saith, but only to walk in the Ordinance of God, according to his word."

According to this deposition, George Johnson, who we know was a member of this congregation of which Francis was pastor, was arrested in the same assembly at Islington, a month before April 2nd, 1593. And what Francis Johnson says to Lord Burleigh in a letter dated Jan. 18, 1593-94, after he had been in prison fourteen months, agrees very well with this supposition. He says, "that his brother George had been confined eleven months in the Clink." ― Brook, 11. 99; Strype's Ann., iv. No. 91. If Francis was arrested on the 5th of December, 1592, and George, with the church, was arrested at Islington on the 4th of March, 1592-3, then George would have been a prisoner eleven months, lacking a single day, when Francis had been fourteen months in prison. This agrees, too, with John Johnson's statement, the father of Francis and George, made July 1st, 1594 that Francis had been in prison a year and a half," and George, "sixteen months." Hidden Church, 122.

NOTE F, TO PAGE 232.

ANTAGONISM OF THE PURITANS AND THE SEPARATISTS.

The reader of this history must have remarked, that “Puritan" and "Separatist" were by no means convertible terms; that in point of fact, they very often indicated hostile parties, pitted against each other in bitter controversies. And the inquiry may have arisen - How is this? Were not the Separatists all Puritans? Were they not all earnest for a purer state of the church? Why then this antagonism between men of like faith?

The term "Puritan" was originally applied to all in the church of England who desired further reformation - a greater conformity of church government and worship to primitive and apostolic usages. But after awhile the term became restricted in its application, to those who retained their respect for the church of England, and their connection with it, notwithstanding its acknowledged corruptions; in distinction from those who had been brought to abandon both their respect for that church and their

connection with it, under the conviction that it was hopelessly corrupt, and could never be reformed.

The Separatists, then, were indeed all Puritans, and of the most thorough and uncompromising kind. They were the very essence - the oil of Puritanism. But the Puritans were by no means all Separatists; though they agreed with them in doctrinal faith, being all thoroughly Calvinistic in their faith; and in the necessity of further purification of the church of England, in order to make it conform to the spirit of the Christian system.

Thus far these reformers agreed, perfectly. And for a while they agreed on the proper measures for securing the desired reformation; viz.: by appeals to Church and State authorities, by preaching and publishing, and by reforming their own lives and practices as far as possible. But when, one after the other, these reformatory measures were found to be utterly ineffectual, and the rulers of the establishment grew more and more tenacious of the semi-popish usages, orders and discipline of the church of England, the more zealous of the old puritans broke away from the body of their brethren, separated themselves from the church of England, and organized independent churches, and accepted the name of Separatists. This separation, of course, mado a grand division in the old puritan party. But it was not the only division; for the remaining puritans soon became distinguished into conforming and non-conforming puritans. While they both professed a desire for further reformation, a portion of them submitted to the rites and orders and ceremonies of the church, as things enjoined by lawful authority, so far at least as to retain their standing in the church unimpaired, and received the title of Conformists, and conforming puritans. The more sturdy and decided puritans, though they still clung to the church, and regarded voluntary separation as a heinous sin, yet refused to conform to the offensive and antichristian rites and ceremonies of the church; others earned the title of Nonconformists, or nonconforming puritans. Thus Baylie, a contemporary writer, says: “The Unconformists did always zealously plead against the corruptions of that church, but never against the truth of her being, or the comfort of her communion. When by the force of persecution they were driven out, then they did flee. Of their own accord they did never separate, but were ever most glad to live and die in her bosom, willing to partake of her worship and sacraments, where

ever they were permitted to dissent in doctrine, and to abstain in practice, from those things which they conceived to be corruptions." - Dissuasive, p. 27.

The Separatists, on the contrary, after long and painful experience of the utter hopelessness of any reformation of the English hierarchal establishment by the rulers of that church, undertook to carry out puritan principles to their legitimate conclusions: If, said they, the church of England is unscriptural in its general organization, and corrupt in its administration, making no distinction between the clean and the unclean in its membership, gather ing the good and the bad alike around its altars, and administering to them its sacraments; imposing rites and ceremonies on its members, which are both burdensome and unscriptural; and refusing utterly all reformation, requiring exact conformity to all its ordinances and observances, under severe pains and penalties — there is nothing left for the conscientious Christian but absolute repudiation of the whole system; an open withdrawal from its fellowship, and separation from all communion with its unfruitful works of darkness; nothing but to come out and be separate from this corrupt establishment, agreeably to the apostle's injunctions, in the 2 of Corinthians, vi. 14-18: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of God: as God hath said: 'I will dwell in them, and walk in them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.' 'Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate,' saith the Lord, 'and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you; and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters,' saith the Lord Almighty."

