Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

ORIGINAL ESSAYS, COMMUNICATIONS, &c.

COMMEMORATION OF THE MINISTERS EJECTED AND SILENCED ON AUGUST 24, 1662. *

BY THR REV. JOB ORTON.

It is so many years since our fathers separated from the Church of England, and we and they have enjoyed so much peace and liberty, that it cannot be thought strange if many of us are but little acquainted with the history and ground of our dissent; and yet it is very desirable, for many and weighty reasons, that we should not content ourselves to continue in the worship and practice of our fathers, without knowing the ground of their separation, or understanding the principles on which they professed to act. In order that this end may be answered, I have thought it seasonable and advantageous to give you some history of that great separation which was made from the Church of England in the last century. I shall state the case of the ejected ministers and their people in a few words, and then shall show you what lessons we are to learn from so memorable an event.

I. I would give you some account of the persons whose case we are to consider.

II. Inform you why they were turned out of their livings.

III. What they suffered for nonconformity; and,

IV. Mention some consequences that followed it.

*This Commemoration' was preached by the Rev. J. Orton, from 2 Chron. xi. 14. 16; and an ingenious parallel was drawn by him between the two events to which the sermon and the text referred. This, however, we have thought it best to exclude, and to present the remainder in the form of a narrative address. The division is retained for the sake of distinctness, and part of the application for its excellence. No alteration has been made in the composition.

I. The persons whose case we are considering. And here it is proper to observe, that they were neither few nor inconsiderable. About two thousand ministers in England and Wales were silenced and turned out of their livings on Bartholomew day, 1662. And though, no doubt, they were not all equal in their abilities, yet they were in general men of learning, of eminent integrity, piety, and zeal for the interest of religion. They had most of them been educated at our Universities, during a period when more care was taken of the morals and religious character and behaviour of students and candidates for the ministry, than, I believe, was ever taken before or since. Many of them were distinguished by their learning, as their works sufficiently shew. And not one of them was ejected for immorality, scandal, or insufficiency. They were faithful, diligent pastors, and wellbeloved in their parishes; and most of them were in the prime and vigour of their days and usefulness. Amongst these I must mention the names of Phil. Henry, Baxter, Howe, and Flavel; with whose writings and character you are most of you acquainted. Of these holy men, and many others, you have often heard your fathers speak with reverence and love. Though many of these ministers were put into their parishes by usurped powers, yet after the Restoration an Act of Parliament passed which confirmed them in their livings, so that they had as legal a possession as any one of the clergy has now.

Let me shew you,

II. Why they were turned out. Not for denying any of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel; not for being immoral in their

lives; not for any disaffection and disloyalty. Most of them were friends to King Charles II. who had desired and contributed to his Restoration, though he proved the Jeroboam of Britain, who made our Israel to sin: and all of them had sworn allegiance to him, and never acted contrary to it. They were not turned out because there was no need of their services, for with the Restoration a deluge of impiety and licentiousness broke in upon the land; insomuch that one of the bitterest enemies (Dr. South) of the Nonconformists calls the Restoration the æra of falsehood. The true reason was, the King being a Papist in his heart, and intending to bring in Popery, in order to that it was judged necessary to dispossess these worthy men of their livings, because they were great enemies to Popery, and to re-establish the hierarchy of the Church, from whence the transition to Popery was more natural and easy, than from the former constitution. The avowed reason was, because they would not conform to and comply with the Act of Uniformity, which took place August 24th, 1662, which you may see at the beginning of the Common Prayer Book. The things imposed upon them, if they would keep their livings, or any post of service in the Church, were these:

They must be re-ordained, if they had not been ordained before by a Bishop; and this they could not in conscience consent to. They had been ordained by senior pastors, whom they looked upon as scripture bishops, and in a manner agreeable to the New Testament Rubrick. They thought it a solemn mockery to say that they were moved by the Holy Spirit to take upon them the office of deacons, when they knew they had been superior officers. To submit to this would have been disowning their former ministra

tions which God had blessed, and putting contempt upon the Reformed Churches abroad, which have no other ordination but what they had.

Again-They were required to give their unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in and prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, and publicly to declare they would use that form and no other. This they could not submit to. In their deliberate judgment, they thought free prayer most agree able to the word of God, and best adapted to Christian edification. Some of them would have consented to the use of a Liturgy for peace sake; but they could not submit to be tied down to it, and not one of them preferred it. And as to the Common Prayer, they thought there were many mistakes and difficulties in it; that it made terms of communion which Christ had not made; and that it imposed things professedly indiffer

ent.

