farther order concerning the same, requiring all officers to aid and assist him for that purpose." If the committees observed these articles there could be no reasonable ground of complaint, except of the sixth, which may be construed as giving too much encouragement to informers; but the methods of conviction were unexceptionable. The persons to be called before the commissioners were scandalous, or enex-emies to the Parliament; the depositions were Lastly, "They were to use all other proper ways and methods for speeding the service." With these instructions the earl sent an hortation by letter, in the following words : "Gentlemen, upon oath; a copy of them was allowed the defendant, with time to give in his answer in writing; then a day appointed to make his defence in presence of the witnesses, to whom he might take exceptions; and, after all, the final judg ment not left with the commissioners, but with the earl. The filling the vacant benefice was no less prudent; the parishioners were to choose their own minister, who was to produce testimonials of his sobriety and virtue; the Assembly were then to examine into his learning and ministerial qualifications; and, after all, the new incumbent to hold his living only during pleasure; the Parliament being willing to leave open a door, at the conclusion of a peace, for restoring such Royalists as were displaced merely for adhering to the king, without prejudice to the present possessor. One cannot answer for particulars under such uncommon distractions and violence of parties; but the orders were, in my opinion, not only reasonable, but expedient for the support of the cause in which the Par "I send you, by this bearer, a commission, with instructions for executing the ordinance, &c., within your county. I neither doubt of your abilities nor affections to further this service, yet, according to the great trust reposed in me herein by the Parliament, I must be earnest with you to be diligent therein. You know how much the people of this kingdom have formerly suffered in their persons, souls, and estates, under an idle, ill-affected, scandalous, and insolent clergy, upheld by the bishops; and you cannot but foresee that their pressures and burdens will still continue, though the form of government be altered, unless great care be taken to displace such ministers, and to place orthodox and holy men in every parish; for, let the government be what it will for the form thereof, yet it will never be good unless the parties employed therein be good themselves. By the providence of God, it now lies in your power to reform the former abuses, and to re-liament was engaged. move these offenders. Your power is great, The committees for the associated counties and so is your trust. If a general reformation acted, I apprehend, no longer than the year follows not within your county, assuredly the 1644, the last warrant of ejectment mentioned blame will be laid upon you, and you must ex-by Dr. Nalson, bearing date March 17, 1644–5, pect to be called to an account for it both here and hereafter. For my part, I am resolved to employ the utmost of my power given to me by the ordinance for procuring a general reformation in all the associated counties, expecting your forwardness, and heartily joining with me herein.* "I rest," &c. When a clergyman was convicted according to the instructions above mentioned, report was made to the earl, who directed a warrant to the church-wardens of the parish to eject him out of his parsonage, and all the profits thereof; and another to receive the tithes and all the It is hard to compute the number of clergybenefits into their own hands, and to keep them men that might lose their livings by the several in safe custody till they should receive farther committees during the war, nor is it of any orders from himself. At the same time he di- great importance, for the law is the same rected the parishioners to choose a proper min-whether more or fewer suffer by it; and the ister for the vacant place, and, upon their presentation, his lordship sent him to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, with an account of his character, for their trial and examination. And upon a certificate from the Assembly that they approved of him as an orthodox divine, and qualified to officiate in the pastoral func-thirty-one, Essex twenty-one, Lincolnshire sixtion, his lordship issued out his last warrant, setting forth that "such a one having been approved by the Assembly, &c., he did therefore authorize and appoint him, the said, to officiate as minister, to preach, teach, and cate-sufferers, the fifty-two counties of England. by a chise in such a parish during his (the earl's) pleasure, and then empower him to take possession of the church, parsonage-houses, glebelands, and to receive the tithes and profits, and enjoy the same until his lordship should take + Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 118. lbid., p. 119. in which time affairs were brought to such a settlement in those parts, that the Royalists could give them no disturbance.