John Stoughton

“ We have not felt the new chains of the Presbyterian tyrants, nor in this Colony have we been consumed by the over zealous fire of the so-called godly Christian magistrates. We have not known what an excise means, we have almost forgotten what tithes are. We have long drunk of the cup of as great liberties as any people, that we can hear of under the whole heaven. When we are gone, our posterity and children after us shall read, in our town records, your loving-kindness to us, and our real endeavour after peace and righteousness." [510]
Barbadoes. ”

“ A crisis had come, such as must come in the wake of great revolutions, when, however firmly we may maintain Locke's principles of the origin of government, we find people in such a state of perfect helplessness, and former rulers so utterly destitute of power to rule, so incapable, so inevitably rushing to destruction, dragging the whole country along with them—that in mercy to mankind we feel all theories woven of the wisest webs must be laid aside, and a competently skilful hand be allowed to gather up the scattered threads in such fashion as it may be able. ”

“ No man could be more deeply concerned about the affairs of religion and God's interest in the world; yet his solicitude was tempered with that steadfast trust, that it might be seen the acknowledged verities of God's governing the world, superintending and ordering all human affairs by wise and steady counsel and almighty power—which in most others are but faint notions—were with him turned into, living sense and vital principles which governed his soul! ”

“ Is not the time come for uniting evangelical faith and zeal, as decided and fervent as were those of Owen and Good [286] win, with a sympathy for all truth—with a recognition of the relations of Christianity to the entire universe of thought—with a catholic charity in judging other men—and with an estimate of the supremacy of spiritual goodness, in no respect less broad, but in every respect more healthy than that which prevailed in some of the colleges within the University of Cambridge two hundred years ago? ”

“ He had said, in his oration, that they who had endeavoured to pull down schools were men formed to be enemies of religion, like Julian the Apostate—that all Divinity is swaddled in human learning—that Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel—that if the Spirit taught without means, men might as well be without ordinances as colleges—that knowledge is to be obtained not by inspiration, but study—that arts and tongues are the cups in which God drinks to us. ”

“ Peterson, Dean of Exeter, met with an adventure which ought to be recorded as an illustration of that generosity to an enemy which often cheeringly flashes up in such times, relieving the shadows of persecution. Cromwell one day saw the doctor in the streets of London, looking like a distressed cavalier. "There," he exclaimed, "goes a Church of England man, who I will warrant you has courage enough to die for his religion." That very day a stranger traced the Dean to his lodgings, invited him to dinner, and presented to him a purse of money. ”

“ Rarely has a man been found so just and true, so virtuous and temperate, so benevolent and pacific; although, withal, so bold, and even severe in rebuking falsehood, hypocrisy, and every kind of sin. His moral indignation, which was sometimes misplaced, made him forgetful of the courtesies of life, and the rudeness which he thus displayed served to increase both the animosity and the number of his enemies. [366]
George Fox.
Mysticism formed his whole character. It penetrated his intellect. It pervaded his spirit. It was the soul of his religion, and the mainspring of his morality. ”

“ Five years—said Owen—had passed since his elevation to office, and for two years after that elevation the critical situation of the University had been a subject for astrologers and newspapers—to such a pitch did things arrive that to have advocated public schools would have been reckoned offensive to religion. Everything disgraceful was imputed to the advocates of learning. Affairs were in confusion, and on the edge of the pit, and the University was saved by a miracle. ”

“ The Christian spirit which breathes through this epistle commands our sympathy and admiration. Every line testifies to that gentle love for all the true disciples of Jesus Christ—which grew like a tender flower, which gushed like a limpid stream, for the refreshment of his friends, out of the depths of a strong and rugged nature such as made Cromwell a terror to his enemies. ”

“ John Howe was a man of such comprehensive mind, and of such all-embracing affection, that he instinctively shrank from every form of ecclesiastical division except such as is required by Christian conscientiousness. He held schism in the utmost abhorrence, and panted for the realization of the broadest possible union; and whilst parish minister of Torrington, in Devonshire, he promoted meetings with neighbouring pastors for mutual edification and fellowship, which formed a miniature of that more extensive scheme which Baxter was, throughout his life, toiling in vain to carry into execution. ”

“ Be Thou pleased, out of the riches of Thy treasure, to pour Thy wisdom into his heart, to command that double portion of his father's spirit to rest upon him—the head of Solomon and the heart of David—and withal the meekness and true Christian charity, the inward calmness, and placability of spirit, that may arm him thoroughly against all the provocations of an unthankful people ”

“ On the 4th of July, 1653—a very sultry day—the gentlemen met in the Whitehall Council Chamber, and seated themselves round the room on chairs. As Cromwell, with his officers, entered, all present rose and bowed. The General moved his hat, advanced to the middle window, and leaning on the back of a chair, addressed them for more than an hour. Descanting upon religion, he pleaded earnestly that all God's saints should be treated with tenderness, and that if he had seemed to reflect upon those who held Presbyterian opinions, he now thought faithfulness demanded that he should love them. ”

“ And again, the idiosyncrasies of individuals must be taken into account, since they always powerfully contribute to produce varieties of spiritual life. John Milton and John Owen were both Christians, both devout, both unceremonial, both advocating a wide liberty of conscience, both averse to Prelacy, and to all Presbyterian domination, both entertaining in general the same views of government, political and ecclesiastical; yet how unlike in many other respects! The one exhibiting in his religion the genius of a poet, the other the genius of a systematic theologian ”

