Images de page
PDF
ePub

sition) and not only making unnecessary things necessary, by Imposition, for then the Imposition had been unnecessary, tho' it was not a simple, unchangeable necessity, yet it was a necessity by Accident, pro Tempore et Loco; Antecedent to the Imposition of that Assembly. Seeing then such things commend us not to God; and if you use them, at least, you are not the better. Sin not against Christ, by Sinning against your Brethren, 1 Cor. 8. 8, 9, 11, 12, much more take heed of forcing them to Sin.

We have presumed to be thus plain and large, in showing you some of our Reasons, for your consent, to the necessary Abatement of things unnecessary to the Consciences of your Brethren.

In the Conclusion, we beseech you to compare with these the Reasons, that can move you to deny us these Requests. If you will needs use such things your selves, will it gain you so much to force them upon others, as will Answer all the foresaid Inconveniences? Will it cost you as dear to grant this Liberty, or abate these things, as the Imposition will cost your Brethren and you? O how easily, how safely, how cheaply, yea, with what commodity and delight may you now make this Nation happy, in granting your Brethren these Requests?

If you say that others will be still unsatisfied, and you shall never know when you have done: We answer,

1. The Cause of the Nonconformists hath been long ago Stated, at the Troubles at Frank-ford, and having continued still the same, you have no reason to suspect them of any considerable Change.

2. Grant us but the Freedom that Christ and his Apostles left unto the Churches; use necessary things as necessary, and unnecessary, as unnecessary, and Charitably bear with the Infirmities of the Weak, and Tolerate the Tolerable, while they Live Peaceably, and then you will know when you have done. And for the Intolerable, we beg not your Toleration: We interceed for those that have Christ for their Intercessor in the Highest: We know when all's done, there will be Heresies. 1 Cor. 11. 19. There will be self-Lovers, Covetous, Boasters, Proud, Blasphemers, Disobedient to Parents, Unthankful, Unholy, without Natural Affection, Truce-Breakers, False Accusers, Incontinent, Fierce, Despisers of those that are good, Traytors, Heady, High-minded, Lovers of Pleasures more than of God, having a Form of Godliness, while they deny the Power. 2 Tim. 3. 2. 3. 4. There will be filthy Dreamers, that defile the Flesh, despise Dominion, speak Evil of Dignities. Jud. 8. And many will follow their Pernicious ways, by Reason of whom the way of truth will be Evil spoken of: 2 Pet. 2. 2. It is not these for whom we are Petitioners. But for those that are Faithful to God and the King, that fear offending, that agree with you all things necessary to Salvation; and the common Union of Believers, and that you are like to see at Christ's Right Hand, who will finally Justifie them, and take them to his Glory. If you suppose us in all this to have Pleaded our own Cause; we hope we are not such as are intolerable in the Ministry or Communion of the Curch; if you suppose us to plead the Cause of others, we hope you will accept our Desires as Impartial when it is supposed the Persons differ from us as well as from you. We have now Faithfully, and not Unnecessarily, or Unreasonably spread before you the case of Thousands of the Up

right of the Land: We have proposed Honest and Safe Remedies for our present Distractions, and the preventing of the feared increase. We humbly beg your Favourable Interpretation of our Plain and Earnest Language, which the Urgency of the Cause commands, and your consent to these our necessary Requests: Which if you grant us, you will engage us to thankfulness to God and you, and to employ our Faculties and Interests with Alacrity to assist you for the common Peace. But if you reject our Suit (which God forbid) we shall commit all to him that Judgeth Righteously, and wait in hope for the Blessed Day of Universal Judgment; when the Lord of Hosts, their strong Redeemer, shall throughly plead his Peoples Cause, and Execute Judgment for them, and bring them forth into the Light, and they shall behold his Righteousness. In the mean Time we will bear the Indignation of the Lord, because we have Sinned against him. Come Lord Jesus! Come quickly; Amen.

EXTRACTS FROM THE LIFE OF JOSEPH ALLEINE.