* The associated counties, says Mr. Fuller, escaped the best of all parts in is civil war, the smoke thereof only offending em, while the fire was felt in other places. The chief ejectments by the commissioners in other parts of England were in the years 1644, 1645, and till the change of government in the year 1649, when the Covenant itself was set aside, and changed into an engagement to the new commonwealth. not putting it in execution might be owing to want of power or opportunity. Dr. Nalson says that in five of the associated counties one hundred and fifty-six clergymen were ejected in little more than a year; namely, in Norfolk fifty-one, Suffolk thirty-seven, Cambridgeshire teen; and if we allow a proportionable number for the other two, the whole will amount to two hundred and eighteen; and if in seven counties there were two hundred and eighteen like proportion, will produce upward of sixteen hundred. Dr. Walker has fallaciously increased the number of suffering clergymen to eight thou sand, even though the list at the end of his book makes out little more than a fifth part. Among Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 119. these [in 1662] were ejected not only in a time his cathedral clergy he reckons up several pre- sufferings of the Dissenters bear any tolerabends and canonries, in which he supposes suf- ble proportion to those of the ejected Loyalferers without any evidence. Of this sort Dr. ists, in number, degrees, or circumstances, he Calamy has reckoned about two hundred.* If will be gladly deemed not only to have lost all one clergyman was possessed of three or four his labour, but to have revived a great and undignities, there appear to be as many sufferers. answerable scandal on the cause he has underThe like is observable in the case of pluralists; taken to defend." I shall leave the reader to for example, Richard Stuart, LL.D., is set down pass his own judgment upon this declaration, as a sufferer in the deanery of St. Paul's, as after I have produced the testimony of one or prebendary of St. Pancras, and residentiary; two divines of the Church of England. “Who in the deanery and prebend of the third stall in can answer," says one, "for the violence and Westminster; in the deanery of the royal chap-injustice of actions in a civil war? Those sufel; in the provostship of Eton College, and pre-ferings were in a time of general calamity, but bend of Norshalton in the Church of Salisbury; all which preferments he enjoyed, says Dr. Walker, or was entitled to, together, and his name is repeated in the several places. By such a calculation it is easy to deceive the reader, and swell the account beyond measure. The Reverend Mr. Withers,† a late Nonconformist minister at Exeter, has taken care to make an exact computation in the associated counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire, in which are one thousand three hundred and ninety-eight parishes, and two hundred and fifty-three sequestrations; so that if these may be reckoned as a standard for the whole kingdom, the whole number will be reduced considerably under two thousand. He has also made another computation from the county of Devon, in which are three hundred and ninety-four parishes, and one hundred and thirty-nine seques-cause they were Conformists, but cavaliers, and trations, out of which thirty-nine are deducted for pluralities, &c. ; and then by comparing this county, in which both Dr. Walker and Mr. Withers lived, with the rest of the kingdom, the amount of sufferers, according to him, is one thousand seven hundred and twenty-six; but admitting they should arise to the number of the doctor's names in his index, which are about two thousand four hundred, yet when such were deducted as were fairly convicted, upon oath, of immoralities of life, &c. (which We have already observed, that a fifth part were a fourth in the associated counties), and of the revenues of these ejected clergymen was all such as took part with the king in the war, reserved for the maintenance of their poor famor disowned the authority of the Parliament;ilies, "which was a Christian act, and which I preaching up doctrines inconsistent with the should have been glad," says the divine above cause for which they had taken arms, and ex-mentioned, "to have seen imitated at the Resciting the people to an absolute submission to the authority of the crown, the remainder that were displaced only for refusing the Covenant must be very inconsiderable. Mr. Baxter says they cast out the grosser sort of insufficient and scandalous clergy, and some few civil men that had acted in the wars for the king, and set up the late innovation's, but left in near one half of those that were but barely tolerable. He adds, farther, "that in all the counties in which he was acquainted six to one at least, if not more, that were sequestered by the committees, were by the oaths of witnesses proved insufficient, or scandalous, or both." of the king's party." The case of those who were sober and virtuous seems to be much the same with the nonjurors at the late revolution of King William III.; and I readily agree with Mr. Fuller, that "moderate men bemoaned these severities, for, as much corruption' was let out by these ejectments (many scandalous ministers being deservedly punished), so at the same time the veins of the English Church were also emptied of much good blood."