monly called Independent" is a triumphant exposition. of the rights of congregations to choose their own ministers and manage their own religious affairs according to scriptural precedent; and, collaterally, of the profanity of attempting to establish national churches, of whatever name or polity. The following may serve as a specimen of his reasoning on this subject: "This House of God, wherein Christ rules as King, stands upon so many principles, as so many main pillars, not to be shaken: as, 1. It is a spiritual house, whose only builder and governor is Christ, and not man. 2. It is a spiritual kingdom, whose only king is Christ, and not man. 3. It is a spiritual republic, whose only lawgiver is Christ, and not man. 4. It is a spiritual corporation, or body, whose only head is Christ, and not man. 5. It is a communion of saints, governed by Christ's Spirit, not man's. 6. Christ's Church is a congregation called and gathered out of the world, by Christ's Spirit and word, and not by man! . . And out of these principles do issue these conclusions: 1. That no man is the builder of this spiritual house. 2. That no man nor power, on earth, hath a kingly power over this kingdom. 3. That no earthly lawgivers may give laws for the government of this republic. 4. That no man may claim or exercise a headship over this body. 5. That no man can or ought to undertake the government of this communion of saints."* The chief point on which Burton seems to err, respects the conceding to magistrates a power to pro Calumny, &c." 1645. In the same year both Hanserd Knollys and John Saltmarsh replied to Bastwick's book. * Hanbury, ii. 407. vide for the maintenance of ministers amongst a heathen or unconverted people, where no churches exist. Here, however, he errs with Richardson and many of the baptists of that day, as well as with Cromwell up to a much later period. Excepting on this subject, Burton's views appear to be correct, and much in advance of many congregationalists of his time. Neither would he defer to the judgment of the assembly of divines in matters pertaining to doctrine and polity. "If we can find out the mind of Christ," he exclaims, "by his immediate voice, we dare not suspend our practice of it until we have it at the second-hand from men." His decided and manly opinion on this point incensed the assembly, who had passed a resolution that the affairs of Christ's kingdom should stand still until they had concluded their deliberations. The presbyterian portion of the assembly, in particular, did all in their power to injure him. In the following year they procured his ejectment from the church and pulpit in Fridaystreet, at the same time that John Goodwin, from similar motives, was deposed from his place in Coleman-street.t The name of Milton, although already adverted to, deserves special mention, as one of those who exercised great influence over public opinion, while his own views respecting liberty, both civil and religious, were in progress. He was no Erastian. * See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, p. 243. It seems probable that at this time, or in 1645, Burton became the chosen pastor of the Independent church at Stepney; though he may have been present at its formation in the preceding year, and have frequently preached and presided at the Lord's table before he was ejected from Friday-street. In his earlier publications he appears to have approved of a certain kind of presbyterian polity, yet with reservations and limitations which would have rendered it more like the association of churches amongst the congregationalists, than the synodical system of the presbyterians of his day. He would have ministers appointed by the churches, and not by any ecclesiastical authority; or, as he expresses it, "by God and the congregation." He regarded church discipline and censure as an important means of establishing the faithful and purifying the church; but would have it to extend no further than to a "fatherly admonishment and christian rebuke, by all the dear and sweet promises of salvation, and by all the threatenings and thunders of the law and rejected gospel." He was especially vehement against those who would inflict civil pains and penalties for supposed religious errors, and represents in glowing language the indignation of the true church against those who had converted it into "a banking den of thieves," by means of fines imposed on the disobedient, thus buying and selling "the awful wrinkles of her majestic brow." He considered all pastors coming to their office by "full and free election of God's people," as "a holy and equal aristocracy;" yet an aristocracy only by their actual virtues and calling, not with any superior privileges, much less with ecclesiastical jurisdiction,—which, he says, "in the church there ought to be none at all," and is "nothing else but a pure tyrannical forgery of the prelates." He held that the magistrate, or civil ruler, had no rightful concern with the religion of the people, who in other matters were amenable to him. "The magistrate," he says, "hath only to deal with the outward part, I mean not of the body alone, but of the mind in all her outward acts, which in scripture is called the outward man. I say as a magistrate, for what he doth further, he doth it as a member of the church. His general end is the outward peace and welfare of the commonwealth, and civil happiness in this life." For the "inner man," God had provided another kind of instrumentality in the church itself-its officers and discipline. "In the gospel," he says, "which is the straightest and the dearest covenant can be made between God and man, we being now his adopted sons, and nothing fitter for us to think on than to be like him, united to him, and, as he pleases to express it, to have fellowship with him; it is all necessity that we should expect this blessed efficacy of healing our inward man to be ministered to us in a more familiar and effectual method than ever before. God being now no more a judge after the sentence of the law, nor, as it were, a schoolmaster of perishable rites, but a most indulgent father, governing his church as a family of sons in their discreet age: and therefore, in the sweetest and mildest manner of paternal discipline, he hath committed his other office of preserving in healthful constitution the inner man, which may be termed the spirit of the soul, to his spiritual deputy the minister of each congregation." At the same time, he agreed with the presbyterians, and most of the congregationalists, in regarding an eldership distinct from the ministry as an essential part of the primitive polity; while he would have all the members of churches, "in select numbers and courses," to partake in "the holy duties of discipline by their serviceable and solemn presence." In one passage of great beauty and eloquence, he contends that the functions of government in the church should be "free and open to any christian man, though never so laic, if his capacity, his faith, and prudent demeanour, commend him." On this subject, he exclaims, "when every good christian, thoroughly acquainted with all those glorious privileges of sanctification and adoption, which render him more sacred than any dedicated altar or element, shall be restored to his right in the church, and not excluded from such place of spiritual government, as his christian abilities, and his approved good life in the eye and testimony of the church shall prefer him to, this and nothing sooner will open his eyes to a wise and true valuation of himself, (which is so requisite and high a point of Christianity,) and will stir him up to walk worthy the honourable and grave employment wherewith God and the church hath dignified him; not fearing lest he should meet with some outward holy thing in religion, which his lay-touch or presence might profane; but lest something unholy from within his own heart should dishonour and profane in himself that priestly unction and clergy-right whereto Christ hath entitled him. Then would the congregation of the Lord soon recover the true likeness and visage of what she is indeed, a holy generation, a royal priesthood, a saintly communion, the household and city of God." The opinions expressed above are entitled to consideration, not merely because they are those of one of the greatest of men, but because they are the opinions of an eminent Christian, whose life was unsullied by a stain, and whose bent of mind and course of reading fitted him to form and ex |