PRESBYTERIANS. This denomina tion of Protestant Dissenters has been called by different names at different pe riods of time. In their first attempts for a further reformation of the church, they were, by way of reproach, termed Puri tans, a name derived from the Cathari or .Puritini of the third century. But re proachful names have not been the only species of persecution they have at vari ous times suffered. The cruel persecu tions they suffered in the reigns of Eliza beth, James I. and the two Charleses, will ever reflect disgrace upon the memo ry of those princes.
The reformed exiles who were driven to Franckfort, to avoid the cruelties of Mary I. and who afterwards set up con gregations at Basil and Geneva, were first called Puritans, as their opponents ob tained the name of Conformists. From the Puritans sprung the Presbyterians, whose form of church discipline was first established and is still followed by the Kirk of Scotland. The first Presbyteri an church in England was erected at Wandsworth, a village near London ; and, on the 20th of November, 1572, eleven elders were chosen, and their offices described in a register, entitled The Order of Wandsworth. Other churches, notwithstanding proclamations for uniformity, &c. were soon erected in other counties, though with the ut most privacy and secrecy. But we are compelled by our limits to omit many important particulars in the history of the Presbyterians, during the periods of their alternate sufferings and triumphs. Their history, like that of other nume rous and powerful bodies of men, exhibit a melancholy picture of the instabili ty of the human mind, and the evil tendency of religious prejudice, when combined with human power and au thority. For who could have thought, that the very men, who had suffered every species of privation, who had been exiled for conscience sake, who had borne the most cruel persecutions at home, and the contumely of the Lu therans abroad, with the courage and the constancy of martyrs, that these very men, when armed by the same species of power that before had well nigh crush ed them to atoms, should themselves imbibe the principles and follow the practices of their most cruel persecu tors? It is hardly credible, but it is nevertheless a melancholy fitct, that an Ordinance against blasphemy and heresy was passed in May, 1648, by the influ ence of the Presbyterians then in parlia ment, in which it was decreed, " that all persons who shall willingly maintain, publish, or defend, by preaching or writing,"—" that the Father is not God, that the Son is not God, that the Holy Ghost is not God; or that these three are not one eternal God; or that Christ is not God equal with the Father,"—" shall upon complaint or proof, by oath of two witnesses, before two justices of the peace, be committed to prison, without bail or mainprize, till the next gaol-deli very ; and in case the indictment shall then be found, and the party 1.1110I1 his trial shall not abjure the said error, and his defence and maintenance of the same, he shall suffer the pains of death, as in case of felony, without benefit of clergy ; and if he recant or abjure, he shall re main in prison till he find sureties that he will not maintain the said heresies or errors any more ; but if he relapse, and is convicted a second time, he shall stif fer death, as before." There were about seven other real or supposed heresies, besides that which we have just instanc ed, which were all and every one of them thus punishable by fine, imprison ment, and death. Such was the spirit which at that time influenced those who had caused the press to groan with publications about persecution, liberty, and the rights of private judgment ! The clamours, however, about the divine right of Presbytery at length ceased, and the rights of conscience began to be better understood and more generally allowed.
Oliver Cromwell, though he, in some degree, favoured the Presbyterians, dis armed their discipline of its coercive power. Their church censures conse
quently lost their force, and at length were in a measure discontinued. When Richard Cromwell had resigned the pro tectorate, the period of their sufferings again commenced. Duped by General Monk, and deceived by Charles 11. whose restoration they had effected, and the life of whose predecessor they had en deavoured to save from the cruelty of the Independents, they were made to discover that their expectations concern ing the establishment of a Presbyterian government were to be cut off. Although when the King came to Whitehall ten of them were made his chaplains, before the expiration of the year 1660, many of the parochial clergy were prosecuted for not using. the book of Common Pray el.; the justices and others insisting that the laws returned with the King. The sequestered clergy came out of their hiding places, and took possession of their former livings, by which some hundreds of the Presbyterian clergy were at once dispossessed; in short, the Church of England was restored to its former pow er, except only the peerage of the bi shops. Now it was that the nation be came as completely deluged with licen tiousness as it had just before been by enthusiasm and bigotry. The virtues of the Puritans were forgotten or despis ed, and a torrent of vice and irreligion issued from the court, and overwhelm ed the people. Ancient religious cere monies were revived, and an evident leaning towards popery manifested it self. " To appear serious," says Neale, " to make a conscience of one's words and actions, was the way to be avoid ed as a schismatic; a fanatic, or a sec tarian. They who did not applaud the revived ceremonies were marked out for Presbyterians, and every Presbyte rian was a rebel." The vindictive spirit of the restored bishops manifested it self against these unhappy people in every possible way. They were alters nately elated with hopes of peace and liberty, and sunk tO despair by disap pointment and abuse. The doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance were revived, and an open and flagrant persecution of the Presbyterians was commenced, which continued to increase, until the triumph of episcopacy was com pleted by the Act of Uniformity, which began to be in force on St. Bartholo mew's day, in the year 1662. By this act two thousand of the worthiest and most learned men of the time were eject ed from their livings, and exposed to every species of insult, deprivation, and distress. Thus did the hypocritical Charles reward those to whom he was indebted for his restoration to the throne of England ! The Presbyterians had now no hopes of justice left, except what they owed to the King's private attach ment to the Roman Catholics, and to the exercise of an illegal power in their so vereign, by which the entire liberties of the country might one day be destroyed. This was called the King's dispensing power, under colour of which he pre tended to dispense with the execution of the established laws of the realm; there by, in effect, creating a power above that. of the law, and making the monarchs ,, absolute sovereign. It was a painful al ternative to the Presbyterians, either to suffer the most shameful deprivations, or countenance the exercise of this usurp ing power, and thereby endanger the liberties of their country by a kind of un natural union with the Roman Catholics. In the succeeding reign, when this arti fice of universal toleration, and the dis pensing power, was again attempted to betray the Protestant interest, the Pres byterians manifested the most honoura ble disinterestedness, and refused to ae cept any toleration for themselves that might endanger the general interests of religion, or give countenance to those popish sentiments, that had so often de hug-ed their country with the blood of its inhabitants.