Now, this was the doctrine, and this was the practice of the Separatists; and all this they learned from the Puritans rather from the word of God, while Puritans.

or

Thus the learned John Canne, pastor of the London Separate Church, in 1623, says: "I know what I say, and have good experience of this thing; for there are not ten of a hundred which separate from the church of England, but are first moved thereto by the doctrines of the nonconformists, either in word or writing, taught to the people. Indeed, upon their ground, how can any

one do less than separate, if his heart be tender against every sin? seeing that they confidently affirm, that the ministry, worship, and discipline are from antichrist, and that in the church are swarms of atheists, papists, adulterers, liars, etc. These are their own testimonies, and we know they are true; and therefore, in obedience to God, and care of our precious souls, we have left our unsanctified standing in their assemblies, and through the Lord's mercy to us, do walk in the holy order of his Gospel, although daily sufferers for it.” — A Necessity of Separation, etc., Proved from the Nonconformist Principles, in Brook, 111. 333.

The churchmen were not slow to perceive the truth of this statement made by Canne, that Separatism was only a legitimate conclusion from puritan principles; and to urge against these principles, that they led naturally to radicalism - the denial and rejection of the church of England, and open separation from its communion, attended with the erection of independent churches - of "altar against altar." Thus George Cranmer, in his letter to Richard Hooker, the author of the "Ecclesiastical Polity," in 1608, after stating that puritanism was manifestly declining in power and influence in the land, assigns the radicalism of the Brownists, the lineal descendants of the Puritans, as one of the reasons for this decline: "Here come the Brownists in the first rank, their [the puritans] lineal descendants, who have seized upon a number of strange opinions; whereof although their ancestors, the reformers, were never actually possessed, yet by right and interest from them derived, the Brownists and Barrowists have taken possession of them. For, if the positions of the reformers puritans] be true, I cannot see how the main and general conclusions of Brownism should be false. For upon these two points, as I conceive, they stand: 1. That because we have no church, they are to sever themselves from us. 2. That without civil authority they are to erect a church of their own. And if the former of them be true, the latter I suppose will follow. For if, above all things, men be to regard their salvation; and if out of the church there be no salvation, it followeth, that if we have no church, we have no means of salvation; and therefore separation from us in that respect is both lawful and necessary. As also, that men, so separated from the false and counterfeit church, are to associate themselves unto some church; not ours; to the popish much less; therefore to one of their own making." - Appen iiz to Walton's Life of R. Hooker.

The Puritans felt the force of these arguments and assertions, and were embarrassed and embittered towards the Separatists by them. They believed that these men endangered the whole scheme of reformation which was drawn out and advocated by the moderates. These radicals went too far and too fast for the reforming party in the church; demanded what neither the church nor the body of the people could grant; and consequently exposed them to a reaction, such as Cranmer states had actually occurred in his day, which would prevent any church reformation. This feeling was certainly natural, if not reasonable; and the existence of it goes far to account for the violent opposition which the Puritans manifested towards the Separatists.

But this radicalism of the Separatists, in regard to principles held in common by them and the Puritans, does not fully explain the violent antagonism of the parties. The more thorough Puritans came gradually to embrace Presbyterian sentiments on church government. They were for taking the governing power out of the hands of the bishops and their commissaries, and putting it into the hands of the ministers and a few select men of the church i in short, for an aristocracy in the church; not deeming the body of the church a suitable or safe receptacle of church power. But the Separatists, while holding that the minister of a church and the selected elders and deacons were the most suitable men to administer the government, yet maintained, that all their authority was derived from the body of the church, which was the original source, under Christ, of all church power and authority — the ultimate and final appeal in all cases ecclesiastical.

Here then was another essential difference between the Puritans and Separatists, sufficient to engender strife — a strife which has not yet ceased.

These suggestions will be sufficient to explain the relations of the Puritans and Separatists to each other, and why there existed such fierce antagonism between them. The Puritans regarded the Separatists as rash, over-zealous, fanatical men; who by their crude doctrines and inconsiderate action were bringing suspicion and reproach on all church reformers; and thus imperilling the whole movement. While the Separatists regarded the Puritans as timid, time-serving men, who could announce principles which they had not the courage to maintain and carry out to their legitimate conclusions.