The political activities of the Baptists and Fifth Monarchy men in England during the interregnum

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

The purpose of this study is to set forth the attitude to-vvard the Enghsh government, in one of the most troubled periods of its history, of two rehgious bodies which by a large number of their contemporaries were considered enemies of all government, and sworn foes of peace and order. Twice in a period of six years the inen belonging to these two parties were actually in a position to affect the policy of the government; for part of the period one of them practically controlled Ireland, and throughout the Protectorate they were a serious problem to Cromwell. I have endeavored to ascertain as far as possible to what extent the political programs of the two parties furnished justification of the popular opinion concerning them, and, in consequence, what was their real importance in the histor)' of their time.

I have used throughout the term Baptist, which in the period under consideration had begun to be employed by the Baptists themselves, in place of the less convenient terms " baptized believer " and " baptized brother ". The name Anabaptist, never accepted by the Baptists themselves, was practically the only one applied to them by outsiders. There was, however, great confusion as to its use : Independents and other sectaries usually applied it to the Baptists alone ; Royalists, foreigners, and sometimes Presbyterians, made it include the Fifth Monarchy men and all other extreme

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viii PREFACE

sectaries, and sometimes it was used yet more loosely as a mere term of reproach.

Of the materials used, the most important have been such collections of contemporary correspondence' as the Thurloe Papers, both printed and manuscript, the letters of Henry Cromwell and those of the French ambassador Bordeaux; and contemporary pamphlets, especially the great Thomason Collection in the British Museum. A good deal of information has been pieced together from scattered references in the Calendars of State Papers, the Reports of the Historical MSS. Commission, the Clarke Papers, and in the Tanner, Carte, and Clarendon MSS. Records of individual churches are unfortunately scarce. Some few are available in manuscript, and several of these have been made accessible in print by the Hanserd Knollys Society and, more recently, by the Baptist and Congregational historical societies of London. The two societies last named are making commendable efforts to publish all existing material for the early history of the Separatist churches. Doubtless the forthcoming volumes of Mr. Champlin Burrage will also contain valuable material.

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor C. H. Firth, to Dr. William A. Shaw, to Mrs. S. C. Lomas, and to Dr. Frances G. Davenport, for advice and assistance most kindly given me when I was gathering my material. Grateful acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Frank H. Robinson of the Baptist College of Bristol, and to Dr. W. T. Whitley of Preston, for their courteous answers to letters of inquiry; to Mr. Hubert Hall of the Public Record Office, and to the librarians of the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, the Dr. Williams Library, the Friends' Reference

PREFACE ix

Library at Devonshire House, the Congregational Library in London, and the Guildhall Library ; to the custodians of records at Somerset House, and to the provost of Worcester College, Oxford. I am under a special debt of gratitude to Professor R. C. H. Catterall, who has been my untiring guide and helpful critic from the inception of this work until its completion. I wish also to express my appreciation of the kindness of those who have helped the book through its final stages, especially that of Miss Grace L. Filer, who has aided me in innumerable ways, for which all words of thanks must be inadequate.

L. F. B.

Wellesley, Massachusetts, September, 1911.

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Preface vii

CHAPTER I. Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men

It is evident to students of the Protectorate period that the reHgious views of the men who were directing public affairs, and the attitude of the various sects toward the government, were very important elements in the fortunes of England during those difficult years. The problems of Cromwell, in adjusting to political exigencies his own ideas on the subject of religion and of church organization ; his real perplexity and sorrow in dealing with conscientious men whose scruples he understood, and with whose pleas for liberty of conscience he sympathized: these were factors of considerable weight in shaping the destinies of the Protectorate. The curious attempt at government by a body of men chosen for their godliness, and the alternation of governments which gave the country, over to confusion in the period which followed Richard Cromwell's abdication : these, as well as the days of the Protectorate, can be better understood after a study of the activities of two bodies of men, frequently confused even by contemporaries — the politico-religious party known as Fifth Monarchy men, and the members of the Baptist denomination. It will be necessary, before beginning such a study, to have a clear idea of the policy and characteristics of each of these bodies.

