thirty-ninth articles are a program for action. They would have all who are convinced of the truth of the charges here formulated against the Establishment lay down any offices which they may have held within it and at once renounce its communion. No one, holding the rightful view of what Christ intended a church to be, is to contribute longer to the financial support of the legal church, even though such a refusal make him obnoxious to the law. These religious men, who have come forth from the Church of England, are next to join in local congregations, united by a covenant and a common confession of faith. In these congregations any who are able, and have the approval of their associates, are to teach and preach; but the sacraments are not to be administered until some of these preachers, whose qualifications have appeared eminent, are chosen and ordained to the divinely appointed offices of pastor, teacher, elder, and deacon, or as many of these offices as the church finds men fitted to fill. Then baptism is to be administered to the children and wards of the members of the local church, and its members of mature years are to unite in the Lord's supper.3 But baptism does not admit its recipient to the full privileges of the church. While all who will are to be urged to be present at the preaching of God's word, and while the duty of professing faith in Christ is to be pressed upon them, the church is to be increased only by the admission of those who make a profession of personal belief and who publicly unite in the covenant fellowship.4 Thus the Christian people of any given town in England, so the makers of this creed thought, might be released from the Establishment and organized into true churches. But what should be. done with the Establishment and with those who refused to come out cf it? The answer is characteristic of the times, and illustrative of the partial vision to which these men had attained. The old system was to be uprooted and the buildings and revenues which it enjoyed were to be confiscated by civil authority. The magistrate was to enforce upon the reluctant the commands of God. There is something ludicrous as well as pathetic in the

1 Article 32.

4 Article 37.

2 Article 33

5 Article 39.

3 Article 34, 35.

readiness with which these exiles of Amsterdam and prisoners of London call upon the power from which they had themselves suffered so much to enforce on others that which they had had to bear. But in this matter the nineteenth century is apt to judge the sixteenth hardly. Such a thought as that of honest difference of opinion in regard to the main, and even the minor truths of Christianity was foreign to the great mass of men for more than two centuries after the Reformation. Dissent from their own convictions men believed to be due to defect in moral character, such failure to see the truth could be owing only to willfulness, or to a divine withholding of light which was in itself high evidence of the sinfulness of those thus deprived. There could be but one right view. These Separatists held it. They had called on their opponents to show its falsity, and to their thinking their opponents had failed. And since it is the duty of a magistrate, they thought, to support the truth, the magistrates of England should overthrow an Establishment, which civil government had so often altered during the last fifty years, and which the Separatists believed they had demonstrated to be utterly unworthy. We may well regret that these early Congregationalists and the founders of New England also did not share the truer view of Browne,1 and of the Anabaptists regarding the limits of civil authority, but there is little reason for surprise that they did not.

England was not to be reBut as a statement of Con

This is, after all, a minor matter. formed on the lines here laid down. gregationalism this creed marks a decided gain in clearness. As a setting forth of the essential and permanent features of the system in definite form, it was fitted to stand for many years, as the frequent reprints show it did stand, as an adequate and valued exposition of Congregational doctrine and polity.

As has already been seen, the creed, as it was issued in 1596, was preceded by an introduction breathing the spirit of strong indignation against the oppressors from whose hands the church had so recently escaped, and who still held some of the brethren in bondage. The very warmth of this feeling, justifiable as it was,

1 See ante, p. 12.

rendered this preface less likely to be favorably received by those unfamiliar with English ecclesiastical affairs. And as the church at last gathered together all its scattered membership at Amsterdam (1597), and came to be more and more a recognized, though humble, element in the religious life of the city, the desire to set themselves right in the eyes of Protestant Christendom, which had prompted the original draft of the creed, impelled the brethren to make a translation of their profession into the only tongue which learned Europe could understand, and preface it with an account of the government and rites of the legally established church of their native country designed to make clear to the nonEnglish reader the reasons for their separation. The new preface is milder in tone than the old, though it retains passages from the latter. But it cannot be said to have gained in strength or cogency. The translation of the old creed, thus introduced, appeared late in 1598; and was, doubtless, the work of the scholarly Henry Ainsworth. Its typographical dress indicated the improved outward estate of the exiled company, as surely as the mute witness of the wretched printing and the scanty font of type revealed the dire poverty of these exiles for what they believed to be the truth of God at their first coming into Holland.

1 Dexter, Cong, as seen, p. 299. The following articles were slightly revised, not for content, but for clearness of statement, in the edition of 1598; xvii, xxviii, xxx, xliii, and xliv.

The Confession Of 1596

A TRVE CONFESSI- | ON OF THE FAITH, AND HVM- | BLE ACKNOVVLEDGMENT OE THE ALE- | geance, vvhich vvee hir Maiesties Subjects, falsely called Brovvnists, | doo hould tovvards God, and yeild to hir Majestie and all other that are ouer vs in the Lord. Set dovvn in Articles or Positions, for the better & more easie vnderstanding of those that shall read yt And | published for the cleering of our selues from those vnchristian slan- | ders of heresie, schisme, pryde, obstinacie, disloyaltie, sedicion, &c. vvhich by our adversaries are in all places given out against vs. | wee bclecue therfore haue we spoken. 2 Cor. 4, 13. | But, who hath beleeued our report, and vnto whom is the arme of the Lord reuealed? Isai. 53, 1. | M.D. XCVI.

