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certain that Jacob became a convinced and sturdy Independent. "He was a person," says Anthony Wood, " most excellently well read in theological authors, but withal a most zealous Puritan, or, as his son Henry used to say, the first Independent in England.' Jacob defines a true Church to be a number of faithful people formed by their willing covenant in a spiritual outward society or body politic, ordinarily coming together in one place; instituted by Christ in His New Testament, and having power to exercise ecclesiastical government, and all God's other spiritual ordinances-the means of salvation

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-in and for itself immediately from Jesus Christ." "When each ordinary congregation giveth their free consent in their own government, then certainly each congregation is an entire and independent body politic, and indued with power immediately under and from Christ, as every proper Church is and ought to be." This appears to be the first use of the name "Independent"; but no importance, we think, is to be attached to it in this respect, as Jacob evidently uses it more as a description than as an appellation.

John Robinson and Henry Jacob were called semiSeparatists, because they did not share the aversion or reluctance of many of the Separatists to worshipping in the parish churches, maintaining that in them there were true Christians, "tender and gracious souls," to whom

1 Not, however, "ordinarily coming together in one place," as did the Separatists during the reign of Elizabeth, and even that of her sister Mary; for from the way in which he expands the definition, it is clear that Jacob contemplates a less fluid, casual, and altogether more permanent system of Church order and discipline.

Christ's presence was revealed, though their assemblies were not constituted according to Christ and the model and authority of the New Testament.

In both Robinson and Jacob is seen in a very eminent degree the irenical temper and the constructive instinct of the wise, broad-minded Christian statesman. It is probable that the influence of Holland did much to cultivate in them and the Separatists generally much of this instinct and temper. They were out of the reach of persecution, and away from all the baleful influences which goad and irritate and rankle in the breasts of those who suffer wrongfully the ills and miseries of oppression. Naturally the points of antagonism between them and the dominant hierarchy and Church would become less sharpened and less acutely felt, and as naturally, not the negative, but the positive side of their faith, and of those Church principles which they had come to look upon as the pure deposit of a far-back apostolic age, would begin more and more to strengthen its hold upon them. They had, as it were, leisure from themselves, leisure from strife and contending, and under the more genial conditions in which they now found themselves placed, their minds gradually expanded and ripened; they became enamoured of a new fruitful ideal of strength and beauty, and this ideal they sought patiently and not without success to translate into the life and polity of the Church and Independency of the future.

The Independents the pioneers of religious liberty. -We do not claim for these early Independents that they succeeded in mastering the lesson of religious toleration.

That came later, but the advances they made towards it entitle them to be regarded as the first pioneers, in England at least, of toleration and religious liberty. In 1609, Henry Jacob published his famous tract, entitled, An Humble Supplication for Toleration and Liberty to enjoy and observe the Ordinances of Jesus Christ.

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This Dr. Fairbairn speaks of as the earliest plea for toleration in the English language; but while technically this may be allowed, it is due to that much-maligned and poor shattered renegade," Robert Browne, to say that this is scarcely to do justice to the position he took up a whole generation before Henry Jacob or Leonard Busher ever penned a line in defence of toleration. The consideration of this question we must, however, relegate to a later period, and to a subsequent portion of the history with which we propose to deal.

NOTE ON ROBINSON'S FAREWELL WORDS TO THE PILGRIM FATHERS

It is not to be denied that there is a certain class of thinkers who are more than others enamoured, we might say violently enamoured, of these words. They have been adopted as the special motto of those who claim to be par excellence "liberal theologians." It would seem as if the fair, broad-minded historian of Congregationalism as seen in its Literature had been tried, not to say irritated, by the pretensions of this school, for he enters into an elaborate attempt to prove that in the matter of theological latitude Robinson was guiltless of the "liberalism" which is imputed to him. A careful examination of Dr. Dexter's argument has left upon our mind the impression of his overproving, i.e. of not proving, his case.

We think he proves to the hilt that the primary reference of these remarkable words of Robinson is not to dogma but to polity, or, to

use Dr. Dexter's words, that "polity, and not dogma," is the keynote of this noble farewell. "More light on those questions of bishops, elders, and synods and presbyters must be expected to break forth, as guided by providence and experience, humble piety shall further interpret the word." This undoubtedly is the primary reference of the words, but we submit that they do not on this account exclude the natural and logically implied conclusion which "the self-styled advanced thinkers of the day" have drawn from them.

Robinson must have been aware, in his own consciousness at least, that the words which he uttered were susceptible of the utmost width and scope: and improbable as it may be that he anticipated the construction which has since been put upon them, certainly the words, looked at by themselves, lead one to think that if this construction had been present to his mind, he would still have been unflinching in their expression. And probably, if someone had pointed out to him the peril of sending out with his imprimatur so free and bold a deliverance, he would have replied that he was responsible for the deliverance itself, and not for conclusions which others might draw from it. Whatever use may have been made of these words, whatever extreme opinions they have been employed to buttress up, the words themselves are noble words, and in every way worthy of the enlightened and broad-minded father of Independency.

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