will, in his due time and means, call by his Word; and, whom He calleth, them he sealeth with his seal, to depart from iniquity, to believe and lay hold of Christ Jesus as their alone Saviour; to honour and obey him as their anointed King, Priest, and Prophet; to submit themselves unto him in all things, to be reformed, corrected, governed, and directed by his most holy Word, vowing their faithful obedience unto the same, as it shall be revealed unto them. By this faith, confession, and profession, every member of Christ, from the greatest unto the least, without respect of persons, entereth into and standeth in the Church. In this faith, have all the faithful Congregations in the world, and true members of the same body, fellowship each with other; and out of this faith, have the true servants of God no fellowship, no communion, with any Congregation, or member, how flourishing titles or fair shows soever they make here in the flesh."a The grounds which constitute the right of Private judgment, have never been stated better than in these words: "Now then, seeing every Member hath interest in the public actions of the Church, and together shall bear blame for the defaults of the same; and, seeing all our communion must be in the truth, and that we are not to be drawn, by any, into any willing or known transgressions of God's law;-who can deny but every particular Member hath power, yea, and ought to examine the manner of administering the sacraments; as also, the estate, disorder, or transgressions of the whole Church; yea, and not to join in any known transgression with them; but rather to call them all to repentance, &c.; if he find them obstinate, and hardened in their sin, rather to leave their fellowship than to partake with them in wickedness."b He meets objectors thus: "Every man eateth to his own salvation or damnation; therefore the open sins of minister or people, do neither hurt the sacraments there administered, nor the godly conscience of the receivers! What sense, or sequel, is in these reasons? What can be devised more false and foolish? Because every one is to look to his own private estate, therefore no man may meddle with another man's, or with the public estate! Were he not as foolish that could be led or carried with these reasons, as they that made them ?"c Respecting the officers of a church, he writes, "The Ministry appointed unto the government and service of the Church of Christ, we find to be of two sorts; Elders, and Deacons. The Elders, some of them, to give attendance unto the public ministry of the Word and sacraments; as the Pastor, and Teacher. The other elders, together with them, to give attendance to the public order and government of the church.f The Deacons to attend the gathering and distributing the goods of the church."s Because we have nowhere met with so direct and hazardous an attack on the fundamental principles of what it relates to; and because curiosity is ever alive to see the earliest opinions on the subject, b P. 35. C P. 36. d P. 46. a P. 13. f Acts xx. 28. 1 Thess. v. 12. 1 Cor. xii. 7. 1 Tim. iii. Acts vi. &c. among those whose history we are relating, we do not shrink from setting before our readers the following passages, some of them containing epithets, which the circumstances of the times and the general coarseness of manners alone extenuate. Unto this ministration, for their better instruction and direction in all things; as also, that there might be found one uniform order amongst them in all places; they have one Service Book, commonly called 'The Book of Common Prayer;' unto this, are all the Priests of the Land sworn to use it in manner and form prescribed. Now, in this Book is included the whole form and substance of their ministry. Here are their prayers made to their hand; and, prescribed, what prayers to say in the morning, and likewise what at even-song; as also, what psalms, chapters, epistles, and gospels, to read in their due seasons, what in the winter, what in the summer, what in the Lent, what in the Advent. Here are set down their prayers, chapters, &c. for their fasts, their solemn feasts and saints' days; yea, and for every other day of the year. "For the Sunday is the governing day, and is written in their Calendar with red letters, and ruleth all the days of the week; save certain unruly days and their eves, which will not be governed by it, but challenge to themselves a peculiar worship also; they having their days, in the same Calendar, written with great letters too; and that which more is, their eves written with red letters. And because they are but strangers, and come but once in the year, they look for the more solemn entertainment; that the priest should diligently watch, and the people wait for their coming, and make preparation accordingly. If they come in a cluster, or at a solemn and double feast, then to entertain them with new clothes, clean houses garnished with green boughs or holly and ivy, with good cheer and much pastime; all work, on these idol days laid aside. Yea, though they come but one alone, and that on the week day, yet that week is not Saint Sunday, lord of the ascendant: it is a part of his service to give warning unto the people of the other's coming; that they keep his or her eve with fasting and prayer; that upon their day, they keep a holy feast, abstain from labour, &c. Moreover, by this