cuting the Arch-bishop of Canterbury to the end of his tragedy. For compassing which ends, a solemn league and covenant is agreed between them; first taken and subscribed to, by the Scots themselves; and afterwards by all the Members in both Houses of Parliament; as also, by the principal officers of the army, all the Divines of the Assembly, almost all those which lived within the lines of communication, and in the end by all the subjects which either were within their power, or made subject to it. Now by this covenant the party was to bind himself, amongst other things, first, that he would en'deavour, in his place and calling, to preserve the Reformed religion in Scotland, in doctrine, discipline, and government: That he would endeavour, in like manner, the reformation of ' religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, according to the word of God, and the example of the best reformed 'churches; but more particularly, to bring the churches of God ' in all the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uni'formity in religion, &c. Secondly, That without respect of 'persons they would endeavour to extirpate Popery and Prelacy; &c. And thirdly, That he would endeavour the dis least prejudice to the civil State, but to the evident and confessed benefit thereof; or as the very Protestants in France, by the concession of a Popish State and King, have enjoyed all these four spiritual courts the last fourscore years and above:-Put these HOLY and DIVINE INSTRUMENTS in the hand of the Church of England; by the blessing of God thereupon, the sore and great evil of so many heresies and schisms shall quickly be cured, which now not only troubles the peace and welfare, but hazards the very subsistence both of church and kingdom. Without this mean, the State will toil itself in vain about the cure of such spiritual diseases." "And to that end, the presbyterian party of this nation did again, in the year 1643, invite the Scotch covenanters back into England and hither they came marching with it gloriously upon their pikes, and in their hats with this motto, For the Crown and Covenant of both Kingdoms! This I saw and suffered by it. But when I look back upon the ruin of families, the blood-shed, the decay of common honesty, and how the former piety and plain dealing of this now sinful nation is turned into cruelty and cunning! when I consider this, I praise God that he prevented me from being of that party which helped to bring in this covenant, and those sad confusions that have followed it." WALTON'S Life of Sanderson. The reader will by this time have become acquainted with the implied signification of these expressions. To give him a better view of this subject, I copy the following paragraph from the Remonstrance of the Commons, 1628: "And as our fear concerning change or subversion of religion, is grounded upon the daily increase of Papists,...... so are the hearts of your good subjects no less perplexed, when with sorrow they behold a daily growth and spreading of the faction of the Arminians, that being, as your Majesty well knows, a cunning way to bring in Popery, and the professors of those opinions [are] the common disturbers of the Protestant churches, and incendiaries in those states wherein they have gotten any head, being Protestants in show but Jesuits in opinion...... Who, notwithstanding, are much favoured and advanced, not wanting friends even of the clergymen to your Majesty, namely, Dr. Neale, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Laud, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who are justly suspected to be unsound in their opinious that way. And it being now generally held the way to preferment and promotion in the church, many scholars do bend the course of their studies to maintain those errors." covery of such as have been, or shall be incendiaries, malignants, and evil instruments, either in hindering the reformation of religion, or in dividing between the King and his 'people, &c.' Of which three articles, the two first tended to the setting up of their dear Presbyteries; the last, unto the prosecution of the late Arch-bishop, whom they considered as their greatest and most mortal enemy.* * "The terror of this covenant, and the severe penalty imposed on those which did refuse it,† compelled great numbers of the Clergy to forsake their benefices, and to betake themselves to such towns and garrisons as were kept under the command of his Majesty's forces; whose places were in part supplied by such Presbyterians who formerly had lived as lecturers or trencher-chaplains: or else bestowed upon such zealots as flocked from Scotland and New-England, like vultures and other birds of rapine, to seek after the prey. But finding the deserted benefices not proportionable to so great a multitude, they compelled many of the [Episcopal clergy to forsake their houses, that so they might avoid imprisonment or some worse calamity. Others they