An extract from a work written against the Baptists by Dr. DANIEL FEATLY, will show the manner in which the Presbyterians treated MILTON, respecting his "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce." Speaking of what he considered the awful sentiments of the Baptists on the subject of the sole headship of Christ and his church; that the civil magistrate had no authority in spiritual matters over the conscience; and that the doctrine of punishing men for conscience sake, was the crying sin of the new English churches, he adds, "Witness a treatise on Divorce, in which the bands of marriage are let loose to inordinate lusts, and putting away wives for many other causes, besides that which our Saviour only approveth; namely, in case of adultery." He then mentions several other pamphlets, besides this of MILTON's, which had been recently published by the Baptists, to which denomination he belonged.* are one flesh. Behold here an union of God's making: a man's matched with a shrew: The bone that is fallen to thy lot, that do thou knaw upon? which would not be, if it were altogether free for him to leave that bone and take another." *The Rev. Dr. Daniel Featley was doubtless well acquainted with the Baptists. The following account is amusing:-" On October 17, 1641, a famous dispute took place between Dr. Featley and four Baptists, somewhere in Southwark; at which were present Sir John Linthel and many others. The Doctor published his disputation in 1644; and tells us in his preface, that he could hardly dip his pen in any other liquor than that of the juice of gall; it is therefore no wonder it is so full of bitterness. He calls the Baptists, (1,) An idle and sottish sect. (2) A lying and blasphemous sect. (3,) An impure and carnal sect. (4,) A bloody and cruel sect. (5,) A profane and sacrilegious sect. (6,) Describes the fearful judgments of God, inflicted upon the ring-leaders of that sect. This quarto work was entitled, "The Dippers dipt; or the Anabaptists ducked and plunged over head and ears, at a disputation in Southwark. It is pompously dedicated 'To the most noble lords, with the honourable knights, citizens and burgess es, now assembled in parliament.' It is peculiarly gratifying that the Doc. tor, with all his malignancy, was not able to exhibit, much less substan The following beautiful sonnet, written just after these scenes of domestic strife had ended, will exhibit the calmed state of MILTON's mind in regard to correct evangelical sentiments, and the highest exercises of religious feeling : "ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHARINE THOMSON, MY CHRISTIAN FRIEND, DECEASED 16 DECEMBER. 1646. "When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, Of death, call'd life; which us from life doth sever. Love led them on, and Faith, who knew them best tiate, any charge against them, except what have been commonly but erroneously alleged against the Baptists in Germany; the disturbances at Munster being no more the effect of the principles of the Baptists, than the riots of London in 1789 were those of Protestants, or those in Birmingham of Episcopalians." "The Doctor speaks very contemptuously of his opponents. He calls one of them a 'brewer's clerk :' no doubt this was Mr. Kiffin, who had been an apprentice to the famous republican, John Lilburn, of turbulent memory. He it was, too, it is probable, who is called 'Quartermini, the brewer's clerk,' in the pamphlet published in December, 1641, entitled 'New Preachers new." (History Eng. Bap. Vol. i. p. 164.) Before parting with Dr. Featley, who was a member of "the Assembly of Divines at Westminster," the author hopes he shall be pardoned for giving one extract from this most vituperating pamphlet. It is from "the Epistle to the Reader;"—"This fire, [baptism] which in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, and King James, and our gracious sovereign, [Charles I.] till now was covered in England under the ashes; or if it broke out at any time, by the care of the ecclesiastical and civil magistrates, was soon put His biographer Toland informs us : "And now both his own father dying, and his wife's relations returning to their several habitations, he revived his academic institution of some young gentlemen, with a design, perhaps, of putting in practice the model of education lately publish. ed by himself; yet this course was of no long continuance, for he was to have been, in 1647, made adjutant-general to Sir WILLIAM WALLER, but that the new modelling of the army soon following, and Sir William turning cat-inpan, this design was frustrated." The same historian says: "A little after FAIRFAX and CROMWELL had marched through the city with the whole army, to quell the insurrection of BROWN and MASSY, [who were] now grown discontented likewise with the par out. But of late, since the