Presbyterians vs. Independents

Presbytery believed in an organic church with a graded hierarchy of government, but the other group, the Independents, stood for the sovereignty of the smaller unit, the congregation.  There is no such disruptive force as a common creed held with a difference, and the hostility between Presbyterians and Independents was, mainly, due to their different conceptions of popular rule.  Descending, through devious ways, from outlawed continental sects, the latter asserted not the liberty of the individual but the liberty and authority of the worshipping unit and, since they admitted no higher ecclesiastical constraint, their views involved a measure of toleration.  They had not the jealousy of the civil magistrate which their opponents displayed, for he might be their only buckler against an intolerant universal church; if they were left at peace within their own little communion, they had no desire to interfere with others.  To Laud, they were schismatics, a blot on the fair pattern he had designed and, to the Presbyterians, Laodiceans and heretics in the fundamentals.  “The Independents,” wrote the exasperated Robert Baillie, “have the least zeal to the truth of God of any men we know.”

From: Oliver Cromwell by John Buchan; reprint (London: The Reprint Society, 1941), pp. 23-24.  Originally published in 1934.

John Buchan (1875-1940) (afterwards, Lord Tweedsmuir) was a politician, journalist, and prolific writer, among other things.  His book on Cromwell is one of several biographies he wrote.  He is remembered today, mainly, as the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), a detective novel which was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock (1935).

 

A French View of Presbyterians

For my old friend, Alan P., who may be amused.

Letter 6

On the Presbyterians

The Anglican religion only extends to England and Ireland.  Presbyterianism is the dominant religion in Scotland.  This Presbyterianism is nothing more than pure Calvinism as it was established in France and survives in Geneva.  As the priests in this sect receive very small stipends from their churches, and so cannot live in the same luxury as bishops, they have taken the natural course of decrying honors they cannot attain.  Picture the proud Diogenes trampling underfoot the pride of Plato -  the Scottish Presbyterians are not unlike that proud and tattered reasoner.  They treated Charles II with much less respect than Diogenes had treated Alexander.  For, when they took up arms on his behalf against Cromwell, who had deceived them, they made the poor King put up with four sermons per day, they forbade him to play cards, and they sat him on the stool of repentance, with the result that Charles soon grew tired of being King of these pedants and escaped from their clutches like a schoolboy playing truant.

Compared with a young and lusty French student bawling in Theology Schools in the morning and singing with the ladies at night, an English theologian is a Cato, but this Cato looks like a gay young spark compared with a priest in Scotland.  The latter affects a solemn gait and scowling expression, wears a huge hat, a long cloak over a short jacket, preaches through his nose, and gives the name of Whore of Babylon to all churches in which a few ecclesiastics are fortunate enough to have an income of fifty thousand livres and in which the people are good enough to put up with it and call them Monsignor, Your Lordship, and Your Eminence.

These gentry, who also have a few churches in England, have brought solemn and austere airs into fashion in this country.  It is to them that we owe the sanctification of Sunday in the three kingdoms.  On that day, both work and play are forbidden, which is double the severity of Catholic churches.  There are no operas, plays, or concerts in London on Sunday.  Even cards are so expressly forbidden that only people of standing and what are called respectable people play on that day.  The rest of the nation goes to the sermon, the tavern, and the ladies of the town.

Although the Episcopal and Presbyterian sects are the two dominant ones in Great Britain, all the others are perfectly acceptable and live quite harmoniously together, whilst most of their preachers hate each other with almost as much cordiality as a Jansenist damns a Jesuit.

Go into the London Stock Exchange – a more respectable place than many a court – and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men.  Here, Jew, Mohammedan, and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word “infidel”  to people who go bankrupt.  Here, the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker.  On leaving these peaceful and free assemblies, some go to the synagogue and others for a drink, this one goes to be baptized in a great bath in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that one has his son’s foreskin cut and has some Hebrew words he doesn’t understand mumbled over the child, others go to their church and await the inspiration of God with their hats on, and everybody is happy.

If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of despotism.  If there were two, they would cut each other’s throats.  But, there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

From: Letters on England by Voltaire; translated from the French by Leonard Tancock (London: Penguin Books, 1980), pp. 40-41.