‡ toration." Upon this, the cavaliers sent their ' wives and children to be maintained by the Parliament ministers, while themselves were fighting for their king. The houses, therefore, ordained, September 8, 1645, that the fifths should not be paid to the wives and children of those who came into the Parliament quarters without their husbands or fathers, or who were not bred in the Protestant religion. Yet, when the war was over, all were allowed their fifths, though in some places they were ill paid, the incumbent being hardly able to allow them, by reason of the smallness of his living, and the devastation of the war. When some pretended to exBut admitting their numbers to be equal to cuse themselves on the forementioned excepthose Puritan ministers ejected at the Restorations, the two houses published the following tion, yet the cause of their ejectment, and the explanation, November 11, 1647, viz., "that the circumstances of the times, being very differ-wives and children of all such persons whose ent, the sufferings of the former ought not to estates and livings are, have been, or shall be, be compared to the latter; though Dr. Walker * Conform. First Plea, p. 12, 13. is pleased to say in his preface, that "if the + Calamy's Church and Dissenters compared, p. * Church and Dissenters compared, p. 52. Church History, p. 207. † Appendix to his Reply to Mr. Agate, p. 27, 28. Calamy's Ch. and Diss. comp., p. 24. History of Life and Times, p. 74. Husband's Collections, p. 726. 23, 24. sequestered by order of either house of Parlia- | stituted.* The Episcopal clergy had entirely ment, shall be comprehended within the ordi- deserted it before the bringing in of the Covenance which allows a fifth part for wives and additions. Westminster Assembly of Divines, thus finally conBefore proceeding to relate the discussions of the stituted and prepared for its duties, it may be expedient to give a brief view of the parties, by the combination of which it was from the first composed, by whose jarring contentions its progress was retarded, and by whose divisions and mutual hostilities its labours were at length frustrated and prevented from obtaining their due result. children, and shall have their fifth part allowed light of history, although the entire work is a pretty them; and the committee of Lords and Com-close abridgment of Neal, allowing for the needed mons for sequestrations, and the committees for plundered ministers, and all other ministers, are required to take notice hereof, and yield obedience hereunto."* Afterward, when it was questioned whether the fifths should pay their proportion of the public taxes, it was ordained that the incumbent only should pay them. Under the government of the Protector Cromwell, it was ordained that, if the ejected minister left the quiet possession of his house and glebe to his successor within a certain time, he should receive his fifths, and all his arrears, provided he had not a real estate of his own of £30 per annum, or £500 in money. 61 When the Parliament issued the ordinance for calling together an Assembly of Divines for consult ation and advice, there was, it will be remembered, actually no legalized form of church government in England, so far as depended on the Legislature. Even Charles himself had consented to the bill reAfter all, it was a hard case on both sides; moving the prelates from the House of Lords; and the incumbents thought it hard to be obliged to though the bill abolishing the hierarchy had not oball the duties of their place, and another to go kingdom regarded it as conclusive on that point. tained the royal sanction, yet the greater part of the away with a fifth of the profit, at a time when The chief object of the Parliament, therefore, was the value of church lands was considerably les- to determine what form of church government was sened by the neglect of tillage, and exorbitant to be established by law, in the room of that which taxes laid upon all the necessaries of life. To had been abolished. And as their desire was to sewhich may be added, an opinion that began to cure a form which should both be generally acceptprevail among the farmers, of the unlawfulness able, and should also bear, at least, a close resemof paying tithes: Mr. Selden had led the way churches, they attempted to act impartially, and, in blance to the form most prevalent in other Reformed. to this in his Book of Tithes, whereupon the Par- their ordinance, they selected some of each deuomiliament, by an ordinance of November 8, 