10. A.D. 1653-1660 Part 2

It is highly probable that this design was prevented by the vigilance of the government. The protector found these persons, with the republicans in the state, who were generally deists, the most difficult to manage of any. The religious commonwealth-men he endeavoured to gain by kindness. He told them that "he had no manner of inclination to assume the government, but had rather been contented with a shepherd’s staff, were it not absolutely necessary to keep the nation from falling to pieces, and becoming a prey to the common enemy. That he merely stepped in between the living and the dead, as he expressed it, and this only till God should direct them on what bottom to settle, when he would surrender his dignity with a joy equal to the sorrow with which he had taken it up." With the chiefs of this party he affected to converse upon terms of great familiarity, shutting the door, and making them sit down covered in his presence to let them see how little he valued those distances he was bound to observe for form’s sake with others. He talked with them in their own language, and the conversation generally ended with a long prayer.

Notwithstanding all this familiarity, they were so opposed to the government’s being in a single person, as in their opinion contrary to the kingly interest of Christ, that instead of being allured to acknowledge it, they say, "Our bowels are so moved at these things that we cannot refrain from bewailing our condition, after so vast a stream and treasure of our blood, tears, prayers, lives, and spoils of our dearest relations. O, did we ever think to see so many hopeful instruments in the army, churches, and elsewhere, to be so fully gorged with the flesh of kings, captains, and nobles; with their lands, manors, estates, parks, and palaces, so as to sit at ease and comply with antichrist, the world, worldly church, and clergy!" [Declaration, &c. p. 4.] When the protector found they could not be gained by favour, he was determined to crush them; and therefore, as we have heard, several of the ministers were imprisoned, and Major General Harrison was deprived of his commission. For several years the republicans attempted a revolution in the government; and at length, failing in their design, they agreed in 1658 to the number of three hundred to attempt it by force; and having killed the protector, to proclaim King Jesus. But Secretary Thurloe, who spared no cost to gain intelligence, had a spy among them who discovered their intentions, and seized their arms and ammunition in Shoreditch with their standard exhibiting a lion conchant, alluding to the lion of the tribe of Judah, with this motto, Who will rouse him up? The chief of the conspirators, as Venner, Grey, Hopkins, &c. were imprisoned in the gatehouse till the protector’s death, with their accomplices, Major General Harrison, Colonel Rich, Colonel Danvers, and others. The protector appears to have formed more correct sentiments on the subject of religion in reference to the state than most of the ministers, whether Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, or the fifth-monarchy men, who were principally, though not exclusively, Baptists. These all, in different ways confounded the church and the state together, and did not keep the civil and religious privileges of men upon a separate basis. Hence many of them who "meddled with those that were given to change," were swallowed up in the vortex of worldly politics; and, as Cromwell used to tell them, suffered not for conscience sake, but for being busy bodies in other men’s matters, and for not minding their own business.

It is presumed that the protector never permitted any to be oppressed for religious principles, except in the case of John Biddle, the Socinian, and which it is generally thought he endeavoured to prevent. When Mr. Kiffin was brought before the lord-major at Guildhall, July 12, 1655, and charged with having violated the laws by preaching that the baptism of infants was unlawful, the lord-mayor, being occupied about other matters, deferred the execution of the penalty required by that act till the Monday following.--From the manner in which Mr. Kiffin was treated by the mayor, it is probable that he never heard any more of the prosecution; and there is no doubt but this arose more from the friendship of Cromwell, than the good will or liberality of the governing Presbyterians.

We have said that there were several eminent Baptist ministers among the Teiers who were appointed by the protector, instead of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, for removing those from the parish churches who were ignorant and scandalous. "They had power (says Mr. Baxter,) to try all that came for institution or induction, and without their approbation none were admitted. They themselves examined all that were able to come up to London: but if they were unable or of doubtful qualifications, they referred them to some ministers in the county where they lived, and approved them if they approved them. And with all their faults, thus much must be said of these Triers, that they did a great deal of good to the church, and saved many a congregation from ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers. That sort of ministers who either preached against a holy life, or preached as men that never were acquainted with it; all those who used the ministry only as a common trade to live by, and were never likely to convert a soul,, they usually rejected; and in their stead admitted of any that were able, serious preachers, and lived a godly life, of what opinion soever they were that was tolerable." [Baxter’s Life, p. 72.]

