“O Thou wha in the heavens dost dwell, Wha, as it pleases best thysel’, Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, A’ for Thy glory, And no for onie guid or ill They’ve done afore Thee”—
whatever it was in Burns’s time, is a caricature of Presbyterianism as it exists in London in our day.
CHAPTER VIII. CONGREGATIONALISTS AND BAPTISTS.
Early in our religious history two theories as to Church and State were developed. If the Presbyterians had gained the day in that time of religious ferment—which had so melancholy a termination in the restoration of Charles II., with his puppy-dogs and mistresses—we should have seen the Church established independent of the State: the latter acting as its servant, exercising the sword at its bidding and on its behalf. The Churchmen of that day adopted a lower theory, as appears by their favourite formulas—“the power of the magistrate in ecclesiastical matters,” and “passive obedience without limitations.” In his zeal in this direction, Archbishop Sancroft actually went so far as to alter the rubric. If Bishop Cosin may be believed (the story is told by Calamy), where it was said nothing was to be read in the churches but by the Bishop’s order, Sancroft took on himself to add, “or the King’s order.” In short, the theory was then what Sir J. D. Coleridge only the other day stated it, that “the Church was a political institution.” Against this theory, as dishonouring to God and degrading to religion, the Puritans sternly protested, and at the peril of their lives. Naturally they fell back upon such texts as, “My kingdom is not of this world,” “Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” More and more it became clear to them that the Church was simply an assembly of believers; that Christ’s kingdom was exclusively a spiritual one; that the greatest service the State could do to religion was to leave it alone. They argued, and not without some show of plausibility, that the faith enunciated by the carpenter’s son, disseminated through the world by tent-makers and fishermen; the faith which had found its way into the hearts of the stubborn Jews; which had been more than a match for the pride of Rome or philosophy of Greece—for which the multitude, the grey-haired sire, the high-spirited lad with life with its golden prospects opening all round him, the tender and delicate maiden, had gone smilingly to die—the faith immortal with the immortality of truth, required not the vulgar patronage of worldly men, or that the State should attempt bribery on its behalf. Of course they were wrong; for only last session of Parliament the present Archbishop of Canterbury, in his place in the House of Lords, on the night of an important debate, denominated a religion thus supported as a spurious one; and it was only within the memory of living men that Nonconformists were permitted to be parish constables or town councillors. Nevertheless, half the worshippers of England and Wales are Dissenters—that is to say, are of this spurious religion, and pay their own ministers, and build their own chapels, without asking a farthing from the State. Their leading denominations are the Baptists and Congregationalists; and it shows how terribly Dissent undervalues the historical element when I state that the Independents now prefer to call themselves Congregationalists. There is an historical halo around Independency. Mr. Brodie remarks that “the grand principle by which the Independents surpassed all other sects was, universal toleration to all denominations of Christians whose religion was not conceived to be hostile to the peace of the State—a principle to which they were faithful in the height of power as well as under persecution.” Nor should it be forgotten that Locke, the first of our philosophers to argue on behalf of toleration, gained, as his biographers confess, his enlightened views from the Independent Divines.