes any man less wicked or more righteous.' 'Therefore,' he continues, 'hath God laid aside the wise and the learned and the disputers of this world, and hath chosen a few despicable and unlearned instruments as he did fishermen of old, to publish his pure and naked truth, and to free it of those mists and fogs wherewith the clergy hath clouded it.' Nevertheless, Barclay makes use of a considerable amount of learning--classical, patristic, and modern--for the defense of his views.

The 'Catechism' of Barclay (written in 1673) treats in fourteen chapters of the doctrines of the Christian faith, and answers the questions in the language of the Bible, without addition or comment, evidently for the purpose of showing the entire harmony of the Quakers with the written Word of God. Their distinctive peculiarities are skillfully put into the question, and the Scripture passages are so selected as to confirm them. [1654] To the Catechism is added a brief 'Confession of Faith,' in twenty-three Articles, which is almost entirely composed of Scripture passages.

THE DISTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF THE FRIENDS.

The Friends are few in number, but honorably distinguished for their philanthropy, their consistent advocacy of religious freedom and the universal rights of men, their zeal in behalf of prison reform, the abolition of slavery and war. In private and social life they excel in simplicity, honesty, neatness, temperance, self-control, industry, and thrift. Their oddities in dress and habits are the shadows of virtues.

In theology and religion they are on the extreme border of Protestant orthodoxy, and reject even a regular ministry and the visible sacraments; yet they strongly believe in the supernatural and the constant presence and power of the Holy Spirit. They hold the essentials of the evangelical faith, the divine inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures (though they disparage the letter and the human means of interpretation), the doctrine of the Trinity (in substance, though not in name), [1655] the incarnation, the divinity of Christ, the atonement by his blood, the regeneration and sanctification by the Spirit, everlasting life and everlasting punishment. And while they deny the necessity of water baptism and the Lord's Supper as a participation of the elements of bread and wine, and regard such rites as a relapse into the religion of forms and shadows, they believe in the inward substance or invisible grace of the sacraments, viz., the baptism of the Spirit and fire, and the vital communion with Christ by faith. They belong to the supernaturalistic line of Protestant dissenters, while the Socinians and Unitarians tend in the opposite rationalistic direction.

Several of the peculiar views and practices of the Quakers were anticipated by Carlstadt, the Zwickau Prophets, the Mennonites, and especially by Caspar von Schwenkfeld, a pious and retiring nobleman of Silesia (born 1490, banished 1548, d. 1561 at Ulm). Schwenkfeld embraced and preached the doctrines of the Lutheran Reformation with zeal till 1524, when he adopted, as by a higher revelation, a peculiar view of the Lord's Supper, explaining the words of institution to mean, My body is this bread, i.e., spiritual nourishment for the soul. [1656] He also taught the deification of Christ's flesh, and opposed bibliolatry and all outward ecclesiasticism. A small remnant of his sect that was banished from Germany still survives in the eastern counties of Pennsylvania. [1657] There is, however, no historical connection between George Fox and these predecessors. His views were entirely his own. The history of the Roman Catholic Church furnishes a parallel in the quietism of Miguel de Molinos (1627-1698), who taught that Christian perfection consists in the sweet repose of all the mental faculties in God, and in indifference to all the actions of the body. He was condemned as a heretic by Pope Innocent XI. (1687), and shut up for life in a monastic prison.

Quakerism is a system of mystic spiritualism. It is the only organized sect of mystics in England and America. The strong practical common-sense of the English race is constitutionally averse to mystic tendencies. Quakerism is an extreme reaction against ecclesiasticism, sacerdotalism, and sacramentalism. It demonstrates the paramount importance of the spirit in opposition to the worship of the letter; the superiority and independence of the inward and invisible in opposition to the overestimate of the external and visible; and the power of silence against the excess of speech.

Christianity undoubtedly is spirit and life, and may exist under different forms, or if necessary without form, like the spirit in the disembodied state. But the normal condition is a sound spirit in a sound body, and while God is independent of his own ordinances, we are bound to them. The Quakers make the exception the rule, but by the law of reaction formalism takes revenge. Their antiformalism becomes itself a stereotyped form, and their peculiar hats and coats are as distinctive as the clerical surplice and gown. When they leave their Society they usually join the Episcopal Church, the most formal among the Protestant denominations.

THE INNER LIGHT.

The ruling principle of Quakerism is the universal inner light. [1658] It is also called the seed, the Word of God, the gift of God, the indwe1ling Christ. This is not to be confounded with reason or conscience, or any natural faculty of man. [1659] It is supernatural and divine in its origin; it is a direct illumination of the mind and heart by the Spirit of God for the purpose of salvation. It is the light of the Logos, which shines 'in darkness' and 'lighteth every man that cometh into the world,' [1660] It is Christ himself dwelling in man as the fountain of life, light, and salvation. It is the primary source of all religious truth and knowledge. It opens the sense of spiritual mysteries; it convinces and converts; it gives victory over sin, and brings joy and peace. It is communicated to men without distinction of race or religion or education, not indeed in the same measure, but in a degree sufficient to save them if they obey it, and to condemn them if they reject it. 'The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.' [1661] A day of merciful visitation comes to every human being at least once in his life, and marks a critical turning-point which determines his character in this world and his eternal fate in the world to come. To many the voice from heaven speaks often.

Cornelius was, under the divine influence of that light before the arrival of Peter and the hearing of the gospel. Socrates traced his better impulses to the divine monitor in his breast, who from childhood checked his evil passions without coercion. [1662] The savage Indians of North America followed the light when, after having been long engaged in war, they sacrificed a spotless white dog to the Great Spirit and threw their tomahawks into the lake. [1663]

If Christ died for all men, his benefits must in some way be offered to all. He is the personal Light of the whole world, which shines into all parts of the human family backward to Adam and forward to the end of time. As many are sinners without ever having heard of Adam and the fall, so many are partakers of Christ without any external knowledge of him or the Scriptures. Else idiots, infants, and the saints who died before Christ's advent could not be saved. Historical knowledge can not save without experimental knowledge, but experimental knowledge may save without historical knowledge.

The inner light agrees with the teaching of the Bible, though not confined to its letter. It is the true interpreter of the Bible, which without it remains a sealed book. It holds in this respect the same position which the Roman Catholic Church assigns to unwritten tradition, with this important difference, that tradition is an outward, objective authority, and confined to the visible Church, while the inner light is subjective, and shines upon all men.

Quakerism thus boldly breaks through the confines of historical Christianity and the means of grace, indefinitely expands the sphere of revelation, and carries the saving power of Christ, even in this present life, into the regions of heathen darkness. It must consistently regard all virtuous and pious heathen as unconscious Christians, who, like the Athenians of old, 'unknowingly' worship an 'unknown God.' Justin Martyr, the first Christian philosopher, advanced the idea that the 'Logos spermaticos,' i.e., the Eternal Word of God, before his incarnation, scattered the divine seed of truth and righteousness among the Greeks as well as the Jews. Zwingli taught the salvation of many heathen and of all children dying in infancy. But these were isolated private opinions; the doctrinal standards of the orthodox Churches--Greek, Latin, and Protestant--know of no Christ and no salvation outside of Christendom and without the written or preached gospel. The Quakers teach the absolute universality, not indeed of salvation, but of the offer and the opportunity of salvation.

This doctrine is the corner-stone of their system. [1664] It is the source of their democracy, their philanthropy, their concern for the lowest and most neglected classes of society, their opposition to slavery, war, and violence, their meekness under suffering, their calmness and serenity of temper. But the same doctrine explains also their comparative disregard of the written Scriptures, the visible Church, the ministry, the means of grace, the forms of worship, and their indifference to heathen missions. There is, however, more recently among orthodox Friends a growing disposition to aid in the circulation of the Bible, the work of foreign missions, and to associate with evangelical Christians of other Churches.

BARCLAY'S THESIS.

Barclay reduces the doctrinal system of the Friends to fifteen propositions or theological theses, which are briefly as follows: [1665]

1. The Foundation of Knowledge.--The height of happiness is in the true knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ (John xvii. 3).

2. Immediate Revelation.--This comes from the Son of God (Matt. xi. 27) through the testimony of the Spirit.

This is the inner light which has already been sufficiently explained.

3. The Holy Scriptures.--They contain the revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints. They are a declaration of the fountain, but not the fountain itself; they are the secondary rule of faith and morals, subordinate to the Spirit from which they derive all their excellency and certainty (John xvi. 13).

4. The Condition of Man after the Fall.--All men are by nature fallen, degenerated, and spiritually dead, but hereditary sin is not imputed to infants until they make it their own by actual transgression. Socinianism and Pelagianism are rejected, but also the doctrine of the 'Papists and most Protestants,' that a man without the grace of God may be a true minister of the gospel.

5. Universal Redemption by Christ.--God wills all men to be saved; Christ died for all men; the light is sent to every man for salvation, if not resisted.

On this point the Quakers side with Lutherans and Arminians against Calvinists, but go far beyond them.

6. Objections to the universality of redemption refuted.

7. Justification.--Man is regenerated and justified when he receives the inner light. It is not by our works that we are justified, but by Christ who is both the gift and the giver, and the cause producing the effects in us.

The Quakers closely connect justification with sanctification, and approach the Roman view, with this difference, that they teach justification in our works, not on account of our works. Penn distinguishes between legal justification, that is, the forgiveness of past sins through Christ, the alone propitiation, and moral justification or sanctification, whereby man is made inwardly just through the cleansing and sanctifying power and Spirit of Christ.

8. Perfection.--Man may become free from actual sinning, and so far perfect; yet perfection admits of growth, and there remains a possibility of sinning. [1666]

The Methodists have substantially adopted this view, and call it entire consecration or perfect love.

9. Perseverance.--Those who resist the light, or disobey it after receiving it, fall away (Heb. vi. 4-6; Tim. i. 6); but it is possible in this life to attain such a stability in the truth from which there can be no total apostasy.

This is a compromise between Calvinism and Arminianism.

10. The Ministry.--Those and only those are qualified ministers of the gospel who are illuminated and called by the Spirit, whether male or female, whether learned or unlearned. These ought to preach without hire or bargaining (Matt. x. 8), although they may receive a voluntary temporal support from the people to whom they administer in spiritual things.

11. Worship.--It consists 'in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of the Spirit, which is neither limited to places or times or persons.' All other worship which man appoints and can begin and end at his pleasure is superstition, will-worship, and idolatry.

All forms and even sacred music are excluded from the naked spiritualism of Quaker worship. It is simply reverent communion of the soul with God, uttered or silent. I once attended a Quaker meeting in London whose solemn silence was more impressive than many a sermon. I felt the force of the word, 'There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.' At another meeting I heard one man and several women exhort and pray in a tremulous voice and with reverential awe, as if in the immediate presence of the great Jehovah. All depends upon the power of the Holy Spirit.

12. Baptism.--It is 'a pure and spiritual thing, a baptism of the Spirit and of fire,' by which we are purged from sin (1 Pet. iii. 21; Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 12; Gal. iii. 27; John iii. 30). Of this the water-baptism of John was a figure commanded for a time. The baptism of infants is a human tradition, without Scripture precept or practice.

13. The Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is likewise inward and spiritual, of which the breaking of bread at the last Supper was a figure. It was used for a time, for the sake of the weak, even by those who had received the substance, as the washing of feet and the anointing of the sick with oil was practiced; all which are only the shadows of better things. (John vi. 32-35; 1 Cor. x. 16, 17.)

This doctrine of the sacraments is a serious departure from the universal consensus of Christendom and the obvious intention of our Saviour. It can only be accounted for as a protest against the opposite extreme, which substitutes the visible sign for the invisible grace.

14. The Power of the Civil Magistrate.--It does not extend over the conscience, which God alone can instruct and govern, provided always that no man under pretense of conscience do any thing destructive to the rights of others and the peace of society. All civil punishments for matters of conscience proceed from the spirit of Cain the murderer.

Here the Quakers, like the Baptists, commit themselves most unequivocally to the doctrine of universal religious liberty as a part of their creed.

15. Salutations and Recreations.--Under this head are forbidden the taking off the hat to a man, the bowings and cringings of the body, and 'all the foolish or superstitious formalities' which feed pride and vanity and belong to the vain pomp and glory of this world; also all unprofitable and frivolous plays and recreations which divert the mind from the fear of God, from sobriety and gravity. Penn said of Fox that he was 'civil beyond all forms of breeding.'

The Apology of Barclay is a commentary on these propositions.

Note.--The Hicksites.--In the year 1827 a schism took place among the Friends in Philadelphia, and extended to most of the yearly meetings in America, but had no influence in England. Since then the Quakers are divided into 'orthodox' Quakers and 'Hicksites,' although the latter refuse to be called by any other name but that of 'Friends' or 'Quakers.' The founder of this rupture was Elias Hicks, born in Hempstead, Long Island, March 19, 1768; died in Jericho, N.Y., Feb. 27, 1830.

He took strong ground against slavery, and abstained from all participation in the fruits of slave labor. He was for a long time an acceptable preacher, but early in the present century he advocated radical Unitarian and other heterodox doctrines, which shocked the majority of the Quakers and led to commotion, censure, and schism. The first separation took place in the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia, and then a similar one in New York, Baltimore, Ohio, and Indiana. Many espoused the cause of Hicks, in the interest of religious liberty and progress, without indorsing his heretical opinions on the articles of the Trinity, the divinity, and the atonement of Christ.

The extreme left of the Hicksites broke off in 1853 in Chester County, Pa., and organized a separate party under the name of Progressive Friends. They opened the door to all who recognize the equal brotherhood of the human family, without regard to sex, color, or condition, and engage in works of beneficence and charity. They disclaim all creeds and disciplinary authority, and are opposed to every form of ecclesiasticism.

The Hicksite movement drove the orthodox Quakers more closely to the Scriptures, and called forth several official counter-demonstrations.

On the 'Hicksite' Quakers, see Elias Hicks, Journal of his Life and Labors, and his Sermons, Phila. 1828; and Janney (a Hicksite), History of the Society of Friends, Vol. IV. __________________________________________________________________

[1648] The name 'Friends' designates a democratic brotherhood in Christ. The name 'Quakers' is sometimes wrongly derived from the warning of Fox to the magistrates 'to quake for fear' and 'to tremble at the Word of the Lord' (Isa. lxvi. 2). It comes rather from their own tremulous utterance of emotion in prayer and exhortation. Barclay (Apology, p. 310, on Prop. XI.) speaks of the trembling motion of the body under the power of the truth, by which Quakers are exercised as in the day of battle, and says: 'From this the name of Quakers, i.e., Tremblers, was first reproachfully cast upon us; which, though it be none of our choosing, yet in this respect we are not ashamed of it, but have rather reason to rejoice therefore, even that we are sensible of this power that hath oftentimes laid hold of our adversaries and made them yield unto us.' Allinson says (1.c. p. 668): 'The epithet Quakers was given in derision, because they often trembled under an awful sense of the infinite purity and majesty of God, and this name, rather submitted to than accepted by them, has become general as a designation.'

[1649] 'The Lord forbade him,' says Sewel, 'to put off his hat to any man, high or low; he was required to Thou and Thee every man and woman without distinction, and not to bid people Good-morrow or Good-evening; neither might he bow or scrape his leg to any one.'

[1650] The charges of Lord Macaulay against Penn's integrity have been repelled by W. E. Forster (William Penn and Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1850) and J. Paget (Edinburgh, 1858).