Imagine yourself leaving Taunton Church on some thanksgiving day, and walking with a grave burgher to his home. Take note of what you see. His life there, just as much as in public worship, is ruled by scripture texts. Texts are woven into all his conversation, for the language of the Bible is with him the language of common life; he applies it to everything, and uses it most, not as you might suppose, when most artificial, but when most in earnest. Looking round, you see texts painted on the doors and over the fire places, stamped on kettles and skillits, wrought in garments, and even carved on the wooden cradle in the corner where the child lies asleep. A Nonconformist, who was young in Oliver's time, after praising his father for great care in the religious instruction of his children, adds, 'Let those Scriptures upon the chimney stone in the parlour be witness.'* There were thirteen texts there. In a few cases, as might have been expected, satirists wrote merrily about this Puritan use of texts, especially on their appearance in the ladies' embroideries. A personage in one of the comedies is represented as saying—

'Nay, sir, she is a Puritan at her needle too :

She works religious petticoats; for flowers,
She'll make church-histories; besides,

My sleeves have such holy embroideries,
And are so learned, that I fear in time

All my apparel will be quoted by some pure instructor.' †

In one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays we read of ' a neat historical shirt.' From such passages it appears that the custom Life of John Machin, p. 19.

† Jasper Mayne's City Match.

was of earlier origin than the period of the Commonwealth, although it was then in the height of its observance.

You are not to infer from all this, that your burgher friend leads a life of holy dulness or illiteracy on account of his biblical notions. Why should he? He enjoys a recreative hour as freely as any other man, thinking it lawful, however, not so much because it is natural, as because he can show you chapter and verse for it. 'Recreation,' he will say, 'is an exercise joined with the fear of God, conversant with things indifferent, for the preservation of bodily strength and the confirmation of the mind in holiness. To this end hath the Word of God permitted shooting (2 Sam. i. 18); musical concert (Neh. vii. 67); putting forth riddles (Judges xiv. 12); hunting of wild beasts (Cant. ii. 15); searching out, or the contemplation of the works of God (1 Kings iv. 33).'*

'He was infinitely and insatiably greedy of the conversion of souls, wherein he had no small success in the time of his ministry; and to this end he poured out his very heart in prayer and in preaching; he imparted not the gospel only, but his own soul. His supplications, and his exhortations, many times were so affectionate, so full of holy zeal, life, and vigor, that they quite overcame his hearers; he melted over them, so that he thawed and mollified, and sometimes dissolved the hardest hearts. But while he melted thus, he wasted, and at last consumed himself.'

Another contemporary writes as follows:

'His judgment was as the pot of manna, wherein were found and conserved all wholesome, soul-feeding doctrines. His memory was as the tables of the covenant, and as the sacred records kept in the ark, God's law being his meditation day and night. So tenacious it was, that it needed not and wholly refused those helps by which it is usually kept. What had once engaged his love was, without delay or difficulty, possessed of his memory.'

*

*

'His phansie was as Aaron's rod budding, ever producing fresh blossoms of refined, divine wit. His affections were strong and fervent, never enkindled but with a coal from the altar. He had a great acquaintance with the chief sects of the philosophers, especially of the academics and stoicks, of his insight into whom he made singular use, by gathering their choicest flowers to adorn Christianity withal; and scarcely did he preach a sermon wherein he did not select some excellent passage or other out of them, whereby to illustrate and fortify his discourse. His prolation or manner of speech was free, sublime and weighty. It will be hard to tell what man ever spake with more holy eloquence, gravity, authority, meekness, compassion, and efficacy to souls.'

Such are a few of the expressions written about him, years after his death, by a minister of the church of England who knew him well.

*Master Perkins.

TOPICS OF THE MONTH.