Book, are the priests to administer their sacraments by this Book, to 'church' their women; by this Book, to marry; by this Book, to visit and housle the sick; by this Book, to bury the dead; by this Book, to keep their Rogation, to say certain psalms and prayers over the corn and grass, certain gospels at crossways, &c. "This Book is good at all assays: it is the only Book of the world. He that can but orderly and distinctly read this Book, may get a living by it. It is no marvel, though they be sworn to and by this Book! Many great things might be said of this Book; how it was made by certain learned Bishops, afterwards godly martyrs; and, how some of the martyrs used part of it,-as the Litany,-the night before they suffered, &c. Well! who translated it, we will not contend. For the thing itself, it is evident to be abstracted out of the Pope's blasphemous Mass-Book; and how consonant it is unto the Word of God, remaineth to be examined, and shall, through God's grace, by the discussing of some particnlar points, though not of every singular error,-for that were an endless labour,-appear; and so, shall neither the martyrs' use commend, nor our dislike condemn, but God's Word be judge of all. "To let pass, therefore, what, in times past, this Book hath been, how it hath been used, either by the Pope, or those Bishops; we find it now to be the very ground-work of their faith, church, and ministry; in place, to them, of the Word of God, as from whence they fetch all their direction for all things. Yea, herein above the Word of God, in that from hence they fetch not only their rules whereby to do things, but even the very things themselves that they do; as their Liturgy, &c. So far is this Book from being subject to the Word of God, as it, in all things, overruleth the Word of God, dismembereth, rendeth, corrupteth, perverteth, abuseth it to their stinted matins and even-song, to their idol days, fasts, feasts, &c.: yea, the Word of God may not be taught but where this Book hath first been read, and hath the preeminence !a This Book, in their churches, must have the sovereignty; it may not be gainsaid, or controled, or if it be, the Word of God must give place; that priest called 'coram nobis,' lessoned, and schooled,-if he will not be conformable, deprived of his priestdom,—if he be found stout, or contumacious, then is he cast into prison to cool him, until his stomach come down that he make suit unto his Grace,' or some other Lord Bishop, his Ordinary; and, enter bond to be conformable or silent. "Moreover, this Book, in that it standeth a public prescript continued Liturgy,—not, as yet, to come to the particulars, or meddle with the blasphemous contents thereof, but to speak generally of it,as if it were the best that ever was devised by mortal man; yet, in this place and use, being brought into the Church, yea, or into any private house, it becometh a detestable idol, standing for that it is not in the Church of God and consciences of men, namely, for holy, spiritual, and faithful prayer; it being nothing less, but rather abominable and loathsome sacrifice in the sight of God, even as a dead dog. Now, under the Law, might neither any corrupt or any unlawful sacrifice, with any seen blemish, be offered at the altar; neither any part of any beast,-though, while it lived, never so sufficient,-being slain before it be brought unto the altar; it was abomination unto the Lord. Every sacrifice must be brought quick and new unto the altar, and there be slain every morning and evening; how much more in this spiritual Temple of God, where the offerings are spiritual, and God made all his servants kings and priests, to offer up acceptable sacrifices unto Him, through Jesus Christ, who hath thereunto given them his Holy Spirit into their hearts, to help their infirmities, and teach them to say, Abba, Father. How much more hath He which a How truly the spirit of this remark was imputed to the Churchmen of Barrowe's days, is seen and confirmed in our own, by what has passed in the nineteenth century in the "British and Foreign Bible Society" controversy; and, beside many others, in "An Inquiry into the consequences of Neglecting to give the Prayer-Book with the Bible. By H. Marsh, D.D. (Bishop of Peterborough.) 1812." 8vo. Levit. chaps. i—iv. ascended, given graces unto those his servants, whom he useth in such high services, to the repairing of the saints, the work of the ministry, and the edification of the Church? Unto whom God useth them, as his mouth; the Church again, on the other side, useth them, as their mouth unto the Lord. Shall we think that God hath, any time, left these his servants so singly furnished, and destitute of his grace, that they cannot find words, according to their necessities and faith, to express their wants and desires, but need thus be taught line unto line, as children new weaned from the breasts,a what, and when to say, how much to say, and when to make an end; to say this collect at the beginning, that at the end; that before, the other after; this in the morning, that at afternoon, &c. "How like children, or rather like masking fools, are these great clerks dressed! Show they not thereby, that either they have no faith, or else are such infants as they have more need to be fed than to divide the portion unto others? Know they, trow we, what prayer, or the Spirit of God meaneth? Prayer