Of all the forms of Protestantism to which the Reformation gave birth there was one which, more nearly than any other, carried to its logical conclusion the great principle that it is the right of every man to seek God's truth in the Scriptures, and mould his life in accordance with that truth as he sees it. When the great heroes of the Reformation found it expedient to put limitations on that principle, the men called Anabaptists clung to it still, and, harried from land to land, beset with reproachful names, forced to shoulder all the crimes of misguided fanatics attached to the skirts of their movement, carried their faith into, all the , corners of Europe. The salient feature of that faith was the principle that a church, according to Scripture, is a voluntary association of believers, with whose organization and support the state has nothing to do, and over whose belief and worship no civil power has jurisdiction. The name Anabaptist, applied as a term of reproach, arose out. of their contention that, in Scripture, baptism was the sign of admission into the community of believers, and that, consequently infant baptism was without validity. All the great leaders of the Anabaptists were apostles of religious tolerance, and many held that no Christian should be a magistrate, engage in warfare, take an oath, or go to law. A small number developed pronounced millenarian views, refused to acknowledge the existing magistracy, and . advocated the establishment of Christ's kingdom by force. It was the attempt of this faction to carry out its views in the city of Munster that brought more discredit on the Anabaptists than any other event in their history, and the excesses there indulged in were thenceforth very generally ascribed to all opponents of infant baptism. The term Anabaptism, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, represented to the average man not the doctrines taught by Hans Denck, Balthasar Hiibmaier, Caspar Schwenckfeld, or Menno Simons, but those upheld by Knipperdoling and John of Leyden in their short-Hved WestphaHan kingdom. Yet the credit of these latter had collapsed with their dream of power, while the disciples of the former carried their faith down the centuries.''

The Anabaptists of Holland were the spiritual forefathers of the English Baptists. Although scattered persons in EnglEtad, from Reformation days on, held the distinctive tenets of the Continental Anabaptists, there is no record of any permanent congregation before the early years of the seventeenth century." The first group of English Baptists were dissenters from the English Separatist church in Amsterdam. They had fallen under the influence of the Mennonites there, and from their adoption of the belief in universal redemption came to be known as General Baptists. Members of this group, settling in London, formed the first permanent Baptist church in England in 161 1. Their ideas spread, and by 1626 there were at least three General Baptist churches in London, and others in Lincoln, Sarum, Coventry, and Tiverton."

The second group of Baptists, who held Calvinistic views and were consequently known as Particular Bap-

^ The subject is fully treated in Keller, Geschichte der Wiedertaufer. See also Lindsay, Reformation, II, 430 fE., and the last edition of Herzog's Realencyclopadie.

* For the sufferings of these early Baptists, see Crosby, English Baptists, I, 33 ff. ; Tracts on Liberty of Conscience (Hanserd Knollys Soc), Introduction ; Heath, " The Anabaptists and their English Descendants," in Contemporary Review, LIX (1891), 392 ff.

' Crosby, English Baptists, I, 68 ff. ; Barclay, Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, 95 ff.; Whitley, ed.. Minutes of the General Assembly of the General Baptist Churches, 1654-1728, I, xii-xvi.

tists, had their origin in a secession from the Independent church founded in Southwark by Henry Jacob, formerly pastor of an English congregation in Zeeland. The seceders opposed the recognition of the English parish churches as true churches, because they were not formed in accordance with the voluntary principle, and some of them had come to disbelieve in the baptism of infants. The new church was organized under the leadership of John Spilsbury in 1633. Five jjgars later William Kiifin and other seceders from Jacob's church joined their congregation, which afterward split into two equal parts, one under the leadership of Praise-God Barbone, the other under that of Henry Jessey. Hanserd Knollys, a Cambridge man who had spent some time in New England, was for a time a member of Jessey's church, but in 1644 he organized a congregation of his own. In this way the movement spread, until eleven years later there were seven of these Particular Baptist churches in London,, and forty-seven in other parts of England.'

\ On account of their doctrinal differences, there was practically no communication between the Particular and the General Baptists. Their organization and customs were, however, very similar, although the General Baptists seem to have retained more of the distinctive customs of the Continental Anabaptists. The congregations of each group were individually independent in government, but gave one another advice and encouragement by means of messengers, and held general meetings at stated intervals to discuss

♦ The existing records of the early London churches are to be found in vol. II, Transactions of the Congregational Society, London.