[1651] Palfrey, History of New England, Vol. II. pp. 461-485; Dexter, As to Roger Williams,' etc., pp. 124 sqq. One such case of Oriental teaching by signs occurred also in England, and is mentioned by Fox himself in his Journal: 'The Lord made one to go naked amongst you, a figure of thy nakedness, and as a sign, before your destruction cometh, that you might see that you were naked and not covered with the truth.' See Stoughton, The Church of the Commonwealth, p. 360.

[1652] He wrote a curious book, George Fox digg'd out of his Burrowes, etc., which was republished by the Narragansett Club, 1872, with an introduction by Prof. Diman. Comp. Dexter, 1.c. p. 138.

[1653] On these earlier confessions, see Evans, pp. xii. sqq.

[1654] Comp. Ch. XI., concerning Baptism, and Bread and Wine. I will select, as a specimen, the questions on the Lord's Supper:

'Ques. I perceive there was a baptism of water, which was John's baptism, and is therefore by John himself contradistinguished from Christ's: was there not likewise something of the like nature appointed by Christ to his disciples, of eating bread, and drinking wine, in remembrance of him?

'Ans. For I have received of the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 1 Cor. xi. 23-25.

'Ques. How long was this to continue?

Ans. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. 1 Cor. xi. 26.

'Ques. Did Christ promise to come again to his disciples?

'Ans. And I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. John xiv. 18, 23.

'Ques. Was this an inward coming?

'Ans. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. John xiv. 20.

'Ques. But it would seem this was even practiced by the church of Corinth, after Christ was come inwardly: was it so, that there were certain appointments positively commanded, yea, and zealously and conscientiously practiced by the saints of old, which were not of perpetual continuance, nor yet now needful to be practiced in the Church?

'Ans. If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. John xiii. 14, 15.

'For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burthen than these necessary things: that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well: Fare ye well. Acts xv. 28, 29.

'Is any man sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. James v. 14.

'Ques. These commands are no less positive than the other; yea, some of them are asserted as the very sense of the Holy Ghost, as no less necessary than abstaining from fornication, and yet the generality of Protestants have laid them aside, as not of perpetual continuance: but what other Scriptures are there, to show that it is not necessary for that of bread and wine to continue?

'Ans. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Rom. xiv. 17.

'Let no man therefore judge you in meat or drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances (touch not, taste not, handle not: which all are to perish with the using), after the commandments and doctrines of men? Col. ii. 16, 20-22.

'Ques. These Scriptures are very plain, and say as much for the abolishing of this, as to any necessity, as aught that can be alleged for the former: but what is the bread then, wherewith the saints are to be nourished?

'Ans. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven,' etc.

Then follows the whole section, John vi. 32-35, 48-58.

[1655] I can not find the term Trinity in Fox's Journal nor in Barclay's Apology, but both teach very clearly that Christ is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, that all knowledge of the Father comes through the Son, and all knowledge of the Son through the Holy Spirit.

[1656] He understood soma and haima to be the subject, and touto the predicate.

[1657] See Erbkam, Geschichte der protest. Sekten im Zeitalter der Reformation, pp. 357 sqq., and Kadelbach, Geschichte K. v. Schwenkfeld's, etc. (Lauban, 1861). The German Catechism of the Schwenkfeldians of Pennsylvania, by Christopher Schultz, Senior (translated by Daniel Rupp, Stippackville, Pa. 1863), teaches Schwenkfeld's peculiar doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but not the deification of Christ's flesh.

[1658] Penn (in the Preface to Fox's Journal, p. xiv.) calls it 'the fundamental principle which is as the corner-stone of their fabric, and, to speak eminently and properly, their characteristic or main distinguishing point or principle, viz., the light of Christ within, as God's gift for man's salvation. This is as the root of the goodly tree of doctrines that grew and branched out from it.' Fox's Journal is full of it; see the list of passages in Vol. II. pp. 551 sq. of the 6th ed. (Leeds, 1836).

[1659] Barclay (Apol. p. 74) rejects the errors of Pelagians and Socinians, and teaches the corruption of human nature in consequence of the fall, but maintains, in opposition to Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, that God does not impute sin to infants until they commit actual transgression. Gurney says (l.c. p. 6): 'Never did they [the Quakers] dare to consider this light as a part of fallen man's corrupt nature; never did they hesitate to ascribe it to the free and universal grace of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.'

[1660] John i. 9. The difference in the construction of erchomenou eis ton kosmon does not affect the universality, which is sufficiently sustained by panta anthropon but the question is whether John means the light of reason or the light of grace, and in the latter case whether it is sufficient for salvation or merely preparatory to it. When Fox, on his second visit to Cromwell (in 1656), quoted this passage, he was met with the objection that John meant 'the natural light;' but he 'showed him the contrary--that it was divine and spiritual, proceeding from Christ, the spiritual and heavenly man' (Journal, Vol. I. p. 383).

[1661] Titus ii. 11. Other passages quoted by Quakers for their favorite doctrine are, Gen. vi. 3; Deut. xxx. 14; Rom. x. 3; Luke ii. 10; Rom. ii. 14, 15; Col. i. 23; Eph. v. 13; Acts x. 35.

[1662] Apol. Soc. He calls his daimonion (in Jowett's translation) 'a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do any thing, and which stands in the way of my being a politician.' He goes on to say that in politics he would have perished long ago without doing any good either to the people or to himself. The case of Socrates is not mentioned by Barclay, but by Gurney, p. 42: 'When Socrates, as compared with his fellow-countrymen, attained to an eminent degree of disinterestedness, integrity, justice, and charity; when he obeyed the counsels of that unknown monitor who so frequently checked him in the hour of temptation; when he bore so clear a testimony to virtue as to be persecuted to death for virtue's sake--on what scriptural grounds can any man deny that he was made a partaker, to a certain degree, of a divine influence?'

[1663] Gurney, p. 42.

[1664] Hence their name, 'Professors of the Light,' 'Friends of Light,' 'Children of Light.'

[1665] See them in full, Vol. III. p. 749.

[1666] Penn (Preface to Fox's Journal, p. xiv.) says that the Friends 'never held a perfection in wisdom and glory in this life, or from infirmities or death, as some have with a weak or ill mind imagined and insinuated against them.' __________________________________________________________________

§ 108. The Moravians.

See the Literature on the Bohemian Brethren, § 75, p. 565, and the Waldenses, p. 568.

Doctrinal and Confessional.

I. Zinzendorf: Ein und zwanzig Discourse über die Augsburgische Confession, 1747-1748 (never published through the trade, and therefore rare). Also the other writings of Zinzendorf, and especially his hymns and spiritual poems, collected and published by Albert Knapp, with a spirited sketch of bis life and character (Stuttg. 1845).

Aug. Gottlieb Spangenberg: Idea Fidei Fratrum oder Kurzer Begriff der christlichen Lehre in den evang. Brüdergemeinen. Barby, 1778, 1782; Gnadau, 1833; English ed. Lond. 1784. Accepted as authority. By the same: Declaration über die zeither gegen uns ausgegangenen Beschuldigungen. Berlin, 1772.

Hermann Plitt (Pres. of the Morav. Theol. Seminary in Gnadenfeld): Evangelische Glaubenslehre nach Schrift und Erfahrung. Gotha, 1864, 2 vols. Not authoritative. By the same: Zinzendorf's Theologie. Gotha, 1869-1874, 3 vols.

The hymns and liturgies of the Moravian Church.

Edm de Schweinitz (Morav. Bishop): The Moravian Manual. Publ. by authority of the Synod. 2d enlarged ed. Bethlehem, Pa. 1869.

II. Among the early opponents of the Moravians we mention Fresenius, Fabricius, Georgius, and the celebrated commentator, J. A. Bengel (Abriss der sogen. Brüdergemeinde, in welchem die Lehre und die ganze Sache geprüft, das Gute und Böse dabei unterchieden, etc. Stuttg. 1751; republ. Berlin, 1859).

III. Modern representations by divines not of the Moravian Church.

Möhler: Symbolik, pp. 533 sqq.; Schneckenburger: Vorlesungen über die kleineren protest. Kirchenparteien, pp. 152-171; R. Hofmann: Symbolik, pp. 533 sqq.

Historical.

I. Biographies of Count Zinzendorf.

Spangenberg: Leben des Grafen Zinzendorf. Barby, 1772-1775, 8 vols. Thorough, reliable, and prolix.

J. G. Müller (brother of the Swiss historian, John von M.): Bekenntnisse merkmürdiger Männer von sich selbst. 3 vols. 1775.

L. C. von Schrautenbach: Der Graf v. Zinz. und die Brüdergemeinde seiner Zeit, herausgeg. v. F. W. Kölbing. Gnadau, 1851. Written in 1782, but not for publication, and kept as MS. in the Archives of the Moravian Church till 1851. One of the most interesting works on Zinzendorf, setting forth the philosophy of his religion.

Varnhagen von Ense: Leben Zinzendorf's. Berlin, 1830; 2d ed. 1846. The view of an outsider, similar to Southey's Life of Wesley.

J. W. Verbeck: Gr. Zinzendorf's Leben und Charakter. Gnadau, 1845. An extract from Spangenberg.

F. Bovet: Le Comte de Zinzendorf. Paris, 1860.

G. Burkhardt: Zinzendorf und die Brüdergemeinde, in Herzog's Real-Encykl. Vol. XVIII. pp. 508-592 (Gotha, 1864), and published as a separate volume.

II. Histories of the Moravian Church.

Many MS. sources in the Archives of Herrnhut, Saxony, especially the 'Lissa Folios,' relating to the history of the Ancient Bohemian and Moravian Church; the 'Diarium der Gemeinde zu Herrnhut' down to 1736; the journals and letters of Zinzendorf; and the history both of the Ancient and Renewed Church, by John Plitt, from 1722 to 1836, in 9 vols.

The Büding'sche Sammlung. Büdingen and Leipzig, 1742-1744, 3 vols. A collection of documents.

The Barby'sche Sammlung. Barby, 1760, 2 vols. A continuation of the former.

David Cranz: Alte und neue Brüderhistorie (down to 1769). Barby, 1772; continued by Hegner, in 3 parts, 1791-1816. Engl. transl. by La Trobe, London, 1780.

Die Gedenktage der erneuerten Brüderkirche (Memorial Days of the Renewed Brethren's Church). Gnadau, 1820.

Bp. Holmes: History of the United Brethren. Lond. 1825, 2 vols.

A. Bost: Histoire de l'Église des Frères de Bohème et Moravie. Paris, 1844, 2 vols. Abridged English transl. publ. by the Relig. Tract Soc. of London, 1848.

Bp. E. W. Cröger: Geschichte der erneuerten Brüderkirche (down to 1822). Gnadau, 1852-1854, 3 vols. (The same wrote also a Geschichte der alten Brüderkirche. Gnadau, 1865 and 1866, 2 vols.)

Verbeek: Geschichte der alten und neuen Brüder-Unität. Gnadau, 1857.

H. Plitt: Die Gemeine Gottes in ihrem Geiste und ihren Formen mit Beziehung auf die Brüdergemeine. Gotha, 1859.

Dr. Nitzsch: Kirchengeschichtliche Bedeutung der Brüdergemeinde. Berlin, 1853.

Missionary.

The missionary literature of the Moravians is very large and important, and embraces the works of Cranz on Greenland (1767); Oldendorp (1777) on Danish Missions; Heckewelder (1817) on Indian Missions; L. Kölbing, Uebersicht der Missionsgeschichte der evang. Brüderkirche (1832 and 1833); Bp. von Schweinitz, Life of David Zeisberger (Phila. 187O). Comp. the Missionary Manual and Directory of the Unitas Fratrum, Bethlehem, Pa. 1875.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

We must distinguish between the old Bohemian and Moravian Brethren who belonged to the Slavonic race, and the new Moravians who are chiefly German or of German descent. The connecting link between the two was the celebrated educator, John Amos Comenius (1592-1671), the Jeremiah of the former, and the John the Baptist of the latter, who, hoping against hope for the resurrection of the Bohemian Unitas Fratrum, nearly crushed to death by persecution, left behind him their order of discipline, and made provision for the ordination of two bishops, that through them the succession might be preserved in a quiescent state, until, in 1735, it was transferred to the renewed Church.

The new Moravian Church [1667] took its origin from the remnant (the ' Hidden Seed') of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethern, to whom Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760), under the guidance of a special providence, gave an hospitable refuge on his estates at Berthelsdorf, in Upper Lusatia, Saxony. The asylum was called Herrnhut (the Lord's Protection), and became the mother church and the centre of the denomination.

The little colony of immigrants from Moravia soon increased, by the accession of German families of the pietistic school of Spener, to the number of three hundred souls. It was organized on the basis of the Ratio Disciplinæ of Comenius. David Nitschmann was consecrated the first bishop by Daniel Ernst Jablonsky (court chaplain in Berlin) and Christian Sitkov, the surviving bishops of the old succession (March 13, 1735). This consecration was performed secretly in the presence of only two members of the Bohemian congregation in Berlin, for the sole purpose of sending ordained ministers to the distant missions and colonies. It was not intended to establish an episcopal form of government, separate and distinct from the national Lutheran Church, but this separation was the natural consequence. The second bishop was Count Zinzendorf himself, who gave up his office at the Saxon court and his worldly prospects to devote himself entirely to the Church of his own planting. [1668] With all his eccentricities he was one of the purest and most remarkable men in the history of Christianity, a religious and poetic genius, and a true nobleman by nature and divine grace as well as by rank. He had but one all-absorbing passion--Christ and him crucified. [1669] From his childhood, when he used to write letters to his beloved Saviour, this sacred fire burned in him, and continued to burn till he was called to see him face to face. He early conceived the idea, by planting in the spirit of Spener a true Church in the nominal Church, to reform the Church at home, and to carry the gospel to the heathen. We may call him the German Wesley; he was an organizer like John Wesley, and a true hymnist like his brother Charles. The Oxford Methodists started with a legalistic type of piety, but they received a new inspiration from the childlike, cheerful, serene, and sublime trust in God which characterized the Moravians with whom they came in contact.

The patriarchs of Moravianism--Zinzendorf, Nitschmann, and Spangenberg--like the patriarchs of Methodism, labored in both hemispheres at a time when the stagnant State Churches of Germany and England cared little or nothing for their children in America. They founded Bethlehem (1741) and Nazareth in Pennsylvania, and other colonies which remain to this day. Zinzendorf endeavored to unite the other German denominations and sects in Pennsylvania into one Church, but in vain. [1670]

The Moravian brotherhood is par excellence a missionary society at home and abroad. It has but few regularly organized congregations scattered in Christian lands, but in an age of indifferentism and rationalism they were like cities of refuge and oases in the wilderness, with fresh fountains and green pastures for multitudes who flocked to them for refreshment. [1671] They are still holding up the model of living congregations of real Christians. Besides, they have mission stations, called Diaspora (1 Pet. i. 1), for those who wish to derive spiritual benefit from them without severing their connection with the established Churches. These half-members may be compared to the Jewish proselytes of the gate as distinguished from the proselytes of righteousness. The Moravians, however, are free from the spirit of proselytism, and endeavor to promote peace and union among the Christians at home. But they are aggressive abroad, and concentrate their energies on foreign missions. Their chief glory lies in the extraordinary zeal and self-denial with which, since 1732, they have labored for the conversion of the most ignorant and degraded heathen in Greenland, Labrador, among the American Indians, and the African negroes and Esquimaux, at a time when orthodox Protestant Christendom had not yet awoke to a sense of its long-neglected duty. To the small band of Moravians belongs the first place of honor in the work of foreign missions.

DISCIPLINE AND WORSHIP.

