John Stoughton

“ Few saw civil liberty to be a social right, which justice claimed for the whole community, whatever might be the ecclesiastical opinions of individuals. This position of affairs shewed how little dependent is spiritual despotism upon any particular theological system, and how it can graft itself upon one theory as well as upon another; for, while under Elizabeth persecution allied itself to Calvinism, in the first two of the Stuart reigns, Arminianism—at that time in Holland wedded to liberty of conscience—appeared in England embracing a form of merciless oppression. ”

“ Happily it is no easy thing to change a people's religion by Act of Parliament. Wherever the exercise of reason, and the study of Scripture are neglected, there remain sentiments, perhaps prejudices, which are too deeply sown to be raked out by any legal instrument, however sharp and close-set its teeth may be. Human conscience, whether rude and ill-informed, or disciplined and wise, always hates all tools of state husbandry employed for such ends. ”

“ But while men think there is no way of peace but by forcing all to be of the same mind, while they think the civil sword is an ordinance of God to determine all controversies of Divinity, and that it must needs be attended with fines and imprisonment to the disobedient; while they apprehend there is no medium between a strict uniformity and a general confusion of all things;—while these sentiments prevail there must be a base subjection of men's consciences to slavery, a suppression of much truth, and great disturbances in the Christian world. ”

“ So it came to pass that, under the name of Puritan, all religion was branded, and under a few hard words against Jesuits, all Popery was countenanced; whoever squared his actions by any rule, either divine or human, he was a Puritan; whoever would be governed by the King's laws, he was a Puritan; he that would not do what other men would have him to do, was a Puritan. The masterpiece of the enemy was to make the truly religious suspected of the whole kingdom. ”

“ Through lanes under the beech-covered chalk hills of the Chilterns, a detachment of his favourite troops, bare-headed, carried him to his last resting-place—their arms reversed, their drums and ensigns muffled—mournfully chanting, as they slowly marched along, the dirge from the Book of Psalms: "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations;—thou turnest man to destruction;—thou carriest them away as with a flood;—they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up, in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up, in the evening it is cut down and withereth." ”

“ Here in this assembly you may first see the two Houses of Parliament—the honourable Lords and Commons, who after thus many years wrestling with extreme difficulties, in their endeavouring to preserve an undone kingdom, and to purge and reform a backsliding and a polluted Church, you may behold them still not only preserved from so many treacherous designs, and open violences, but as resolved as ever to go on with this great work which God hath put into their hands. ”

“ Chillingworth, in his famous work on the "Religion of Protestants," observes in a passage of singular eloquence, that the imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God, and the laying of them upon the conscience under penalty of death and damnation—involving the vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God—is the only fountain of all the schisms of the Church, and that which makes these schisms immortal. He brands the practice as the common incendiary of Christendom, and that which tears into pieces, not merely the coat, but the members of Christ. ”

“ The Scotch army had been the main pillar of Presbyterian hope. In almost every letter which the indefatigable Robert Baillie wrote home to his friends this fact appears. No doubt, in the simplicity of his heart, and without any consciousness of inconsistency, he could stand up in any Edinburgh or London pulpit and take for his text, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal;" and yet, no man was more filled with the idea that the success of Presbyterianism in England depended upon Scotch soldiers. ”

“ Hyde, in the course of conversation, asked Fiennes, "what government do you mean to introduce if the existing constitution of the Church were altered?" To this he replied "there will be time enough to think of that;" but he "assured him, and wished him to remember what he said, that if the King resolved to defend the bishops, it would cost the kingdom much blood, and would be the occasion of as sharp a war as had ever been in England; for that there was so great a number of good men who resolved to lose their lives before they would ever submit to that government." ”

“ His high intellectual forehead, his delicately chiselled features, his eyes so calmly looking you through, his lips of compressed firmness, with a kind of melancholy presentiment imprinted on his whole face—betoken a man born to a great but sad destiny; and we do not wonder at the confidence he inspired, whether he appealed to the patriotism of his tenantry and neighbours in the old family mansion down in Buckinghamshire, at the back of the Chiltern hills, or stood up to address the grave assembly in St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster. ”

“ But there was a second reason why Charles was drawn towards Laud. It would be unjust to the King to represent him merely as a politician. Grave, cold, reserved and haughty—qualities indicated in the countenance which the pencil of Vandyke has made familiar to us all—he was also a man of sincere religious feeling; but that feeling appears in harmony with his natural character. Stately ceremonialism, court-like prelacy, priestly hauteur, and a frigid creed corresponded even more with the idiosyncracy of the man than with the prejudices of the monarch. ”

“ If it be allowed that the Puritans acted under a sense of mistaken justice; that, standing before the bar of Heaven, they could lay their hands on their breasts, and plead the convictions of conscience and the impulses of patriotism; then, however condemnatory the deed, lenient should be the sentence on the offenders. I am not however prepared to contend for the absence of all vindictiveness in the men who brought Strafford to trial, and then sent him to the scaffold. One cannot but fear that a large amount of alloy was mixed up with the purity of their justice. ”