They could not refuse to baptize the children of pious parents who scrupled the use of godfathers and the sign of the cross; nor refuse the Lord's Supper to those who scrupled to receive it kneeling. They could not find in the New Testament that bishops and priests were distinct officers in the church from the apostles' time, which they were required to declare. There were many other things in it which they could not assent to, nor agree to use. Besides, it was published, with the alterations and amendments, but a few days before the time fixed by the Act for their assent to it; so that scarcely any of them but those who lived in London could see the book before that time: and this many of them very justly complained of as a grievous hardship. Those who did see it, could not satisfy themselves to declare their assent to it, but thought it their duty to witness against hu

man usurpations in divine things, and to preserve the purity and simplicity of gospel worship. Again-They were required to take the oaths of canonical obedience, or to swear to be subject to their ecclesiastical superiors, i. e. the bishops or spiritual court, according to the canon. But this they could not do, because they esteemed many of the canons absurd, uncharitable, and cruel; and as they would by this means have given up the power of discipline, which Christ has lodged in the hands of his ministers and church, to those who compose what are called spiritual courts.

Once more-They were required to swear, that it is unlawful, on any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms against the King, or any commissioned by him. They thought this would be betraying the liberty of their country, and might prove their own destruction, if they could not defend their lives, liberty, and estate, against some who had, or pretended to have, the King's commission. This notion the Church of England was at the Revolution obliged to renounce, and take up arms against King James, and those who were commissioned by him.

These were the principal reasons why our fathers could not conform; and yet these things were so rigorously required of them, that if any minister scrupled one of them, he was treated just in the same manner as if he had scrupled all; and that in direct contradiction to the promise King Charles had made to some of them just before his Restoration, yea, and to the declaration which he had published, that he would preserve the liberty of conscience inviolate. To these hard terms they were forced to submit, or most of them must beg, or dig, or starve. But they chose to cast themselves upon Providence, rather than

wound their consciences and sin against God.

[ocr errors]

III. Let us consider, What they suffered for their nonconformity. And indeed the time would fail me to tell all they endured. They had but three months to consider what they must do; and at the end of that short term they were forced to quit their livings, which were disposed of, as if they had been naturally dead. This was peculiarly hard upon them, on many accounts. At Bartholomew day, they had scarcely received half their tythes, and had not sufficient time to dispose of what they had received. Most of them had nothing else to subsist themselves and their families upon; and some of them had been at great expense about their parsonages. They were turned out into the wide world. No provision was made for them by this iniquitous act. Nothing was to be allowed them by their successors, as had been required in former instances, in which some had been ejected. They were not permitted to preach, though they would have done it for nothing, nor so mach as to keep school. They were obliged to leave their beloved flocks; and many of them had the grief to see their places filled by low, ignorant, immoral ministers, whose only excellency was zeal for the Church. When the King, his Ministers, and Bishops, saw that these worthy men met with more kindness from God and man than they expected, they got another Act passed, a few years after, which forbad them, on pain of imprisonment, if they refused the oath above mentioned, relating to taking up arms against the King, to come within five miles (unless upon the road) of any city, corporation, or place, that sent members to Parliament, or where they had before preached. Thus they attempted to banish them from their friends, who might assist and

[ocr errors]

relieve them, and to force them either to conform or starve.

Another rigorous Act was passed soon after, which fell heavy upon them and their people; laying a fine upon them for preaching, and upon those that heard them, and especially upon those in whose houses their meetings were held. And the fact was to be determined, and the penalty levied, by a single Justice, without a Jury. In consequence of this, they and their hearers were fined, plundered, and imprisoned. Some few of the ministers, and some thousands of their followers, died in prison. We have some of us heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us, what they and theirs suffered in consequence of these cruel laws. (To be continued.)

[ocr errors][merged small]

MERCY is graven on all the works of the Almighty, and mingled with all his dispensations. His dealings with the children of men are gracious illustrations of his compassion and forbearance, up to that point where, outraged and scorned, his pity yields to justice, or rather is yet more strongly manifested in the extent of his long-suffering, and the tardiness of his severity.