BAPTISTS AND FIFTH MONARCHY MEN s

matters of common interest." The organization of the churches was thoroughly democratic. All male members, and in the case of a large number of churches, female members also, were allowed " liberty of prophesying ", that is, of saying during the services whatever they believed themselves inspired of God to say. Officers were elected by the votes of the entire congregation. Any member might be chosen as deacon, but only those who were thought to possess special gifts were elected to eldership, as it was the elders who exercised pastoral duties. The belief that no special education was necessary as a preparation for the work of the ministry led to actual denunciation of higher education by some preachers, and gave rise to the opinion that the Baptists were opposed to learning and to the universities.' Moreover, the fact that the men who preached on Sundays frequently worked the rest of the week as saddlers, glovers, felt-makers, and the like, brought upon them the scorn of the Church of England clergy and the Presbyterians.' Their unpopularity on

" The Free Will Baptists and the Seventh Day Baptists later developed separate organizations, but their numbers were inconsiderable. An apostle of church unity wrote in 1653: "The baptized Churches arc subdivided into three parts, one Church is for free will, a second for universal Redemption, a third count themselves more Orthodox in Doctrine, as the Church of England. Neither of these three baptized Churches doe communicate one with another." Erbery, The Sword Doubled (Thomason).

' For Baptist views on education, see below, pp. 36-37. For the position of women in the churches, see Register Book of the Lothbury Church (Rawlinson MSS., D 828), fol. 28; Barclay, op. cit., 156; Edwards, Gangraena, 1646, 29. The preaching of women gave rise to much talk and no little ridicule. See Masson, Milton, III, 149, 189.

' Edwards, Gangraena, 33 ff. An attack on the Baptists published in 1645 has the following: " Q. * Who are your preachers and what are they?' A. 'There are divers: viz., Mr. Patience, an honest Glover, Mr. Griffin, a reverend Taylor, Mr. Knowles, a learned SchoUer, Mr. Spilsby, a renowned cobler, Mr. Barber, a Button maker, and divers others '." The Anabaptists Catechisme (Thomason).

this score, as well as on account of their separatism, was shared by the Independents, but their insistence on adult baptism, and the survival of extravagant tales about the Continental Anabaptists, laid them open to especial bitterness of attack, and there is no better index of the spread of Baptist doctrines than the number and violence of the publications which not only opposed Baptist tenets, but, reviving the stories of Miiqster, represented Baptists as enemies of society and of the state.'

The churches responded to the reproaches cast upon them by the publication of confessions of their faith. The earliest of these had been put forth by the General Baptists in the year that they left Amsterdam. It declared the church of Christ to be the company of the faithful, set apart by baptism, and organized in small independent congregations. It stated that magistracy was an ordinance of God, " that it is a fearful thing to speak evil of them that are in dignity, and to despise government ", that church members might be magistrates, and that oaths in a just cause might be lawfully taken.' In 1644 the seven Particular Baptist churches in London issued a confession. In its doctrinal portion it showed Calvinistic views as opposed to the Arminianism of the General Baptist confession, but like the latter it asserted that the company of baptized believers was Christ's kingdom on earth, that magistracy was an ,

' " I am afraid that Anabaptisme is very rife in England, though not perhaps in one entire body, but scattered . . . here one tenet . . . and there another : yet not so scattered but they meet in one head, which is the hatred of all rule." A Short History of the Anabaptists of High and Low Germany, 1642 (Thomason). Cf. A Warning for England . . . in the famous History of the frantick Anabaptists, 164a; Harleian Miscellany, VII, 382; Featley, The Dippers Dipt, 1645; Edwards, Gangraena; Baillie, Anabaptism, 1646.

• Confessions of Faith (Hanserd KnoUys Sac), 3 ff.

