The works of John Smyth, fellow of Christ's college, 1594-8

Front matter

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Cornell University Library

The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.

Preface

THIS edition of the works of John Smjrth oflEers the opportunity for a pioneer to be studied at first hand. He had never been utterly forgotten, for when Americans who preferred to look to New England rather than to Virginia as the formative district of their nation, were telling its earUest story, they glanced casually at the friend of Brewster mentioned by Bradford; and when EngHsh Congregationalists were searching into their origins, they caught a glimpse of one who passed through their position. But in comparison with Browne and Robinson, Johnson and Ainsworth, or Jacob, Smyth has been but dimly known, chiefly by reflected hght, even to Hanbury in 1839.

Fifty years ago, Benjamin Evans broke new ground and printed many documents long unknown to Englishmen, reveaUng Smyth's doings in Amsterdam. Further search by John Waddington, Robert Barclay and Henry Martjm Dexter was so far rewarded that a better background was afforded, and then the last named student earned thanks by recounting the True Story of Smyth " as told by himself and his contemporaries," and by exposing a stupid forgery which bade fair to confuse the tale. His posthumous work on the England and Holland of the Pilgrims reverted to the earlier treatment of Smjrth as an appendage to those heroes, while John Brown and Edward Axber had naturally adopted the same standpoint.

The importance of Smjrth's work had been discerned by Mandell Creighton, and when Henry W. Clark wrote the History of English Nonconformity to expound ideas rather than facts, a more sympathetic spirit was evinced. More errors were eliminated by J. H. Shakespeare in his study of Baptist and Congregational Pioneers, all too brief. When Walter H. Burgess prepared to publish on vi Preface

Baptist Origins, he not only added to our knowledge of fact by his minute research, but placed Smyth in the forefront, both of the narrative and of the title. Next year, Champlin Burrage in his Early English Dissenters treated of him in true perspective with the attention to detail that is so conspicuous in all his work.

All students, however, who desired better acquaintance with Smyth, were seriously hindered by the difficulty of reading his works. Though seven books were published, only seventeen cop:jes in all are known, and no town cQi^tains more than three works. At the very best, Cambridge, York, and Ojtford must be visited; while Amsterdam must be added for manuscripts. Moreqver, the typography of most of the books is trying in the extreme. So it has been far easier to read what ^mjrth's opponents said about him, or to copy sqpie isolated sentence extracted for a purpose, than to consult the wl^ole book and let Smyth speak for himself.

To rescue him from this predicament has long been the hope of the present editor, and means have been provided by the Hibbert Trustees (through the kind offices of Sir W. J. CoUins), by Principal Gould and Sir George Macalpine, president and vice-president of the Baptist Historical Society, under whose auspices the edition appears. The librarian of Emmanuel College arranged for a transcript of the Morning Starre, a copy of the Paterne was lent by Dr Gould, Bodley's librarian permitted the Paralleles and the Character to be rotographed page by page, the editor copied the Principles and the Retractations at York Chapter library, the Differences at the Bodleian, and supplied a sHght defect in the Character from the Museum. The manuscripts at Amsterdam were consulted by the courtesy of Professor S. Cramer, and in their study the editor was aided by Carel J. Stroer, who arranged for transcripts. The archivist of the city of Amsterdam cleared up a longstanding obscurity as to the last home of Smyth, and produced a contemporary map showing its site and appearance; from this the frontispiece has been copied.

In preparing for the press, it was felt best to offer a text such as Smyth sent to the printers, reproducing

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exactly except for obvious misprints; even these have been registered carefully, though it seemed needless to print all, and only a few are noted for the reader. Thus the vocabulary and orthography can be studied closely; those interested in the emergence of new words will find some not recorded in the Oxford Dictionary, and others at an earlier date than is there given; e.g. Pedobaptistry, Presbyterian; these he may have coined. For the accm-ate presentation of the text, in such typography as will no longer daunt the reader, the Cambridge University Press has spared no pains.

