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 ninetyeight 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 sequestrations, 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 were a fourth in the associated counties), and all such as took part with the king in the war, or disowned the authority of the parliament; preaching up doctrines inconsistent with the cause for which they had taken arms, and exciting 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 innovations, 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+."

But admitting their numbers to be equal to those Puritan ministers ejected at the Restoration, yet the cause of their ejectment, and the circumstances of the times, being very different, the sufferings of the former ought not to be compared to the latter; though Dr. Walker is pleased to say in his preface, that "if the sufferings of the dissenters bear any tolerable proportion to those of the ejected loyalists, in number, degrees, or circumstances, he will be gladly deemed not only to have lost all his labour, but to have revived a great and unanswerable scandal on the cause he has undertaken to defend." I shall leave the reader to pass his own judgment upon this declaration, after I have produced the testimony of one or two divines of the church of England. "Who can answer (says one) for the violence and injustice of actions in a

civil war? Those sufferings were in a time of general calamity, but these [in 1662] were ejected not only in a time of peace, but a time of joy to all the land, and after an act of oblivion, to which common rejoicing these suffering ministers had contributed their earnest prayers, and great endeavours* "I must own (says another of the doctor's correspondents) that though both sides have been excessively to blame, yet that the severities used by the church to the dissenters are less excusable than those used by the dissenters to the church; my reason is, that the former were used in time of peace, and a settled government, whereas the latter were inflicted in a time of tumult and confusion, so that the plundering and ravaging endured by the church-ministers were owing, many of them at least, to the rudeness of the soldiers, and the chances of war; they were plundered not because they were Conformists, but cavaliers, and 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."

We have already observed, that a fifth part of the revenues of these ejected clergymen was reserved for the maintenance of their poor families, "which was a Christian act, and which I should have been glad (says the divine above mentioned) to have seen imitated at the Restoration§." 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 excuse themselves on the forementioned exceptions, the two houses published the following explanation, November 11, 1647, viz. "that the wives and children of all such persons whose estates and livings are, have been, or shall be, sequestered by order of either house of parliament, shall be comprehended within the ordinance which allows a fifth part for wives and children, and shall have their fifth part allowed them and the committee of lords and commons for sequestrations, and the committees for plundered ministers, and all other ministers, are

* Conform. First Plea, p. 12, 13.

† Calamy's Church and Dissenters compared, p. 23, 24. Church History, p. 207.

§ Calamy's Ch. and Diss. comp. p. 24.

Husband's Collections, p. 726.

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 301. per annum, or 5007. in money.

en

After all, it was a hard case on both sides; the incumbents thought it hard to be obliged to all the duties of their place, and another to go away with a fifth of the profit, at a time when the value of church-lands was considerably lessened by the neglect of tillage, and exorbitant taxes laid upon all the necessaries of life. To which may be added, an opinion that began to prevail among the farmers, of the unlawfulness of paying tithes: Mr. Selden had led the way to this in his book of tithes, whereupon the parliament, by an ordinance of November 8, 1644, "strictly joined all persons fully, truly, and effectually, to set out, yield, and pay respectively, all and singular tithes, offerings, oblations, obventions, rates for tithes, and all other duties commonly known by the name of tithes." Others who had no scruple about the payment of tithes, refused to pay them to the new incumbent, because the ejected minister had the legal right; insomuch that the Presbyterian ministers were obliged in many places to sue their parishioners, which created disturbances and divisions, and at length gave rise to several petitions from the counties of Buckingham, Oxford, 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.

OF THE SEVERAL PARTIES IN THE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES,PRESBYTERIANS, ERASTIANS, INDEPENDENTS. THEIR PROCEEDINGS ABOUT ORDINATION, AND THE DIRECTORY FOR DIVINE WORSHIP. THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND SUFFERINGS OF THE ENGLISH ANTIPÆDOBAPTISTS.

BEFORE we proceed to the debates of the assembly of divines, it will be proper to distinguish the several parties of which it was constituted +. The episcopal clergy had entirely deserted it

Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 100.

The name of Puritans is from this time to be sunk; and they are for the future to be spoken of under the distinction of Presbyterians, Erastians, and Independents, who had all their different views. Dr. Warner's Ecclesiastical History, vol. 2. p. 561.-ED.

before the bringing in of the covenant, so that the establishment was left without a single advocate. All who remained were for taking down the main pillars of the hierarchy, before they had agreed what sort of building to erect in its room.