The Moravian congregations in Germany are select communities of converted Christians, ecclesiæ in ecelesia, separate and distinct from the national Churches and the vanities of the surrounding world. [1672] They have a strict discipline, but they are free from gloomy asceticism, and cherish a cheerful and trustful piety with love for music and social refinement. Their educational institutions attract pupils from all directions.

The form of government is a kind of Episcopal Presbyterianism, under the supreme legislative power of synods, and an executive administration of an elective board of bishops and elders, called the 'Unity's Elders' Conference.' The bishops ordain deacons and presbyters: they represent the whole Unitas Fratrum, are official members of the synods, and have usually a seat in the governing boards. They claim an unbroken succession, but lay no stress on it, and fully recognize the validity of Presbyterian orders.

The home churches are divided into three provinces, Continental, British, and American. In 1857 these were declared independent in local and provincial affairs, but they continue to be united in doctrine and the work of foreign missions.

In worship, the Moravians combine liturgical and extemporaneous prayer. At all the liturgical services music forms a prominent feature. Their liturgy and hymn-book are of a superior order. They have greatly enriched the treasures of German hymnology, and produced also one of the best English hymnists in James Montgomery (1771-1854), 'the Cowper of the nineteenth century.' Love-feasts are held preparatory to the communion, in imitation of the ancient Agapæ. Foot-washing was formerly practiced, but has been discontinued since the beginning of the present century. The former use of the lot in connection with marriage has been practically abandoned; and in connection with the appointment of ministers it has been restricted or is left discretional.

DOCTRINES.

The Moravians acknowledge no exclusive and compulsory symbols. They are essentially unionistic, and seek union in harmony of spirit, life, and worship, rather than in a logical statement of doctrine. [1673] Their most authoritative creed is the Easter Litany, which dates from 1749, and is still used annually in all Moravian churches, but as an act of worship, not as a formula for subscription. [1674] They have always laid the chief stress on the atoning death of Christ, and the personal union of the soul with him, but more in a devotional and practical than doctrinal way. Christ crucified and living in them is the all in all of their religion, their only comfort in life and death; but they have not formulated any particular theory of the atonement or of the unio mystica. They prefer the chiaroscuro of mystery and the personal attachment to Christ to all scientific theology.

Historically and nationally, they are more nearly related to the Lutheran denomination than to any other. They sustain to it a relation similar to that which the Wesleyans sustain to the Church of England. They professed from the start their agreement with the Augsburg Confession. Spangenberg, the exponent of their doctrinal system, begins the preface to his Idea Fidei Fratrum with the declaration that his book is no new confession, but that the Confessio Augustana of 1530 is and shall remain their confession.

But we should remember that this indorsement of the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession, though no doubt sincere, was partly a matter of policy and necessity to secure toleration in Lutheran countries. [1675] It had no force outside of Germany and Scandinavia, and even there no subscription to this document was ever required. [1676] The Moravians never adopted the other Lutheran symbols, least of all the Formula of Concord, which strict Lutherans regard as a legitimate development of the Augustana. They never wished to be considered, nor were they recognized as Lutherans, but were violently assailed by them for their alleged doctrinal latitudinarianism and various excesses during their early history. Even the Pietists for a period made common cause with their orthodox enemies against the new sect, though less on doctrinal grounds. The Moravians claim to be the legitimate descendants and heirs of the Bohemian Brethren, who were closely connected with the Waldenses, and had their own Confessions and Catechisms before and after the Reformation. They admitted to their communion Lutherans, Pietists, Calvinists, Anglicans, without inquiring into their creed, if only they were devout Christians. In England they were recognized by Parliament, with the concurrence of the bench of bishops, as 'an ancient Episcopal Church' (1749), and allowed to settle in the American colonies. They also freely associated with Wesleyans. They were the advocates of a conservative evangelical union of three chief types of doctrine [1677] --the old Moravian or Bohemian, the Lutheran, and the Reformed--living in brotherly harmony as a true unitas fratrum, and having their common centre in Christ. They rise above the boundaries of nationality and sect, and represent a real catholicity or universalism of creed with Christ as the only fundamental article. 'I know of no other foundation,' says Zinzendorf, 'but Christ, and I can associate with all who build on this foundation.' He was at one time even open to a project of union with the Greek and Latin Churches and all sorts of Christian sects, but he learned that the union here below must be spiritual and inward.

It is a remarkable fact that the great German theologian, Schleiermacher, was cradled in the Moravian community, and conceived there his love for Christian union and personal devotion to Christ, which guided him through the labyrinth of speculation and skepticism, and triumphed on his death-bed. He shook almost every dogma of orthodoxy, and was willing, if necessary; to sacrifice all, if he could only retain a perfect and sinless Saviour.

Zinzendorf's theology and piety passed through a process of development--first a sound evangelical stage (1723-1742), then a period of sickly sentimentalism (1743-1750), and, last, a period of purification and reconstruction (1750-1760). [1678] These phases are reflected in the history of his followers. Encouraged by his own unguarded language, in poetry and prose, about the luxurious reveling in the wounds of the Lamb, [1679] and the personal intimacy with the Saviour, they ran into wild and dangerous excesses of an overheated imagination. As is often the case in the history of religious enthusiasm, the spirit was about to end in the flesh. [1680] But Zinzendorf himself, honestly confessing his share of responsibility, recalled his followers from the abyss to the purity and simplicity of the gospel.

The purified and matured system of the Moravians is best exhibited in Spangenberg's Idea Fidei, which occupies a similar position among them as Melanchthon's Loci in the Lutheran Church. It is also set forth from time to time in the Synodical Results. The Synod of 1869 issued the following summary of such doctrines as are deemed most essential to salvation:

'1. The doctrine of the total depravity of human nature: that there is no health in man, and that the fall absolutely deprived him of the divine image.

'2. The doctrine of the love of God the Father, who has "chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world," and "so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

' 3. The doctrine of the real godhead and the real manhood of Jesus Christ: that God, the Creator of all things, was manifested in the flesh, and has reconciled the world unto himself; and that "he is before all things, and by him all things consist."

'4. The doctrine of the atonement and satisfaction of Jesus Christ for us: that he "was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification;" and that in his merits alone we find forgiveness of sins and peace with God.

'5. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost and the operations of his grace: that it is he who works in us the knowledge of sin, faith in Jesus, and the witness that we are children of God.

'6. The doctrine of the fruits of faith: that faith must manifest itself as a living and active principle, by a willing obedience to the commandments of God, prompted by love and gratitude to him who died for us.

'In conformity with these fundamental articles of faith, the great theme of our preaching is Jesus Christ, in whom we have the grace of the Lord, the love of the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. We regard it as the main calling of the Brethren's Church to proclaim the Lord's Death, and to point to him, "as made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."' [1681] __________________________________________________________________

[1667] Also called the Unitas Fratrum, the United Brethren, the Moravian Brethern; in German, Brüdergemeine, or Herrnhuter. They must not be confounded with the Methodist 'United Brethren in the United States,' founded by Rev. William Otterbein in 1800.

[1668] It is an interesting fact that Frederic William I., king of Prussia, advised Zinzendorf to get the old Moravian Episcopal ordination, and that Zinzendorf conferred on the subject with Bishop Jablonsky, and with his friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury (John Potter).

[1669] 'Ich habe nur eine Passion, und die ist Er, nur Er.'

[1670] On the unionistic labors of Count Zinzendorf in Pennsylvania from 1742 to 1748, see an interesting article of the Rev. L. F. Reichel (mostly from unpublished MSS.) in Schaff's Deutscher Kirchenfreund for 1849, pp. 93-107.

[1671] Hase (Kirchengeschichte, p. 636, 9th ed.): 'Die Frömmigkeit ist in Herrnhut eine Manier geworden, aber viele stille oder gebrochene Herzen hatten hier eine Heimath, und der alte Christus in den Zeiten des Unglaubens ein Heiligthum.'

[1672] The Moravian settlements in the United States were organized on the same exclusive principle, but have recently been thrown open to other people.

[1673] Burkhardt (in Herzog, Vol. XVIII. p. 589) says: 'Die Brüdergemeinde stellt nie ein äusserlich formulirtes Bekenntniss nach aussen hin auf, das sie von anderen evangelischen Glaubensgenossen trennen könnte. Sie wird es und kann es nie thun, denn nicht Abschluss und Scheidung, sondern Union ist ihr Princip. Aber nur jene wahre und positive Union auf Grund der heiligen Schrift und der lebendigen Herzens-Erfahrung, die allein die Herzen vereinigt.' Bishop Schweinitz says {Manual, p. 95): 'The Renewed Church of the Brethren has no Confession of Faith as such, that is, no document bearing this name.'

[1674] See the Moravian Litany in Vol. III. p. 793.

[1675] After ten years' banishment from Saxony, Zinzendorf secured in 1748 recognition of his congregation as Augsburgische Religionsverwandte (Addicti Augustanæ Conf.)--a title under which the Reformed, or Calvinists, were included in the Treaty of Westphalia.

[1676] Manual, p. 95: 'This acknowledgment, according to the declaration of the General Synod, does not bind the conscience of any member, much less is it of any weight in those provinces of the Unity where the Augsburg Confession has no other value than as being the creed of one (the Lutheran) among many Churches enjoying equal rights' (Synod. Results of 1857, p. 96).

[1677] Lehrtropen (tropoi paideias), as Zinzendorf called them. He meant different educational ways of God adapted to the varieties of national and individual character. The Lutheran type prevailed among the Moravians in Saxony, the Reformed in Holland and England. The Moravian type furnished the historical base and a peculiar element in discipline rather than doctrine.

[1678] See especially Plitt and Burkhardt.

[1679] Or 'Lambkin,' Lämmlein, as the favorite phrase was. The side-wound was made especially prominent.

[1680] Bishop Schweinitz thus describes this period (Moravian Manual, pp. 35 sq.): 'The relation between Christ and his Church was described in language more highly figurative, and under images more sensuous, than any thing found even in the Song of Solomon. A mania spread to spiritualize, especially the marriage relation, and to express holy feelings in extravagant terms. Hymns abounded, treating of the passion of Jesus, apostrophizing the wound in his side, degrading sacred things to a level with the worst puerilities, and pouring forth sentimental nonsense like a flood; while services, in themselves devotional and excellent, were changed into occasions for performances more in keeping with the stage of a common theatre than with the sanctity of the house of God. In short, fanaticism rioted among ministers and people, and spread from Herrnhaag and Marienborn to other churches both on the Continent of Europe and in England. Those in America escaped, or were but slightly affected. This continued for about five years, reaching its climax in 1749. It is possible that immoralities of life may have occurred in single instances, although there are no positive proofs of this; the great majority of the Brethren, however, were preserved from such extremes.' Similar antinomian excesses occurred in the Moravian congregations in England (1751), and turned Wesley and Whitefield against their old friends, whom they charged with neglecting to preach the law either as a schoolmaster or as a rule of life, with irreverent sentimentalism and superstitions fopperies. See Tyerman, Life of John Wesley, Vol. II. pp. 95 sqq. (Harper's ed.).

[1681] Bishop Schweinitz, in M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclop. Vol. VI. p. 587. Comp. his Compend of Doctrine in XVII. Articles, compiled from the authorized publication in the Moravian Manual, pp. 95-100. A popular statement is contained in the Catechism of Christian Doctrine for the Instruction of Youth in the Church of the United Brethren, and the Epitome of Christian Doctrine for the Instruction of Candidates for Confirmation (various editions in German and English). __________________________________________________________________

§ 109. Methodism.

Literature.

I. Doctrinal Standards.

John Wesley (1703-1791): Sermons on Several Occasions; and Explanatory Notes on the New Test. In many eds., London, Bristol, New York, Cincinnati, etc. Best ed. of the Sermons by Thomas Jackson, Lond. 1825, New York, 1875.

Richard Watson (1781-1833): Theological Institutes: or a View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity. First ed. Lond. 1822-28, in 6 parts; best ed., with an Analysis by John M'Clintock, New York, in 2 vols. (29th ed. 1875).

W. B. Pope (Theol. Tutor, Didsbury College, Manchester): A Compendium of Christian Theology: being Analytical Outlines of a Course of Theological Study, Biblical, Dogmatic, Historical. London (Wesleyan Conference Office), 1875 (752 pp.). By the same: The Peculiarities of Methodist Doctrine. London, 1873.

D. D. Whedon, D.D. (Ed. of the 'Methodist Quarterly Review,' and of a Popular Commentary on the New Test.): Doctrines of Methodism. In 'Bibliotheca Sacra' for April, 1862, pp. 241-274. Andover, Mass.

W. F. Warren: System. Theologie. Bremen, 1865, Vol. I.

The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 1872. Ed. by Bishop Harris. New York (Nelson & Phillips) and Cincinnati (Hitchcock & Walden).

Catechisms of the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York (Nelson & Phillips). Especially No. 3, which is designed 'for an advanced grade of study.' Approved by the General Conference, 1852. Two German Catechisms by the Rev. Dr. William Nast, 1868.

II. Other Sources for the Doctrines and History of Methodism.

The Complete Works of John Wesley (first ed. Bristol, 1771 sqq., in 32 small vols. full of typographical errors; 3d and best ed. with the author's last corrections, ed. by Thomas Jackson, Lond. 1831, 14 vols.; New York, 7 vols.).

The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley. Ed. by G. Osborn, D.D. Lond. 1872, 13 vols.

The Works of John Fletcher (Lond. 1815, 10 vols.; New York, 1831, 4 vols.).

The Sermons and Journals of George Whitefield (1756, 1771).

The Journals of Bishop Asbury (new ed. N. Y. 1854, 3 vols.).

III. Biographies.

John Wesley, by Coke and Moore (Lond. 1792); by John Hampson (1791, 3 vols.); by Robert Southey (with Notes by Sam. T. Coleridge, 3d ed. Lond. 1846; Amer. ed. with Notes by Coleridge, Alex. Knox, and Daniel Curry, N.Y. 1847, 2 vols.); by Richard Watson (Lond. 1831; Amer. ed. with Notes by T. O. Summers); by L. Tyerman (Lond. and New York, 1872, 3 vols.); Isaac Taylor: Wesley and Methodism (Lond. and New York, 1855); James H. Rigg: The Living Wesley as he was in his Youth and his Prime (Lond. 1875; New York ed. with Introduction by Dr. Hurst, of Drew Theol. Seminary). Comp. Dr. Rigg's article on the Churchmanship of John Wesley, in the 'Contemporary Review' for Sept. 1876.

Charles Wesley (1708 to 1788), by Thomas Jackson (Lond. 1841, 2 vols.).

George Whitefield (the founder of 2 Methodism, b. 1714, d. 1770), by J. Gillie (Lond. 1772, 1813); by Robert Philip (Lond. 1830; also in German, with a Preface by Tholuck, Leipz. 1834); by L. Tyerman (London and New York, 1877, 2 vols.; the best).

The Oxford Methodists: Memoirs of Clayton, Ingham, Gambold, Hervey, and Broughton. By L. Tyerman. London and New York, 1873.

Early Methodist Preachers. Ed. by Thomas Jackson (Lond. 1839, 2 vols.).

IV. General Histories of Methodism.

Dr. Abel Stevens (History of Methodism, New York and Lond. 1858-61, 3 vols.; History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, N. Y. 1866-67, 4 vols.; Centenary of American Methodism, N. Y. 1865); Dr. George Smith (Lond. 1857-62, 3 vols.: illustrated popular edition, 1864), and a number of other works. For a concise summary, see Stevens's art. 'Methodism,' in Johnson's 'Univers. Cyclop.' Vol. III. (1876). Also for popular use, James Porter: The Revised Compendium of Methodism. New York, 1875. Jacoby: Geschichte des Methodismus. Bremen, 1870.