BAPTISTS ANh FIFTH MONARCHY MEN 7

ordinance of God, and that it was lawful for church members to hold civil office and to take an oath. In addition it maintained that it was the duty of the magistrate to allow liberty of conscience, that obedience to the magistrate was not to extend to anything contrary to conscience, but that punishment for disobedience in such a case must patiently be endured, and that ministers ought not to preach for hire, but should be supported by the free offerings of their congregations^

Here we find the ideas which were to bring the Baptists into the realm of politics. The questions of adult baptism and lay preaching kept them engaged in constant disputes with theologians outside their ranks ; differences of opinion as to close communion, laying-on of hands, and the plan of salvation, kept up dissensions within; but it was their attitude toward the relations of church and state which led them to join with the Independents to oppose tithes and a state-controlled ministry, and to go beyond them in championship of liberty of conscience.

In the confession of faith of the church of John Smith, the founder of the first English congregation, occur the words : " The magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience, to force and compel men to this or that form of religion, for Christ only is the king and law giver of the church and conscience." " This enunciation of the principle of toleration does not appear in the confession of 1611, published after Smith's death. His flock, however, maintained the principle at length in 1615, in a protest to James I against the prosecution of those who were unwilling to conform to the worship of the Church of

"Ibid., II ff.

" Barclay, op. cit., ch. vi, appendix, xiii.

England, and again in a petition to the same purport in 1620." These, with similar pleas by individuals belonging to their communion, make valid the Baptist claim to stand among the earliest champions of toleration in England."

It is true that the toleration advocated by a large number of Baptists was distinctly a limited one. In a declaration published in 1659, signed for the most part by Particular Baptists, non-Christian faiths and popery were expressly excluded." Still, protests against this limitation weregromptly published by two small bodies of Baptists." (The General Baptists, too, in a declar-

^ Persecution for religion judged and condemned, in Tracts on Liberty of Conscience (Hanserd Knollys Soc), 83; A Most humble supplication, ibid., 183.

"Leonard Busher, Religions peace, 1614, ibid., i; Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of persecution, 1644; Samuel Richardson, The Necessity of Toleration, 1647, For an interesting discussion of the importance of the championing of tolerance by English Baptists see Ernst Troeltsch, " Die Bedeutung des Protestantismus fiir die Entstehung der modernen Welt ", in Historische Zeitschrift, 1906, 40, 57.

" A Declaration of several of the People called Anabaptists, in and about the City of London (Guildhall Library).

15 " ^e dog declare. That we would have a full and equall Liberty to be granted (and that as the Scope of the Gospel) to all Persons whatsoever, without Exception of one or other, in the matters of there Conscience in the worshiping of God. For why should we not give unto another, that we would (in this case) injoy our selves, or who is he that will Judge another mans conscience; to his own Master, let him stand or fall: if any corrupt, or unsound Doctrine, come into the Oiurch, there is the law of Christ to deale with them by. But what have the members thereof to do to judge them that are without? surely when peace will be upon the Earth, every man shall serve his God, and the Saints shall walk in the name of the Lord their God, therefore our desire is, that God may have that glorious prerogative of Judging mens hearts, according to the Gospel of his Son." A Declaration of Several Baptized Believers, walking in all the Foundation Principles of the Doctrine of Christ, mentioned in Heb. 6, i, e, December 29, 1659. A copy is in the library of the Congregational Union, London. There are fourteen signatures. The other protest came from a congregation of Free Will Baptists, who were led by one Henry Adis, Declaration of a small Society of Baptized Believers, undergoing the name of Free- IVillers. January 12, 1660 (British Museum), ation issued in 1660, and in their confession of faith of the same year, maintain that liberty of conscience ought to be allowed to all men." Again, Baptist toleration, it must be admitted, was too often theoretical rather than practical. There is no indication that when Baptists were in positions of power they were incliried to grant to others that liberty of conscience which they so earnestly advocated. To be sure, it is chiefly from conditions in Ireland that we have to draw our conclusions upon this point, but when all allowances are made, it is hard to believe that, in practice, the majority of Baptists were in advance of their generation in tolerance." But however they might differ as to its limitations, or be found wanting in its practice, the Baptists of England were all advocates of liberty of conscience. Consequently, at the outbreak of the Civil Wars they were on the side of Parliament, regarding its war as a holy one. And although there were among them some who adhered to the belief of their brethren on the Continent that Christians should not meddle with the sword, they joined the army in great numbers. There, preaching and praying as well as fighting, they carried on a propaganda which daily swelled the Baptist ranks." The spread of their faith, in England as on the Continent, had been largely among humbler folk, and in the

'" Barclay, ch. x, appendix; Minutes of the General Assembly, 19.