The majority at first intended only the reducing episcopacy to the standard of the first or second age, but for the sake of the Scots alliance, they were prevailed with to lay aside the name and function of bishops, and attempt the establishing a presbyterial form, which at length they advanced into jus divinum, or a divine institution, derived expressly from Christ and his apostles. This engaged them in so many controversies, as prevented their laying the top stone of the building, so that it fell to pieces before it was perfected. The chief patrons of presbytery in the house of commons, were, Denzil Hollis, esq. sir William Waller, sir Philip Stapleton, sir John Clotworthy, sir Benjamin Rudyard, serjeant Maynard, colonel Massey, colonel Harley, John Glynn, esq. and

a few others.

The Erastians formed another branch of the assembly, so called from Erastus, a German divine of the sixteenth century. The pastoral office according to him was only persuasive, like a professor of the sciences over his students, without any power of the keys annexed *. The Lord's Supper, and other ordinances of the gospel, were to be free and open to all. The minister might dissuade the vicious and unqualified from the communion, but might not refuse it, or inflict any kind of censure; the punishment of all offences, either of a civil or religious nature, being reserved to the magistrate. The pretended advantage of this scheme was, that it avoided the erecting imperium in imperio, or two different powers in the same civil government; it effectually destroyed all that spiritual jurisdiction and coercive power over the consciences of men, which had been challenged by popes, prelates, presbyteries, &c. and made the government of the church a creature of the state. Most of our first reformers were so far in these sentiments, as to maintain that no one form of churchgovernment is prescribed in Scripture as an invariable rule for future ages; as, Cranmer, Redmayn, Cox, &c. and archbishop Whitgift, in his controversy with Cartwright, delivers the same opinion; "I deny (says he) that the Scripture has set down any one certain form of church-government to be perpetual."—Again, "It is well known, that the manner and form of government expressed in the Scriptures, neither is now, nor can, nor ought to be, observed, either touching persons or functions.-The charge of this is left to the magistrate, so that nothing be contrary to the word of God. The government of the church must be according to the form of government in the commonwealth." The chief patrons of this scheme in the assembly were, Dr. Lightfoot, Mr. Colman, Mr. Selden, Mr. Whitelocke; and in the house of com

Baxter's Life, p. 139.

mons, besides Selden and Whitelocke, Oliver St. John, esq. sir Thomas Widdrington, John Crew, esq. sir John Hipsley, and others of the greatest names.

The Independents, or congregational brethren, composed a third party, and made a bold stand against the proceedings of the high Presbyterians; their numbers were small at first, though they increased prodigiously in a few years, and grew to a considerable figure under the protectorship ofOliver Cromwell.

We have already related their original, and carried on their history till they appeared in public about the latter end of the year 1640. The divines who passed under this denomination in the assembly, had fled their country in the late times, and formed societies according to their own model in Holland, upon the States allowing them the use of their churches, after their own service was ended, with liberty of ringing a bell to public worship. Here, as they declare, they set themselves to consult the Holy Scriptures as impartially as they could, in order to find out the discipline that the apostles themselves practised in the very first age of the church; the condition they were in, and the melancholy prospect of their affairs affording no temptation to any particular bias. The rest of their history, with their distinguishing opinions, I shall draw from their Apologetical Narration, published in 1643, and presented to the house of commons.

"As to the church of England (say they) we profess, before God and the world, that we do apprehend a great deal of defilement in their way of worship, and a great deal of unwarranted power exercised by their church-governors, yet we allow multitudes of their parochial churches to be true churches, and their ministers true ministers. In the late times, when we had no hopes of returning to our own country, we held communion with them, and offered to receive to the Lord's supper some that came to visit us in our exile, whom we knew to be godly, upon that relation and membership they held in their parish-churches in England, they professing themselves to be members thereof, and belonging thereto. The same charitable disposition we maintained towards the Dutch churches among whom we lived. We mutually gave and received the right hand of fellowship, holding a brotherly correspondence with their divines, and admitting some of the members of their churches to communion in the sacrament, and other ordinances, by virtue of their relation to those churches*."

between Brown

The scheme they embraced was a middle way ism and Presbytery, viz. that "every particular congregation of Christians has an entire and complete power of jurisdiction over its members, to be exercised by the elders thereof within itself. This they are sure must have been the form of government in the primitive church, before the numbers of Christians in any

Apologet. Narr. of the Independents, p. 78.