“ O Almighty and most gracious Lord God, the Ruler of princes when they are on their thrones, and their Protector when they are in peril, look down mercifully from heaven, we most humbly pray Thee, upon the low estate of thine anointed, our King. ”

“ Here also you may behold the representative body of the City of London, the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, the Common Council, the militia, and in them the face and affection of this glorious city; this city which, under God, hath had the honour of being the greatest means of the salvation of the whole kingdom, and after the expense of millions of treasure, and thousands of their lives, still as courageous and resolute to live and die in the cause of God as ever heretofore. ”

“ On the other hand, the Presbyterian polemic might sometimes only intend to pour out his fiery wrath upon sympathy with falsehood and evil when he denounced toleration; but certainly this was not always the case, and it may be added that, generally, he prized truth much more than liberty. Neither side seemed to discern that the defence of freedom in religion must rest simply [446] on the civil right of every man to pursue his own course, to declare his own opinions, and to act according to his own convictions, so long as he does not interfere with his neighbours who wish to do the same. ”

“ Why, nothing but the same by which they subsist—the law, which if it might run in the free current of its purity, without being poisoned by the venomous spirits of ill-affected dispositions, would so fix the King to his crown that it would make him stand like a star in the firmament, for the neighbour world to behold and tremble at. ”

“ Here a field opened for controversy, adapted to Baxter's subtle and debate-loving nature. Honest as the day, with a passionate desire to reform the army, he went from tent to tent, with the Bible under his arm, whilst his eyes flashed with fire burning in the very depths of his soul. ”

“ In Scotland, the Reformation had not been, as in England, mainly the revolt of the laity against the clergy. The clergy had led the way, like a grand prophet choir, they had headed the host. They had been in the van as the nation marched out of Egypt; and Moses did not more rejoice over Pharaoh than John Knox had done over the Man of Sin. Some will say there was plenty of fanaticism in the Reformation on the other side the Tweed; but it must be admitted that there was certainly no time-serving. Braver men never trod God's earth ”

“ Throughout this debate the unpopularity at the time of that class, commonly termed the dignified clergy, appears in a very distinct and serious form. They had so completely identified themselves with the High Church party; they had become so imbued with the spirit of pride and intolerance; they had been so selfish in the exaction and enjoyment of their revenues; and they had been so unmindful of their spiritual duties, as to separate themselves from public sympathy:—a consequence which no class of religious ministers, whatever may be their legal and social position, can long afford to brave ”

“ No calm thinker can fail to discern the anomaly; and no loving heart but must long for that blessed future, when the fruits of such strange discipline will be reaped by souls now divided on earth, but who will then be united in Heaven amidst the purest charity and the humblest joy. ”

“ The festivals of the Church were seasons for joy, its fasts for sorrow. The liturgy of the Church stereotyped the expressions of devotion, almost as much in its private as in its public exercise. The ministers of the Church were regarded more as priests than teachers, and their spiritual counsel and consolations were sought with a feeling, not foreign to that in which Romanists approach the confessional. The sacraments of the Church were received with awe, if not with trembling, as the mystic vehicles of salvation ”

“ Nor are you a little mistaken, if either you believe the generality of this nation to desire a change of Church government, or that most of those who desire it, desire by it to introduce that which you only esteem a reformation, but are as unwilling to what you call the yoke of Christ and obedience to the Gospel, as those whom you call profane and worldly men, and so equally averse both to Episcopacy and Presbytery ”

“ It is not our business to investigate the sources of the Irish rebellion, or to weigh evidence as to its horrors. Enough is admitted by historians of every school to shew that it was a very great calamity, and all to be done here is to indicate the impression it made in England, and how it further complicated the already intricate causes which conspired to complete the great ecclesiastical revolution of the age. ”

“ The Church of the middle ages had commonly thrown its shield over subjects against the oppression of rulers: but in contrast with this, the Anglo-Catholic Church of the Stuart times stood in closest league with Government for purposes the most despotic. The tyranny of Buckingham in 1624, with his forced loans, became insupportable, and the obloquy of it all—alas for the Church of England!—fell largely upon its dignitaries, because favour had been strongly shown to the policy of that arrogant minister by such men as Sibthorpe and Manwaring. ”

“ There is a beautiful sermon by the former of these Divines preached before the House of Commons, in 1647, in [340] which the following characteristic passage occurs:—"The golden beams of truth and the silken cords of love, twisted together, will draw men on with a sweet violence, whether they will or no. Let us take heed we do not sometimes call that zeal for God and His Gospel, which is nothing else but our own temptations and stormy passions. True zeal is a sweet, heavenly, and gentle flame, which makes us active for God, but always within the sphere of love. ”

