Lord, &c.;' and then the children of Israel' imposed hands. This I understand not of every particular man, but of some of the chief for the rest; as the elders, heads of tribes, chief fathers of families, &c., as when all the multitude brought an oblation for their sin, the Elders' put their hand on the head of the sacrifice.c Accordingly have we practised in our ordination of officers;-some of the chiefest of the church, the ancientest, and fathers of families, imposed hands in name of the rest." "d "That the ministers of one particular church should ordain officers for another church, is more unorderly than when every church ordaineth them in itself. The apostles and evangelists had their offices in all churches, so have not Pastors."e "They say, That they find in Scripture some officers admitted with it, some without it,' [imposition of hands]. This I find not. They allege, Acts xiii. 1-3, where Paul and Barnabas had it. It is true; yea, Paul had imposition of hands twice; but where is the Scripture that saith some had it not?' They say, 'We read not that the other apostles had.' What then? Doth this prove they had it not? So we may also conclude the other apostles were never baptized; for we read not that they were. We read not, say the Anabaptists, that children were baptized in the apostles' days! Will these men now conclude, therefore they were not baptized? But do not they know that arguments thus drawn negatively from Scripture, are generally blamed for insufficient? . . They say, That some churches hold it, [imposition of hands], not of necessity to be had, &c.' I answer, That is nothing to such as hold it, and have Elders to do it."g Thus we have seen that the questions so much agitated since the Reformation, and which we know greatly perplexed the consciences of the scrupulous yet sincere servants of God, who remained in the Establishment; but which were made a colourable use of to restrain all authority within a certain jurisdiction, devolved, as they say, upon themselves alone, who had acquired the ecclesiastical power at their disruption from the old state of things; were questions not easily disposed of among others who had departed far more widely from the claims and dominancy of Rome. If apostolical succession, which was the most prominent of those questions, were admitted to be in that church, then it must follow, in the view of all who laid a stress on the transmissibility of outward ordinances, that only her baptism and ordination are genuine! The discussion of all this, occupies the larger number of pages in this treatise by Ainsworth; and the argument is conducted with a display of scriptural knowledge, and polemical acumen and research, which fully justifies his fame as a scholar and a divine. Though this work cannot be made popular, it should not be suffered to go into oblivion, nor ever be disregarded when the topics we have named are required to be examined into. We follow these remarks with a single extract, affording a further insight into the nature of the general argument, in less space, than by any other we could make. "But they plead still, In that the Church of Rome hath all the a Num. viii. 7, 9, 10. b Num. xv. 24, 25. e Lev. iv. 14, 15. d P. 53-55. • P. 58. f Acts ix. 17. xiii. 3. P. 63. b divine things in the Scriptures, it is of God, and a church in that it hath them all corrupt, that is of itself, it is a corrupt church. The church is not taken away by corruption, unless it be total, &c.' I answer, Still they take for granted that which they should prove; and which I have before, again and again, disproved. It is not properly the old church of Rome, corrupted; but a new church arisen out of the bottomless pit, carrying the show and titles of the old. It is not 'the woman' fled into the wilderness;' but another woman, or city, reigning over the kings of the earth! The Lamb,' Christ, is not there as on mount Sion,' with his hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's Name written on their foreheads;' but the wolf Antichrist, with his sheep's skin and lamb's horns, is there, with his army of Canaanites, as on mount Mageddon At first those Gentiles invaded the courts of God's temple, and trod down the holy city, as the Babylonians of old dealt with God's sanctuary. If that army of Infidels were God's true church, so is the synagogue of antichristians. And the heathen, in their altars, temples, sacrifices, &c. had the divine things' of God among them, as well, if not better, than hath the man of sin and his worshippers, in the sacrifice of the mass, and other manifold idolatries. The duty of those that are in the Popish church, and see their corruptions, is,' they say, 'such as of those children that dwell with their idolatrous mother; that is, to abhor her sin, with speech and sign to call her back from evil; and abstain themselves from it; and in all things cleave to their father, and betake themselves to his closet, &c.' I answer, Thus it appeareth, that these our opposites are returned to acknowledge the whore of Rome to be their mother; whom they feign to be as a woman which hath a deadly sore swollen with waters of dropsy,' or with poison,' which had long ago given up the ghost; if God, by the interposition of his grace, &c. had not nourished and kept her warm.' Now to leave their mother thus on her sick-bed, as they have done, disclaiming all christian duty unto her which is due to a true church in