Page images
PDF
EPUB

of those words for our prayer to God, then ought we to use these only, and no other! Because it should be but babbling or presumption, to join or put other prayers instead of that which is so absolute and sufficient for the Lord will be worshipped with the best we have; and he is accursed, that, having a male for sacrifice, doth offer a corrupt thing to the Lord. Mal. i. 14.

The whole of the fourteen Positions, with the several points illustrating them, having been introduced, the Petitioners conclude " Thus have we briefly set down unto your Majesty's view, some of the many reasons which the Scriptures do afford for confirmation of the Positions which we propounded. Whereby your Highness' wisdom may perceive what weight is in the controversy between this Church of England and us; what arguments do move us to stand in our testimony; what necessity lieth upon us to witness this truth of God in so sundry important doctrines of the Gospel; what cause our adversaries, the prelates and clergy of this land, have had to pursue us with such manifold and durable [sic] calamities; with what equity we have been, all manner of ways, traduced and divulged to be Donatists, Anabaptists, Brownists, Schismatics, &c.; and, whether there be in us the spirit of error, faction, sedition, rebellion, &c., while in these things only we insist,—for these, do labour, in meekness and patience, in all obedience and good conscience towards God, and loyalty to your Majesty and our native country: assenting unto the other grounds of Christian religion professed in this land, and other churches about us... And seeing your Majesty suffereth strangers in your dominions which differ from the hierarchy and worship here established, we hope your natural loving subjects shall find no less favour in your eyes." The whole document is subscribed-" Your Majesty's Loving and Faithful Subjects. Some living in foreign lands abroad; some here at home in our native country imprisoned, and otherwise subject to many great calamities; for the Truth of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

One result of this last Petition was a request, from "an honourable person," some weeks after it had been presented, to condense "the effect" of the suit, which, he said, he would himself show to his Majesty. This was accomplished by reducing the substance into three distinct propositions, suing, That they might be allowed to live at home, &c.; that, if it were the King's pleasure to have the differences discussed, then that their positions and reasons might be handed over to their "adversaries," to answer by the Word of God, and so be referred back to the Petitioners; or, that a set of questions might be submitted for both sides to reply to; "and so the whole, exhibited to his Majesty and their Honours to judge of." And they expressed their readiness to comply with any other course for the finding out of the Truth" by the Word of God."

Petitioning was not confined to these dissidents alone, the most memorable being that of the Puritans, called the Millenary Petition; subscribed, as the preamble says, " to the number of more than a thousand," and presented to James in April 1603, during his progress into his new dominions, which he named afterwards "the promised * See the whole, in Fuller's Ch. Hist. bk. x. p. 22. b Jan. 14th, 1603-4.

He

their suffering of death, and demanded of the Earl of Cumberland, who was present when they suffered, what end they made? answered, A very godly end; and prayed for your Majesty, the State, &c.'"a

CHAP. IV.

FURTHER ACCOUNT OF GREENWOOD.-THE CASE OF PENRY.

JOHN GREENWOOD commenced A.B. in 1580. He was chaplain to Lord Rich; was married, and had "a young son."c The first intimation of his being imprisoned is November, 1586, when he was confined in the Clink, Southwark. If it were on the same occasion, he was apprehended, then at least, unlawfully, at midnight, and removed from a city prison to this, on the day following.d

It will have been seen in our account of Barrowe, his fellow-collegian, and companion in tribulation, what length of time Greenwood endured persecution; and that, like his friend, he underwent examination upon interrogatories. On this occasion, the Commissioners sat at the bishop of London's palace, called London House, Aldersgatestreet. To the questions, "If he were a minister?" and, "Who had degraded him?" he replied, "I was one according to your orders ;" and, "I degraded myself, through God's mercy, by repentance." On their proceeding to entrap him into admissions concerning the Book of Common Prayer, he said, " I have been long a close prisoner, and therefore desire you will show me wherefore I am treated thus, and not entangle me by your law. I see you go about to bring me within the compass of your law, by making me accuse myself." When questioned, "What say you of the Church of England; Is it a true established church of God ?" he remarked, that " The whole Commonwealth is not a church;" but being asked, "Do you know any true established church in the land?" he replied, "If I did, I would not accuse it unto you!" And, on the question being put in this third form, "Is not the whole land, as now ordered, a true church?" he answered emphatically and truly, "No!"