It was doubtless at this time that some of the Baptists accepted of livings in the national establishment, though it is presumed the far greater part of them viewed this as a dereliction of principle in Dissenters, and more especially in Baptists. Of those who thus conformed were those who accepted the appointment of Teiers. Mr. Tombes, B.D. had the living of Leominster in the county of Herefore; Mr. Daniel Dyke, M.A. of Great Hadham in Hertfordshire; and Mr. Henry Jessey, of St. George’s, Southwark. There must have been some difficulties arising from the Independent, and still more from Baptist ministers becoming rectors of parishes; but their churches were not composed indiscriminately of their parishioners, neither were they confined to persons resident in their respective parishes.

Edwards, in his Antapologia, charges them with the last of these things as an inconsistency, and says, "Your congregations, as in London, where the meeting-place is, and the ministers reside, are made up of members, as of some living in London, so of some in Surrey, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Essex, where they have fixum domicilium, being twenty miles asunder; and many members meeting but once in a month, where neither ministers can oversee them, nor members watch over one another, not knowing what the conversation of each other is, which are yet brought as the main grounds of your church-fellowship; which non-residence of the members from each other, and of the officers from so many of the members, whether it overthrow not, and be not point-black against many of your principles on the church-way, I leave to yourselves to judge." [p. 96.]

Mr. Jessey appears to have continued as pastor of his church, notwithstanding his being rector of St. George’s.--He was ordained over Mr. Lathorpe’s church in 1637; and in this vineyard, it is said, he continued a faithful and laborious minister till his death. Crosby says, "He divided his labours in the ministry according to the extensiveness of his principles. Every Lord’s day in the afternoon he was among his own people; in the morning he usually preached at St. George’s church, Southwark, being one of the fixed ministers of that parish."

It is probable that Mr. Jessey’s people either attended St. George’s church in the morning, or else obtained a supply, as it does not appear that Mr. Jessey had any assistant. It is likely that his church of Dissenters was attended to in the same manner as before, and that as rector he did not do much besides preaching in his parish. As he was "one" of the settled ministers, perhaps there was another, either of the Presbyterian or Independent congregation, settled with him, who baptized the children, &c.; and as Mr. Jessey always admitted of mixed communion in his church, he would find no difficulty in administering the Lord’s supper, as it is presumed the canons of the church were now no longer binding, and ministers would be at liberty to admit those only to the table of whose piety they were well satisfied.

Respecting Mr. Tombes, we are told by Mr. Crosby, that the people at Bewdley having invited him to become their minister, "he began here to preach and dispute publicly against infant baptism; and seeing no prospect of any reformation of the church in this point, he then gathered a separate church of those of his own persuasion, continuing at the same time minister of the parish." This is asserted by Crosby on the declaration of Fisher, in his Baby baptism no baptism; where, in the place referred to, he says, "I find all the people in Bewdley were church-members with Mr. Baxter at Kidderminster." Hence it is inferred, that Mr. Tombes would not administer the Lord’s supper to any who had not been baptized. Mr. Baxter says that this church never increased to more than twenty persons. Crosby acknowledges "this society of Baptists was never very numerous, but consisted of those who were of good esteem for their piety and solid judgment; and that three eminent ministers were trained up in it: Mr. Richard Adams, Mr. John Eccles, and one Captain Boylston. The church continued till the restoration. The Baptists who were in opposition to Cromwell must have been very uncomfortable during the remainder of his government, as he never suffered them to act to the full extent of their principles. But those who acted peaceably, and who were denominated the sober party, were much esteemed, and universally protected.

"At length (says Calamy) Cromwell, who had escaped the attempts of many who sought to dispatch him, could not escape the stroke of God, but died suddenly of a fever, September 3, 1658. In giving his character, he adds

"Never man was more highly extolled, or more basely reported of and vilified than this man, according as men’s interested led their judgments. The soldiers and sectaries highly magnified him, till he began to seek the crown, and the establishment of his family; and then there were so many that would behalf kings themselves, that a king seemed intolerable to them. The royalists abhorred him as a most perfidious hypocrite; and the Presbyterians thought him little better in his management of public affairs. Upon the whole, Mr. Baxter has left this as his judgment concerning him:--‘That he began low, and rose higher in his resolutions as his condition rose; and the promises he made in his lower condition he used as the interest of his higher following condition required; and kept as much honesty and godliness in the main as his cause and interest would allow him, and there they left him. His name stands as a monument of pillar to posterity, to tell them the instability of man in strong temptations, if God leave him to himself; what pride can do to make men selfish, and corrupt the heart with ill designs; what selfishness and ill designs can do to bribe the conscience, corrupt the judgment, make men justify the greatest errors and sins, and set themselves against the clearest truth or duty; what bloodshed, and great enormities of life, an erring deluded judgment may draw men to do and patronize; and that when God hath dreadful judgments to execute, an erroneous sectary, or a proud self seeker, is oftener his instrument than a humble innocent saint.’" [Baxter’s Life, p. 71.]