sent to several gaols, or shut The authors of this Remonstrance must have been cunning men indeed to know in what single European State the Arminians, at that period, (1628) "had gotten any head." I know of none, except England; and what their condition was in this country, will be the subject of a subsequent inquiry. "And about this time the bishop of Canterbury having been by an unknown law condemned to die, and the execution suspended for some days, many citizens, fearing time and cool thoughts might procure his pardon, became so maliciously impudent as to shut up their shops, professing not to open them till justice was executed.' This malice and madness is scarce credible, but I saw it." ISAAC WALTON. +July 23, 1643. The Covenant being pressed, I absented myself; but finding it impossible to evade the doing very unhandsome things, I obtained ] a licence of his Majesty, dated at Oxford and signed by the King, to travel again." EVELYN's Diary. "For myself, addressing myself to Norwich, whither it was his majesty's pleasure to remove me, was at the first received with more respect, than in such times I could have expected. There I preached the day after my arrival to a numerous and attentive people; neither was sparing of my pains in this kind ever since, till the times, growing every day more impatient of a bishop, threatened my silencing. There, though with some secret murmurs of disaffected persons, I enjoyed peace till the ordinance of sequestration came forth, which was in the latter end of March following. Then when I was in hope of receiving the profits of the foregoing half year, for the maintenance of my family, were all my rents stopped and diverted, and in the April following came the sequestrators, viz. Mr. Sotherton, Mr. Tooly, Mr. Rawly, Mr. Greenewood, &c. to the palace, and told me that by virtue of an ordinance of parliament they must seize upon the palace, and all the estate I had, both real and personal, and accordingly sent certain men appointed by them, (whereof one had been burned in the hand for the mark of his truth,) to apprize all the goods that were in the house, which they accordingly executed with all diligent severity, not leaving so much as a dozen of trenchers, or my children's pictures out of their curious inventory. Yea they would have apprized our very wearing clothes, had not Alderman Tooly and Sheriff Rawley declared their opinion to the contrary. These goods, both library and household stuff of all kinds, were appointed to be exposed to public sale. Much enquiry there was when the goods should be brought them up in ships whom they exposed to storms and tempests, and all the miseries which a wild sea could give to a languishing stomach.* And some again they sequestered under colour of to the market; but in the meantime Mrs. Goodwin, a religious good gentlewoman, whom yet we had never known or seen, being moved with compassion, very kindly offered to lay down to the sequestrators that whole sum which the goods were valued at; and was pleased to leave them in our hands for our use, till we might be able to repurchase them; which she did accordingly, and had the goods formally delivered to her by Mr. Smith, and Mr. Greenewood, two sequestrators. As for the books, several stationers looked on them, but were not forward to buy them; at last Mr. Cook, a worthy divine of this diocese, gave bond to the sequestrators, to pay to them the whole sum whereat they were set, which was afterwards satisfied out of that poor pittance that was allowed me for my maintenance. "Yet still 1 remained in my palace though with but a poor retinue and means; but the house was held too good for me: many messages were sent by Mr. Corbet to remove me thence. The first pretence was, that the committee, who now was at charge for an house to sit it in, might make their daily session there, being a place both more public, roomy, and chargeless. Out we must, and that in three weeks' warning, by midsummer-day then approaching, so as we might have lain in the street for ought I know, had not the providence of God so ordered it, that a neighbour in the close, one Mr. Gostlin, a widower, was content to void his house for us. "This hath been my measure, wherefore I know not; Lord, thou knowest, who only canst remedy, and end, and forgive or avenge this horrible oppression."