Comp. The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. London (Wesleyan Conference Office), 1778 to 1876 (xcix. vols.).

The Methodist Quarterly Review. New York (Nelson & Phillips), Vols. LVIII. till 1876.

M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclopædia (New York, 1867-81, 10 vols. (three supplementary vols. promised), is edited by Methodists, and pays special attention to Methodist and Arminian articles.

V. Bibliographical, Critical, and Polemical.

For the anti-Methodist literature, see H. C. Decanver: Catalogue of Works in Refutation of Methodism from its Origin, in 1729, to the Present Time, Phila. (John Penington), 1846. Contains in alphabetical order the titles of 227 books and sermons against Methodism, most of which are forgotten.

G. Osborn: Outlines of Wesleyan Bibliography. London, 1869.

M. Schneckenburger: Lehrbegriffe der kleineren protest. Kirchenparteien. 1863, pp. 103-151.

Joh. Jüngst: Amerikanischer Methodismus in Deutschland und R. Pearsall Smith. Gotha, 1875. By the same: Wesen und Berechtigung des Methodismus. Gotha, 1876.

CHARACTER OF METHODISM.

Methodism is the most successful of all the younger offshoots of the Reformation. In one short century it has become one of the largest denominations in England, and the largest in the United States, with missionary stations encircling the globe.

The founders were admirably qualified for their work, and as well fitted together as the Reformers. John Wesley was one of the greatest preachers and organizers, and in the abundance of his labors perhaps the most apostolic man that England ever produced. As a revivalist of practical religion he may be called the English Spener, as an organizer the Protestant Ignatius Loyola. His brother Charles occupies, next to Watts, the first place in English hymnology, and sang Methodism into the hearts of the people. Whitefield, the orator and evangelist, kindled a sacred fire in two hemispheres which burns to this day. Their common, single, and sole purpose was to convert sinners from the service of Satan to the service of God, by means of incessant preaching, praying, and working. For this end they were willing to spend and be spent, to be ridiculed, reviled, pelted and hooted by mobs, maltreated by superiors, and driven from the church into the street; for this they would in another age have suffered torture, mutilation, and death itself as cheerfully as the Puritans did before them. The practical activity of these great and good men was equaled only by that of the Reformers in the theoretic sphere. During the fifty years of his itinerant ministry, John Wesley traveled 'a quarter of a million of miles, and preached more than forty thousand sermons.' [1682] Charles Wesley composed over six thousand religious poems, [1683] in the study, in the pulpit, on horseback, in bed, and in his dying hour. [1684] Whitefield, besides traveling through England, Ireland, and Scotland, made seven evangelistic voyages to America, turning the ship into a church, and 'preached in four-and-thirty years upwards of eighteen thousand sermons, many of them to enormous crowds, and in the teeth of brutal persecution.' [1685] A day before his death he preached his last sermon of nearly two hours' length in the open air, 'weary in the work, but not of the work' of his Lord. Fletcher labored in a more restricted sphere, as Vicar of Madely, but just as faithfully and devotedly, visiting his people and the poor ignorant colliers early and late, in rain and snow, studying intensely, living all the while on bread and cheese or fruit, and exhibiting an angelic type of character, so that Wesley, from a personal acquaintance of more than thirty years, gave him the testimony that 'he never heard him speak an improper word or saw him do an improper action,' and that he never knew a man 'so inwardly and outwardly devoted to God, so unblamable in every respect.' [1686] The pioneers of American Methodism were animated by the same zeal. Bishop Asbury, 'in the forty-five years of his American ministry, preached about 16,500 sermons, or at least one a day, and traveled about 270,000 miles, or 6000 a year, and presided in no less than 224 annual conferences, and ordained more than 4000 preachers.' [1687] He was ordained bishop (1784) when the number of American Methodists fell below 15,000, and he died (1816) when it exceeded 211,000, with more than 700 itinerant preachers.

Methodism owes its success to this untiring zeal in preaching the gospel of the new birth and a 'full and free salvation' to the common people, in churches, chapels, and the open air, and to its peculiar methods and institutions--itinerancy, missionary bishops, presiding elders, lay helpers, class-meetings, camp-meetings, conferences, and systematic collections. Methodism, as Dr. Chalmers characterized it, is 'Christianity in earnest.' It works powerfully upon the feelings; it inspires preachers and members with enthusiasm; it gives every man and woman too a distinct vocation and responsibility; it 'keeps all at work and always at it,' according to Wesley's motto; it knows nothing of churches without ministers, or ministers without charges, as long as there are sinners to be converted in any corner of the globe. Methodism is better organized than any other Protestant denomination, and resembles in this respect the Church of Rome and its great monastic orders. It is a powerful rival of that Church. It has an efficient machinery with an abundance of steam, and is admirably adapted for pioneer work in a new country like America. It is a well-disciplined army of conquest, though not so good an army of occupation, since it allows so many 'to fall away from grace,' not only temporarily, but even 'totally and finally.' Till 1872 the laity was excluded from participation in Church government (and is so still in England), but was compensated by a large liberty in the sphere of worship, in class-meetings, band-meetings, love-feasts, which tend to develop the social and emotional element in religion.

METHODISM AND PURITANISM.

Methodism forms the third great wave of the Evangelical Protestant movement in England, and represents the idea of revival. The Reformation destroyed the power of the papacy. Puritanism aimed at a more thorough Reformation in Church and State, and controlled for a time the civil and religious life of the nation. Methodism kept aloof from politics, and confined itself to the sphere of practical religion. Puritanism was animated by the genius of Calvinism; Methodism, in its main current, by the genius of Arminianism. Both made a deep and lasting impression upon the national Church from which they proceeded, and moulded the character of American Christianity. The Methodist revival checked the progress of skepticism and infidelity which had begun to set in with deism. It brought the life and light of the gospel to the most neglected classes of society.

If evangelical Christianity to-day has a stronger hold on the Anglo-Saxon race in both hemispheres than on any other nation, it is chiefly due to the influence of Puritanism and Methodism.

RELATION TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Methodism is a daughter of the Church of England, and was nursed in the same University of Oxford which, a century later, gave rise to the Tractarian school in the opposite direction towards Rome. The 'Holy Club' of the fourteen Oxford students associated for prayer, holy living, and working, began, like Dr. Pusey and his friends, with a revival of earnest, ascetic, and ritualistic High-Churchism, and received the name 'Methodists' for its punctual and methodical habits of devotion. Wesley was at first so exclusive an Episcopalian that he shrank from street-preaching and lay-preaching, and, at least on one occasion, even rebaptized Dissenters. But his contact with the simple-hearted, trustful, and happy German Moravians (Peter Böhler, Nitschmann, and Spangenberg) whom he met on his voyage across the Atlantic, in the Colony of Georgia, and after his return, led to his second 'conversion,' which took place May 24, 1738, and imparted to his piety a cheerfully evangelical and, we may say, a liberal Broad-Church character. [1688]

He now entered upon his independent evangelistic career, yet with no idea of forming a separate denomination. His object was simply to revive experimental piety within the limits of the Anglican Church, as Spener and Francke had done before within the Lutheran Confession in Germany. Although badly treated by bishops and other clergy, he had no quarrel with the authorities in Church or State, but only with sin and Satan. His aim was to build the city of God and to save souls within the establishment, if possible; without it, if necessary. He performed indeed some uncanonical acts which led ultimately to secession, but he did it from necessity, not from choice. He never made common cause with Dissenters. He lived and died in the Church of his fathers. His brother Charles was even more conservative, and took great offense at his violation of the canons.

Had the Church of England been as wise and politic as the Church of Rome, she would have encouraged and utilized the great revival of the eighteenth century for the spread of vital Christianity at home and abroad, and might have made the Wesleyan society an advocate of her own interests as powerful as the order of the Jesuits is of the Papacy. Now, after a century of marvelous success, the founder of Methodism is better appreciated, and has been assigned (1876) a place of honor among England's mighty dead in Westminster Abbey.

The English Wesleyans continue to hold a middle position between the Established Church and the Dissenters proper, but tend latterly more to Free-Churchism.

AMERICAN METHODISM.

In the United States the Methodists were made an independent organization with an episcopal form of government by Wesley's own act. As a Tory and a believer in political non-resistance, he at first wrote against the American 'rebellion,' but accepted the providential result; and, considering himself as a 'Scriptural Episcopos,' he ordained, on the second day of September, 1784, two presbyters (Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey) and one superintendent or bishop, viz., the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D. (a presbyter of the Church of England), for his American mission, which then embraced 83 traveling preachers and 14,988 members. [1689] This was a bold and an irregular act, but a master-stroke of policy, justified by necessity and abundant success. [1690]

Bishop Coke, assisted by the Rev. P. W. Otterbein, of the German Reformed Church, ordained, according to Wesley's direction, Francis Asbury to the office of joint superintendent, and twelve others to the office of presbyters, at the first General Conference held in Baltimore (Dec. 27, 1784). These were the first Protestant bishops in America, with the exception of Dr. Samuel Seabury, who was consecrated a few weeks before (Nov. 14, 1784), at Aberdeen, as bishop of the Protestant Episcopal diocese in Connecticut. [1691] In a short time the society, thus fully organized, overtook older denominations, and kept pace with the rapid progress of the young republic.

The Scotch Commissioners. (part 6)

The separation from the mother Church of England was complete, but her blood still flows in the veins of Methodism and shows itself in a half-way assent to her doctrinal standards (as far as they admit of an Arminian interpretation), to her liturgy (as far as it does not encourage sacerdotalism and ritualism or interfere with the freedom of worship), and to her episcopacy (as based upon expediency, and not on the divine right of succession).

BRANCHES OF METHODISM.

The Methodist Christians in England and America are divided into a number of distinct ecclesiastical organizations--the 'Wesleyans,' the 'Methodist Episcopal Church,' the 'Primitive Methodists,' the 'Primitive Wesleyans of Ireland,' the 'Bandroom Methodists,' the 'Methodist Protestant Church,' the 'Welsh Calvinistic Methodists,' the 'Free Methodist Church,' the 'African (Bethel and Zion) Methodist Episcopal Church,' etc. To the Methodist family belong also the 'Evangelical Association' (or 'Albright's Brethren,' so called from Jacob Albright, a Pennsylvania German, who founded this society in 1800), and the 'United Brethren in Christ' (founded by Philip William Otterbein, a German Reformed minister, d. in Baltimore, 1813).

The great parent body, however, are the Wesleyans in England and the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. They far outnumber all the other branches put together. The Methodist Episcopal Church was divided in 1844 on the question of slavery into 'the Methodist Episcopal Church' (North), and 'the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,' but measures have been inaugurated (1876) for reuniting them. Similar schisms for the same cause rent other Churches before the civil war, but have been healed or will be healed, since the war has removed the difficulty. The Roman Catholic, and next to it the Protestant Episcopal Church, owing to their conservatism, were least affected by the disturbing question of slavery, and remained intact.

The differences between the various branches of Methodism refer to the episcopate, the relative powers of the bishops and the general conference, lay representation, and other matters of government and discipline which do not come within the scope of this work. The doctrinal creed is the same in all, with the exception of the Whitefieldian Methodists, who are Calvinists, while all the rest are Arminians.

Note.--The Cyclopædia of M'Clintock and Strong, Vol. VI. p. 159, gives the following list of Methodist denominations, with the date of their organization and estimate of their ministers and church members in 1872:

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

Denominations Date of Organization. Number of Ministers. Number of Church Members Wesleyan Methodists 1739 3,157 557,995 Welsh Calvinistic Methodists (1745) 207 58,577 New Connection Methodists 1797 260 35,706 Primitive Methodists 1810 943 161,229 Primitive (Ireland) Methodists 1816 85 14,247 Bible Christians 1815 254 26,241 United Methodist Free Churches 1828-49 312 68,062 Wesleyan Reform Union 1849 20 9,393 Totals 5,238 931,450

AMERICA.

Denominations Date of Organization. Number of Ministers. Number of Church Members Methodist Episcopal Church (in 1872) 1784 10,742 1,458,441 Methodist Church (Non-Episcopal) 1866 624 75,000 United Brethern 1800 . . . . . . . . Evangelical Association (Albrights) 1800 632 78,716 African Methodist Episcopal 1816 600 20,000 African Methodist Episcopal (Zion) 1819 694 164,000 Canada Wesleyans 1828 . . . . 69,597 Eastern British American Wesleyan Methodists 1854 ? 147 16,118 Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada 1828 228 21,103 Methodist Protestants, South 1830 2,858 600,900 Free Methodists 1860 about 90 6,000 Primitive Methodists about 20 2,000 Totals 17,308 2,591,875

* This does not include the colored membership now separately organized as the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, South. __________________________________________________________________

[1682] Tyerman, John Wesley, Vol. III. p. 658 (Harper's ed.). Dr. Rigg (The Living Wesley, Hurst's ed. p. 208) remarks that Wesley rode ordinarily sixty miles a day, and not seldom eighty and ninety miles, besides preaching twice or thrice.

[1683] Osborn's edition contains 7600 poems of Wesley, including those of John, who composed all the translations from the German.

[1684] When hardly able to articulate any more, he dictated to his wife these lines:

'In age and feebleness extreme,

Who shall a helpless worm redeem?

Jesus, my only hope thou art,

Strength of my failing flesh and heart;

Oh could I catch a smile from thee,

And drop into eternity!'

[1685] Tyerman, Vol. III. p. 78.

[1686] See Wesley's Funeral Sermon on the death of John W. Fletcher, who was a French Swiss by birth (de la Fléchière), born at Nyon, Canton de Vand, 1729, educated at Geneva, died at Madeley, 1785. His chief works is Checks to Antinomianism, against Calvinism.

[1687] Stevens, Centenary of American Methodism (N. Y. 1865), p. 94.

[1688] 'At the first,' says Dr. Rigg ('Contemporary Review' for 1876, pp. 656 sq.), 'with Wesley faith had meant the intellectual acceptance of the creeds, together with the submission of the will to the laws and services of the Church. . . . Until he met with Böhler, he had not embraced, scarcely, it would seem, had conceived the idea of faith as being, in its main element, personal trust and self-surrender, as having for its central object the atonement of Jesus Christ, and as inspired and sustained by the supernatural aid and concurrence of the Holy Spirit. . . . Wesley confessed that Böhler's teaching was true gospel teaching. . . . Here ended his High-Church stage of life. Here began his work as an evangelist and Church revivalist. All dates from his final acceptance of Böhler's teaching as to the nature of faith.' Dr. Stevens says (Centenary, p. 31): 'Methodism is indebted to Moravianism for not only some of the most important features of its moral discipline, but for the personal conversion of both the Wesleys.' But Wesley was converted before as much so as Luther was when he entered the convent of Erfurt several years before he experienced his second or evangelical conversion to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. On the other hand, some of the Oxford Tractarians were converted over again, or backward, when they joined the Church of Rome.

[1689] The first Methodist society in America was formed in 1766, in the city of New York, among a few Irish emigrants, by Philip Embury, a local preacher, and by his cousin, Mrs. Barbara Heck, a true 'mother in Israel.' Hence Methodism celebrated its centenary in 1866 with great festivities.

