INTRODUCTION. to 9 latter times, since the truth began to spring and spread INTR. after the great defection made by Antichrist, the Man of Sin. For to let pass the many examples in sundry nations, in several places of the world, and instances of our own, whenas the old serpent could not prevail by those fiery flames, and other his cruel tragedies, which he by his instruments put in ure every where in the days of Queen Mary and before, he then began another 1553. kind of war, and went more closely to work, not only 1558. to oppugn, but even to ruinate and destroy the kingdom of Christ by more secret and subtle means, by kindling the flames of contention and sowing the seeds of discord and bitter enmity amongst the professors and seeming reformed themselves. For when he could not prevail by the former means against the principal doctrines of faith, he bent his force against the holy discipline and outward regiment of the kingdom of Christ, by which those holy doctrines should be confirmed, and true piety maintained amongst the saints and people of God. Mr. Fox recordeth how that, besides those worthy martyrs and confessors which were burned in Queen Mary's days and otherwise tormented, many, both students and others, fled out of the land, to the number 1554. of eight hundred, and became several congregations at Wesel, Frankfort, Basle, Emden, Marburg, Strasburg, and Geneva, &c.' Amongst whom, especially those at Frankfort, began a bitter war of contention and per- 1555, secution about the ceremonies and service book, and other popish and antichristian stuff, the plague of England to this day, which are like the high places in 1 Fox, Acts and Monuments, iii. iii. 146, and Fuller's Ch. Hist. of 40. See also Strype's Memorials, Britain, ii. 405, (ed. 1837.) 10 INTRODUCTION. INTR. Israel which the prophets cried out against, and were their ruin; which the better part sought, according to the purity of the Gospel, to root out and utterly destroy, and the other part, under veiled pretences, for their own ends and advancement, sought as stiffly to continue, maintain, and defend; as appeareth by the Discourse thereof published in print anno 1575, a book that deserves better to be known and considered than it is. The one side labored to have the right worship of God and discipline of Christ established in the church according to the simplicity of the Gospel, without the mixture of men's inventions, and to have and to be ruled by the laws of God's word, dispensed in those offices and by those officers of pastors and teachers and elders, according to the Scriptures. The other party, though under many colors and pretences, endeavoured to have the episcopal dignity, after the popish manner, with their large power and jurisdiction, still retained, with all those courts, canons and ceremonies, together with all such livings, revenues, and subordinate officers, with other such means as formerly upheld their antichristian greatness, and enabled them with lordly and tyrannous power to persecute the poor servants of God. 1 This work is entitled, "A Brief Discourse of the Troubles begun at Frankfort, in Germany, anno Domini 1554, about the Book of Common Prayer and Ceremonies, and continued by the Englishmen there to the end of Queen Mary's reign; in the which Discourse the gentle reader shall see the very original and beginning of all the contention that hath been, and what was the cause of the same. 1575." The place where it was printed is not mentioned. It was reprinted at London in 1642, and "humbly presented to the view and consideration of the most Honorable and High Court of Parliament, and the reverend divines of the intended ensuing Assembly." Hallam says, in his Constitutional History of England, i. 233, that "this tract is fairly and temperately written, though with an avowed bias towards the Puritan party. Whatever we read in any historian on the subject, is derived from this authority." Both editions of this rare book are in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. INTRODUCTION. 11 This contention was so great, as neither the honor INTR. of God, the common persecution, nor the mediation of Mr. Calvin and other worthies of the Lord in those places, could prevail with those thus episcopally minded; but they proceeded by all means to disturb the peace of this poor persecuted church, so far as to charge very unjustly and ungodlily (yet prelate like) some of their chief opposers with rebellion and high treason against the Emperor, and other such crimes.1 And this contention died not with Queen Mary, nor was 1558. left beyond the seas. But at her death, these people returning into England, under gracious Queen Elizabeth, many of them preserved aspired to bishoprics and other promotions, according to their aims and desires; 1 Calvin, in his letter of Jan. 20, 1555, addressed to John Knox and William Whittingham, at Frankfort, says, "In the liturgy of England I see that there were many tolerable foolish things; by these words I mean that there was not the purity which was to be desired. These vices, though they could not at the first day be amended, yet, seeing there was no manifest impiety, they were for a season to be tolerated. Therefore it was lawful to begin of such rudiments or abecedaries; but so that it