unhappy distractions which our sins have brought upon us, the temporal sword being otherwise employed, and the spiritual fast locked up in the scabbard, this sect, among others, hath so far presumed upon the patience of the state, that it hath held weekly conventicles, re-baptized hundreds of men and women together, in the twilight, in rivulets, and some arms of the Thames, and elsewhere, dipping them over head and ears. It hath printed divers pamphlets in defence of their heresy; yea, and challenged some of our preachers to disputation. Now, although my bent hath been always hitherto against the most dangerous enemies of our church and state, the Jesuits, to extinguish such balls of wild-fire, as they have cast into the bosom of our [Presbyterian] church; yet seeing this strange fire kindled in the neighbouring parishes, and many Nadabs and Abihus offering it on God's altar, I thought it my duty to cast upon it the water of Siloam to extinguish it." No one could have possibly guessed that the irritated Doctor's pamphlet was water, much less pure water, had he not himself called it so! In my copy, one of the sixth edition, there is an engraved frontispiece, in which he is represented as dead, and laid out in his winding-sheet, and his epitaph dated 1645, with plenty of Greek and Latin! Six editions of this quarto, of 258 pages, sold in six years!! So great and universal was the prejudice against the 'the SECT of Baptists' then, as long since, and still, every where spoken against! But as the devil is represented in the picture of the Reformers, puffing at a lighted candle, and saying, "We cannot blow it out!" so Dr. Daniel Featley, with his "many waters," could not quench "this fire." liament, [in December, 1648,] our hero changed his garret for one more accommodated to his circumstances, where, in the midst of all the noise and confusion of arms, he led a quiet and private life, wholly delighted with the muses, and prosecuting his indefatigable search after useful and solid knowledge." The following lines refer to this period. WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY. "Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honour did thee ever please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms. To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare." upon We are now arrived at the period when MILTON was called to fill the honourable office of Latin secretary to the council of state, to which he had been called soon after the death of the king.* This public mark of respect from the republican government, for a man who had hitherto been the object of affected scorn, a mere schoolmaster in the estimation, first of the PRELATES, and then of the NEW PRIESTS WRIT LARGE! must have been very galling, and exceedingly mortifying to their narrow and contracted souls. That he who, through their bigotry, had been * He now removed to a lodging in the house of one Thompson, at Charing Cross; and afterwards to apartments provided for him in Scotland Yard: here his wife gave birth to a son, who died 16th of March, 1650. cited to appear before the House of Lords, to give an account of his principles, which even admitting them in any respect to have been erroneous, were not a matter for the cognizance of the civil magistrate; and respecting whom the redoubtable Dr. D. Featley had, in 1644, entreated "The most noble Lords," &c. &c. that he might be cut off as a pestilent Anabaptist; should now have become a member of, or at least a constant attendant on, the chief council of the nation, and who, of course, must have had an influence to restrain the holy brotherhood from punishing those who, as regarded "working the work of the Lord," were better ministers than themselves! One should conclude, they could not have helped thinking that they were the degraded Haman, and that MILTON was the exalted Mordecai." The following poem was probably produced by the attempt of the Presbyterians to get his book on Divorce burnt by the common hangman, and himself punished as an heretic in religion. "ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE, UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT. "Because you have thrown off your prelate lord, To seize the widow'd whore Plurality From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr'd; Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword To force our consciences that Christ set free, And ride us with a classic hierarchy, Taught ye by mere A. S.* and Rutherford ?† * Adam Stuart, a divine of the church of Scotland, and the author of several polemical tracts; some portions of which commenced with A. S. only prefixed. + Samuel Rotherford, or Rutherford, one of the chief commissioners of the church of Scotland, and professor of divinity in the church of St. Andrew. He published a great variety of Calvinistic tracts. |