1644, nation, appointing bishops, untitled Episcopalians, strictly enjoined all persons fully, truly, and Puritans, and Independents. Several Episcopalians, effectually, to set out, yield, and pay respective- and at least one bishop, were present in the first ly, all and singular tithes, offerings, oblations, meeting of the Assembly. But when the Solemn obventions, rates for tithes, and all other duties League and Covenant was proposed and taken, and commonly known by the name of tithes." Oth- when the king issued his condemnation of it, all the decided Episcopalians left, with the exception of ers, who had no scruple about the payment of Dr. Featly. He remained a member of the Assemtithes; refused to pay them to the new incum-bly for some time; till, being detected corresponding bent, because the ejected minister had the legal with Archbishop Usher, and revealing the proceedright; insomuch that the Presbyterian minis-ings of the Assembly, he was cut off from that venters were obliged in many places to sue their erable body and committed to prison.* From that parishioners, which created disturbances and time forward there were no direct supporters of preldivisions, and at length gave rise to several acy in the Assembly, and the protracted controversial discussions which arose were on other subjects, petitions from the counties of Buckingham, Ox-on which account we have nothing to do with the ford, Hertford, &c., praying that their ministers might be provided for some other way. The Parliament referred them to a committee, which produced no redress, because they could not fix upon another fund, nor provide for the lay-impropriations. CHAPTER IV. Episcopalian controversy, beyond what has been already stated in our preliminary pages. There can be no doubt that the close alliance which the English Parliament sought with Scotland. and the ground taken by the Scottish Convention of Estates and General Assembly, in requiring not only an international league, but also a religious covenant, tended greatly to direct the mind of the English statesmen and divines towards the Presbyterian form of church government, and exercised a powerful influence in the deliberations of the Westminster Assembly. But let it be also remembered, that in ev OF THE SEVERAL PARTIES IN THE Assembly of DI-ery one of the Reformed Continental churches, either VINES PRESBYTERIANS, ERASTIANS, INDEPEND- the Presbyterian form, or one very closely resemENTS. THEIR PROCEEDINGS ABOUT ORDINATION, bling it, had been adopted; and that the Puritans AND THE DIRECTORY FOR DIVINE WORSHIP. THE held presbyterial meetings, and endeavoured to exhad already formed themselves into presbyteries, RISE, PROGRESS, AND SUFFERINGS OF THE ENG-ercise Presbyterian discipline in the reception, suspension, and rejection of members. Both the exam BEFORE We proceed to the debates of the As-ple of other churches, therefore, and their own alsembly of Divines, it will be proper to distinguish the several partiest of which it was con LISH ANTIPÆDOBAPTISTS. * Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 100. the Presbyterian model, that they would almost inready begun practice, had led them so far onward to evitably have assumed it altogether apart from the influence of Scotland. In truth, that influence was * The name of Puritans is from this time to be That the reader may enjoy the amplest opportunity to form an enlarged and impartial view of this sunk; and they are for the future to be spoken of unmatter, I shall insert the entire account of the par-der the distinction of Presbyterians, Erastians, and ties which composed the Assembly, as it is given by Independents, who had all their different views.-Dr. the Presbyterian historian Hetherington, in his HisWarner's Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii., p. 561.-ED. tory of the Westminster Assembly. This is done that I may escape the charge of having withheld any *Neal, vol. ii., p. 234, 235. nant, so that the establishment was left with out a single advocate. All who remained were exerted and felt almost solely in the way of instruction from a church already formed to one in the process of formation; and none would have been more ready than the Scottish commissioners themselves to have repudiated the very idea of any other kind of influence. It may be said, therefore, with the most strict propriety, that the native aim and tendency of the Westminster Assembly was to establish the Presbyterian form of church government in England. the great body of English Puritans having gradually become Presbyterians. There is reason to believe that both Pym and Hampden favoured the Presbyterian system; but their early and lamented death deprived that cause of their powerful support, and the House of Commons of their able and steady guidance. The chief promoters of presbytery in the House of Commons were, Sir William Waller, Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir John Clotworthy, Sir Benjamin Rudyard, Colonel Massey, Colonel