corruption, is but the part of unnatural children. While God doth nourish and keep her warin, will they quite abandon her? Let them return and cherish her also, and all her members, and see if there be any balm to heal her wounds, and to comfort her! As for us, we have been taught of God, that in respect of Him, she is dead long ago in her sins, having been the marked whore and worshipper of the Beast; from which death she is not risen to live and reign with Christ. Although to this world she liveth and reigneth in pleasure, till at one day death' otherwise shall come upon her, and she be burnt with fire.' And then shall we be so far from mourning at her funeral, as we shall rejoice' with the heavenly multitude, and sing Hallelujah,' when God hath given Sodom's judgment to her, and we see her smoke'i rise up for evermore." k So wide were the differences become, that even the appeal to the a Rev. xii. 14. xvii. 1, 18. b Rev. xiv. 1. Matt. vii. 15. Rev. xiii. 11. xvi. Psal. lxxix. 1, &c. Jer. li. 1, 3, &c. Lam. i. 10. e Rev. xx. 4. xiii. 4. f Rev. xviii. 7, 8. i Rev. xix. 1-3. * P. 103. and that you pretend to be, none other than your consorting' with the Papists in certain Ceremonies:' touching which, and our Separation in regard of them, thus you write. Master Hall; If you have taken but the least knowledge of the grounds of our judgment and practice, how dare you thus abuse both us and the reader, as if the only or chief ground of our Separation were your Popish Ceremonies? But if you go only by guess, having never so much as read over our treatise published in our defence, and yet stick not to pass this your censorious doom both upon us and it; I leave it to the reader to judge whether you have been more lavish of your censure or credit! Most unjust is the censure of a cause unknown; though in itself never so blameworthy; which, nevertheless, may be praiseworthy for aught he knows that censures it. "Estimation of Ceremonies, and Subjection to the Prelates: And touching the Ceremonies' here spoken of, howsoever we have formerly refused them, submitting, as all others did and do, to the Prelates' Spiritual Jurisdiction-herein, through ignorance, straining at 'gnats," and swallowing camels,'a-yet, are we verily persuaded of them, and so were before we separated, That they are but as leaves of that tree, and as badges of that man of sin,' whereof the Pope is head, and the Prelates' shoulders! And so we, for our parts, see no reason why any of the Bishops' sworn servants, as all the Ministers, of the Church of England are canonically, should make nice to wear their Lords' liveries. Which Ceremonies,' notwithstanding, we know well enough, howsoever you, for advantage, extenuate and debase them unto us,-to be advanced and preferred, in your Church, before the Preaching of the Gospel. It is much that they, being 'not so much as reed,' nor any nuously, I had heard and hoped, that your case had been less desperate: my intelligence was, that in dislike of these Ceremonies obtruded, and an hopelessness of future liberty, you and your fellows had made a Secession, rather than a Separation, from our Church, to a place where you might have scope to profess, and opportunity to enjoy your own conceits. Whence it was, that I termed you Ringleaders of the 'late' Separation; not followers of the first; and made your plea against our Church, imperfection, not falsehood. I hoped you, as not ours, so not theirs: not ours in place, so not quite theirs in peevish opinion... I knew the former Separation, and hated it; I hoped better of the latter Separation, and pitied it... I knew why a Brownist is a true Schismatic : I knew not you were so true a Brownist... I knew that this Separation, which now I know yours, stands upon four grounds; as some beasts upon four feet: first, God worshipped, after a false manner; secondly, Profane multitude received; thirdly, Antichristian Ministry imposed; fourthly, Subjection to Antichristian Government: - - Bar. and Greenw. passim; Pen. Exam. The Ceremonies are but as some one paw in every foot; yet if we extend the word to the largest use, dividing all Religion into Ceremony and Substance, I may yet, and do, aver, that your Separation is merely grounded upon Ceremonies." Hall. p. 112-114. a "But refusing them, you submitted to the Prelates' Spiritual Jurisdiction; there was your crime: this was your camel,' the other your 'gnats.' Did ever any Prelate challenge Spiritual rule over your Conscience?" Hall, p. 114. b Tell us, how long was it after your Suspension, and before your departure, that you could have been content, upon condition, to have worn this linen badge of your man of sin?' Was not this your resolution when you went from Norwich to Lincolnshire, after your Suspension? Deny it not, my witnesses are too strong." Hall, p. 115. a dwell out of this city." A necessity of remaining was pleaded; and on that the terms of peace were refused to be complied with. The "double practice" then proposed to be adopted in the church, neither the Church at Leyden nor Ainsworth and his friends approved, "it being both unlawful for us to practise sin as it were with the right hand, and righteousness with the left; and no likelihood of our peace, but of grief and daily dissensions."b A Testimony of the Elders of the Church at Leyden, respecting these matters, and incorporated in this treatise, furnishes the information that their interference was first desired