MR. BRIGHT'S SPEECH AT ROCHDALE, although in respect of composition one of his happiest efforts, furnished another signal example of the art of not-persuading his countrymen, of which he is so great a master. He has reached an eminence in this department which justifies us in offering to him a respectful condolence. That Mr. Bright is a man of great natural parts, of a Lancashire intelligence, quickened into supernatural activity by long habits of debate, of unblemished character, of noble aspirations, and of fair political honesty, every candid observer in England must gladly acknowledge. And that for his share in the abolition of the cornlaws, England owes to him a debt which can never be paid, is also a statement to which impartial spectators will readily yield assent. But that Mr. Bright is a man whose wisdom of the present is tempered and deepened by much knowledge of the past, is a proposition which none but his flatterers will maintain. He is a man of burning sympathies and of violent antipathies, and his antipathies govern his general opinions at least as much as his sympathies. Indeed, it is the warmth of his love and hatred which renders him in some respects an unjust man in judgment, a dangerous adviser of the commonalty, and practically an unsuccessful orator. He is a noble counsel for the side he espouses, but a most inefficient juryman or judge. He scarcely ever does, or ever tries to do, thorough justice to his opponents. Yet this habit of doing justice to opponents, lies at the foundation of success in eloquence. Mr. Bright's one-sidedness, instead of lessening by age and experience, seems to be increasing. He cannot speak his best until he gets into a grand moral passion, and he cannot get into a passion until he has misrepresented his adversaries. He thus succeeds in filling his opponents with fury and contempt, and in partially alienating that portion of his supporters whose praise is best worth having. We will say nothing in this place of his Birmingham speeches against the aristocracy, though they were grievous examples of his besetting sin; let us take this last oration on America. It breathed a noble strain of earnestness in popular language of unsurpassable excellence, but every appeal to conscience, to affection, to interest, to fear, was spoiled by the tone of injustice which pervaded it, from the opening sentences to the glowing and stirring peroration. After the first enchantment was over, every man felt that Mr. Bright, in his great desire to do justice to America, had sunk into mere 'evil-speaking, lying, and slandering,' in relation to England. It was in some respects a speech which even a gallant American would have been ashamed to make against our people and government. He spoke not as an Englishman, not even as a mediator between England and America, though what special pretension he has to assume that character it is difficult to understand; but he spoke as

an ultra

[ocr errors]

American. The Times' newspaper, the Government, the feeling of the people, all came in for his Yankee maledictions, and the unfairness of his statements in one case, was only equalled by their unfairness in the others. The Times' was represented as habitually irritating the Americans. No one who has read it regularly during the last ten years, who has also read the American newspapers, can fail to perceive the shameless injustice of the charge The Times' has met the most foul-mouthed insolence of the United States press with magnanimity and moderation. The Government was charged with one-sided sympathies, and a disposition to violence. Let any man look back upon our American 'difficulties' during the last twenty years, and say, if he can, that Lord Palmerston and Earl Russell have ever once shown a disposition to affront the Americans, or even to retaliate upon their petulance. All England knows that the profound resolution of both the nation and the Government has been to avoid a quarrel with the States; and with this end in view, more ill usage has been endured from them than would have been tolerated from any other nation under heaven. Yet Mr. Bright ignores these notorious facts. He speaks as if in the case of this last outbreak between the North and the South, our sympathies were with the slave-owners. He knows how false is the allegation. He knows, when he is not making a speech, that our sympathies were all with the North, so long as we supposed that the anti-slavery card by which Mr. Lincoln was elected was an honest programme. It was not until we discovered the truth of Earl Russell's Newcastle statement, that the North were fighting for empire, and the South for independence, that our good-will towards the North cooled down into absolute neutrality. Precisely in the same manner, Mr. Bright mis-stated the facts respecting the San Jacinto and the Trent. Nothing could be grander or nobler than the attitude of England on the day following the reception of the fatal news. The writing of the newspapers was worthy of the golden age, for moderation and courageous abstinence from passion. To all this, the member for Birmingham is blind; and this is the reason why he is destined to prophecy to unbelieving ears. Deal with me justly, acknowledge my good qualities, and I will listen to you while you correct me in righteousness-but talk to me as if I were a Gasparoni, a Neapolitan robber, armed to the teeth, and looking out for lawful or unlawful prey, and I shall turn from you with disgust and indignation.

It is

There is one other point in Mr. Bright's speech to which it is proper to draw attention in a religious magazine-the use which he has learned to make of the argumentum ad hominem. sometimes necessary, when an opponent does not admit our principles, to show him the inconsistency of his conclusions, or of his conduct, with his own. It is often a dangerous weapon, a two-edged and poisoned sword, poisoned in the hilt for the wielder, as well as in

« PrécédentContinuer »