[ii Blank.]

[iii]. To all that desire to feare, to loue, & to obey our Lord Iesus Christ, grace, wisdom and vnderstanding.

Thou canst not lightly bee ignorant (gentle Reader) what eviils and afflictions, for

our profession and faith towards God wee haue susteined at the hands of our owne Nation: How bytterly wee haue been, an yet are, accused, reproched and persecuted wich [with] such mortall hatred, as yf wee were the most notorious obstinate hereticks, and disloyall subiects to our gracious Queen Elizabeth, that are this day to bee found in all the Land. And therfore, besides the dayly ignominie wee susteine at the hands of the Preachers and Prophets of our tyme, who have given theyr tongnes the reins to speacke despightfully of vs, wee haue been further miserably entreated by the Prelats and cheef of the Clergie: some of vs cast into most vile and noysome prisons and dungeons, * ' laden with yrons, and there, withont all pitie, deteyned manie yeeres, no man remembring our affliction: vntill our God released some of vs out of theyr cruell bands by death, as the Cities of Londo, Norwich, Glocestcr, Bury, and manye other places of the land can testific. Yet hecre the malice of Satan stayed not it self, but raysed vp against vs a more greevous persecution, even vnto the violent death of somcf and lamentable exile of vs all; causing heavie decrees to come forth against vs, that wee should forsweare our own Contrey * They shut op our lyves in the Dnngeon, they cast a stone upon vs. Lam.

3- 53.

3

to Anno 1593. April. 10.*

1 From this point onward the preface is in Old English black letter. I have tried to give it literatim, even to the misprints.

This and the subsequent notes are on the margin of the pages, often with no mark indicating their exact reference to the text. When not so indicated I have added a o.

2 Bury St. Edmunds.

* The martvrdom of Barrowe and Greenwood is probably meant, though that was Apl. 6.

& depart, or els bee slayne therein. This have onr adversaries vsed, as their last and best argument against vs, (when all other fayled) followinge the stepps of theyr bloody Prodecessors, the popish Priests and Prelats. Now therfore that the true cause of this their hostilitie & hard vsage of vs may appeere vnto all men; wee haue at lengh amyds our manie troubles, through Gods favonr, obteyned to publish vnto the view of the world, a confession of our fayth & hope in Christ, and loyal harts, towards our Prince, the rather to stop the mouths of impious and vnreasonable men, who have not ceased some of them, both openly in their Sermons & printed pamphlets, notoriously to accuse and defame vs, as alsoo by all indirect meanes secletly to suggest the malice of their owne evill harts, therby invegling our soveraign Prince and Rulers against vs: that when the true state of the controversie between them and vs shalbe manifested, the christian (or but indiffirent) Reader may iuge whether our adversaries have not followed the way of Cain and a Ualaam, to kill and curse vs Gods sernants without cause. For if in this onr Confession appeere no matter worthie such mortal inmitie and persecution, then we protest (good Reader) that, to our knowledge, they neyther haue cause nor colour of cause so to entreat vs, the mayne and entire difference betwixt their Synagogs and vs, beeing in these Articles fully & wholly comprised.

An other motive inducing vs to the publication of this our testimonie, is, the rufull estate of our poore Contrymen, who remayne yet fast locked in Egipt, that hous of servants, in slavish subjection to strange LLs' & lawes, enforced to beare the burdens and iutollerable yoke of their popish canons & decrees, beeing subiect every day they rise to * 38 antichristian ecclesiasticall offices, and manie moe Uomish statutes and traditions, almost without number: besides their high trangression dayly in their vaine will-worship of God, by reading over a few prescribed prayers and collects, which they haue translated verbatim out of the Mass-book, and which are yet taynted with manie popish hereticall errors and superstions, instead of true spirituall invocation vpon the name of the Lord.

[iv] These and manie other greevous enormities are amongst them, not suffred only but with a high hand mainteyned, and Gods servants, which by the powre of his Word and Spirit witnes against & condemne such abhominations, are both they & their testimonie, reiected, persecuted & plasphemed. What a wofull plight then are such people in, how great is their iniquitie, how fearfull indgments doo abide them: wee have therfore, for their sakes, manifested this onr Confession of and vowed obedience vnto that Fayth which was once gyven vnto the a Saincts, wherby they may bee drawne (God shewing mercy vnto them) vnto the same faith and obedience with vs, that they perish not in their sinnes. For how could wee behould so manie soules of our dear Contrymen to dye before our eyes & wee hould our peace: And wheras they have been heertofore greatly abused by their tyme-serving Priests, beeing give to vnderstad that wee were a dangerous people, holding manie errors, renting our selves

1 Lords?

*Arch Bbs. L. [ord] Bbs. Suffragans, Chancellors, Deanes, Arch-Deacōs, Commissaries, Officials, Doctors, Proctors, Registers, scribes, Purcevants, Summoners, Subdeans, chaplaines, Prebēdaries, Cannons, Peti-Canons, Gospellers, pistellers Chanters, Sub-chanters, Vergiers, organ-players, Queristers, Parsons, Vicars, Curats, Stipendaries, Vagrant-Preachers, Priests, Deacons or half Priests, Churchwardens, Sideme Collectors, Clerks, Sextins.