ciples, without waiting for any sanction from the magistrate. In 1585 the new apostle resumed his labours in this country, and his zeal lasted until 1590, when he accepted a living, and spent the remaining forty years of his life in contempt and disgrace. With all his zeal it is very doubtful whether he ever possessed any true feeling of religion, and the separatists with whom he connected himself learnt to protest against being called by his name; their enemies however, from whom they received it, persisted in the use of it, and evidently for the purpose of identifying the follies and the vices of the individual with the community so designated *.

Several leaders of this sect were put to death as traitors, purely on account of their opposition to the ecclesiastical supre

the Brownists.

macy of the crown, and many died in prisons; but in Number of 1592 it was supposed, that if search were made, it would be found that the land contained not less than twenty thousand men, exclusive of their families, who had embraced these doctrines. From this period, to the close of Elizabeth's reign, concealment or exile afforded the only means of safety to these persons; and it is to the zeal and learning of the exiles in 1596 that we are indebted for that con fession of their faith which presents the best exposition of Their confestheir doctrine, and the best defence of their conduct. "It sion of faithand vindicamay seem strange to thee, Christian reader," say they, "that tion of their any of the English nation should be forced to forsake their conduct. native country, and live in exile, for the truth of the Gospel, especially in these days when the Gospel seems to have free passage, and to flourish in that land. And for this cause has our exile been hardly thought of by many, and evil spoken of by some, who know not, as it seems, either the true state of the church of England, or our causes of forsaking or separating from the same; but hearing this sect, as they call it, to be every where spoken against, have, without further search, accounted and divulged us as heretics, or schismatics at the least. Yea, some, and such as least might, have sought the increase of our afflictions, even here, both secretly and openly. This hath Satan added unto all our former sorrows, envying that we should have rest in any part of the inhabited world; and though we could, for our parts, well have borne this rebuke of Christ in silence, and have left our cause to him whọ judgeth justly all the children of men, yet for the manifestation and clearing of the truth of God from reproach, and for the bringing of others, together with ourselves, to the knowledge and fellowship of the Gospel, we have thought it needful, and our duty, to make known to the world our unfeigned faith in God, and loyal obedience toward our prince, and all governors set over us in the Lord, together with the reason of our leaving the ministry, worship, and church of England."

*Wilson's History of Dissenting Churches, i. 14-16. fixed to his two Treatises. Ed. 1789.

Life of Ainsworth pre

It was further stated, that so far from allowing trivial things to produce their separation from the English church, it was to the principles on which that church was founded that their objections referred*. Complaint is next made that the prayer-book should have been so little different from the mass-book; that the greater part of the parochial clergy were so scandalously incompetent both as teachers and examples to the people; and that good men were obliged to attend their parish church whatever might be the character of its minister, and to receive the sacrament from his hands at least twice a year on pain of excommunication and imprisonments. "Thus thou seest briefly, good Christian reader, the things which we mislike in the Church of England, for which we have separated ourselves as God commandeth. To all these, if we were among them, should we be forced to submit our bodies and souls, or else suffer violence at the hands of the prelates, and end our lives by a violent death, or by the miseries of imprisonment, as many of our brethren before us have done. How many souls have perished in their prisons through miserable usage; how many have been put to death; and how many banished, though we could to their eternal infamy relate to all the world, yet will we not blaze abroad their acts, (for we take no delight in laying open their shame,) but mourn for them in secret, committing our cause to God that judgeth justly, knowing that he which maketh inquisition for blood remembereth it, and will not forget the complaint of the poor. And thou, Christian reader, vouchsafe to remember before God in thy prayers such as yet remain in