by Ainsworth, and afterward applied for "by some thirty of the brethren," who stated that a reason why they earnestly requested help was because "Mr. Ainsworth was so sparing in opposing of Mr. Johnson's new doctrine, though always misliking it, as they scarce knew how he was minded in the things; so loth was he to come to any professed and public opposition with him." The Elders say, they had good cause to speak reprovingly to one party, "for neither is the same carriage to be used towards men prosecuting their purposes and persuasions with all violence and extremity, and towards them which manifest Christian moderation in the same neither had we before, nor have we since, found the like peaceable inclination in them [the violent], to that which they [the moderate], then manifested." Having described some subsequent intermediate proceedings, they add, "When one'amongst them, I. O., made exception, that we should dismiss them back which came unto us, to live a distinct congregation in the same city with them, it was presently answered both by Mr. Johnson and Mr. Studley, that that concerned not them, but that they would leave it unto us; though that appeared afterwards to be the only thing for which they broke off their purpose and promise. And here, the work of God's providence is to be observed, That they who would have no peace with their brethren abiding in the same city with them, are about to leave it themselves, and to settle their abode elsewhere!.. How much better had it been, had they admitted of a peaceable parting, all things considered, than through extreme straitness in themselves, thus to have made their brethren their adversaries; and themselves, yea, and us all, a bye-word to the whole world!" Signed, John Robinson; William Brewster. Ainsworth reminds us, next, that this dispute had lasted “ a twelvemonths" before this time, but they were further off in the end than at the beginning. The practice of errors was established; the truth in public doctrines, inveighed against; the opposers compared to Korah, &c.; the Lord's Supper of a long time not administered; occasions sought against sundry persons to cast them out of the church; peace offered, and refused; again proposed and confirmed, and again broken: open war proclaimed ; was this a state, Ainsworth might well ask, "for us to continue in together?" He concludes by cautioning the Christian reader not to be offended because of these "infirmities;" and then desires that his former brethren might return into the right way, "and putting away all love of pre a See back, p. 243. b P. 126, 127. C P. 133-136. eminence, and of their own aberrations, receive again the love of the truth and of brotherly concord; that the name of God be no more evil spoken of by the wicked, and that the hearts which are wounded by these dissensions, may he healed and refreshed." a CHAP. XV. ROBINSON CONFUTES HELWISSE. THE intimate connexion which subsisted between the respective authors, and the general accordance of their religious feelings and sentiments, lead us to pass, by an easy transition, from Ainsworth's "Animadversion," to a very similar production intituled, "Of Religious Communion: Private and Public. With the silencing of the Clamours raised by Mr. Thomas Helwisse against our retaining the Baptisin received in England; and administering of Baptism unto Infants. As also, a Survey of the Confession of Faith, published in certain Conclusions, by the remainders of Mr. Smyth's company. Prov. xiv. 15. By John Robinson, 1614." No imprint of place; 4to. pp. 131. The accordance of the two friends appears in the introductory paragraphs of their prefaces; the present, commencing with these words"There passed out some while since, a defamatory libel under the names of Charles [Christopher] Lawne, and three others his brethren in evil; but certainly penned by some other persons, whose greater knowledge did arm their cruel hatred the more to hurt; making them fathers of that 'generation whose teeth are as swords and their jaw-teeth as knives, to devour the afflicted from the earth, and the poor from among men.' Against whom and whose friends durst I use the same liberty in publishing to the world their personal corruptions which I know, and could soon learn by the testimony of honester men than these informers, they who have written of others what hath pleased them, should read that which would not please them, of their own, if not of themselves. But God forbid." Robinson had, indeed, much cause for exhibiting resentment; as his next paragraph shows. "This libel it hath pleased divers persons, of note for learning and zeal, to countenance with their writings of divers kinds. Amongst the rest, Mr. W. Ames, fearing, belike, lest either it should want credit, or I discredit, by the accusations in it against the persons of other men in other churches, which though they were all true, as I know some of them to be wholly false, and others impudently published by such as were themselves chief agents in them, yet did no more concern me and the church with me, than did the abuses in the Church of Corinth, the Church of Rome, or those in some of the seven Churches in Asia, the rest which were free from them;-hath published to the world, in the body of that Book (without my consent, privity, or least suspicion of such dealing) certain Private Letters passing between him and me a P. 137. 138. b See back, p. 245. c Prov. xxx. 14. |