[1690] He also ordained a few presbyters for Scotland and England to assist him in administering the sacraments, on the plea that the regular clergy often refused to admit his people to the Lord's table. At the Conference of 1788 he consecrated (according to Samuel Bradburn's statement) one of his preachers as a superintendent or bishop. He had long before been convinced by Stillingfleet's 'Irenicon' and Lord King's 'Primitive Church' that bishops and presbyters were originally one order, and that diocesan episcopacy was not founded on divine right. In a letter to his brother Charles (1785) he calls the uninterrupted episcopal succession 'a fable which no man ever did or can prove.'--Rigg, 1.c. p. 669. For a full discussion of Wesley's ordination acts, see Stevens, History of Methodism, Vol. II. pp. 209 sqq., and Tyerman, John Wesley. Vol. III. pp. 426 sqq.

[1691] Bishop White, of Pennsylvania, was not consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury until Feb. 4, 1787, the consecration being delayed and nearly frustrated by certain impediments. __________________________________________________________________

§ 110. Methodist Creeds.

The American Methodists have three classes of doctrinal standards.

1. The Twenty-five Articles of Religion. [1692] They were prepared by John Wesley, from the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (together with an abridgment of the Book of Common Prayer), for the American Methodists, and were adopted by the Conference in Baltimore, 1784, with the exception of Article XXIII., which recognizes the United States as 'a sovereign and independent nation,' and which was adopted in 1804. These articles are now unalterably fixed, and can neither be revoked nor changed. [1693]

2. John Wesley's Sermons and Notes on the New Testament. They are legally binding only on the British Wesleyans, but they are in fact as highly esteemed and as much used by American Methodists, and constitute the life of the denomination. When eighty-one years of age (Feb. 28, 1784), Wesley, in his famous Deed of Declaration, which is called the Magna Charta of Methodism, bequeathed the property and government of all his chapels in the United Kingdom (then 359 in number) to the 'Legal Hundred,' i.e., a conference of one hundred of his traveling preachers and their successors, on condition that they should accept as their basis of doctrine his Notes on the New Testament and the four volumes of Sermons which had been published by him or in his name in or before 1771. [1694] These sermons are fifty-eight in number, and cover the common faith and duties of Christians, [1695] but contain at the same time the doctrines which constitute the distinctive creed of Methodism. [1696] The Notes on the New Testament are for the most part a popular version of Bengel's Gnomon.

3. The Book of Discipline and several Catechisms, one published in 1852, another in 1868 (by Dr. Nast), are at least secondary standards for the American Methodists.

The distinctive features of the Methodist creed are not logically formulated, like those of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. It allows a liberal margin for further theological development. John Wesley, though himself an able logician and dialectician, sought Christianity more in practical principles and sanctified affections than in orthodox formulas, and laid greater stress on the oecumenical consensus which unites than on the sectarian dissensus which divides the Christians. The General Rules, or recognized terms of membership, for the origina1 Methodist 'societies' (not churches), are ethical and practical, and contain not a single article of doctrine. They require 'a desire to flee the wrath to come and be saved from sin,' and to avoid certain specific vices.

Nevertheless Methodists claim to have more doctrinal harmony than many denominations which impose a minute creed. There is a Methodist system of doctrine and a Methodist theology, however elastic they may be. But there is a difference of opinion among their standard writers as to the degree of originality and completeness of this system and its relation to other confessions. We may distinguish an American and an English view on the subject.

An ingenious attempt has recently been made to raise the Methodist creed to the importance and dignity of a fourth confession or symbolical system alongside of the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Calvinistic, and far above them. According to Dr. Warren, Catholicism makes salvation dependent upon a meritorious co-operation of man with God, and is essentially pagan; Calvinism makes salvation depend exclusively on the eternal decree and free grace of God, and views Christianity from the stand-point of the Old Testament; Lutheranism derives salvation from the personal relation of man to the means of grace (the Word and Sacraments), and views Christianity from the stand-point of justification by faith alone; Methodism makes salvation exclusively dependent upon man's own free relation to the illuminating, renewing, and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and represents the stand-point of Christian perfection. Calvin retains the Christians under the dispensation of the Father, Luther under the dispensation of the Son, Wesley leads them into the dispensation of the Spirit. The first confines salvation to the favorite number of the elect; the second binds it to the baptismal font, the altar, and the pulpit; the third offers it freely to all. Calvin's ideal Christian is a servant of God, Luther's a child of God, Wesley's a perfect man in the full stature of Christ. [1697]

English Methodists claim for their system a humbler position, and represent it, in accordance with the intention of the founders, as a liberal evangelical modification of the Anglican creed, with some original doctrines to which they attach great importance. [1698] __________________________________________________________________

[1692] See Vol. III. pp. 766 sqq. Comp. also Emory, History of the Discipline, ch. i. § 2; Comfort, Exposition of the Articles (New York, 1847); Jimeson, Notes on the Twenty-five Articles (Cincinnati, 1853).

[1693] 'The General Conference shall not revoke, alter, or change our Articles of Religion, nor establish any new standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and established standards of doctrine.' This article can not be amended (Discipline, p. 51). The General Conference is the highest of the five judicatories, and the only legislative body of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

[1694] Tyerman, Vol. III. pp. 417 sqq.

[1695] Thirteen discourses are on the Sermon on the Mount, chiefly ethical; two are funeral discourses (on the death of Whitefield and Fletcher); one on the cause and cure of earth-quakes; one on the use of money.

[1696] On Salvation by Faith; Scriptural Christianity; Original Sin; Justification by Faith; Free Grace; the Witness of the Spirit (three sermons); on Christian Perfection. It is singular there is not one sermon on the Freedom of the Will.

[1697] Syst. Theol. Vol. I. pp. 90, 99, 119, 140, 149, 166. Dr. Warren (who is now President of the Methodist University in Boston) wrote this able book (which is as yet, 1876, unfinished) while in Germany, and under the stimulus of the generalizing theories of some German divines. Zinzendorf had made a somewhat similar distinction between the Lutheran, Reformed, and Moravian types of doctrine (Lehrtropen), but comprehended them all in his brotherhood. James Martineau, from the Unitarian point of view, represents Luther, Calvin, and Wesley as the representatives of the orthodox gospel in three dialects (Studies of Christianity, London, 1873, pp. 399 sq.).

[1698] Professor William B. Pope, of Didsbury College, Manchester, one of the leading Wesleyan divines, makes the following statement concerning the creed of the English Methodists (in the Introduction to his translation of Winer's Comparative View of the Doctrines and Confessions of the various Communities of Christendom, Edinb. 1873, pp. lxxvi.-lxxviii.): 'It may be said that English Methodism has no distinct articles of faith. At the same time it is undoubtedly true that no community in Christendom is more effectually hedged about by confessional obligations and restraints. Reference has been made to the distinction of creeds, confessions, and standards. Methodism combines the three in its doctrinal constitution after a manner on the whole peculiar to itself. Materially if not formally, virtually if not actually, implicitly if not avowedly, its theology is bound by the ancient oecumenical Creeds, by the Articles of the English Church, and by comprehensive standards of its own, the peculiarity of its maintenance of these respectively having been determined by the specific circumstances of its origin and consolidation--circumstances with which it is not our business here to enter. In common with most Christian Churches it holds fast the Catholic Symbols; the Apostolical and Nicene are extensively used in the Liturgy, and the Athanasian, not so used, is accepted so far as concerns its doctrinal type. The doctrine of the Articles of the Church of England is the doctrine of Methodism. This assertion must, of course, be taken broadly, as subject to many qualifications. For instance, the Connection has never avowed the Articles as its Confession of Faith; some of those Articles have no meaning for it in its present constitution; others of them are tolerated in their vague and doubtful bearing, rather than accepted as definitions; and, finally, many Methodists would prefer to disown any relation to them of any kind. Still the verdict of the historical theologian, who takes a comprehensive view of the estate of Christendom, in regard to the history and development of Christian truth, would locate the Methodist community under the Thirty-nine Articles. He would draw his inference from the posture towards them of the early founders of the system; and he would not fail to mark that the American branch of the family, which has spread simultaneously with its European branch, has retained the Articles of the English Church, with some necessary modifications, as the basis of its Confession of Faith. Setting aside the Articles that have to do with discipline rather than doctrine, the Methodists universally hold the remainder as tenaciously as any of those who sign them, and with as much consistency as the great mass of English divines who have given them an Arminian interpretation. That is to say, where they diverge in doctrine from the Westminster Confession, Methodism holds to them; while this Confession rather expresses their views on Presbyterian Church government. It may suffice to say generally on this subject, that so far as concerns the present volume [of Winer], every quotation from the English Articles may stand, if justly interpreted, as a representative of the Methodist Confession.

'Finally, we have the Methodist Standards, belonging to it as a society within a Church, which entirely regulate the faith of the community, but are binding only upon its ministers. Those Standards are to be found in certain rather extensive theological writings which have none of the features of a Confession of Faith, and are never subscribed or accepted as such. More particularly, they are some Sermons and Expository Notes of John Wesley; more generally, these and other writings, catechisms, and early precedents of doctrinal definition; taken as a whole, they indicate a standard of experimental and practical theology to which the teaching and preaching of its ministers are universally conformed. What that standard prescribes in detail it would be impossible to define here. . . . Suffice that the Methodist doctrine is what is generally termed Arminian, as it regards the relation of the human race to redemption; that it lays great stress upon the personal assurance which seals the personal religion of the believer; and that it includes a strong testimony to the office of the Holy Spirit in the entire renewal of the soul in holiness, as one of the provisions of the covenant of grace upon earth. It may be added, though only as an historical fact, that a rigorous maintenance of this common standard of evangelical doctrine has been attended by the preservation of a remarkable unity of doctrine throughout this large communion.'

Dr. Whedon, the editor of the 'Methodist Quarterly Review,' in a notice of Pope's Winer (October No., 1873, pp. 680 sqq.), enters 'his firm, fraternal protest against being recorded before the eyes of the world as training under the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England,' and says, 'The entire body of Methodists of the United States no more hold the Thirty-nine Articles, doctrinally, than they do the Westminster Confession. They reject a large share of both for the same reason, namely, that they are, in their proper interpretation, Calvinistic. Nor does this Confession express their views on Presbyterian Church government: for the Confession affirms the divine obligation of Presbyterianism, and the large body of American Methodists believe in the right of a voluntary episcopacy.' __________________________________________________________________

§ 111. Analysis of Arminian Methodism

THE SEMI-ANGLICAN DOCTRINES.

The Twenty-five Articles represent the doctrines which Methodism holds in common with other evangelical Churches, especially with the Church of England. They are an abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, with a view to simplify and to liberalize them. Wesley omitted the political articles, which apply only to England, and those articles which are strongly Augustinian, especially Article 17, of Predestination (which teaches unconditional election to salvation and the perseverance of the elect), Art. 13, of Works before Justification (which are said to have the nature of sin), and Art. 8 (which indorses the three Creeds). On the other hand, Art. 10, of Free Will, which teaches (with Augustine, Luther, and Calvin) the natural inability of man to do good works without the grace of God, is literally retained (Meth. Art. 8).

Minor doctrinal changes were made in Art 2 (Art. 2), where the clauses 'begotten from everlasting of the Father,' and 'of her [the Virgin's] substance,' are omitted (either as doubtful or lying outside of a creed); [1699] in Art. 9 (7), where the last clauses, which affirm the continuance of original sin in the regenerate, are left out (as inconsistent with Wesley's view of perfection); in Art. 16 (12), where 'sin after justification' is substituted for 'sin after baptism' (to avoid the doctrine of baptismal regeneration); in Art. 25 (16), of the Sacraments, where the words 'sure witnesses and effectual,' before 'signs of grace,' are stricken out (which betrays a lowering of the doctrine of the Sacraments); in Art. 34 (22), where 'traditions of the Church' are changed into 'Rites and Ceremonies.'

These omissions and changes are significant, and entirely consistent with Methodism, but they are negative rather than positive. Wesley eliminated the latent Calvinism from the Thirty-nine Articles, but did not put in his Arminianism, nor his peculiar doctrines of the Witness of the Spirit and Christian Perfection, leaving them to be derived from other documents of his own composition.

THE ARMINIAN DOCTRINES.

The five points in which Arminius differed from the Calvinistic system are clearly and prominently brought out in Wesley's writings, though mostly in the form of popular and practical exposition and exhortation. He put the name of Arminius on his periodical organ, and struck the keynote to the Arminian tone of Methodist preaching. The Arminian features of Methodism are, freedom of the will (taken in the sense of liberum arbitrium, or power of contrary choice) as necessary to responsibility; self-limitation of divine sovereignty in its exercise and dealings with free agents; foreknowledge as preceding and conditioning foreordination; universality of redemption; resistibility of divine grace; possibility of total and final apostasy from the state of regeneration and sanctification.

Calvinism and Methodism agree in teaching man's salvation by God's free grace, in opposition to Pelagianism and Semipelagianism. But Calvinism traces salvation to the eternal purpose of God, and confines it to the elect; Methodism makes it dependent on man's free acceptance of that grace which is offered alike to all and on the same terms. Calvinism emphasizes the divine side, Methodism the human. [1700] Herein Methodism entirely agrees with Arminianism, and is even more emphatically opposed to the doctrines of absolute predestination, limited atonement, and the perseverance of saints than Arminius was, who left the last point undecided.

Wesley began the thunder against the imaginary horrors and blasphemies of Calvinism which has since resounded from innumerable Methodist pulpits. He defines predestination to be 'an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, by virtue of which one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned; it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter should be saved;' and then he goes on to show that this doctrine makes all preaching useless; that it makes void the ordinance of God; that it tends directly to destroy holiness, meekness, and love, the comfort and happiness of religion, zeal for good works, and the whole Christian revelation; that it turns God into a hypocrite and deceiver; that it overturns his justice, mercy, and truth, and represents him 'as worse than the devil, more false, more cruel, and more unjust.' 'This,' he says, 'is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination, and for this I abhor it (however I love the persons who assert it).' To this decree he sets over the other decree, 'I will set before the sons of men life and death, blessing and cursing; and the soul that chooseth life shall live, as the soul that chooseth death shall die.' The elect are all those who 'suffer Christ to make them alive.' [1701]

The vehemence of this opposition to the doctrine of predestination must be explained in part from the subjective and emotional nature of Methodist piety, which exposes it much more to an antinomian abuse of this doctrine than is the case with the calm intellectual tendency, of Calvinism.

On the other hand, however, the 'evangelical' Arminianism of Wesley, as it is called, differs from the Dutch Arminianism, as developed by Episcopius and Limborch, and inclines as much towards Augustinianism as Arminianism inclines towards Pelagianism. In this respect it resembles somewhat the Lutheran anthropology of the Formula of Concord, though it differs altogether from its christology and sacramentalism.

1. Methodism holds a much stronger view of original sin than Arminianism, and regards it not simply as a disease or weakness, [1702] but as a total depravity that unfits man altogether for co-operation with the grace of God towards conversion. Wesley, Fletcher, and Watson describe this natural corruption in consequence of Adam's fall in the darkest colors, almost surpassing the descriptions of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin; but they deny the personal responsibility of Adam's posterity for his fall or the doctrine of original guilt; and herein they agree with the Arminians and the Quakers.

2. Methodism teaches the freedom of will as a gift of prevenient grace, which is given to every man as a check and antidote to original sin; while Arminianism, with its milder view of the fall, allows man a certain freedom of will in a weakened state as an inherent and inherited power of nature.

3. Methodism lays greater stress on the subjective experience of conversion and regeneration. Its preaching is essentially radical evangelistic revival preaching, which rouses the sinner to a sense of his danger, and the paramount necessity of an immediate, sudden, and radical change of heart and life.

THE ORIGINAL DOCTRINES OF METHODISM.

To these modifications of Arminianism must be added a few doctrines which Methodism claims as its own contributions to the better understanding of the Christian system.