“ Propositions from his Majesty, and signed by his hand, were to be presented to the Lord Mayor, so that the latter should be obliged to convene a meeting to petition Parliament to treat with the monarch: upon which, should Parliament refuse, "a party in both Houses would appear with the City, and so either carry all to the King, or put all in confusion." The utterly idle conception of achieving a desired result by means in themselves impracticable, or, if even carried out, not such as to ensure the effect contemplated, only led to exposure and defeat. ”

“ If churches be select communities composed of Christian believers, standing apart from political powers, and independent of each other in their organization, then it clearly follows that no ecclesiastical authority can touch those who are outside the pale of all particular churches that no temporal penalties can be inflicted on those who are within any such pale and that full liberty of action must be allowed to religionists of every class, and to those also who have no religion at all. ”

“ Multitudes were sinners of a coarse type, and wanted something infinitely stronger than forms, ceremonies, orthodox abstractions, and moral advice to put things right between their souls and God, and to give them holiness and peace. The Puritan exhibition of the love of God in Christ, of the wonders of redemption, and of the abounding mercy of Heaven through the Cross for the chief of sinners, supplied just what such persons required. ”

“ Owen preached before Parliament the day after the King was beheaded; and though he does not allude to the event of the preceding morning, he preached in a strain not at all consistent with any reprobation of it, as an act of injustice. [535] Although, in our opinion, it was a blunder, it has been vindicated even in the present day by writers of undoubted piety and honour: no wonder that good men, amidst a struggle which we can imperfectly imagine, were impelled to do what good men in the serener atmosphere of two centuries later deliberately justify. ”

“ The resolute temper of the House of Commons, in resolving upon the enforcement of the Protestation in spite of the Lords, is to be ascribed very much to the new position in which the House had placed itself. Mistrusting the intentions of the King, fearful of another dissolution, which would frustrate all patriotic plans, the representatives of the people had passed a Bill to render Parliament indissoluble until it should dissolve itself. ”

“ One of the heaviest charges which he brings against the sectaries will, in the present day, redound to their honour; for he observes: "Their most frequent and vehement disputes were for liberty of conscience, as they called it, that is, that the civil magistrate had nothing to do to determine anything in matters of religion, by constraint or restraint, but every [459] man might not only hold, but preach and do, in matters of religion, what he pleased—that the civil magistrate hath nothing to do but with civil things, to keep the peace, and protect the Churches, liberties." ”

“ But the Anglo-Catholicism of the Stuart age presented other aspects. In a multitude of cases, ritual worship degenerated into mere ceremonialism. An ignorant peasantry, who could neither read nor write, and who were destitute of all that intellectual stimulus which, in a thousand ways, now touches the most illiterate, would derive little benefit from reading liturgical forms, unaccompanied by instructive preaching—against which, in the Puritan form, the abettors of the system were much prejudiced. ”

“ It has cost two centuries of experience and discipline to indoctrinate society with the lesson, that the decision of religious questions without any imposition of human authority is a right of conscience; and that the more earnest we are in the love of truth, the more careful we should be not to sully its sanctity by the unrighteous enforcement of its principles. Taylor fought manfully for freedom, but he did not see the highest vantage ground within his reach. ”

“ And, at any rate, the destruction of a tribunal before which people were liable to be cited for unchastity and other vices not cognizable by the secular courts, is an important fact in the history of those times, and indicates the occurrence of a considerable judicial and social revolution. No doubt the Presbyterians, in their scheme of discipline, and the Long Parliament, in its acts against immorality, endeavoured to supply what they considered a defect, after they had accomplished the abolition of the old system. ”

“ As the patriot lay on his death-bed, men, in women's clothes, instigated by those who wished to thwart the rigorous prosecution of the war, besieged the House of Commons, madly crying out, "Give us the traitor, that we may tear him to pieces, give us the dog Pym!" [374] The brutality of the mob had its match in the malignity of the Royalists, who, if rumour be true, kept horses idle in the stables, waiting to carry down to Oxford tidings of the wished-for stroke. ”

“ As the war proceeded, and as blustering Cavaliers galloped over the country, singing ribald songs and plundering their neighbours; and as Roundheads, equally stern and demure, marched up and down, singing psalms and sacking the houses of Royalist malignants, it necessarily happened that the clergy were great sufferers in the confusion, for they were required to take a side, wherever the soldiers of either army came. Those who went not up "to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty," fell under a Puritan malediction, very much like that which was imprecated on Meroz. ”

“ Certainly there can be traced nothing like an organized party for defending the Church. The King and the bishops, with many of the nobility and a number of the people, were sincerely attached to the Establishment, and were prepared to admit only slight changes in its constitution. In the House of Commons, however, where its battle had to be fought, and its fate decided, there did not appear any strong alliance, or any distinct advocacy in its favour. It is surprising that in the early debates, when so many voices fiercely proclaimed its corruptions, so few made themselves heard in its defence. ”