* "First," they observe, “in the planting and constituting of that church, at the beginning of queen Elizabeth's reign, they received at once, as members, the whole land, which then generally stood for the most part professed Papists, who had revolted from the profession which they made in the days of king Edward, of happy memory, and shed the blood of many Christian martyrs in the days of queen Mary. The people, yet standing in this sinful state, in idolatry, blindness, superstition, and all manner of wickedness, without any professed repentance, and without the means thereof, viz. the preaching of the word going before, were by the force and authority of law compelled and together received into the bosom and body of the church; their seed baptized, themselves compelled to take the Lord's Supper, having this ministry and service which they now use set over them, and ever since they and their seed remain in this state, being all but one body, commonly called the church of England. There are none exempt or excluded, be they never so profane or wretched. Now let the law of God be looked into, and it will be found that such persons are not fit stones for the Lord's spiritual house; no meet members for Christ's glorious body. None of years may be received into the church without professed faith, repentance, and submission unto the Gospel of Christ and his heavenly ordinances. Neither may any continue therein longer than they bring forth the fruits of faith, walking as becoming the Gospel of Christ. Christ Jesus hath called and severed his servants out of and from the world. How then should this confused and mixed people be esteemed the orderly gathered, truly planted, and rightly constituted church of God?

"Secondly, as they have received the whole route of the Popish multitude, without any distinction, for members of their church, so have they set over them, as reason was, the same Popish clergy and prelacy which they received from the Romish apostacy, and which is this day to be found in Popish churches,-these have both ecclesiastical and civil authority to reign as princes in the church, and live as lords in the commonwealth, to punish, imprison, and persecute, even to death, all that dare but once mutter against their unlawful proceedings."

bonds or in prison amongst them for the testimony of Jesus, enduring a hard fight of afflictions, and, having the sentence of death in themselves, are like, if the Lord send not unexpected deliverance, there to end their days. Concerning ourselves, who through the mercy of God have found a' place of rest in this land, for which we are always and every where humbly thankful, we desire thy charitable and Christian opinion of us, and holy prayers unto God for us, whose kingdom we seek, whose ordinances we desire to establish and obey, protesting, with good consciences, that it is the truth of his Gospel only for which we strive against those cursed relics of Antichristian apostasy unto which we dare in no wise submit ourselves-no not for a moment. For if it be not lawful for Christians at this day to retain the ceremonies of Moses with the Gospel, as the passover, circumcision, the priesthood and sacrifices, which yet were once commanded by God himself, how can we think it tolerable to observe the odious ceremonies of Antichrist, or submit ourselves to his laws, priesthood, hierarchy, and traditions, which the Lord never allowed, which never entered into his heart-yea, which he hath so severely forbidden ?"

These extracts will not be deemed uninstructive if it be borne in mind that the reasoning and opinions which they exhibit are in substance those of the principal sects during the time of the civil war and the commonwealth, and of the greater portion of dissenters from our Established Church to the present day. These passages are also valuable as affording just views of the peculiarities of a people concerning whom little is recorded by our historians, and who, while they were to exert a powerful influence on the complexion of English history in the next age, have been subject to every sort of misrepresentation. Religious sects have often made their appearance and passed away without producing any impression on their own or future times. But such was not the case with these parties. It was in 1598 that they first published this "Defence," and it was republished in 1604 in a translation from its original Latin, and addressed to the divines of Oxford and Cambridge, in answer to some recent censures made public by that body. It is a document which in itself is sufficient to show that the people whose views it represents were by no means so unlettered as they are often said to have been. Ainsworth and Canne-names still honoured

by biblical students-were among their instructors.

themselves to

Most of these exiles fixed their residence, during the early part of the reign of James, in Amsterdam. Here, they were weak- Some of the ened by divisions. In the year 1609 another Church was exiled Brownformed at Leyden by the labours of Mr. John Robinson, ists transport a clergyman who, after resigning a benefice near Yarmouth, America. and exercising his ministry in secret for some years in that A. D. 1620. city and its neighbourhood, found himself compelled to abandon his country. Robinson had been pastor of the Church at Leyden twelve.

K

years, when a great part of his flock resolved on transporting themselves to English America, in the hope of giving perpetuity to their principles in that country, and of forming an asylum there to which the persecuted in England might at any time escape. Two vessels were procured to bear the exiles and their stores to the place of their destination, and some English merchants became adventurers in the project. The new colonists amounted to about one hundred and twenty persons, and after receiving much valuable advice, and the tenderest expressions of regard from the lips of their pastor, and having spent a whole night in prayer, they committed themselves to their voyage. Robinson, and such of the Church as remained, knelt on the beach, and, as their former companions passed over the distant waters, commended them, with a fervour which such circumstances only could have produced, to Him who in his time will "execute righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed."