1. The doctrine of the universality of divine grace, not only in its intention, but in its actual offer. Herein Methodism resembles the Quaker doctrine of universal light. It is assumed--on the ground of Paul's parallel between the first and second Adam (Rom. v.)--that all men are born into an order of saving grace, as well as into an order of sin. Adam brought a universal seed of death, but Christ brought a universal seed of life, which is available for all who do not reject it. [1703] For by virtue of the universal atonement, man, though born in sin, is held guiltless until he arrives at the point of personal responsibility.

While Romanism and Lutheranism save those only who are brought into contact with the Church and the Sacraments, Calvinism those only who are elect from eternity, Methodism brings the opportunity of salvation to all men in this present life, though in different forms and degrees, so that they are actually saved if they do not incur the guilt of rejecting salvation by unbelief. Hence all children are saved if they die before they commit actual sin. Though born in sin, they are not held guilty before the age of responsible agency. They are saved by the same power of the universal atonement which saves adults; though there is a difference of opinion as to the regeneration of infants before death. [1704] On the same ground all heathen may be saved who do not neglect their opportunities. Ability and opportunity are the measure of responsibility, and God requires no more from man than he empowers him to perform. Christ's atonement covers the deficiency of ability in the case of infants, and the deficiency of opportunity in the case of the heathen.

Fletcher distinguishes three dispensations in this general economy of grace: the dispensation of the Father, embracing the heathen and Mohammedans, who know God only from his general revelation in nature, providence, and the conscience; the dispensation of the Son, for those who live within the limits of Christendom and the reach of the gospel; and the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, for those who have an experimental knowledge of the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit. Wesley, Watson, and Pope teach essentially the same view of the universality of grace.

2. The next distinctive doctrine of Methodism is the Witness of the Spirit or the assurance of salvation (Rom. viii. 15, 16). It is a double and concurrent witness of God's Spirit and of our spirit concerning our justification. The former is objective and divine, and antecedes; the latter is subjective and human, and follows. The Holy Spirit bears testimony to our spirit that by faith we are the children of God. This testimony is immediate and direct, and follows the work of justification and regeneration. On the ground of this testimony the believer feels assured of his present acceptance with God, and has a hope of his final salvation, but he is at the same time guarded against carnal security by the fear of a total and final fall from grace. Hence there are so many backsliders, who constitute a special class among Methodists. [1705]

Herein the Methodist doctrine differs from the Calvinistic doctrine of assurance which is based, not on subjective feeling, but on the divine promises and the unchangeable decree of God's election, and which covers not only the present state, but the whole process to its final completion, conditioned by the perseverance of saints as the final test of genuine conversion. [1706]

3. The last and crowning doctrine of Methodism, in which the Quakers likewise preceded it, is Perfectionism. It is regarded as a mighty stimulus to progressive holiness, and forms the counterpart of the doctrine of apostasy, which acts as a warning against backsliding. It is derived from such passages as Matt. v. 48; Phil. iii. 15; Heb. vi. 1; x. 14; 1 John iii. 6; v. 18. Methodist perfection is not a sinless perfection or faultlessness, which Wesley denied, [1707] but a sort of imperfect perfection, from which it is possible to fall again temporarily or forever. [1708] It is entire sanctification or perfect love (1 John ii. 5; iv. 12), which every Christian may and ought to attain in this present life. From this state all voluntary transgressions or sinful volitions are excluded, though involuntary infirmities may and do remain; in this state all the normal qualities are possessed and enjoyed in their fullness. As to the attainment of perfection, it comes according to the prevailing view from gradual growth in grace, according to others by a special act of faith. [1709] __________________________________________________________________

[1699] Emory, in his History of the Discipline, inserts the clause, 'begotten of everlasting from the Father,' as adopted in 1784, but omitted in 1786 and in later editions, perhaps by typographical error. A Methodist correspondent (Rev. D. A. Whedon) suggests to me that Wesley may have made a distinction between the eternal Sonship and the eternal Generation, and may have maintained the former, but questioned the latter as referring to the manner rather than the fact. Prof. Pope, the latest Methodist writer on Dogmatics, avoids this question as belonging to the transcendental mysteries (Christ. Theol. p. 272).

[1700] Dr. Warren, 1.c. p. 140, states the difference in an extreme form, which would subject Methodism to the charge of downright Pelagianism: 'Nach der Methodistischen Auffassung des Heilsverhältnisses Gottes und des Menschen hängt das Heil oder Nicht-Heil eines jeden Menschen lediglich von seinem eigenen freien Verhalten gegenüber den erleuchtenden, erneuernden und heiligenden Einwirkungen des heiligen Geistes ab. Verhält man sich gegenüber diesen Einwirkungen empfänglich, so wird man hier, und einst dort, selig werden; verschliesst man sein Herz gegen dieselben, so wird man hier, und auf ewig im Tode verbleiben. Mit dieser Grundanschauung hängen alle sonstigen Eigenthümlichkeiten des Methodismus, wie z. B. seine eigenthümliche Freiheitslehre, seine Betonung der Wirksamkeit des heiligen Geistes, seine Lehre von der christlichen Vollkommenheit, und dergleichen, eng zusammen. Seinem innersten Geist und Wesen nach ist er eine Auffassung des Christenthums vom Standpunkte der christlichen Vollkommenheit oder der völligen Liebe.'

[1701] Sermon liv., on Free Grace (Rom. viii. 32), preached at Bristol. It follows immediately after the eulogistic funeral discourse on the Calvinistic Whitefield. His brother Charles wrote a polemical poem on 'The Horrible Decree,' in which his poetic genius left him, as may be inferred from the following specimens:

'O Horrible Decree,

Worthy of whence it came!

Forgive their hellish blasphemy,

Who charge it on the Lamb.'

'To limit Thee they dare,

Blaspheme Thee to Thy face,

Deny their fellow-worms a share

In Thy redeeming grace.'

In another poem, on 'Predestination,' he prays:

'Increase (if that can be)

The perfect hate I feel

To Satan's Horrible Decree,

That genuine child of hell;

Which feigns thee to pass by

The most of Adam's race,

And leave them in their blood to die,

Shut out from saving grace.'

How infinitely superior to these polemical effusions is his genuine hymn:

'Jesus, lover of my soul,'

which a Calvinist may sing as heartily as a pious Methodist will join in his antagonist's (Toplady's):

'Rock of Ages, cleft for me.'

[1702] Episcopius calls the peccatum originis an infirmitas or calamitasor malum, but not a malum culpæ and malum poenæ. Limborch calls it malum naturale, not peccatum nostri respectu. See Winer, Comp. Symb. pp. 60 sqq.

[1703] 'No man living,' says Wesley, 'is without some preventing grace, and every degree of grace is a degree of life. There is a measure of free will supernaturally restored to every man, together with that supernatural light which enlightens every man that cometh into this world.' 'That by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men (all born into the world) unto condemnation, is an undoubted truth, and affects every infant as well as every adult person. But it is equally true that by the righteousness of One, the free gift came upon all men (all born into the world--infants and adults) unto justification.' D. D. Whedon (Biblioth. Sacra, 1862, p. 258): 'Under the redemptive system, the man is born into the world, from Adam, a depraved being. It is as a depraved being that he becomes an Ego. But instantly after, in the order of nature, he is met by the provisions of atonement.' 'Every human being,' says Warren, 'has a measure of grace (unless he has cast it away), and those who faithfully use this intrusted gift will be accepted of God in the day of judgment, whether Jew or Greek, Christian or heathen. In virtue of Christ's mediation between God and the fallen race, all men since the first promise, Gen. iii. 15, are under an economy of grace, and the only difference between them as subjects of the moral government of God is that, while all have grace and light enough to attain salvation, some, over and above this, have more and others less' (Vol. I. pp. 146 sq.). Pope (pp. 239-248) distinguishes this doctrine from the Augustinian, Pelagian, Semipelagian, Tridentine, Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Arminian, and says that there is no doctrine which 'so irresistibly and universally appeals for its confirmation to the common conscience and judgment of mankind.'

[1704] Dr. D. D. Whedon (Biblioth. Sacra, 1862, p. 258) remarks on this point: 'That the dying infant is saved, and saved by the atonement, we all agree. But his precise condition, as affected by the atonement, while a living infant, seems to be a somewhat undecided matter. Probably a large majority of the Methodist Episcopal Church have, for some time past, held, without much discussion, that the living infant was both unjustified and unregenerate, and yet upon his death he obtained both blessings. This making death the condition of justification and regeneration appears to many hardly logical, and not without danger. Mr. Wesley's earlier expressions of opinion indicated a holding of the churchly doctrine of baptismal regeneration in infancy. His later indications of opinion indicate that he held all infants to be members of the kingdom of heaven; and he also held that regeneration is a condition to membership in the kingdom of heaven; but he does not expressly draw the inference that all infants are regenerate. Fletcher maintained the doctrine both of infant justification and regeneration. Dr. Fisk held to infant justification. Our baptismal service first declares, in its Scripture lesson of infants, that "of such is the kingdom of God," and yet declares "that none can enter into the kingdom of God unless he be regenerate." But neither here is the inference expressly drawn. The subject is a matter of calm discussion, and perhaps the number of those holding the doctrine of infant regeneration has decidedly increased.'

[1705] Comp. the three sermons of Wesley on the Witness of the Spirit (x.-xii.), Vol. I. pp. 85 sqq. He traced this doctrine to his contact with some Moravians on his voyage to Georgia (1735), whose childlike trust and serene cheerfulness led him to exclaim: 'I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God.' He meant conversion from legal bondage to evangelical freedom and a sense of assurance of pardon. He subsequently visited Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians in Germany to study their discipline (1739). Watson (Vol. II. p. 271) distinguishes four views on the testimony of the Spirit, and thus states his own, which agrees with Wesley's: 'It is twofold; a direct testimony or "inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God; that Christ hath loved me, and given himself for me, that I, even I, am reconciled to God" (Wesley's Sermons); and an indirect testimony, arising from the work of the Spirit in the heart and life, which St. Paul calls the testimony of our own spirit; for this is inferred from his expression, "And the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, etc." This testimony of our own spirit, or indirect testimony of the Holy Spirit by and through our own spirit, is considered confirmatory of the first testimony.' Pope (p. 465): 'Assurance is the fruit, not the essence of faith. . . .Perfect faith must be assured of its object. . . . The internal assurance of faith is a privilege that all may claim and expect; seasons of darkness and depression and uncertainty are only the trial of that faith of assurance.'

[1706] The Westminster Confession, Ch. XVIII., says that true believers 'may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace, and may rejoice in hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.' This assurance is 'founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the testimony of the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are the children of God.' It is not of 'the essence of faith,' and may be 'shaken, diminished, and intermitted,' yet revived again in due time and keep us from utter despair.

[1707] In his sermons on Temptation, Vol. II. p. 215, and on Perfection, Vol. I. p. 356; Vol. II. p. 168: 'The highest perfection,' he says, 'which man can attain while the soul dwells in the body, does not exclude ignorance and error and a thousand infirmities.'

[1708] Meth. Catech. No. 3, p. 37: 'It is the privilege of every believer to be wholly sanctified, and to love God with all his heart in the present life; but at every stage of Christian experience there is danger of falling from grace, which danger is to be guarded against by watchfulness, prayer, and a life of faith in the Son of God.'

[1709] Wesley has two sermons on Christian Perfection, one on Phil. iii. 12 (Vol. I. p. 355), and one on Heb. vi. 1 (Vol. II. p. 167). He distinguishes, (1) angelic, (2) Adamic, (3) absolute perfection--all of which he denies to man in his present state--and (4) the relative perfection, which he claims for him under the gospel dispensation, namely, perfect love to God. From 1 John iii. 6 and v. 18, he reasons, 'A Christian is so far perfect as not to commit sin' (Vol. I. p. 365). He affirms that several persons have enjoyed this blessing of freedom from sin without interruption for many years, and not a few unto their death, as they have declared with their last breath (Vol. II. p. 174). Pope says (p. 527): 'The Spirit is imparted in this fullness for the perfect consecration of the soul to the Triune God: this is called the love of God perfected in us. The commandment requires from us in return the perfect love of the soul to God and man; and this perfection, promised to faith working by love, is abundantly attested as the possible and attained experience of Christians.' Pope distinguishes the Methodist theory of perfection from the ascetic, the fanatical, the Pelagian, the mystical, the Romanist, the imputationist (modern Calvinistic), and the Arminian (p. 535); and he mentions five characteristic marks of the Methodist doctrine, the chief of which is entire consecration to God in perfect love (p. 540). __________________________________________________________________

§ 112. Calvinistic Methodism.

WHITEFIELD.

George Whitefield labored with Wesley until 1741, when they parted on the question of predestination and free will; the former taking the Calvinistic, the latter, with his brother and the majority of Methodists, the Arminian side, and henceforth they pursued different paths, like Paul and Barnabas. Personally they became cordial friends again, and their friendship continued until death. This should not be forgotten when we read the bitter predestinarian controversy which their friends and followers carried on and renewed from time to time. When Whitefield heard of the dangerous illness of Wesley, who had already written his own epitaph, he sent him an affectionate letter (Dec. 3, 1753), saying, 'I pity myself and the Church, but not you. A radiant throne awaits you, and ere long you will enter into your Master's joy.' [1710] When Whitefield died in Newburyport (Sept. 30, 1770), Wesley preached his funeral sermon (Nov. 18) at Whitefield's Chapel in Tottenham Court Road and at the Tabernacle, near Moorfields, on the text Numb. xxiii. 10, 'Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!' Without alluding to their temporary separation, he speaks of him in the highest terms as an eminent instrument of God, who in the business of salvation put Christ; as high as possible, and man as low as possible, and who brought a larger number of sinners from darkness to the light than any other man. He praises his 'unparalleled zeal, his indefatigable activity, his tenderness of heart towards the afflicted, and charitableness to the poor, his deep gratitude, his most generous aud tender friendship, his modesty, frankness, patience, courage, and steadfastness to the end.' [1711]

Whitefield was free from sectarian spirit and cared little for organization. His sole purpose was to convert sinners to Christ, and to revive Churches to new zeal and energy. [1712] His labors were crowned with signal success. The day of judgment alone will reveal the number of his converts, and the amount of good which he kindled by his flaming sermons among Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other denominations, as well as among the crowds of ungodly people who were attracted by his eloquence. [1713]

But although most of his converts fell in with existing denominations, a considerable number of them formed three separate organizations. One of them, called 'the Whitefield Methodists,' were lost among the Independents. The other two still remain.

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON'S CONNECTION.

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (1707-1791), a lady of true nobility of heart and intellect as well as rank, devoted, after the death of her husband and four children, her time and fortune to the spread of vital religion among the nobility and the court as well as the common people. She purchased halls and theatres in London, Bristol, and Dublin, built over sixty chapels, supported ministers, founded a college at Trevecca, in Wales, and stirred up others to similar liberality. She dispensed with her luxurious equipage and sold even her jewels for the benefit of this work. She took Whitefield, with whose Calvinism she sympathized, under her special patronage, and made him her chaplain, and exercised a sort of leadership over his congregations. Hence they became known as the 'Countess of (or Lady) Huntingdon's Connection.

Whitefield bequeathed to the Countess his benevolent institutions and lands in Georgia, and this resulted in a mission to America.

The ministers of this connection are almost identical in doctrine and Church polity with the Independents, but in public worship they use to some extent the Anglican Liturgy. Their principal institution is Chesunt College, in Herts.

THE WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODISTS.