While it is readily acknowledged that Mr. Baxter had many opportunities of knowing the protector’s read character, and though his integrity in giving it is not in the least suspected, yet it should be considered that as a Presbyterian he was likely to be prejudiced against him. We therefore think it right to give the opinion of Dr. Owen also; who knew him probably better than even Mr. Baxter; and who gave his opinion of him after Cromwell had attained the summit of his ambition, and had practised all those arts of hypocrisy with which his memory has been loaded. The following is extracted from Dr. Owen’s excellent work dedicated to the protector, entitled, The doctrine of the saint’s perseverance, printed at Oxford in the year 1654:

"In the midst of all the changes and mutations which the infinitely wise providence of God doth daily effect in the greater and lesser things of this world: as to the communications of his love in Jesus Christ, and the merciful gracious distributions of the unsearchable riches of his graced, and the hid treasures thereof purchased by his blood! he knows no repentance: of both these you have had full experience. And though your concernment with the former, hath been as eminent as that of any person whatever in these latter ages of the world, yet your interest in and acquaintance with the latter is of incomparable more importance in itself, so answerably of more value and esteem unto you. A sense of the excellency and sweetness of unchangable love, emptying itself in the golden oil of distinguishing spiritual mercies, is one letter of that new name which none can read but he that hath it. The series and chains of eminent providences, whereby you have been carried on, and protected in all the hazardous work of your generation, which God hath called you to is evident to all. Of your preservation by the power of God through faith, in a course of gospel obedience, upon the account of the immutability of the love, and the infallibility of the promises of God, which are yea and amen in Jesus Christ, your own soul is only possessed of the experience. That I have taken upon me to present my weak endeavour to your highness is so far forth from my persuasion of your interest in the truth contended for, (and than which you have none so excellent and worthy) that without it, no consideration whatever, either of that dignity and power whereunto of God you are called, nor of your particular regard to that society of men whereof I am an unworthy member, nor any other personal respect whatever, could have prevailed with or emboldened me thereunto.--Sancta sanctis." In summing up his character, Neal says, "Upon the whole, it is not to be wondered at that the character of this GREAT MAN has been transmitted down to posterity with some disadvantage, by the several factions of royalists, presbyterians, and republicans, because each were disappointed, and enraged, to see the supreme power wrested from them; but his management is a convincing proof of his great abilities. He was at the helm in the most stormy and tempestuous season that England ever saw; but by his consumate wisdom and valour he disconverted the measures and designs of his enemies, and preserved both himself and the commonwealth from shipwreck. I shall only observe further, with Rapin, that the confusion which prevailed in England after the death of Cromwell, clearly evidenced the necessity of this usurpation, at least till the constitution could be restored."

Richard Cromwell, who succeeded his father, was not able to rule the different sects, and it appears that the religious people of the fifth-monarchy principles were very troublesome to him. Calamy says, "The fifth-monarchy men, under Sir Henry Vane, raised a clamorous party against him from amongst the city sectaries. Rogers and Feak, and such like fire-brands, blowed the coals, but the assembly at Wallingford-house did the main business. They set up a few among themselves under the name of a council of state, wherein Fleetwood was uppermost, and Lambert next to him."

"But these officers (says Neal) had lost their credit; their measures were disconcerted and broken; one party was for a treaty, and another for the sword, but it was too late; their old veteran regiments were dislodged from the city, and Monk in possession. In this confusion, their General Fleetwood, who had brought them into this distress, retired, and left a body without a head, after which they became insignificant, and in a few months quite contemptible. Here ended the power of the army, and of the Independents." As our work is designed to be rather a history of religion than of politics, we conclude this chapter by shewing what was the influence of those strict religious principles which were acted upon at this time on the morals and happiness of the people; and on the general prosperity of the nation.--We shall do this by copying the judicious reflections of Neal on the times before and after the restoration.