-Bishop HALL'S Hard Measure. * "Dr. William Beal, master of St. John's College, Cambridge, being active in gathering the University plate for his Majesty, was (with the excellent Dr. Sterne, now Lord Archbishop of York) sent, surrounded in their respective colleges, carried to London in triumph, in which persecution there was this circumstance remarkable:-That though there was an express order from the Lords for their imprisonment in the tower, which met them at Tottenham high-cross, (wherein, notwithstanding, there was no crime expressed,) yet they were led captive through Bartholomew-fair, and so as far Temple-bar, and back through the city into the tower, on purpose that they might be hooted at or stoned; and so for three years together hurried from prison to prison, (after they were plundered and sequestered, two words which signify an undoing,) without any legal charge against them, or trial of them; it being supposed surely that they would be famished at land, and designed that they should be stifled when kept ten days under deck at sea, or, all failing, to be sent as galley-slaves to Algiers, till this worthy person was exchanged, and had liberty to go to Oxford to serve his Majesty there, as he had done here, by a good example, constant fasts and prayers, exact intelligence, convincing and comfortable sermons, as he did all the while he lived; till his heart broke to see (what he always feared, and endeavoured in vain to persuade the moderate part of the other side of) his Majesty murdered, and he died suddenly with these words in his mouth, (which the standers-by understood with reference to the state of the public, as well as the condition of his own private person,) I Believe the rESURRECTION. When Dr. Edward Martin was Master of Queen's College, he was as much persecuted by the faction for six or seven years from Cambridge to Ely house, thence to ship-board, and thence to the Fleet, with the same disgrace and torment I mentioned before in Dr. Beal's life, for being active in sending the University plate to the King, and in undeceiving people about the proceedings of the pretended parliament, that is, in sending to the King that which should have been plundered by his enemies; and preaching as much for him as others did against him. His sufferings were both the smarter and the longer, because he would not own the usurpation so much as to petition it for favour, being unwilling to own any power they had to imprison him, by any address to them to release him. “And when in a throng of other prisoners he had his liberty, he chose to be an exile beyond sea at Paris, rather than submit to the tumult at home at Y scandal, imputing to them such notorious and enormous crimes, as would have rendered them uncapable of life, as well as livings, if they had been proved. But that which added the most weight to these oppressions, was the publishing of a malicious and unchristian pamphlet, entitled, The first century of scandalous and malignant Priests: which whether it were London or Cambridge. If he was too severe against the Presbyteries of the Reformed Churches [abroad], which they set up out of necessity, it was out of just indignation against the Presbytery of England which set up itself out of schism. And when he thought it unlawful for a gentleman of the Church of England to marry a French Presbyterian, it was because he was transported by the oppression and outrage of the English. But being many years beyond sea, he neither joined with the Calvinists, nor kept any communion with the Papists; but confined himself to a congregation of old English and primitive Protestants; where, by his regular life and good doctrine, he reduced some recusants to, and confirmed more doubters in, the Protestant religion, so defeating the jealousies of his foes, and exceeding the expectation of his friends. Returning with his Majesty, in 1660, he was restored to his own preferments." LLOYD'S Worthies. In no part of their mystification of plain matters-of-fact have the Calvinists failed so completely, as in this concerning scandalous ministers. Allusion has been made to it in a preceding page, 302; and it may be satisfactorily proved, even at this distance of time, that, in many of the instances adduced, no foundation whatever existed for the crimes alleged. When parishioners were invited to bring accusations before a partial Committee, many of them, preferring gain to godliness, viewed the minister of their parish in the sole light of the receiver of their tythes, and often invented false statements concerning men of the greatest talents and piety. But several of these sanguine farmers shared the common fate of ignorant reformers; for, the Presbyterian and other sectarian ministers that were inducted into the sequestered livings, soon manifested a greater fondness for their tythes and other rights of the church than their ejected predecessors, and were guilty of as grievous exactions as those of which they had complained in the conduct of others.-In the following extract from BAXTER'S Key for Catholics, written while he enjoyed the benefice of an episcopal divine, whom Richard with great disinterestedness considered to have been justly ejected for his alleged incompetency, it will be seen, the pious incumbent could talk very learnedly about tythes and maintenance, and accounted himself and his Calvinistic brethren entitled to these perquisites on account of "having DONE SO MUCH to take down the lordliness and riches of the clergy." But he gives a modest hint to the ruling powers respecting the alienation of church-lands of which they had been guilty.