Harley, Sergeant Maynard, Denzil Hollis, John Glynn, and a few more of less influential character. for taking down the main pillars of the hierarchy, before they had agreed what sort of building to erect in its room. ejected Puritan, having about the same time retired to Holland, came to Rotterdam, and having joined Mr. Bridge's church, was appointed his colleague in the pastoral office. He, too, wished for additional improvements; and as he did not retire, like Simpson, but continued the struggle, Bridge thought it necessary to depose him from the ministry, which his superior influence in the congregation enabled him to accomplish. To prevent the evil consequences which might have resulted from these unhappy divisions, Goodwin and Nye came from Arnheim, instituted an investigation of the whole matter, and induced the two contending brethren and their adherents to acknowledge their mutual faults, and to be reconciled.* The reconciliation, however, appears to have been but superficial, and to have required the interposition of the magistracy ere it could be even plausibly effected. Such divisions might have caused these divines to entertain some suspicion that the model of church government which they had adopted was not altogether so perfect as they wished it to be thought; but so far as their subsequent conduct, as members of the Westminster Assembly, is concerned, this does not seem to have been the case in even the slightest degree. When the contest between the king and the Parliament had become so extreme that the Parliament declared its own continuation as permanent as it might itself think necessary, and began to threaten the abolition of the whole prelatical hierarchy, the above-named five Independent divines returned to England, prepared to assist in the long-sought reformation of religion, and to avail themselves of every opportunity which might occur to promote their favourite system. And admitting them to be conscientiously convinced of its superior excellence, they deserve no censure for desiring to see it universally received. In every such case, all that can be wished is, that each party should prosecute its purpose honourably and openly, in the fair field of frank and manly argument, with Christian candour and integrity, and not by factious opposition, or with the dark and insidious craft too characteristic of worldly politicians. The Independents, or Congregationalists, formed another party, few in point of number, but men of considerable talent and learning, of undoubted piety, of great pertinacity in adhering to their own opinions, and, we are constrained to say, well skilled in the artifices of intriguing policy. Independency was, according to the statement of its adherents, a medium between the Brownist and the Presbyterian systems. They did not, with the Brownists, condemn every other church as too corrupt and antichristian for intercommunion, for they professed to agree in doctrine both with the Church of England in its articles, and with the other Reformed churches; but they held the entire power of government to belong to each separate congregation; and they practically admitted no church censure but admonition, for that cannot properly be called excommunication which consisted not in expelling from their body an obstinate and impenitent offender, but in withdrawing themselves from him. With regard to their boast of being the first advocates of toleration and liberty of conscience, that will come to be examined hereafter; this only need be said at present, that toleration is naturally the plea of the weaker party; Of these five leading Independents, often termed that the term was then, has been since, and still is, "The Five Dissenting Brethren," Goodwin appears much misunderstood and misused; and that, wher- to have been the deepest theologian, and perhaps altoever the Independents possessed power, as in New-gether the ablest man; Nye, the most acute and subEngland, they showed themselves to be as intolerant as any of their opponents. son. character as a preacher, though not peculiarly distinguished in public debate. To these Baillie adds, as Independents, Joseph Caryl, William Carter, of London, John Philips, and Peter Sterry-naming nine, but saying that there were "some ten or eleven."