In a book entitled "A Defence of the Doctrine Propounded by the Synode at Dort: against Iohn Mvrton and his Associates, in a Treatise intutled; A Description what God, &c. With the Refutation of their Answer to a Writing touching Baptism. By Iohn Robinson. Printed in the year, 1624," are the following passages, referring to Murton's mature views concerning the formation of churches of Christ:

Now followeth our main foundation, that as the infants of Abraham, and of the Israelites his posterity, were taken into the Churchcovenant, or covenant of life and salvation, as they [Murton and his associates] call it (and rightly in a true sense) with their parents, and circumcised: so are the infants of the faithfull now, and to receiv accordingly the seal of Baptism: to which they say, and proue (as they say) that neither Circumcision was, nor Baptism is a seal of the Covenant of salvation, but the spirit of promise which is ever the same.

Murton and his associates teach:

That members, and Churches of Christ are made both by faith, and baptism, and not by the one only. They oft say, but never proue, that Churches are gathered by baptism.

Commenting on the above Burrage says, "From the above quoted passages alone we are obliged to draw our conclusions as to the method used in forming the earliest Baptist churches in England. One point is clear, namely, that from 1611 at least Murton and Helwys emphasized repentance, faith, and especially baptism as the means of "gathering" or organizing a Christian church. It would also appear that even from 1608 or 1609 they had held this view with Smyth, and had formed their first church by baptism, though as we have seen, they probably made also covenant promises. But after Smyth and his followers had been driven out, Helwys and Murton evidently continued to modify their opinions till the idea of a church covenant became of no importance.

"From this time their churches were to be gathered by faith and baptism. With them baptism had come to take the place of a church covenant, for one now entered the church by

baptism. However, in a sense the covenant idea was still maintained by them, but not the church covenant idea of Browne. Baptist churches were not to be outside the covenant promises because they did not use an explicit church covenant. Baptism is, as it were, the act of making an implicit covenant, or rather is the means of entering into the new covenant, which is not a church covenant, but is a 'covenant of grace and salvation,' the covenant of the New Testament, which always remains the same, has been made forever on God's part, and the benefits of which may be had by any who believe the gospel and are baptized.

"It is therefore probable that even when Helwys and Murton founded the first Baptist church in England at London, no explicit church covenant was employed, and if not then, certainly not later.-The Covenant Idea, pp. 77-78.

Burrage also says of Baptist Churches in America, "The two earliest Baptist Churches in this country were organized before 1640, namely the First Church in Providence, R. I., formed in 1638, and the church in Newport, R. I., founded not long after. The Providence church, however, never adopted a covenant, and the records of the Newport church in the early days were in the hands of the pastors, and have but partially been preserved, so that its original church covenant, if indeed there was one, is no longer known."-The Covenant Idea, p. 95.

V. THE PILGRIM COVENANT

Most interesting and important among all the early covenants is that of the church of the Pilgrim Fathers. This covenant is referred to by Cotton Mather in his Magnalia, and given in substance in Bradford's History, and partially also in Edward Winslow's "Hypocrisie Unmasked." This church had its beginning at Gainsborough-1602. It is thought to have remained intact till 1606, when some of the members removed to Scrooby, where John Robinson became their pas tor. In 1607 and 1608 this section of the church went to Amsterdam, and in 1609 to Leyden. The other part of the church in 1607, with the pastor, John Smyth, later founder of the English General Baptists, crossed to Amsterdam.

Prof. Edward Arber, F. S. A., in his "Story of the Pilgrim Fathers," has suggested some new points in regard to the churches at Gainsborough and Scrooby that are important for us, as they bear indirectly upon the covenants used in these churches.

Speaking of the peasants of the Pilgrim District he says:

Herein, They were more fortunate in their intellectual development than Shakespeare. They had educated leaders. He had none. Clyfton, Brewster, Robinson,and Smyth were all Cambridge University men; and but for them there never would have been any Pilgrim Fathers at all. So going back to the ultimate facts, we say that the Pilgrim movement originated in the rectory and church of Babworth in Nottinghamshire; and that it was mainly a Nottinghamshire movement.

To this rectory, then, some forty-five months before Governor Bradford was born, came this Derbyshire man, the Rev. Richard Clyfton, æt. 33. He was what was then called a "forward [advanced] preacher, or a reformist."

We have adduced, at pp. 133, 134, irrefutable evidence that, on the 22d March, 1605, the Rev. John Smyth was still a conformist minister, and preacher of the city of Lincoln. So that, at that date,

he had not even come to Gainsborough, where, after nine months of doubting, he finally adopted the principles of the Separation. The formation of the Gainsborough Church cannot therefore be earlier than 1606.

We are not aware of any evidence tending to prove in the slightest degree that Robinson was ever a member of Smyth's church; and we have proved, at pp. 133, 134, that the Gainsborough Church was not established till 1606. Therefore if Robinson went north in 1604, he must have gone to Scrooby."

So that, although Clyfton deserted the Pilgrim church in 1609, he must ever be regarded as the senior of the leaders of that Separation... The Separatist movement continued to grow; but, as Governor Bradford tells us at page 70, the church at Scrooby was not formally organized till 1606, when the late rector of Babworth [Clyfton] became its pastor, and the Rev. John Robinson became his assistant, with probably one or more deacons.-"The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1606-1623 A. D.; as told by Themselves, their Friends, and their Enemies." London, Boston, and New York, 1897, pp. 48-52, 54.

Apparently the first covenant was in 1602, and of it Cotton Mather says,—

A Number of devout and serious Christians in the English Nation, finding the Reformation of the Church in that Nation, according to the Word of God, and the Design of many among the First Reformers, to labour under a sort of hopeless Retardation, they did, Anno 1602, in the North of England, enter into a Covenant, wherein expressing themselves desirous, not only to attend the Worship of our Lord Jesus Christ, with a freedom from humane Inventions and Additions, but also to enjoy all the Evangelical Institutions of that Worship, they did like those Macedonians, that are therefore by the Apostle Paul commended, give themselves up, first unto God, and then to one another.

The text of the covenant adopted at Scrooby in 1606 is contained in the following passage from Bradford:

So many therefore of these proffessors as saw ye evill of these things, in thes parts and whose harts ye Lord had touched wth heavenly zeale for his trueth, they shooke of this yoake of antichristian bondage, and as ye Lords free people, joyned them selves (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate, in ye fellowship of ye gospell, to walke in all his wayes, made known, or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavours, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them.

Edward Winslow's recollection in 1646 of John Robinson's last word concerning this covenant, in his farewell ad

dress to the Pilgrim Fathers, is that "Here also he put us in mind of our Church-Covenant (at least that part of it) whereby wee promise and covenant with God and one with another, to receive whatsoever light or truth shall be made known to us from his written Word."

Of the sacredness of the covenant idea as it was held in the church of the Pilgrims, we are assured in many ways, especially in a letter signed by John Robinson and William Brewster, and dated Leyden, December 15, 1617, to Sir Edwin Sandys, in reply to a letter of his dated London, Nov. 12, 1617. This answer contains a direct reference to the church covenant:

"4. We are knit together as a body in a more strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, or the violation of which we make conscience; and by virtue whereof we do hold ourselves straightly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the whole by every, and so mutual."-New England's Memorial, 1669, by Nathaniel Morton.