-See page 268. "Another reproach that the Papists cast on the ministry, is greediness, covetousnes, and being hirelings. And therefore they put these into the mouths of Quakers and other sectaries. And what is their ground? forsooth, because we take tythes, or other set maintenance; because we have food and raiment, and our daily bread. I have said enough of the cause itself in my several writings against the Quakers. If any doubt whether the Papists be their teachers, or of the same mind, besides many greater evidences, the manuscript from Wolverhampton before mentioned may be full satisfaction. This tells men that for filthy lucre sake we scratch itching ears with doctrines of liberty ;' and thus it learnedly versifieth : . With pleasing words they scratch all ears that itch. To preach what doctrines are by men desir'd.' "It is a well-known case that the ministers of this land, and of all the reformed churches, commonly do many of them want necessaries, and some want food and raiment, and the rest of them for the most part have little more. Or if one of au hundred have two hundred pounds a year, it is ten more odious in the sight of God, or more disgraceful to the church, or offensive to all sober and religious men, it is hard to say. And as it seems, the scandal of it was so great, that the publisher thereof, though otherwise of a fiery and implacable nature, desisted from the putting forth of a second century, though he had promised it in the first, and was inclinable enough to have kept his word. Instructions had been sent before to all counties in England, for bringing in such informations against their ministers as might subject them to the danger of a deprivation.* But the times were not then so apt for mischief, as to serve their turns ; which made them fall upon these wretched and unchristian courses to effect their purpose. By means whereof, they purged the church of almost all canonical and orthodox men. The greatness of which desolation in all the parts of the Kingdom, may be computed by the havock which they made in London, and the parishes thereunto adjoining, according as it is presented in the bill of mortality hereunto subjoined." to one but taxes and other payments bring it so low, that he hath no superfluities. And some, that have not wives or children, do give all that they can gather to the poor; and some, upon my knowledge, give more to charitable uses, than they receive for the work of their ministry, living on their own means. And they have themselves been the means of taking down the lordly prelacy and riches of the clergy: and though they would not have had the lands devoted to the church to have been alienated, yet they would have had it so distributed as might but have reached to have made the maintenance of ministers to be an hundred pounds a year. This was the height of their covetousness and ambition, as you call it." There is much craft in this statement. Baxter couples "the pastors of the Reformed Churches" abroad with the dominant ecclesiastics at home, in order to make out his case. "A hundred pounds a year for maintenance," however, was no bad stipend in those days; and if the excellent men who were wrongfully ejected had received half of that sum annually, they would have accounted themselves in comparatively felicitous circumstances. "It may be easily imagined, with what a joyful willingness these selfloving reformers took possession of all vacant preferments, and with what reluctance others parted with their beloved colleges and subsistence : but their consciences were dearer than both, and out they went; the reformers possessing them without shame or scruple, where I will leave these scruplemongers.-In London all the bishops' houses were turned to be prisons, and they filled with divines that would not take the Covenant or forbear reading the Common Prayer, or that were accused for some faults like these. For it may be noted, that about this time the parliament sent out a proclamation to encourage all lay-men that had occasion to complain of their ministers, for being troublesome or scandalous, or that conformed not to orders of parliament, to make their complaint to a select committee for that purpose; and the minister, though one hundred miles from London, was to appear there and give satisfaction, or be sequestered; (and, you may be sure, no parish could want a covetous, or malicious, or cross-grained complainant :) by which means all prisons in London, and in many other places, became the sad habitations of conforming divines.-The common people were made so happy, as that every parish might choose their own minister, and tell him when he did, and when he did not preach true doctrine and by this and the like, means several churches had several teachers, that prayed and preached for and against one another; and engaged their hearers to contend furiously for truths which they understood not." ISAAC WALTON. |