+ Neal adds Anthony Burges and William Greenhill. Some of the views of the Independents were occasionally supported by Herle, Marshall, and Vines, and some few others; but none of these men are to be included in the number of the decided Independents. tle, and the best skilled in holding intercourse with worldly politicians; Burroughs, the most gentle and The leading Independents in the Westminster As- pacific in temper and character; Bridge is said to have sembly were, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Jer- been a man of considerable attainments, and a very la emiah Burroughs, William Bridge, and Sidrach Simp-borious student; and Simpson bears also a respectable These men had at first been silenced by the violent persecutions of Laud and Wren, and had then retired to Holland, where they continued exercising their ministry among their expatriated countrymen for several years. Goodwin and Nye resided at Arnheim, where they were highly esteemed for their piety and talents. Bridge went to Rotterdam, where he became pastor of an English congregation, previously formed by the notorious Hugh Peters. Burroughs went also to Rotterdam, and became connected with a congregation then under the pastoral care of Bridge, in what was termed the different but co-ordinate office of teacher. Simpson subsequently joined himself to the two preceding brethren, having, according to their system, given an account of his faith. But, though at first highly approving the order of the church under the care of Mr. Bridge, he subsequently proposed some alterations, which would, as he thought, promote its welfare -particularly the revival of the prophesyings used by the old Puritans. This Mr. Bridge opposed, and Mr. Simpson withdrew from communion with him, and formed a church for himself.* The quarrel, however, did not so terminate. Mr. Ward, another Brook's Lives of the Puritans, vol. iii., p. 312. VOL. I.-Q qa The third party in the Assembly were the Erastians; so called from Erastus, a physician at Heidelberg, who wrote on the subject of church government, especially in respect of excommunication, in the year 1568. His theory was, That the pastoral office is only persuasive, like that of a professor over his students, without any direct power; that baptism, the Lord's Supper, and all other Gospel ordinances, were free and open to all; and that the minister might state and explain what were the proper qualifications, and might dissuade the vicious and * Brook, vol. ii., p. 454; Edwards's Autopologia, p. 115117; Baillie's Dissuasive, p. 75-77. † Baillie, vol. ii., p. 110. ‡ Neal, vol. ii., p. 275, 360. The majority at first intended only the redu- | second age, but, for the sake of the Scots allicing episcopacy to the standard of the first or ance, they were prevailed with to lay aside the unqualified from the communion, but had no power jurisdictions, separate and independent. But, indeed, to refuse it, or to inflict any kind of censure. The this is a truth which has yet to be learned by civil punishment of all offences, whether of a civil or a reli- governments-a truth unknown to ancient times, in gious nature, belonged, according to this theory, ex- which religion was either an engine of the State or clusively to the civil magistrate. The tendency of the object of persecution-a truth unknown during this theory was, to destroy entirely all ecclesiastical the period of papal ascendency, in which the Romish and spiritual jurisdiction, to deprive the Church of priesthood usurped dominion over civil governments, all power of government, and to make it completely and exercised its tyranny alike over the persons and the mere "creature of the State." The pretended the conscience of mankind-a truth first brought to advantage of this theory was, that it prevented the light in the great religious reformation of the sixexistence of an imperium in imperio, or one govern- teenth century-but not then, nor even yet, fully ment within another, of a distinct and independent developed, rightly understood, and permitted to exnature. But the real disadvantage, in the most mit-ercise its free and sacred supremacy. That it will igated view that can be taken, was, that it reprodu- finally assume its due dominion over the minds and ced what may be termed a civil popery, by combining actions of all bodies of men, both civil and ecclesiascivil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and giving both tical, we cannot doubt; and then, but not till then, into the possession of one irresponsible power, there will the two dread counterpart elements of human by destroying both civil and religious liberty, and degradation, tyranny and slavery, become alike imsubjecting men to an absolute and irremediable des- possible. potism. In another point of view, the Erastian the- Into these three great parties, Presbyterian, Indeory assumes a still darker and more formidable as- pendent, and Erastian, was the Westminster Aspect. It necessarily denies the mediatorial sover-sembly of Divines divided, even when first it met; eignty of the Lord Jesus Christ over his Church; and it was inevitable that a contest should be waged takes the power of the keys from his office-bearers among them for the ascendency, ending most probaand gives them to the civil magistrate; destroys lib-bly either in increased hostility and absolute disruperty of conscience, by making spiritual matters sub- tion, or in some mutual compromise, to which all ject to the same coercive power as temporal affairs might assent, though perhaps with the cordial appronaturally and properly are; and thus involves both bation of none. The strength of these parties was State and Church in reciprocal and mutually de-more evenly balanced at first