" See below, 137 ff.

" It was among the General Baptists that doubts arose most frequently as to the lawfulness of warfare for Christians. At a quarterly meeting in 1657 it was decided: " i. In answer to the quiries about fighting we say that in some cases it may be Lawfull, but as the affaires of the nation now standeth and is like to continue till the appearing of the Lord Jesus we account it exceeding dangerous. ... 2. And for officers of Churches to list themselves either as private souldiers or comission officers that is altogether unlawfull." Register book of Speldhurst church (Add. MSS., 36,709), fol. 131.

early days of the wars most of them served as private, soldiers." But promotion was rapid, the tradesman who had enlisted as a trooper at the beginning of the struggle was sometimes a colonel, or even a general o&CQT, at its close, and the churches of humble artisans and small mechanics found themselves with representatives in the high places of the nation.'" During the same period, Baptist ideas began to take root among people of higher station, until in the latter days of the Long Parliament there were to be found Baptists among the most influential men as well as the most substantial citizens of the state. An attempt to give an exhaustive list would occupy too much space, but the mention of a few names will make it clear that the Baptist element was one by no means to be despised.

The most eminent Baptist in the eyes of men of that generation was Henry Lawrence, later president of the Council of State of the Protectorate. The legal profession was represented by William Steele, Recorder of London, and later Chancellor of Ireland. Among scholars were to be reckoned John Tombes, an Oxford man, eminent as a theologian, William Dell, master of Caius College, Cambridge, Hanserd Knollys, Benjamin Cox, and Francis Cornwall. William Kiflfin and Samuel Moyer had unusual reputations as financiers, and

" Richard Deane, in 1649, said he knew of but two Baptists in commands before 1648. Letter to Barlow, Crosby, English Baptists, II, 2 ff. A Baptist minister, writing in 1659, said he understood that at the time of the king's execution there were none above the rank of captain, and only six captains. Allen to Baxter, May 30, 1659, Baxter Correspondence, IV, 187 ff.

"» Firth, Cromwell's Amy, 40 ff., 49 ff. For the way that the churches themselves sometimes formed troops, see the cases of Walter Cradock and Vavasor Powell, ibid., 328, note. For defense of the army preachers by a Baptist officer, see Edmund Chillenden, Preaching without Ordination . . . proving the lawfulness of all Persons to preach, 1647 (Thomason).

BAPTISTS AND FIFTH MONARCHY MEN ii

Samuel Richardson and Praise-God Barbone were substantial merchants. Henry Hills and Francis Smith were successful printers and publishers. The Baptists in the fleet were exceedingly numerous, the best-known among them being Vice-admiral Lawson.^ In the army the most prominent Baptists were Colonels Robert Bennet, Richard Overton, Charles Howard, Robert Lilburne, John Hutchinson, Richard Deane, Henry Danvers, and John Wigan. A number of those who were Agitators, or took part in the conferences on the Agreement of the People in 1647 ^nd 1648, were Baptists. They were Edmund Chillenden, William Allen, Daniel Axtell, John Barkstead, Alexander Brayfield, Robert Gladman, John Okey, William Packer, Thomas Saunders, and Hierome Sankey."" Accustomed in their churches to an atmosphere of democracy and of free discussion, they lent themselves with ease to the ideas, so freely expressed in those conferences, which were to produce the party known as the Levellers. On the other hand, the terminology employed by their sect, with its faith in Christ as head and lawgiver, and their belief that the kingdom of Christ was at hand, crept into the language of the soldiers' agreements, such as that of Manchester, August i, 1650, which pro-

^ A General Baptist assembly held in London in 1654 discussed the advisability of sending Baptist chaplains to the fleet. Letter of John Abell, Sept. 3, 1654. Thurloe, State Papers, II, 582.

