Plymouth Rock. The story belongs to the heroic age of America, and may well inspire the enthusiasm of her historians, for no other nation can boast of such an origin, and can adorn its earliest annals with a tale as true as it is beautiful, as authentic as it is sublime. And when America shall produce her Virgil, he will find in the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers a theme for his muse surpassing his of the olden time who sang the adventures of Eneas, "Trojæ qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinia venit Littora. Robinson's heart was with the pilgrims, but there were insuperable difficulties in the way of his following them. The want of sufficient means was the main hindrance, but he also had to struggle with contentious spirits at Leyden, and to meet the opposition of some in New England, who, knowing the energy of his mind and the weight of his character, feared, on selfish grounds, his influence in the rising colony. But it mattered little. His Lord and Master had other designs respecting him, and on the 1st of March, 1625, took him away, even as fruit falleth before it is ripe, when neither length of days nor infirmity of body did seem to call for his end."* His remains were interred in the chancel of one of the churches at Leyden, allotted by the Dutch for the use of the English exiles; and the magistrates, ministers, professors, students, and most of the gentry of the place followed him to the grave. 66 Robinson was a great man. The allusions made to him in the documents connected with the Leyden Church and the Pilgrim Fathers show him to have been one of those superior spirits, who are born to lead their fellow * Young's Chronicles, p. 481. He was born in 1575, but the place of his birth has never been ascertained. men, and on whom feebler natures can rest with confidence and love. "Strength and beauty" were finely blended in his composition. With a strong mind he had a tender heart. His understanding was of a manly make, calm, clear, vigorous. His controversial writings attest his theological skill, and his practical compositions evince his reflective habits, and his sound views of morals and religion. He was a man of superior learning, of which the reputation in which he was held by the University of Leyden is a proof; but he blended with the pursuits of the scholar habits of enlarged intercourse with mankind, and shrewd, business-like observation of human character and things. Though he did not cultivate the graces of style, nor adorn his pages with the flowers of imagination, we cannot peruse his writings without feeling that they possess the charm of practised thought and earnest truthfulness. He was no enthusiast. "To trust to means is idolatry, to abuse them want of wisdom or of conscience," is a remark he makes in his "Essays," and it is one which we find illustrated by his prudent conduct throughout his history. His lot was a troubled one, but he had not learned to look upon the world with a jaundiced eye; and it was in no "sour, Puritanical spirit" that he said, "If a man set his thoughts a-work upon inconveniences and discommodities alone, he shall heap sorrow on sorrow; but if, on the contrary, he draw into consideration such inconveniences as usually fall in with their contraries, he shall always find some matter of ease, and sometimes that meat comes out of the eater, and that which at first seemed a cross is rather a benefit."* His catholic feeling, which increased with his years, expanding itself beyond all sectarian limits, so uncommon in that age, shows him to have been a man with a great soul, for his * Robinson's Essays, Observ. xxxiii. catholicity was not the mere echo of other voices, calling him to the exercise of peace and love, but it was the voice of one who stood almost alone, pleading for union in times of discord, and running the risk of offending the narrower minds who belonged to his party. Yet his firm attachment to his distinctive principles, which had made him an exile in fact, and a martyr in spirit, demonstrated that he was no latitudinarian, but that he knew how to combine a love to all good men, with a steady adherence to his own conscientious views on minor points. Abstaining from that infallible tone of decision in such matters, which belongs not exclusively to Rome, forbearing to fix any ne plus ultra mark in the path of ecclesiastical reformation, such as other communities besides the Church of England seem virtually to have done, knowing that truth is not learned all at once, and that time is a valuable teacher as to the mode in which the working of a system is to be accommodated to the state of society, he enjoined upon his brethren to watch and wait for further light. He was a specimen of the true Reformer, well described as one “who supposes no wonders in himself, and expects them not in others; and is rather the sower who goes forth to sow his seed, than the lord who comes to gather into barns."* Congregational Christians call no man master on earth, nor should they; but it will show them only wise and grateful to revere the name, follow the advice, and walk in the steps, of John Robinson. * Smyth's Lectures on History, vol. i. 94. CHAPTER IV. THE CHURCH IN SOUTHWARK. "Compared with this, how poor religion's pride-- Devotion's every grace except the heart. "The Power incensed the pageant will desert, But haply in some cottage far apart, May hear well pleased the language of the soul, BURNS. HENRY JACOB is a name worthy of being held in remembrance and honor by the friends of religious liberty. He is one of the few Puritan worthies whom Anthony Wood mentions in terms of respect; and, certainly, the general reputation of that man must have stood high, who, while identified with Puritanism, and even with Independency, escaped the virulent treatment of the heartily-bigoted historian of the Oxford University. Jacob had been originally a clergyman in Kent, and had written against Johnson in defence of the Church of England; but gradually his mind became dissatisfied with the episcopal system, till, on visiting Leyden, where he had a conference with Robinson, he decidedly embraced Independent principles. His work on Toleration, published in the year 1609, though little known, deserves to be rescued from oblivion, and to have an honorable place assigned to it in the history of the grand struggle in our country for liberty of conscience. The Puritan, Humphrey, in the previous century, as we have seen, pleaded for the toleration of certain parties within the Established Church; but Jacob was the first to claim, as a sacred right, the liberty of subjects to form distinct Churches, according to their conscientious views of the will of Christ.* It was, however, only to those who held the Protestant faith that this early advocate of liberty was for extending toleration. Fearful of the Papal Church, as the ancient enemy of the privilege he sought, he wished nothing should be concluded from his argument in favor of those whose head, he affirms, is Antichrist, whose worship is idolatry, whose doctrine is heresy, and whose profession is contrary to the lawful state and government of free countries. Such an exception our larger views of religious liberty have taught us is inconsistent and unjust; but with the recollection, then so fresh in men's minds, of the intolerance of Popery, it was hardly to be wondered at that even an enlightened advocate of toleration should exclude the Papist from its benefits. 66 'Religious Peace, or a Plea for Liberty of Conscience," by Leonard Busher, a citizen of London, appeared in 1614; and in the following year there issued from the press another work of the same class, entitled "Persecution for Religion Judged, and Condemned.”† Busher, and the author of this last publication, were certainly, in their views of religious liberty, much in advance of their brethren. They were both Antipædobaptists; * See ample quotations from Jacob's tract in Hanbury's Memorials, vol. i. p. 226. †These tracts have been published by the Hansard Knollys Society under the laborious and intelligent editorship of Mr. Underhill. |