behooved the learned, grave, and godly ministers of Christ to enterprise farther, and to set forth something more filed from rust, and purer. If godly religion had flourished till this day in England, there ought to have been a thing better corrected, and many things clean taken away. I cannot tell what they mean which so greatly delight in the leavings of popish dregs." Knox was soon after accused of treason before the magistrates of Frankfort by some of the opposite party, on the ground of certain passages in a book of his, entitled An Admonition to Christ ians, in which he called the empe- * See in Prince's Annals, p. 288, The current Nov. 12 INTRODUCTION. INTR. So that inveterate hatred against the holy discipline of Christ in his church hath continued to this day; insomuch that, for fear it should prevail, all plots and devices have been used to keep it out, incensing the Queen and State against it as dangerous to her commonwealth; and that it was most needful for the fundamental points of religion should be preached in those ignorant and superstitious times, and to win the weak and ignorant, they might retain divers harmless ceremonies; and though it were to be wished that divers things were reformed, yet this was not a season for it; and many the like, to stop the mouths of the more godly, to bring them on to yield to one ceremony after another and one corruption after another; by these ways beguiling some and corrupting others, until at length they began to persecute all the zealous professors in the land, (although they knew little what this discipline meant), both by word and deed, if they would not submit to their ceremonies and become slaves to them and their popish trash, which have no ground in the word of God, but are relics of the Man of Sin. And the more the light of the Gospel grew, the more they urged their subscriptions to these corruptions, so as notwithstanding all their former pretences and fair colors, they whose eyes God had not justly blinded might easily see whereto these things tended. And to cast contempt the more upon the sincere servants of God, they opprobriously and most injuriously gave unto and imposed 1564. upon them that name of PURITANS,' which it is said the far more warmly than by their Swiss concise and accurate account of the origin and growth of Puritanism in England, will be found in Prince's Annals, p. 282-307. The era of the English Puritans properly begins in 1550, when INTRODUCTION. 13 Novatians, out of pride, did assume and take unto INTR. themselves.1 And lamentable it is to see the effects which have followed. Religion hath been disgraced, the godly grieved, afflicted, persecuted, and many exiled; sundry have lost their lives in prisons and other ways. On the other hand, sin hath been countenanced, ignorance, profaneness and atheism increased, the Papists encouraged to hope again for a day. This made that holy man Mr. Perkins cry out in his Exhortation unto Repentance, on Zephaniah ii, "Religion," saith he, "hath been amongst us this thirty Hooper refused, for a time, to be consecrated in the ecclesiastical habits. But in the year 1564, "the English bishops," says Fuller, "conceiving themselves empowered by their canons, began to show their authority in urging the clergy of their respective dioceses to subscribe to the liturgy, ceremonies, and discipline of the Church; and such as refused the same were branded with the odious name of Puritans. We need not speak of the ancient Cathari, or primitive Puritans, sufficiently known by their heretical opinions. Puritan' here was taken for the opposers of the hierarchy and church-service, as resenting of superstition. But profane mouths quickly improved this nickname, therewith on every occasion to abuse pious people; some of them so far from opposing the liturgy, that they endeavoured (according to the instructions thereof in the preparative to the Confession) to accompany the minister with a pure heart,' and labored (as it is in the Absolution) for a life pure and holy.'" An old writer of the Church of England, quoted by Prince, says, "they are called Puritans who would have the Church thoroughly reformed; that is, purged from all those inventions which have been brought into it since the 6 age of the Apostles, and reduced pp. Novatus, a presbyter of the church of Rome, being puffed up with pride against those who in the times of persecution had lapsed through infirmity of mind, as if there were no further hope of salvation for them, although they performed all things appertaining to an unfeigned conversion and a sincere confession, constituted himself the ringleader of a peculiar sect, of those who by reason of their haughty minds styled themselves Cathari, that is, the Pure." Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. lib. vi. cap. 43. His excessive rigor towards the lapsed appears to have been the only heresy of Novatus; and it is quite as likely that the name of Puritan was fastened upon his followers in derision and reproach as that they assumed it of themselves; as we know was the case with the modern Quakers and Methodists. For an account of Novatus and his opinions, see Lardner's Credibility, part ii. ch. 47; Mosheim, de Rebus Christianorum ante Const. Magn. Comment. 512-527; Jackson's Novatian, Præf. |