Robinson died in 1626, in the fiftieth year of his age. He was a man of solid learning, of excellent judgment, and, though a Origin of the Independents. great sufferer from persecution, which not unfrequently gives a turbulence and severity to the best regulated minds, he lived and died beloved as much for his amiableness, as he was respected for his integrity. Some of the most learned men in the university of Leyden received him to their friendship, and appeared, with many of the Dutch clergy, as attendants at his funeral *.

*In his parting address to those who became pilgrim-fathers in the New World, this excellent man lamented that Protestants in general so little understood their principles, the Lutherans halting with Luther, and the Calvinists with Calvin. "This," he proceeds to say, "is a misery much to be lamented, for though they were burning and shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God, but were they now living would be as willing to embrace farther light as that which they first received. I beseech you remember it is an article of your Church covenant, that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God. But I must herewithal exhort you to take care what you receive as truth; for it is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such thick Antichristian darkness, and that perfection of knowledge should break forth at once." Neal, ii. 111. This complete independence of authority may be safely trusted when accompanied with so much good sense and reflexion. It is to be regretted that there were instances in which the settlers in the New World failed to imbibe the whole of this spirit; but when some exceptions are made, the candid mind will see a picture of no ordinary interest in the history of these devout colonists during some forty or fifty years from the earliest emigration. "The circumstances of the settlement," says an American writer, "were favourable to the growth of piety. The voyages of the emigrants were conducted essentially as religious expeditions. Remarkable deliverances were often experienced. A solemn and inward sense of a protecting Providence was a striking characteristic of the fathers. When they landed on these shores, the loneliness which they felt, the longing for the 'loved and left behind,' to which some of them were not strangers, the landing on an unknown continent three thousand miles from home, the artificial and the real terrors of savage life by which they were surrounded, the threatened withdrawment of chartered rights by the parent government-all these things tended to develope a solemn and peculiar piety. Like the outcast primitive Christians, the sense of danger made them cling to their own families, and churches, and God" American Biblical Repository, No. XIX. 211.

Such was the character of the man to whom the Independents of a later period were accustomed to look as to their father:-but it was his disciple Mr. Henry Jacob who gave existence to the first church of this description in England. This was in the year 1616. In that year the persons forming this society ventured to petition the King for a toleration of their worship, and a document was published containing a statement and defence of their principles; but from this period to the commencement of the civil wars, these professors were indebted for their safety to the secrecy of their movements and to the unsettled nature of public affairs *.

CHAPTER X.

Rivalry of Coke and Bacon-Case of Peacham, of Owen, and in the Court of Chancery-Dispute concerning proceedings in the King's Bench-Coke suspended from his office-Fall of Bacon-Parliament of 1621-Case of the Elector Palatine-Conduct and Opinions of the king in regard to him—Proceedings in Parliament-Question of the Imprisonment of Members — and of Monopolies-Impeachment of Mompesson and Mitchell-Conduct of Buckingham with regard to Yelverton, and the Earls of Dorset and Southampton-Question of imposing Taxes without consent of Parliament-Parliament adjourned-Great excitement Parliament reassembled - Dispute between James and the Commons respecting the Privileges of Parliament-Protest of the Commons on that subject-Parliament dissolved-Object of the king in such proceedings-Imprisonment of Members-Popular discontents.

BEFORE proceeding to the history of the parliament assembled in 1621, it will be proper to direct our attention to the character Rivalry of

and labours of Bacon and Coke-the lives of these dis- Coke and tinguished men being intimately connected with the des- Bacon. tiny of their country. James conferred the office of attorney-general on Sir Francis Bacon, and that of chief justice on Sir Edward Coke; and it soon became manifest that these persons were the rivals of each other. Coke was a lawyer, and nothing more, but a lawyer whose erudition, energy, and patriotism soon raised him to the head of his profession, and long sustained him there. The genius of Bacon was successfully directed to the one object which formed the exclusive matter of attention with his rival, but his mind embraced the vast circle of general learning, and while altogether unequalled in that spirit of philosophy which he brought to the several departments of general knowledge, he possessed an urbanity, and a courtliness of temper and

* Neal's Hist. of New England, ubi supra. Hist. of the Puritans, ii. 110-112.