Literature

The History, Constitution, Rules of Discipline, and Confession of Faith of the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales. Drawn up by their own Associated Ministers. Third ed. Mold, 1840.

John Hughes: History of Welsh Methodism, (in Welsh). Liverpool, 1856, 3 vols.

William Williams: Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. An Historical Sketch (in English). London, 1872.

Whitefield's preaching through Wales, and the kindred labors of Howell Harris, of Trevecca, Griffith Jones, Daniel Rowlands, Howell Davies, and William Williams--most of them clergymen of the Established Church who joined the Methodists--produced a powerful and extensive revival, and resulted in a new connection in 1743, and more fully in 1785, when the Rev. Thomas Charles, of Bala, one of the most zealous and useful preachers of his day, joined it. [1714]

For many years the Welsh Methodists existed without a settled form of government or doctrinal confession.

In 1823 it was unanimously agreed at the Associations of Aberystwith and Bala to issue in the Welsh language such a document, together with a sketch of the origin and early history of the denomination. An English edition was published in 1827.

The Confession of Faith consists of forty-four chapters, and accords substantially in spirit and arrangement with the Westminster Confession, though it is far inferior to it in ability and accuracy.

The articles in which it differs from the Wesleyan scheme are Arts. V., XII., and XXXIV., which are as follows:

V.--Of the Decree of God.

God, from eternity, according to the counsel of his own will, and for the manifestation and exaltation of his glorious attributes, decreed all things which he should perform in time and to eternity, in the creation and governing of his creatures, and in the salvation of sinners of the human race; yet in such a manner that he is neither the Author of sin, nor does he force the will of his creatures in the fulfillment of his decree; and this decree of God is not depended on any thing in a creature, nor yet on the foreknowledge of God; but rather God knows that such and such circumstances will take place, because he has ordained that it should be so. God's decree is infinitely wise, perfectly righteous, and existing from eternity; it is a free, an ample, a secret, gracious, holy, good, an unchangeable and effectual decree.

XII.--Of the Election of Grace.

God from eternity elected and ordained Christ to be a Covenant Head, a Mediator, and a Surety to his Church; to redeem and to save it. God also elected in Christ a countless multitude out of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, to holiness and everlasting life; and every means were employed to effect this purpose most securely. This election is eternal, righteous, sovereign, unconditional, peculiar or personal, and unchangeable. It wrongs none, though God has justly left some without being elected, yet he has not wronged them: they are in the same condition as if there had been no election; and had there been no election, no flesh had been saved.

XXXIV.--Of Perseverance in Grace.

Those whom God has made acceptable in the Beloved, whom he has effectually called, and whom the Spirit sanctifies, can not completely and forever fall from a state of grace, but they shall assuredly be supported unto the end, and they shall be saved. Their perseverance depends not on their own will, but on the unchangeableness of the purpose of God, the election of grace, the power of the Father's love, the sufficiency of the propitiation of Christ, the success of his intercession, union with him, the indwelling of the Spirit within them, the seed of God implanted in their souls, the nature and strength of the covenant, and the promise and oath of God. Founded on these things, perseverance is certain and unfailing. Though they may, through the temptations of Satan and the world, the great power of their indwelling corruption, and the neglect of using the means for their support, fall into sins, and remain in them for some time, and thus displease God, grieve the Holy Spirit, injure their grace, lose their comfort, harden their hearts, sting their consciences, draw a temporal judgment upon themselves, harm others, and disgrace the cause of God, yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith to salvation, though their falls will be felt most bitterly by them.

Those who continue to live quietly in sin, and comfort themselves that they are in a gracious state, show evident signs that they are self-deceivers. For by perseverance in grace is not meant the continuing to enjoy and to inherit external Gospel privileges merely; but a continuance in holiness, diligence, watchfulness, a holy temper and walk, and a scrupulous observance of every duty. There is nothing more opposed to sin than a perseverance in grace; and whosoever shall thus continue in grace to the end shall be saved. __________________________________________________________________

[1710] See the whole letter in Tyerman, J. Wesley, Vol. II. p. 175.

[1711] Sermon LIII. Vol. I. pp. 470 sqq.

[1712] In this unselfish zeal he has a worthy successor in our day in Mr. Moody.

[1713] 'Whitefield's preaching was such as England never heard before--theatrical, extravagant, often commonplace, but hushing all criticism by its intense reality, its earnestness of belief, its deep, tremulous sympathy with the sin and sorrow of mankind. It was no common enthusiast who could wring gold from the close-fisted Franklin and admiration from the fastidious Horace Walpole, or who could look down from the top of a green knoll at Kingswood on twenty thousand colliers, grimy from the Bristol coal-pits, and see as he preached the tears "making white channels down their blackened cheeks."'--Green, History of the English People, p. 718 (Engl. ed.). Dr. Abel Stevens, an Arminian Methodist, calls Whitefield 'the most eloquent, the most flaming preacher that the Christian Church has known since its apostolic age, whose eloquence sanctified, wakened the whole British empire' (Centenary of Amer. Methodism, p. 24).

[1714] Charles graduated at Oxford as A.B. in 1778, labored seven years as a clergyman of the Established Church, united himself with the Calvinistic Methodists in 1785, and drew up in 1790 a series of Rules for conducting Associations or Quarterly Meetings. He was one of the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society. __________________________________________________________________

§ 113. The Catholic Apostolic Church (called Irvingites.)

Literature.

I. Sources.

Edward Irving: Works, collected and edited by his nephew, the Rev. G. Carlyle. London, 1864-65, 5 vols.

Michael Hohl: Bruchstücke aus dem Leben und den Schriften E. Irving's. St. Gallen, 1839; 2d ed. 1850.

Mrs. M. O. W. Oliphant: The Life of Edward Irving, Minister of the National Scotch Church, London, illustrated by his Journals and Correspondence. London and New York (Harpers), 1862.

A Testimony to the King of England, and another to the Bishops of England. London, 1836. (Anonymous. Prepared by the Apostles.)

A Testimony addressed to all Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops, and the Reigning Sovereigns of Christendom. 1837. (Anonymous.)

Liturgy and other Divine Offices of the Church. London, 1842. Drawn up by the 'Apostles,' and enlarged from time to time.

C. M. Carré: The First and Last Days of the Church of Christ. London, 1851.

Readings upon the Liturgy. (By one of the Apostles.) London, 1852.

The Catechism. (The English Episcopal Catechism enlarged.)

Thomas Carlyle (one of the Apostles): The Door of Hope for Britain, and The Door of Hope for Christendom. London, 1853. By the same: Apostles Given, Lost, Restored: Pleadings with my Mother.

Rev. William Dow (one of the Apostles, originally a Scotch Presbyt.): First Principles of the Doctrine of Christ. Edinb. 1856. By the same: A Series of Discourses on practical and Doctrinal Subjects. Edinb. 1853; 2d series, Edinb. 1860.

Rev. J. S. Davenport: Edward Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church. New York, 1863. By the same: Christian Unity and its Recovery. New York, 1866. By the same: Letter to Bishop Whitehouse: The Church and the Episcopate. Montreal, 1873.

W. W. Andrews: The True Constitution of the Church and its Restoration. New York, 1854. By the same: Review of Mrs. Oliphant's Life of E. Irving, in the 'New-Englander' for July and Oct. 1863. By the same: The Catholic Apostolic Church, its History, Organization, Doctrine, and Worship, in the 'Bibliotheca Sacra' for Jan. and April, 1866. Andover, Mass. By the same: The True Marks of the Church. Hartford, 1867.

Rev. Nicholas Armstrong (one of the Apostles): Sermons on Various Subjects. 2d ed. London, 1870. By the same: Homilies on the Epistles and Gospels. London, 1870.

Rev. T. Groser: Sermons, 1st and 2d series. London, 1871 and 1874.

Apostles' Doctrine and Fellowship. Anonymous. London, 1871.

The Purpose of God in Creation and Redemption. Anonymous. 4th ed. Edinburgh, 1874.

Readings for the Sundays and Holydays of the Church's Year. Anonymous. London, 1875.

The Dispensation of the Parousia. Hartford, 1876.

Various writings of Henry Drummond (one of the Apostles), Chas. Böhm, C. Rothe, A. Köppen, Ernst Gaab, Rosstäuscher (author of an essay 'On the Gift of Tongues,' and a history of the movement under the title Der Aufbau der Kirche Christi auf den ursprünglichen Grundlagen), and especially H. W. J. Thiersch (the Tertullian of this modern Montanism, and its most learned minister in Germany, who wrote Lectures on Catholicism and Protestantism, 1848, on the Canon of the N. T., 1845, on the Church in the Apostolic Age, 1852, and other excellent works).

II. Criticisms.

De Quincey, in Literary Reminiscences, Vol. II.

Thomas Carlyle, in 'Fraser's Magazine' for Jan. 1835.

Articles on Irving in 'Edinburgh Review' for Oct. 1862; 'North British Review' for Aug. 1862; 'Blackwood's Magazine' for Nov. 1858, and June, 1862; 'London Quarterly Review' for Oct. 1862; 'Methodist Quarterly Review,' Jan. 1849, 1863.

Philip Schaff: Der Irvingismus und die Kirchenfrage, in his 'Deutscher Kirchenfreund,' Jahrg. III. 1850, pp. 49 sqq, 81 sqq. 161 sqq. 223 sqq. Mercersburg, Pa.

G. W. Lehmann: Ueber die Irvingianer. Hamburg, 1853.

Comp. J. L. Jacobi: Die Lehre der Irvingiten oder der sogenannten apostolischen Gemeinde verglichen mit der heiligen Schrift. Berlin, 1868.

EDWARD IRVING.

Edward Irving, the herald and pioneer of the 'Catholic Apostolic Church,' was born at Annan, in Scotland, 1792, and died in the vigor of manhood at Glasgow, Dec. 8, 1834, where he lies buried in the crypt of the cathedral. He belonged to the Presbyterian Church, and for several years (1819-1822) labored in Glasgow as the assistant of the great and good Dr. Chalmers.

In 1822 he accepted a call to the Caledonian Chapel, Hatton Garden, London, and at once became the most powerful and popular preacher of the metropolis. He was at that time overflowing with bodily and spiritual life and energy. He excelled in the noblest gifts of eloquence, cultivated on the models of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor. Lofty thoughts clothed in gorgeous, semi-poetic language, devotional fervor, a solemn manner, a sonorous voice, a quaint antique style, a broad Scotch accent, an imposing figure, bushy hair flowing down in ringlets, a beaming face (which reminded Sir Walter Scott of that of the Saviour on Italian pictures), all combined to attract large and intelligent audiences, and to secure their closest attention, as if they listened to a messenger from the presence of the great Jehovah. De Quincey judged him to be, more than any man he ever saw, 'a son of thunder, and unquestionably by many degrees the greatest orator of our times.' He attracted people from all classes--noblemen, statesmen, and authors. When on a visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow, he roused the population at sunrise from their beds to hear his discourses. He shook the kingdom with his eloquence.

While he ruled like a monarch from his pulpit, he was a docile pupil of Coleridge, and received from the suggestive conversations of the old sage seeds of truth which seriously modified his Scotch Calvinistic creed. He now made more account of the incarnation and the true humanity of Christ, maintaining that he assumed our fallen, i.e., temptable, mortal, corruptible nature, yet without sin itself, into complete fellowship with his divine person. This exposed him to the charge of denying the sinlessness of our Saviour, which was far from his thoughts. He also gave a large place to the hope of the glorious return of Christ, and the revival of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit in the Church.

In these views he was greatly strengthened by the sudden reappearance of what he believed to be the supernatural gifts of tongues, prophesying, and healing. These manifestations first occurred in the spring of 1830 in the west of Scotland, on the shores of the Clyde, among some pious Presbyterian men and women, who believed that their organs of speech were made use of by the Spirit of God for the utterance of his thoughts and intentions. Several persons from London, on hearing of these things, visited Scotland, and, on their return, held prayer-meetings in private houses, attended by devout members of different denominations. They united in supplications for the restoration of spiritual gifts. In April, 1831, the same manifestations took place among members of the Church of England and friends of Irving in London. The 'prophesyings' were addressed to the audience in intelligible English, and resembled the solemn exhortations of Quakers moved by the Spirit. The speaking in tongues consisted of soliloquies of the speaker, or dialogues between him and God which no one could understand. The burden of the prophetic utterances was the judgments impending on the apostate Church, the speedy coming of Christ, and the duty of preparing his way. [1715]

Similar manifestations of ecstatic utterances in seasons of powerful religious excitement appeared among the Montanists in the second century, the persecuted Protestants in France, called the 'Prophets of Cevennes,' and among the early Quakers.

These extraordinary proceedings naturally led to a rupture between Irving and the Presbytery of London (1832). He was turned out of the church built for him in Regent Square, and ultimately deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland by the Presbytery of Annan (1833), from which he had received his first license to preach.

On being driven from Regent Square, he was followed by the larger part of his congregation to Newman Street; and the following year, when his Presbyterian orders had been taken from him, he humbly submitted to reordination by one whom he received as an apostle. He never rose beyond the position of an 'angel,' or pastor, in the new Church, and, after less than two years of great labors and sufferings, passed from this world of trial into the regions of light.

He is little mentioned in the writings of his followers, and is regarded by them merely as a forerunner or John the Baptist, not as the founder of their community. His brilliant meteoric career, lofty character, and sad end created profound interest and sympathy. Dr. Chalmers, on hearing of his death, said that 'he was one in whom the graces of the humble Christian were joined to the virtues of the old Roman.' Thomas Carlyle, his countryman and early friend, thus characterizes Irving: 'He was appointed a Christian priest, and strove with the whole force that was in him to be it. I call him, upon the whole, the best man I have ever, after trial enough, found in this world, or now hope to find.' [1716]

THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

This remarkable man, whose purity and piety can be as little doubted as his genius and eloquence, whatever may be thought of his soundness and judgment, gave the strongest if not the first impulse to the religious movement which, since its organization, is usually called after his name, but which calls itself 'The Catholic Apostolic Church.' [1717] It took full shape and form after his death, as it claims, under supernatural direction. It is one of the unsolved enigmas of Church history: it combines a high order of piety and humility of individual members with astounding assumptions, which, if well founded, would require the submission of all Christendom to the authority of its inspired apostles.

The modern 'Apostolic' Church believes and teaches that the Lord, who will soon appear in glory, has graciously restored, or at least begun to restore his one true Church, by reviving the primitive supernatural offices and gifts, which formed the bridal outfit of the apostolic age, but were soon afterwards lost or marred by the ingratitude and unbelief of Christendom. It claims to have apostles, prophets, and evangelists for the general care of the Church, and angels (or bishops), presbyters (or priests), and deacons for the care of particular congregations. All officers are called by the Holy Ghost through the voice of the prophets, except the deacons, who are chosen by the congregation as its representatives. They form a more complete hierarchy than that of the Episcopal or even the Greek and Roman Churches, whose bishops never claimed to be inspired apostles, but only successors of the apostles.

If the twelve modern apostles were truly called by Christ and endowed with all the powers and functions of that unique office, men will naturally look for sufficient evidence of the fact. But nine of these apostles died before 1876, and their vacancies have not been filled, nor are they expected to be filled. The Church, then, is relapsing into the same destitute condition which, according to their own theory, preceded this movement. [1718] Their only hope is in the speedy return of our Lord.

To this apostolic hierarchy corresponds a highly ritualistic worship, with a solemn liturgy, based upon the Anglican and ancient Greek liturgies, and with an elaborate symbolism, derived from a fanciful interpretation of the Jewish tabernacle as a type of the worship of the Christian Church in the wilderness.