"And here was an end (says he) of those unhappy times which our historians have loaded with all the infamy and reproach that the wit of man could invent. The Puritan ministers have been represented as ignorant mechanics, canting preachers, enemies to learning, and no better than public robbers. The universities were said to be reduced to a mere Munster, and that, if the Goths and Vandals, and even the Turks, had over-run the nation, they could not have done more to introduce barbarism and disloyal ignorance; and yet in these times, and by the men that then filled the university chairs, were educated the most learned divines and eloquent preachers of the last age, as the Stillingfleets, Tillotsons, Bulls, Barrows, Whitbys, and others, who retained a high veneration for their learned tutors, after they were ejected and laid aside. The religious part of the common people have been stigmatized with the character of hypocrites; their looks, their dress and behaviour, have been painted in the most frightful colours; and yet one may venture to challenge those writers to produce any period of time since the reformation, wherein there was less open profaneness and impiety, and more of the spirit and appearance of religion. Perhaps there was a little too much rigour and preciseness in indifferent matters, which might be thought running into a contrary extreme. But the lusts of men were laid under a very great restraint; and though the legal constitution was unhappily broken to pieces, and men were governed by false politics, yet better laws were never made against vice, and those laws never better put into execution. The dress, the language, and conversation of people was sober and virtuous, and their manner of house-keeping remarkably frugal. There was hardly a single bankruptcy to be heard of in a year, and in such a case the bankrupt had a mark of infamy upon him that he could never wipe off. The vices of drunkenness, fornication, profane swearing, and every kind of debauchery were banished and out of fashion. The clergy of these times were laborious to excess in preaching and praying, in catechizing youth, and visiting their parishes.--The magistrates did their duty in suppressing all kind of games, stage plays, and abuses in public-houses. There was not a play acted in any part of England for almost twenty years. The Lord’s day was observed with unusual strictness; and there were a set of as learned and pious youths in the university as had been known. So that if such a reformation of manners had been obtained under a legal administration, they would have deserved the character of the best of times.

"But when the legal restoration was restored, there came in with it a torrent of all kinds of debauchery and wickedness. The times that followed the Restoration were the reverse of those that went before; for the laws which had been made against vice for the last twenty years being declared null, and the magistrates changed, men set no bounds to their appetites. A proclamation indeed was published against those loose and riotous cavaliers, whose loyalty consisted in drinking healths, and railing at those who would not revel with them; but in reality the king was at the head of these disorders, who was devoted to his pleasures; having given himself up to an avowed course of lewdness; his bishops and doctors said, that he usually came from his mistresses’ lodgings to church, even on sacrament days.--There were two play-houses erected in the neighbourhood of the court. Women actresses were introduced upon the English stage, which had not been known till that time; the most lewd and obscene plays were acted; and the more obscene, the better did they please the king, who graced the acting every new play with his presence. Nothing was to be seen at court but feasting, hard drinking, revelling, and amorous intrigues, which produced the most enormous vices. From the court the contagion spread like wild-fire among the common people, insomuch that men threw off every profession of virtue and piety, under colour of drinking the king’s health; all kinds of old cavalier rioting and debauchery revived; the appearances of religion which remained with some furnished matter of ridicule to the profane mockers of real piety. Some who had been concerned in the former transactions thought they could not redeem their credit better than by laughing at all religion, and telling or making stories to expose their former piety, and make them appear ridiculous.

"To appear serious, or make conscience of one’s words and actions, was the way to be avoided as a schismatic, a fanatic, or a sectarian; though if there was any real religion during the course of this reign, it was chiefly among those people. They who did not applaud the new ceremonies were marked out for Presbyterians, and every Presbyterian was a rebel. The old clergy, who had been sequestered for scandal, having taken possession of their livings, were intoxicated with their new felicity, and threw off all the restraints they were under before. Every week (says Mr. Baxter) produced reports of one or other clergyman who was taken up by the watch drunk at night, and mobbed in the streets. Some were taken with lewd women; and one was reported drunk in the pulpit. Such was the general dissolution of manners which attended the tide of joy that overflowed the nation upon his majesty’s restoration!" [Neal, vol. iv. p. 271-274.] Who can help exclaiming on surveying this picture, RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTETH A NATION; BUT SIN IS THE REPROACH OF ANY PEOPLE.