than might have been structive sin the State, in usurping a power which God has not given; and the Church, in yielding what she is not at liberty to yield-the sacred crownrights of the Divine Redeemer, her only Head and King, expected. The Puritans, though all of them had received Episcopal ordination, and had been exercising their ministry in the Church of England under the hierarchy, were nearly all Presbyterians, or at least quite willing to adopt that form of church government, though many of them would have consented to a modified Episcopacy on the Usserian model. Their influence in the city of London was paramount, and throughout the country was very considerable; and as they formed the most natural connecting link with Scotland, they occupied a position of very great importance. Although the Independents were but a small minority in the Assembly, yet various circumstances combined to render them by no means a weak or insignificant party. They were supported in the House of Peers by Lords Say and Sele, and frequently, also, by Lords Brooks and Kimbolton, the latter of whom is better known by his subsequent title of Lord Manchester. Philip Nye, one of the leading Independents, had been appointed to Kimbolton by the influence of Lord Kimbolton, and continued to maintain a constant intercourse with him, both while he was acting as a legislator, and when leading the armies of the Parliament. It is even asserted by Palmer, in his Nonconformists' Memorial," that Nye's advice was sought and followed in the nomination of the divines who were called to the Assembly. * And when, farther, it is borne in mind that Oliver Cromwell was an Independent, and acted as lieutenant-general under Lord Manchester, it will easily be perceived that Nye's intercourse with the army was direct and influential, and that thus the Five Dis But as the Erastian controversy will come fully before us in the debates of the Assembly, it is unnecessary to enter upon it here. There were only two divines in the Assembly who advocated the Erastian theory; and of these, one alone was decidedly and thoroughly Erastian. The divine to whom this unenviable pre-eminence must be assigned was Thomas Coleman, minister at Bliton, in Lincolnshire. He was aided generally, but not always, by Lightfoot, in the various discussions that arose involving Erastian opinions. Both of these divines were eminently distinguished by their attainments in Oriental literature, particularly in rabbinical lore; and their attachment to the study of Hebrew literature and customs led them to the conclusion that the Christian Church was to be in every respect constituted according to the model of the Jewish Church; and having formed the opinion that there was but one jurisdiction in Israel, combining both civil and ecclesiastical, and that this was held by the Hebrew monarchs, they concluded that the same blended government ought to prevail under the Christian dispensation. Of the lay-assessors in the Assembly the chief Erastians were the learned Selden, Mr. Whitelocke, and Mr. St. John; but though Selden was the only one of them whose arguments were influential in the Assembly itself, yet nearly all the Parliament held sentiments decidedly Erastian, and having seized the pow-senting Brethren were able to employ a mighty poer of church government, were not disposed to yield it up, be the opinion of the assembled divines what it might. Hence, though the Erastian divines were only two, yet their opinions, supported by the whole civil authority in the kingdom, were almost sure to triumph in the end. This, in one point of view, was not strange. The kingdom had suffered so much severe and protracted injury from the usurped authority and power of the prelates, that the asserters of civil liberty almost instinctively shrunk from even the shadow of any kind of power in the hands of ecclesiastics. A little less passion and fear, and a little more judgment and discrimination, might have rescued them from this groundless apprehension; and they might have perceived that freedom, both civil and ecclesiastical, would be best secured by the full and authoritative recognition of their respective litical influence. Nor can the Erastian party be justly termed feeble, though formed by not more than two divines, and a few of the lay-assessors, who were not always present; for both Coleman and Lightfoot were influential men, on account of their reputation for learning, in which they were scarcely inferior to Selden himself in the department of Hebrew literature. So high was Selden's fame, that any cause might be deemed strong which he supported; and Whitelocke and St. John possessed so much political influence in Parliament that they could not fail to exercise great power in every matter which they promoted or opposed. But the main strength of the Erastian theory consisted in the combination of three potent elements-the natural love of holding and ex * Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. i., p. 96. |