The editor has added notes on such points as seemed to need comment, and on such as had special interest for himself. He has also prefixed a study of the author's career. For this he has naturally used the works named, and the contemporary books that alluded to Smyth. He has accepted the assurances of the Registrary of Cambridge and the late Master of Christ's that nothing more is extant there than is here incorporated. He has sought at first hand, in both the municipal and the diocesan records at Lincoln, profiting by the aid of W. S. Linton and of the vicar of Welton, as well as of the ofiicial custodians. He has consulted the Mennonite and the civic archives at Amsterdam. Yet he does not claim to have added much to the facts known, and such trifles as he did discover or sent others to discover, have been communicated to and published by the late Master of Christ's and by J. H. Shakespeare. He does claim to have brought together every fact at present accessible, and to have ignored or to have exphcitly labelled, many fictions often repeated. One incidental re-interpretation of known facts he hopes may provoke other students to renewed research.

For the story of the Pilgrim Fathers has inevitably come up for mention ; but whereas Smyth has often been touched upon in telling their story, the proportions are here reversed, and two points can only be mentioned, not treated at the length they deserve. Their history is usually begun with Scrooby; but the data of Morton Dexter prove that no more than seventeen of them hailed from that district, the home of Bradford, as against viii Preface

thirty-two from Norfolk, the scene of Robinson's activity. It follows that all the wealth of learning accumulated by Brown, Arber, Dexter, etc., is really introductory not so much to Robinson's story as to Smyth's : had it not been for him the emigration from the north would not have taken place, and to him most of the emigrants adhered, those who passed over to Robinson being mostly relations and connections of the latter. It follows also that the main source of the Pilgrim Church has as yet been unrecognized and therefore neglected, that the career of Robinson in Norfolk — on which a httle fresh light has recently been thrown — awaits treating with such loving care as has been already spent on the district around Austerfield. Further, in these pages is pointed out, what has escaped serious attention, the time, place, and circumstances when the Pilgrim Church was born. In the editor's opinion, the pre-natal and infant history of this church have been misconceived, and after due research wiU have to be re-written.

Apart from matters of fact, the editor hopes to have presented the subject afresh in three respects; the starting-point of Smyth's career, its consistency, and the permanent result of his work.

Scarcely ever has it been emphasized that Smyth was a Cambridge man. Like a greater alumnus of the same college, he was accustomed.

To walk the studious cloister's pale And love the Hgh embowed roof With antique pillars massy-proof And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light.

He is therefore not to be classed with the Legates and Muggletons, nor even with his saner followers Helwys and Murton. He ranks with Whitgift and Andrewes in his training; had they been cut off before the age of 45, as he was, their mark on their age would have been no deeper, and they would have left less of real permanence. Therefore some care has been given to show what actually was the training which they all received, to exhibit the foundations on which rested that which was peculiar to himself. It is as fitting as fortunate that

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so much of the material for this has been brought together by a Head of his own college, and it is a kindness that the present Head has read the proofs of that section.

What makes Smyth almost unique in his time, is that he had the scientific spirit so strongly developed. He announced that he would be, as Bacon put it, a "true pioner in the mine of truth"; he was persevering in following every clue, in dechning to bow to mere custom or tradition, in reciuring to first principles, in acting on what he discovered. He is exhibited here on his own fine of development, which apart from one amusing excursus appears singularly straightforward.

For a few years after his death, it seemed as though he had spent his hfe almost in vain, and the chorus of opposition died away with words of pity for his failure. In the next generation only Paget' s brother recollected that he had been one of the Grandees of the Separation. Not till 1738 was his name recalled to the memory of the churches that had arisen from his work; only when Adam Taylor, in 1818, pubhshed long extracts from the preface to the Character, did the nature of the man begin to emerge. When however, in 1908, European Baptists met in Berhn and a session was devoted to the Pioneers in Liberty of Conscience, by an American, a Frenchman, a Rumanian and a Bulgarian, it was pointed out that to the teaching of Smyi;h was due directly the founding of the earhest Enghsh Baptist churches, and this one man was thus placed in the vanguard of what is now literally an CEcumenical or Catholic communion.

W. T. W.

Preston,

November 1915

Table Of Contents

VOLUME I

Sizar at Christ's College, Cambridge, 1586-1590.

Unknown origin — The college — Arts and theology — Domestic conditions — No holidays — The daily round — A sizar's lot—Serving and fagging — Chopping logic — The schools — Poetry and the drama — Sunday plays — College friends — Lecturers — Fellows — Francis Johnson — The Puritan ideals — Assemblies at Cambridge — Chaderton versus Whitgift