Voltaire (1694-1778), the pen name of Francois-Marie Arouet, was a French man of letters and a notorious (even for the France of his age) unbeliever.  Voltaire spent three years in England (1726-1729), a country with which he was favorably impressed.  On his return to France, he wrote this work (consisting of 25 letters on various subjects) – with his usual critical eye and sarcastic and ironic sense of humor – to explain to his countrymen what England was like, based on what he had seen and heard, for the purpose of making his readers understand that, at this period, England was a comparatively freer country, politically, socially, and religiously, than France was.  The book, of course, was immediately banned, thus helping to make Voltaire’s point for him.

 

The Parties at the Westminster Assembly

Episcopalians

All of the Westminster divines appointed by the Long Parliament in 1643 were ordained ministers in the Church of England, although many had refused to conform to some Anglican practices and some had temporarily gone into exile in the Netherlands.  This means that they had entered the ministry in an episcopal system, and many still favored a moderate episcopacy.  Men such as James Ussher, Archbiship of Armagh in Ireland, did not attend the Assembly because it did not have the approval of King Charles I.  Others dropped out in the early stages.  But all were opposed to prelacy, that is, the functioning of bishops like secular princes rather than as the teaching and preaching ministers of the New Testament.  Some who favored a moderate episcopacy remained in the Assembly and were gradually persuaded to prefer the presbyterian position.

Presbyterians

The Presbyterians, who favored a system with parity of the clergy, but with a graded system of church courts so that local congregations were bonded together and in submission to a regional presbytery, with presbyteries then being in submission to a national general assembly, were in the majority in the Assembly.  They were of two persuasions, however: those who believed in presbyterianism by divine right – i.e., that it is the only system prescribed by the New Testament – and those who believed presbyterianism was simply the system most consistent with the principles of church government taught in the New Testament.  The latter was the prevailing view among the English divines at the outset of the Westminster Assembly.

Congregationalists or Independents

Those who favored congregational church government were led by a very able and vocal group that became known as “the five dissenting brethren.”  These five had all gone into exile in the Netherlands in the 1630s and had close relations with the congregationalists in New England.  These were non-separating Puritans who wanted local church autonomy while still maintaining an association among churches and with the state.  Although the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay enforced the New England congregational way through the civil magistrate, the English congregationalists were led by circumstances to prefer toleration.

Erastians

The Erastians, named after the Swiss physician-theologian Thomas Erastus (1524-1583), were not in favor of any particular church polity – episcopal, presbyterian, or congregational – by divine right, but were mainly concerned that church discipline be finally carried out only with the approval of the state.  This view was upheld in the Assembly by a small but learned group and was supported by many in Parliament, which had called the Assembly and whose approval was necessary for the implementation of the Assembly’s decisions.

The Scottish Delegation

As a result of the Solemn League and Covenant, approved by the Scottish Parliament on August 17, 1643 and subscribed by the English Parliament and the members of the Westminster Assembly on September 25, a delegation of Scottish commissioners joined the Assembly later in 1643.  These were not voting members but had the right to speak.  In exchange for the assistance of the Scottish army to the Parliamentary forces in the Civil War against the King, the Solemn League and Covenant sought to bring the churches of England and Ireland into conformity to the reformed religion of Scotland in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government.  The Scottish commissioners, whose nation had almost a century of presbyterian history behind them, favored presbyterianism by divine right.

Such were the parties that emerged as church government proved to be the most controversial issue in the Assembly.  Again, we should remember that all of the Westminster divines were Calvinists.  As we look back to the Assembly with gratitude primarily for the setting forth of the reformed faith in the Confession and Catechisms, we should celebrate the doctrinal unity which it had.  Where there was diversity, there was also a spirit of accommodation on the part of many.  Richard Baxter, a contemporary Puritan but not a member of the Assembly, had immense appreciation of its members and its accomplishments.  He later commented that if all Episcopalians had been as Archbishop Ussher, all Presbyterians as Stephen Marshall (the great preacher of the Assembly), and Independents as Jeremiah Burroughs, the divisions of the church might soon have been healed.

From: To Glorify and Enjoy God: A Commemoration of the 350th Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly, edited by John L. Carson and David W. Hall (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), pp. 50-52.  (From Chapter 2, “The Men and Parties of the Assembly,” by William S. Barker)