“ The religion of many of them was merely a feeling of that description. Sufferings in the cause—as is always the case—endeared the cause to the sufferers. They had lost their relatives in battle; they felt twinges in their old wounds when the weather changed; Naseby and Marston Moor were names to them full of anguish. They had endured confiscation, imprisonment, and bonds. One could tell how he had carried packets to the Queen at the risk of his life; a second how he had lost his eyes and his arms in the King's service ”

“ She did not believe that religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation, but to pardon of sins, to the pleasure of God, and the salvation of souls. For religion is like the breath of heaven; if it goes abroad into the open air, it scatters and dissolves like camphire ”

“ And, not only when governments ordered fasts for the sins of the people, or festivals for victories and deliverances, but at other times, on account both of private sorrows and private joys, did Puritan households devote whole days to the worship of God. Scattered up and down the quaint biographies of that era are instances of hours spent in solitary devotion; of lengthened preparations for the sacrament; of family groups gathered upon their knees, bewailing lukewarmness, declension and backsliding; of services at home akin to those at church, bewailing the low estate of Christendom ”

“ Have ye no regard, all ye that pass by the way, to see a troubled State, a disordered Church moulded into sects, and crumbled into conventicles, religion enslaved and dragged to vile offices, true devotion spit at, and hypocrisy crowned, common honesty almost become a reproach, and the upright moral man condemned to hell. ”

“ Freedom is limited to those who "profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, His eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, God, co-equal with the Father and the Son, one God blessed for ever; and do acknowledge the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the revealed will and word of God; and shall in other things differ in doctrine, worship, or discipline from the public profession held forth." ”

“ Not only on state occasions, when performing his part before the world, not only in intercourse with men of strong puritan feeling, from whom it might be supposed he had some point to gain, but also in the most retired privacies of domestic life, Cromwell expressed sentiments of evangelical piety. That hypocrisy should be carried to such a length, that a man should be so cunning as always to wear a veil of apparent religious sincerity in his most private correspondence, without ever betraying himself, is simply incredible ”

“ Unto this freedom the nations of the world have right and title by the purchase of Christ's blood, who by virtue of His death and resurrection is become the sole Lord and Ruler in and over the conscience; for to this end Christ died, rose and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living, and that every one might give an account of himself, in all matters of God's worship, unto God and Christ alone, as their own Master, unto whom they stand or fall in judgment, and are not in these things to be oppressed or brought before the judgment-seats of men. ”

“ Then the freedom granted to enquiry within Evangelical limits, the violent reaction which had set in against the forms and ceremonies of Anglo-Catholicism, the generally unsettled state of religious thought, the activity of tendencies towards a sort of ultra-spirituality, and a natural craving—amidst the revolutions of an age which tore up old conventionalities of belief—to get at the pure substance of truth, and at the heart of things, combined to draw out and to nourish whatever of the mystical element there might be in English souls. ”

“ Sanderson's friend, Dr. Hammond, wins our heart at once, as we hear him say: "He delighted to be loved, not reverenced," and he excites our veneration, too, as he exclaims, with vehemence: "Oh! what a glorious thing, how rich a prize for the expense of a man's whole life, were it to be the instrument of rescuing one soul!" He lived with a family in which he acted as chaplain, when Cromwell's intolerant decree of 1655 disturbed his peace. ”

“ What will the Atheists, the Papists, the malignants say? Surely God was not able to save them. Save them, then, for Thy great name's sake!' A second ariseth, and saith: 'England must not be destroyed! Lord, wilt Thou destroy a righteous nation, if there be fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten righteous there? Shall not the judge of all the earth do that which is right? There are seven thousand at least that have not bowed their knees to Baal! There are sixty thousand, and more, yea, than sixty hundred thousand, that cannot discern betwixt the right hand and the left! ”

“ Powell afterwards "flew into many strange ejaculations, 'Lord! what have our army-men all apostatized from their principles? What is become of all their declarations, protestations, and professions? Are they choked with lands, and parks, and manors? Let us go home, and pray, and say, 'Lord, wilt Thou have Oliver Cromwell to reign over us, or Jesus Christ to reign over us.'" "I know," he proceeded, "there are many gracious souls in the army, and of good principles, but the greater they grow, the more they are corrupted with lands and honours. ”

“ Everywhere was the sight of smoking houses, mutilated limbs, and the earth reeking with blood, nay, maidens expired in wretched agony, after being atrociously violated—even the aged and the sick were burnt with fire, infants were dashed on the rocks, and the brains of others cooked and eaten,—horrible wickedness, and unheard of before cruelty. O good God! such as the heroes of all times and ages, if they were to come to life this very day, would have been ashamed of, seeing that they had never invented aught so inhuman. ”

“ Much time was spent by all pious persons in retirement, in reading, in meditation, and in prayer. Piety was active as well as contemplative, but the contemplative side was most apparent: the mind dwelt much upon memories of the past, the Nicene age being the background of thought in the one case, and the age of the Reformation in the other; whilst over the whole religion of the day there rested the solemn shadows of an ascetic spirituality. ”

“ The efforts made by Mary Love to save the life of her husband, and the correspondence which passed between them, form an affecting episode. With that courage which is inspired by a wife's affection, and which not unfrequently converts a timid and commonplace woman into a heroine, she laid a petition before Parliament, imploring pardon for the condemned, pledging his friends as security for his peaceable behaviour in time to come, and begging that the God of heaven would bow the hearts of England's rulers to shew mercy. ”