a "More Work for the Dean," (Dr. Stillingfleet), by Thomas Wall. 1681. 4to. p. 6.-The Puritan temper towards the Separatists is exemplified in the prejudice they produced even in the mind of John Cotton, who writes, "This I can say, from the testimony of holy and blessed Mr. Dod, who speaking this of Mr. Barrowe, saith he, . . 'As his spirit was high and rough before his reformation, so was it after, even to his death. When he stood under the gibbet, he lift up his eyes and-Lord,' saith he, 'If I be deceived, Thou hast deceived me:' and so being stopt by the hand of God, he was not able to proceed to speak any thing to purpose more."" Reply to Williams, p. 117; see hereafter, under Penry. Wall suggests, p. 2, that Barrowe might be appropriately quoting Jer. xx. 7.

b Masters, p. 227.
c Ibid. p. 228.
See under Johnson; hereafter.

tible estate, whom God hath allotted to prophesy in sackcloth, and not to speak at home but from a strange country; and most of all, our own unworthiness and insufficiency to manage such a cause, might discourage us from publishing, especially unto your Majesty, this our Defence and Apology. Nevertheless, relying upon the assistance of the Almighty, and hoping also of your Highness' clemency, we have thus done. For the love of Christ constraineth us, and the importunity of our adversaries enforceth us also hereunto: for they, not content with our afflictions and exile; nor, thinking it enough to speak their pleasures of us in their pulpits, where none may control them; do also in their printed books publicly traduce us, as heretofore, so still, and that in their writings dedicated to your Majesty." Subscribed, "The Overseers, Deacons, and Brethren of the English Church at Amsterdam, in the Low Countries, exiled for the Truth of the Gospel of Christ."

[ocr errors]

6

In p. 86 they write, "Having hitherto spoken of the imputations which the Doctors, in their preface, have laid upon us under the term of Brownists;' it followeth now, to speak of the other, which in the book itself they do also particularly ascribe unto us. Which they do in two places in the one, under the names of Barrowe and Greenwood;' whom they know to have died in that faith which we profess; for which, they laid down their lives, and, being now asleep in the Lord, are not here to make answer for themselves: in the other, under the same term of Brownists,' as they did in their epistle, before. In the first place, speaking of the ministers' desire to have the longsomeness of service abridged, From hence,' say they, p. 12, their dislike of set and stricted forms of prayer; it doth proceed, that some of them omit, some refuse to repeat, some condemn the use of the Lord's prayer; from hence, hath Barrowe and Greenwood taken their beginning, and fetched the premises of their pestilent and blasphemous conclusions.' Thus they speak. Whereunto we answer, The heads of the differences between them and us-which here they call pestilent and blasphemous conclusions'-we have noted down before, in our Second Petition, and in the Preface before the Confession of our Faith, and in the Confession itself; and divers reasons and proofs of them, from the Word of God, we have also set down, as may be seen in our Third Petition, and in the Confession aforesaid. And in particular, concerning that form of prayer called the Lord's prayer,' what our judgment is for the right use of it, and why we are so minded; as also, sundry reasons touching our dislike of set and stinted forms of prayer,' we have already declared in the places aforesaid, and therefore shall not need here again to repeat them. If they be not according to the Truth, let these men so show it by the Word of Truth, and turn their railing into reasoning against us! Or, if by the Scriptures they find them to accord with the Truth, let them cease thus to speak evil of the living and the dead; and let them rather set themselves unto this, To consider their own ways in their hearts, and to turn their feet into the testimonies of the Lord!

[ocr errors]

Now, where they pretend, as if from the Ministers,' of their dislike of longsomeness of service, or of set and stinted forms of prayer,

Greenwood's representation respecting them. It may, indeed, be truly said that these sentiments were entertained alike by the two companions in tribulation; for they seem to have acted in unison, with a determination to oppose Giffard; and may be considered, therefore, the organs or representatives of all the Separatists, in conveying their judgment upon the half-way measures of the Puritans;a of whom, we lament to have fallen upon the following description; but of whom we entertain, nevertheless, undiminished reverence for their exertions, so far as they went, in the righteous cause of civil and religious liberty. We are not, happily, required to avouch or to deny the correctness of the statement; we give it, among other reasons, and, as we have intimated elsewhere, because such representations account for the extreme soreness of the Puritans against the uncompromising Separatists; who had discovered wherein they were vulnerable, trimming as they did between the arrogant "mother" and the rebellious "daughter."b We would fain hope that the picture before us is overcharged, since Giffard had so greatly provoked his opponents, whose resentment betrays itself conspicuously.