In nothing is the kindness of our God more conspicuous, than in the institution of the SABBATH; in nothing is the folly and ingratitude of man more distinguished, than in the neglect and abuse of the inestimable privileges, the unspeakable blessedness, and the high attainments, connected with its right observance. Men are restlessly seeking rest. This is the ultimate end, the vanishing point, in which all their efforts, their anxieties, their hopes, terminate; but to him who presses forward, it shows itself like the line of the horizon, or the spot where the arch of the rainbow springs

from the earth, always attainable, yet always receding. Yet the Creator has been pleased not only to make this the object of general desire, and the element of human happiness, but to set it within the reach of all, to identify it with his service, to make it "a lengthening chain," surrounding and strengthening all the joys, the charities, the sympathies of life, and uniting them with the higher aims and prospects of immortality. When Sir Christopher Wren constructed the cone which supports the exterior dome, and the crowning ornaments of the Cathe dral of St. Paul, he secured his work by binding round its base, a strong iron filleting. Thus magna componere parvis-when the Great Artificer had completed the frame-work of civil society, He consolidated it by the injunction, that the Sabbath should be kept holy; He built up, as it were, in its architecture, the day of rest, as a tenacious band to prevent the flaws and outbreakings of its fragility. Woe to that political association which leaves out of its structure this powerful tie, or which, when it has experienced the security that it affords, suffers it to perish by rust, to be weakened by treachery, or to be torn away by violence.

The history of the Sabbath is connected with some of the most striking events and circumstances in the records of the world. It was, as it were, the signet of creation, the attestation of Jehovah, that his mighty labour was completed, and that all was good. It was the high festival on which the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy; and on which the Almighty ceased from his work, and hallowed the Sabbath of his rest. Under the law, it was guarded and enforced by the most awful sanctions; a painful death was the penalty of its violation, and the

statute which enjoined its observance, obtained a place in the tables which contained, written by the finger of God, the summary of the Divine Institute. The Temple was, in an especial manner, consecrated to the wor ship of the day sanctified by God, and all the glories of its ritual waited upon the service. And when the splendours of the old dispensation were darkened and lost in the brighter radiance of the new, when the letter was superseded by the spirit of the divine law, the Sabbath survived the abrogated ceremonial, which had degenerated into a pretext for neglecting its spiritual import and object; the Lord's-day became the rallying point of the followers of Christ, the happy time of their lovely followship, the blessed season in which all their fears were tranquillized, their anxieties dismissed, their mutual faith confirmed, their sympathies awakened, their charities and graces in lively exercise it was, and is, the realization of their Master's promise, that where His flock might be gathered together, there would He be in the midst of them. And as, when the dispensation of Sinai was merged in the full revelation of evangelical truth, the Sabbath service was still preserved, so shall it endure when the great period of the Gospel shall have been consummated. When this world, with all its miseries, and all its crimes, and all its probations, shall have passed away as a parched scroll, there will still remain, in the new heavens and the new earth, an eternal sabbatism for the people of God.

:

There is something exquisitely delightful in the due observance of the Sabbath-day. No pictures can equal in beauty and true sublimity those which take their outline and colouring from the circumstances and associations of the Sabbath. The village, at all times

sequestered, hushed into deeper quietude, and holy calm; the aged and the young moving along in seriousness to the worship of God, and the simple service of his House. The town, its marts deserted, its warehouses closed, the noise and bustle of its streets, yielding for one day, to tranquillity and silence, unbroken but by the voice of praise from the assembled worshippers of the Most High; trains of children, in neat array, passing on to the humble but efficient Sabbath school. And we may turn awhile from these scenes

happy England to enjoy such privileges, happier still were they unviolated by neglect, by wantonness, and by outrage!-to others of more romantic interest, to the crypts, and caverns, and deserts, where the primitive Christians retired on the Lord's-day, from the jealous vigilance of the persecutor, to offer an acceptable sacrifice to the God of their salvation;to the wild glens, amid rocks and cataracts, where the Covenanter, harsh and rude in aspect and manner, and rigid in discipline and doctrine, but sternly conscientious, and glowing with devotional feeling, met his companions, and his beloved pastor, to hallow the Sabbath, while the emissaries of lawless tyranny held their lives in chase ;-to the dark savannahs, and trackless prairies, where Brainerd and Elliott taught the red Indian the things pertaining to his peace ;-to the rich landscape of Taheite, where the Christian temple has succeeded to the Morai, and the Sabbath worship of the true God to the idolatrous rites of the Eatooa. Restricted space admits of nothing more than brief allusion to these impressive subjects; but could they be exhibited in all the vividness and variety of their picturesque accompaniments, the moral and material beauty and grandeur of these realities would cast into

« ElőzőTovább »