In this hierarchical constitution and ritualistic worship consists the chief peculiarity of this community. Its ministers and members have accordingly a very high idea of the Church and of the Sacraments. They are strict believers in baptismal regeneration and the real presence, though neither in the Roman nor the Lutheran sense. They reject transubstantiation and consubstantiation as well as the merely symbolical presence, and hold to the spiritual real presence of Calvin, but combine with it the view of Irenæus and other early fathers, that the elements, after being consecrated by the invocation of the Holy Ghost, have a heavenly and spiritual, as well as a material character, and are antitypes of the body and blood of Christ. They regard the eucharist as the centre of Christian worship, and not only as a sacrament, but also as a sacrifice in the patristic sense of a thank-offering, and they connect with it a commemoration of the departed. They are, upon the whole, the highest of High-Churchmen. They are in this respect the very antipodes of the Plymouth Brethren, the lowest of Low-Churchmen and the most independent of Independents, although both agree in their antagonism to the historical Churches and their expectation of the speedy coming of the Lord.

Yet, on the other hand, the Irvingites are unquestionably Protestant, and accept the positive results of the Reformation. They reject the Pope, not indeed as the Antichrist or 'the man of sin,' who will be revealed in the last times as the outgrowth of unbelief and lawlessness, but as an antichristian usurper of supreme authority in the Church. In their general belief they are as orthodox as any other denomination. They receive the whole Scriptures with devout reverence as their supreme guide. They lay stress on the oecumenical creeds, and embody them in their liturgical services. In catechetical instruction they use the Anglican Catechism, with an additional part inculcating their peculiar views about the constitution and order of the Christian Church. They manifest a catholic spirit, and sustain, as individuals, fraternal relations with members of other denominations. Upon the whole, they have most sympathy with the Episcopal Church, from which they received the majority of their original members. Of their apostles, eight were Anglicans (including two clergymen and two members of Parliament), three Presbyterians, and one Independent. Their main strength is in London, where they have seven churches, after the model of the seven churches in Asia Minor. They have also congregations in many of the principal cities in England and Scotland, and in some parts of the Continent of Europe, especially North Germany; while in Roman Catholic countries and in America they have made little or no progress.

The Irvingite movement has directed the attention of many serious minds to a deeper study of the supernatural order and outfit of the Apostolic Church, the divisions and reunion of Christendom, and the eschatological questions connected with the second advent.

STATEMENT OF THE REV. W. W. ANDREWS.

With these remarks we introduce a fuller inside account of the Catholic Apostolic Church, which was kindly prepared for this work by the Rev. W. W. Andrews, of Wethersfield, Conn. He has been thoroughly acquainted with the movement from the beginning, and is highly esteemed by all who know him as a Christian gentleman and scholar:

'The body of Christians who call themselves by the name of the Catholic Apostolic Church, not as exclusively their own, but because it is the proper designation of the one Catholic Church, is distinguished from all other Christian communions by the claim to the possession of gifts and ministries which, after having been long lost or suspended in their exercise, they believe to be now again restored to prepare the way for the coming and kingdom of the Lord.

History.

'The history of this religious movement can be given in few words. About the beginning of the second quarter of the present century, there was much prayer in many countries, but especially in Great Britain, for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost; and early in the year 1830 supernatural manifestations occurred in several parts of Scotland, in devout members of the Presbyterian Church, in the form of tongues, prophesyings, and healings. The following year similar manifestations took place in London, first in members of the Church of England, and afterwards among other religious bodies.

'Towards the end of the year 1832, by which time the supernatural character and divine origin of these spiritual phenomena had been abundantly attested, and a considerable number of persons had become believers, another and most important step was taken in the restoration of the apostolic office. The will of God that certain men should serve him as apostles was made known through supernatural utterances of the Holy Ghost by prophets, as when, at Antioch, he said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." The apostolate to the Gentiles, begun in the calling of Paul, but then left unfinished, the Lord now, at the end of the dispensation, set his hand to restore; and by the middle of the year 1835 the full number was completed, and they entered as a twelvefold Apostolic College on the work of caring for the whole Christian Church. As Great Britain had been chosen of God to be the centre of this catholic movement, one of the first duties laid upon the restored apostles was the preparing of a Testimony to the Bishops of the Church of England and Ireland, and of another to the King's Privy Council, in which they pointed out the sins and perils of those lands, and testified to the coming of the Lord as the only hope of mankind, and to the work of the Holy Ghost as the necessary means of preparation.

'A year or two later, they addressed a more full and complete testimony, of the same general character, to all the Rulers in Church and State throughout Christendom. They did this, because it was their duty, from the nature of their office, to seek the blessing of the whole flock of God. Apostles alone have universal jurisdiction, as they alone receive their commission directly from the Lord; and it belonged to them, when restored towards the close of the long history of the Church, to take up those questions in respect to doctrine, organization, and worship which had broken the unity of Christendom; and having examined the creeds and rites and usages of every part, to separate the evil from the good, and to stamp with their apostolic authority every fragment of divine truth and order which had been preserved. This they have been doing for more than forty years, and the results to which they have arrived may be thus briefly stated.

Doctrines.

'They hold the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (the Old Testament as received from the Jews, without the Apocrypha) to contain the sum and substance of all divine revelations, and therefore to be the supreme and infallible standard of doctrine.

'But they also believe that Christ's promise to be with his Church to the end of the world has not been made void, and that the Holy Spirit has borne a living witness to the one faith in all generations; and they have adopted the three great creeds commonly called the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian, as expressing more clearly than any others the belief of the Universal Church. The great doctrines of the holy Trinity, the incarnation, the atoning death and bodily resurrection of the Lord, his ascension and high priestly work in heaven, the descent of the Holy Ghost to draw men to Christ, and to regenerate, sanctify, and endow with heavenly gifts them that believe, together with the second personal coming of the Lord to judge the quick and the dead, and to administer eternal retributions, they hold in their plain and obvious import, in harmony with the whole Orthodox Church, Greek, Roman, and Protestant.

'These creeds they have appointed to be used in divine worship: the Apostles', at the daily morning and evening services; the Nicene, in the ordinary celebrations of the eucharist on the Lord's Day; and the Athanasian, four times in the year, at the great festivals of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and All-Saints. They use the Nicene Creed in the form in which the Western Church receives it, retaining the Filioque, but not condemning the Eastern Church for using it in the form in which it was left by the Council of Constantinople.

'In respect to the great central truth of the incarnation, the key to all the purposes and works of God, they teach that the second Person in the adorable Godhead, the only and eternally begotten Son, became man by assuming our entire humanity--body, soul, and spirit --under the conditions of the fall, but without sin, through the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. They reject, therefore, the dogma of the immaculate conception of the mother of the Lord as against the truth of holy Scripture, which declares the whole human race to have been involved in the fall of the first Adam. They teach that by being born of a mother of the fallen race, he took the common nature of man, with all its infirmities, burdens, and liabilities, so that he could be tempted in all points like as we are, and be dealt with in all things by the Father as the representative of mankind. But they also make prominent the work of the Holy Ghost in effecting the incarnation, holding that it was through his presence and power that the Son of God was conceived of the Virgin Mary, and afterwards anointed for his public ministry; so that while it was a divine person who became incarnate, he had no advantage of his Godhead in his earthly life, but did every thing as man upheld, guided, and energized by the Holy Ghost.

'They hold, with the Church of England, and all the great leaders of the Reformation, that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ was "a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" (and not merely for those of the elect); and on this ground they stand aloof both from the rationalism which denies its vicarious and expiatory nature, and from the Roman doctrine of the mass, which teaches that the sacrifice of the cross needs to be supplemented by the sacrifices of the eucharist, in which the Lamb of God is continually immolated afresh.

'But they go beyond the theology of the Reformation in respect to the Church, which they look upon as the fruit of the death and resurrection of Christ, and of the descent of the Holy Ghost which followed his ascension; and as differing, therefore, fundamentally in its spiritual essence and prerogatives from all the companies of the faithful in the preceding dispensations. They believe that in rising from the dead he became the fountain of a new life, the head of a redeemed humanity, of which those who believe in him are made partakers by the operations of the Holy Ghost working in and through the ordinances of his Church. The Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the divinely appointed means of conveying and nourishing this new life of his resurrection, by the implanting and energizing of which the whole multitude of the faithful are made to be the One Body of Christ.

'As to the structure and endowments of the Church, they hold that its original constitution contains the abiding law for all generations. The fourfold ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors, first fulfilled by the Lord himself when upon earth, was continued in his Church after he had gone into heaven, because it was the necessary instrumentality of conveying his manifold grace and blessing, and of bringing his Body to the stature of his fullness (Eph. iv. 11-16). The Holy Ghost was given to be the permanent possession of his people; and the apostles reject the common distinction between ordinary and extraordinary gifts as wholly unscriptural, and as restraining the manifestations of the Spirit. They lay great stress upon the connection of the descent of the Comforter with the glorifying of the Lord Jesus (John vii. 39), and teach that the object of his mission was to reveal the glory and manifest the energies of the Man whom God had exalted from the weakness and dishonor of the grave to his own right hand. Supernatural gifts and miraculous workings are therefore in accordance with the nature of the dispensation, which began with the resurrection of the Lord, and is to end with the resurrection of his saints.

Worship.

'Its chief features are the celebration of the Eucharist on every Lord's day; services at six in the morning and five in the evening of every day in the year, requiring for their complete fulfillment the three ministries of angel, priests, and deacons; the observance of the great feasts of the Church, excluding those in honor of particular saints; and a monthly service by the seven churches in London gathered into one as a symbol of the Universal Church, which is also observed in all the congregations throughout the world.

'The holy Eucharist is made to be the centre of worship, of which Christ, the great High-Priest in the heavens, is the leader, and the Mosaic ritual the shadow and type. The showing to the Father of that one sacrifice of the cross, which is the basis of all intercession, is effected by the Lord himself, by his own bodily presence in heaven; and the Church is enabled to do the same upon the earth by means of that sacrament in which he places in her hands the symbols and spiritual reality of his body and blood. The eucharist is regarded as the antitype of the priestly act of Melchizedek in bringing forth bread and wine to Abraham, the father of the faithful, from whom he received the tenth of all; and in the offertory, both the tithes and the offerings of the people are brought up and presented to God as an act of worship.

'As the death of the cross was itself the fulfillment of all the bloody sacrifices of the Law, the commemoration of it in the holy Supper becomes the distinguishing Christian rite, from which all other acts of worship, especially the daily morning and evening services--the antitype of the daily services of the Tabernacle--derive their life and power. All the purest and most catholic parts of all the rituals of Christendom have been gathered up and woven together, to form, with such additions as the present exigencies of the Church demand, a comprehensive and organic system of worship, at once purely Scriptural, and embodying the richest liturgical treasures of the past. Among the errors and superstitions which have been weeded out are transubstantiation, the worship of the Virgin Mary and of saints and angels, the use of images and pictures, and prayers for deliverance from purgatorial fires. But in rejecting the corruption of the truth, the truth itself has not been cast away; and the doctrine of the real presence (as a spiritual mystery involving no physical change of the elements), the thankful and reverential mention of the Mother of the Lord ("And with the holy angels, and with thy Church in all generations, we call her blessed"), and continual supplications and intercessions in behalf of the faithful departed, that they "may rest in the peace of God, and awake to a joyful resurrection," all have place in the services appointed by the apostles.

Organization and Unity of the Church.

'The unity of the Church is held as a fundamental fact, resulting from the acts and operations of God, and not from the agreements and confederacies of men. There is one Body of Christ, embracing all who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (though, like the unfruitful branches of the vine, many may at last be cut out and cast away); and, in the absence of the Head, the harmonious intercommunion of the members is secured by the inworking of the One Spirit, and by a ministry proceeding immediately from the Head, and having jurisdiction over all the parts. The distinction between the Church Universal and the local or particular churches which compose it, is sharply drawn in the organization which has been developed under the rule of the apostles. The apostles themselves are the great Catholic ministry, through which guidance and blessing are conveyed to the whole body, and they are assisted in their work by prophets, evangelists, and pastors.

'But each particular church, when fully organized, is under the rule of an angel, or chief pastor or bishop, with presbyters and deacons helping him in their subordinate places. It is his office to stand continually at his own altar at the head of his flock, carrying on the worship of God, cherishing and directing the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and exercising the pastoral charge over all the souls committed to his care. The threefold ministry of Episcopacy (and, in a lower form, of Presbyterianism) is here united with the central authority which Rome has wrongfully sought to attain by exalting her bishop to the place of universal headship.

The Second Coming.

'In respect to eschatology, they hold, with the Church of the first three centuries, that the second coming of the Lord precedes and introduces the millennium; at the beginning of which the first resurrection takes place, and at the close the general resurrection, with the final judgment and its eternal retributions to the righteous and the wicked. This period of a thousand years will be marked by the presence of the Lord and his risen and translated saints upon or in near proximity to the earth, then freed, at least partially, from the curse; by the re-establishment of the tribes of Israel in their own land, in fulfillment of the promises to their fathers, with Jerusalem rebuilt, to be the metropolitan centre of blessing to all nations; and by the bringing of all the families of mankind into the obedience and order and blessedness of the kingdom of God.

'The restoration of the primitive gifts and ministries, like the ministries of Noah and of John the Baptist at the close of the antediluvian and Jewish dispensations, is to prepare for the ushering in of this next stage of God's actings. The order of events is to be as follows: The immediate and special work of the apostles is to gather and make ready a company of first-fruits, described (Rev. vii. 1-8) as sealed with the seal of the living God--the gift of the Holy Ghost bestowed by the hands of the apostles (Eph. i. 13; Acts xix. 1-5)--and as organized after a twelvefold law, of which the type was given in the structure of the twelve tribes of Israel. They are sealed while the angels are holding back the winds of judgment, before the great tribulation (Rev. vii. 14) is let loose upon the earth, that in them the Lord's words may be fulfilled, and they be counted worthy to escape all the things that are coming to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man (Luke xxi. 36).

'But the taking away of the first-fruits is only the first stage of the mighty work to be done in the bringing of this dispensation to a close. It is to be followed by the revelation of the Man of Sin, the infidel Antichrist, who will be successfully resisted for a time by the two witnesses (Rev. xi. 3-12), but will at length prevail over them, and for a short time rule the nations with the tyrannizing power and lurid splendors of the pit. In the midst of the terrors of that great tribulation the harvest will be reaped, and all the faithful gathered into the garner of the great Husbandman; and thereupon will be the vintage of wrath (Rev. xiv. 15-20), and the Lord will come forth to tread the wine-press of his Father's indignation, and to cast the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire.

Prospects.

'They regard the failure of their labors to gather the Churches of Christendom into their communion as being after the analogy of the failures at the close of all preceding dispensations, and as furnishing no argument against the reality of their divine mission.

'The apostles do not, therefore, expect to have a large following at this stage of God's work. As a sheaf of first-fruits to the harvest, such will be the relation of the few who receive their testimony to the great multitude who will be saved out of the fiery trial of the time of the Antichrist. Nor does their faith fail because many of their brethren have been taken away by death, and it has pleased God to leave their places unfilled; for they look upon this as an indication that their present work is nearly finished, and that the Lord will soon take those who shall be found ready, to stand with him upon Mount Zion, safe in his hiding-place, while he pours out the vials of his wrath upon the earth. It would seem that the two apostolates at the beginning and the end of the dispensation form the company of the four-and-twenty elders who sit on thrones around the throne of the great King (Rev. iv. 4), partakers of his dominion, and associated with him in his work of judgment and rule.