^ For examples of the different ways in which these men can be identified as Baptists, se€ Dr. Whitley's list of General Baptist leaders, Minutes of the General Assembly, I, xxxv ff. It is scarcely safe, however, to use the signatures to the Propositions to King Charles for such identification. See below, ch. V, note 41, It used to be the fashion to claim Milton as a Baptist, but see Masson, Milton, VI, 838 ff. John Bunyan would of course be counted the most eminent to-day.

claimed unwillingness to accept any king but Jesus.'" Among these fighting Baptists and their Independent brethren, whose favorite relaxation in camp was attendance at a prayer-meeting, there was a fertile field for the development of new religious ideas. And here developed the other party we have set out to consider — the Fifth Monarchy men.

In these army circles, the idea characterizing all the Evangelical churches, that of turning to the Scriptures for justification of every act, was naturally very much at the fore, and it is not strange that the most fruitful sources for the preachers who sought the explanation of current events should be those most obscure and mystical books, the prophecy of Daniel and the Revelation of John. There were certain portions of the book of Daniel which in the seventeenth century gave rise to little controversy, because they were supposed to be so well understood. These were Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the image, and Daniel's vision of the four beasts which succeeded one another. The interpretation of these visions as representing four kingdoms, which were to follow one another on earth, before the coming of the Ancient of Days and the establishment of an everlasting kingdom ruled by the saints, had, in accordance with the accepted ideas of the time, been justified in the successive establishment of the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires.'* The events of

'^ " We have not only proclaimed Jesus Christ, the King of Saints, to be our King by profession, but desire to submit to him upon his own terms, and admit him to the exercise of his Royal Authority in our hearts." Manchester Declaration, cited by Feake, Beam of Light, 1659. The agreements of Triploe Heath and Windsor were also cited by Fifth Monarchy men.

"Hearne, in his Ductor Hisioricus, published in 1705, says that objections to this system of chronology have been made, but that he considers them insufficient. 2d ed., 1, 131, 292.

the Thirty Years' War gave currency to the idea that the last days of the Roman monarchy were at hand, and that the time was drawing near when the Fifth Monarchy, with Christ at its head, would after much war and tumult be established upon earth. And while England was being rent with civil wars, it is not strange that men began to feel that perhaps these were the wars of the latter days, or that the soldier was inspired to better service by the great thought that the promise might be fulfilled in his lifetime, and that he was one of the saints who were to bring in the new order.

It is difficult in these days to follow with patience, or even with complete seriousness, all the ramifications of Fifth Monarchy speculation, but reduced to its fundamentals, surely nothing could be finer than the simple faith and hope upon which it was founded. Professor Firth, in his life of Thomas Harrison, applies to him the well-known lines of Blake :

Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my Arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold; Bring me my Chariot of fire !

I will not cease from mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand; Till I have built Jerusalem, In England's green and pleasant land.

Here speaks the true spirit of the Fifth Monarchy man, and the realization of this lends a dignity to even the wildest projects of these enthusiasts.

In this spirit, indeed, the Parliamentary armies had fought the Civil Wars. The Fifth Monarchy men kept it alive when for others it had lost its potency. Any one

"who follows the course of events in England between 1642 and 1650 cannot fail to be strack by the prevalence, among the leaders of the forces as well as among the rank and file, of the idea that they were fighting the battles of Christ, and preparing for his kingdom. Soldiers and preachers alike considered the Parliamentary victories as victories of Armageddon.'"'

From the discussions on the Agreement of the People an excellent idea can be gained of the mingling of millenary ideas with notions of government, and of the part of the saints in the warfare of Christ. In referring to the claim of the king to authority in religious matters Lieutenant-colonel Goffe said : " Certainly, this is a mistery of iniquity. Now Jesus Christ his worke in the last dayes is to destroy this mistery of iniquity ; and because itt is so interwoven and intwisted in the interest of States, certainly in that overthrow . . . there must bee great alterations of states. Now the worde doth hold out in the Revelation, that in this worke of Jesus Christ hee shall have a companie of Saints to follow him, such as are chosen, and called, and faithfull. Now itt is a scruple amonge the saints, how f arre they should use the sworde, yett God hath made use of them in that worke. Many of them have bin employed these five or six yeares." "^ A year later, when the Agreement of the People was again under discussion, Colonel Thomas Harrison said : " The Worde of God doth take notice, that the powers of this world shall bee given