[ocr errors]

"And now to the stipendiary Preachers' let us, for example, insist upon Mr. Giffard's own ministry. He writeth himself, Minister of God's holy Word, in Maldon.'.. He hath not in Maldon the credit or room, so much as a Curate; the pastor there supplying his own office; but is brought in by such of the parish as having itching ears,' get unto themselves a heap of new-fangled Teachers, after their own lusts; disliking and watching the ministry that is set over them; to which, notwithstanding, in hypocrisy, and for fear of the world, they join in prayer and sacraments, pay tithes and maintenance, as to the proper minister. To such people, being rich and able to pay them well, these sectary, precise Preachers' run for their hire and wages: but chiefly, for vain-glory and worldly ostentation. And there, teach and preach, this people, for the most part, under some dumb or plurified pastor; from whom, as from unsufficient and blind guides, they withdraw not the people, showing them the will of God in that or any other point, be it never so odious and abominable, that might bring peril. Yet, for their own estimation, advantage, and entertainment, they will, by all subtle means, underhand, seek to alienate the hearts and minds of this forward and best inclined people from these their pastors, and slily to draw them unto themselves.f

"Long it were, to relate their arts and engines, whereby they hunt and entangle poor souls; their counterfeit shows of holiness, gravity, austereness of manners, preciseness in trifles, large conscience in matters of greatest weight, especially of any danger; straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel; hatred, and thundering against some

a "This have I heard reported of him,.. that if he could have been sundered from Mr. Barrowe, he was tractable to have been gained to the truth.'" Cotton : Reply to Williams, p. 118. See sup. p. 62, and inf. Penry.

See the motto of Barrowe's "False Church," back, p. 39.

c 2 Tim. iv. 3.

e Acts xx. 27. Gal. vii.

d Rom. xvi. 18. Phil. iii. 18, 19.

Gal. iv. 17. 1 Thess. ii. 3-6. Ezek. xiii. 18. Jer. xxx. 30. Matt. xxiii.

sin,-tolerating, yea colouring some other, in some special persons; cunning insinuating into, and never offending the rich; not regarding the poor; holding and withholding the known truth of God, in respect of times, places, and persons,-dissembling, hiding, withholding it in their public ministry and doctrines, where it may draw them into any trouble or trial; yea, balking, if not perverting, the evident Scriptures as they arise against any public enormity of the time, under the colour of peace, Christian policy, and wisdom! Whereby these Scorpions so poison and sting every good conscience; so leaven them with hypocrisy, and teach them to halt with the times; dissembling with God and their own conscience, that such proselytes, as are won unto them, become "twofold more the children of hell' than they were before. Yea, so is their whole auditory entangled with their snares, as scarce any of them, -without the special mercy of God,-are ever recovered, brought to any soundness, stability, or upright walking; to any conscience, true faith, or fear of God.

a

"Hence ariseth these Schisms and sects in the Church of England; some, holding with these Preachers,' which make show as though they sought a sincere Reformation of all things, according to the Gospel of Christ, and yet both execute a false ministry themselves, and they, together with all their hearers and followers, stand under that throne of Antichrist—the bishops, their courts, and accomplices, and all those detestable enormities which they should have utterly removed, and not reformed. And these are, hereupon, called 'Precisians,' or ' Puritans,' and now lately, Martinists.' The other side, are the 'Pontificals,' that, in all things, hold and jump with the true, and are ready to justify whatsoever is or shall be, by public authority, established. And with these hold all the rabble of Atheists,' dissembling 'Papists,' cold and lukewarm Protestants;' Libertines;' dissolute and facinorous persons, and such as have no knowledge or fear of God: even that ancient Sect of the Pharisees and Sadducees; the one, in preciseness, outward show of holiness, hypocrisy, vain glory, covetousness, resembling or rather exceeding the Pharisees: the other, in their whole religion, and dissolute conversation like unto the Sadducees; looking for no resurrection, judgment, or life to come; confessing God with their lips, and serving him after their careless manner, but denying him in their heart, yea, openly in their deeds, as their whole life and all their works declare.

"Long it were, and not to the purpose, in this place, to show how these Pharisee-Sectary-Teachers, these stipendiary roving Predicants, that have no certain office or place assigned them in their Church; but, like wandering stars, remove from place to place, for their greatest advantage and best entertainment, in the error of Balaam poured out for wage, seduce and distract the people of the land; drawing them from their own churches and ministry, some to this, some to that 'Preacher,' by heaps; each one, as he standeth affected, to him that best fitteth his humour."c

a Gal. vi. 12.

[ocr errors]

b Jude, 11-13.

P. 135;-p. 142, contains a similar argumentum ad hominem.

F

« EelmineJätka »