I take to be a confident demanding, which faith maketh through the Holy Ghost, according to the will of God, for their present wants, estate, &c.b How now! can any read, prescript, stinted Liturgy, which was penned many years or days before, be said a pouring forth of the heart unto the Lord? Or, those faithful requests which are stirred up in them by the Holy Ghost, according to their present wants, and estate of their hearts, or church? Unless they can say, that their hearts and church stand in the same estate now; and so still to their lives' end shall continue, without either further increase or decrease, change or alteration, as they did then : yea, that their children's children shall also so continue; to whom they leave and recommend this Liturgy unto the world's end! What a strange estate is this, that always thus standeth at a stay! The way of the righteous,' Solomon saith, 'shineth as the light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day;' as, on the contrary, the way of the wicked is as the darkness; they know not wherein they shall fall ?' Our Saviour, Christ, saith, that if we gather not, we scatter.d The apostle Peter willeth the new-born babes to 'desire the sincere milk of the Word,' that they may grow thereby;' until they came to the measure of the age and fulness of Christ,' saith the apostle Paul. Now then, if they and their church increase not in the measure of knowledge, grace, holiness, &c. it is an infallible sign that they have not the Spirit of God. If they do increase, why then is not God served with his own best gifts? Is not the judgment of the prophet, then, upon them, which saith, Cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, yet voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing ?'s "Is this old rotten Liturgy, their new song they sing unto the Lord with and for his graces? May such old, written, rotten stuff be called Prayer; the odours of the saints, burnt with that heavenly fire of the altar; the lively graces of the Spirit, &c.? May reading be said [called] praying? May such apocrypha trumpery be brought into the church of a 1 Cor. iii. 2. d Luke xi. 23. b Heb. iv. 16. Eph iii. 12. c Prov. iv. 18, 19. Mal. i. 14. God, and there read, reverenced, and received as the sacred Word of God; thrust upon men's consciences; yea, upon God himself, whether he will or not? Is not this, presumptuously to undertake to teach the Spirit of God, and to take away his office, which, as hath been said, instructeth all the children of God to pray, even with inward sighs and groans inexpressible, and giveth both words and utterance? Yea, the apostle John saith, we need no other teacher to these things than the anointing' which we have received' and dwelleth' in us." Is not this, if they will have their written stuff to be held and used as prayer, to bind the Holy Ghost to the froth and leaven of their lips, as it were to the holy Word of God? Is it not utterly to quench and extinguish the Spirit of God, both in the ministry and people, while they tie both thein and God to their stinted numbered prayers? "Is this the unity and uniformity that ought to be in all churches; and is, amongst all Christ's servants;—to make them agree in a stinking patchery devised apocrypha Liturgy; good for nothing but for cushions and pillows for the idle priests, and profane carnal atheists, to rock them asleep, and keep them in security !"b It is not to be supposed that this language could have been palatable to the "powers that be." Without adducing it, we should have failed to illustrate adequately the kind of argumentation and the temper peculiar to the case. The same reason induces us to present a further exhibition of Barrowe's adventurous conduct, in which he thought himself justified; and here will be found, also, one of the earliest occasions which provoked the unappeasable animosity of the Puritans against the Separatists, as our subsequent details will disclose. "Having discovered the true estate of the people, ministry, worship, and ministration of the Church of England, it remaineth now, that we take a little view of the Ecclesiastical Government and Ordinances of this their church. "Great hath been their craft, and manifold their devices, to cover their antichristian practices, and to uphold this their ruinous and tyrannous kingdom. I had need express my meaning to be, of their false ecclesiastical regiment-the kingdom of the Beast; lest they be my interpreters, and draw me within danger and treason; so like are they unto their predecessors the priests and pharisees; so apt, as the prophet saith, to'lay a snare for him that rebuketh in the gate,' and to condemn him as guilty for the word, &c.c "First, They sought to darken the true light, by terming this heavenly government of Christ, and holy orders and ordinances of his Testament, The outward Discipline used in the Primitive Churches; especially in the time of Lent, &c.': Then, To keep the magistrates and the people utterly from all sight and knowledge hereof, by inhibiting all their priests to preach thereof; that they can, at no hand, away with silencing, suspending, imprisoning such of their forsworn priests as meddle with such matters. "These blasphemous wretches, not to darken only, but to reproach the Truth yet further, proceed and give out, That the heavenly order I John ii. 27. b P. 62-65. c Isai. xxix 21. |