spiritual beauty of simplicity. But it was the unhappiness of that church to be infested with too many of those eccentric and restless persons who, either by their superficial enthusiasm and impulsive instability, or by their conscientious. narrowness, or perhaps by their stubborn impracticableness, are more troublesome than profitable to any church that has them among its members. Such men are indigenous every where; and in times of persecution many of them are found among the persecuted. Amsterdam was the most convenient and attractive refuge for all sorts of persons who could find no toleration at home for their religious opinions or their modes of worship; and consequently the church of English exiles there had more than it could well bear of those members who become apostates and enemies, as well as of those who, wherever they may be, and under whatever ecclesiastical forms, disturb the peace of the church, and make its edification almost or altogether impossible.

Those troubles began very early. While Johnson, the pastor, was still in prison at London, some of the exiled members of his flock fell into we know not what extravagant opinions of the Dutch Anabaptists, and were excommunicated by the others. Not much later, "many others—some older, some younger, even too many, though not the half-fell into a schism from the rest; and so many of them as continued therein were cast out; divers of them repenting and returning before excommunication, and divers of them after."2 Then, after Johnson himself had passed from prison into exile, there arose the great conflict concerning the whalebone in Mrs. Johnson's too fashionable bodice and the corks of her high-heeled shoes. An unhappy notoriety was given to that conflict by the indomitable George Johnson, who, after he

1 "A very grave man he was, and an able teacher, and was the most solemn in all his administrations that we have seen any, and especially in dispensing the seals of the covenant, both baptism and the Lord's Supper." Bradford's "Dialogue," in Young, p. 445.

2 Johnson, in Hanbury, i., 110, 111.

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had been cast out of the church "for lying, slandering, false accusation, and contention," found means to print his version of the story in a volume, which, of course, found currency among the enemies of Separation, whether Puritans or Prelatists.1

In other instances the church was vexed with defamatory pamphlets by apostate members. One such pamphlet, of which a copy is still extant, seems to have been considered, like George Johnson's, unworthy of a reply; but, in another case, a public and authentic contradiction was thought necessary, not only for the reputation of the church, but rather for the defense of the principle of Separation.2 All these conflicts and assaults had preceded the arrival of the Pilgrims at Amsterdam.

John Smyth was almost the last man whom a judicious. adviser would have selected to neutralize the elements of discord in such a church. Evidently, there was a sort of magnetism in his enthusiastic nature. He was not only a good preacher, but had also other "able gifts." In his moral character he seems to have been unblamable. The fearlessness with which he sought for truth, and the fidelity with which he obeyed his convictions, could not but command respect. But with all his "able gifts" and estimable qualities, he had not the gift of good common-sense; his mind's eye was mi

1 "Discourse of certain Troubles and Excommunications in the Banished English Church at Amsterdam, etc. 1603." Hanbury, i., 99.

2" Brownism turned the Inside outward: Being a Parallel between the Profession and Practice of the Brownists' Religion. By Christopher Lawne, lately returned from that wicked Separation. London, 1603." Hanbury, i., 100.

A Discovery of Brownism: Or a brief Declaration of some of the Errors and Abominations daily practiced and increased among the English Company of the Separation remaining for the present at Amsterdam, in Holland. By Thomas White. London, 1605." Hanbury, i., 107.

"An Inquiry and Answer of Thomas White in his 'Discovery of Brownism.' By Francis Johnson, Pastor of the Exiled English Church at Amsterdam, in Holland. 1606." Hanbury, ibid.

croscopic, incapable of seeing things in their perspective and proportions. Such a man could not but bring with him, into such a community as that of the English exiles at Amsterdam, new questions to be debated and new contentions.

At this day, it weighs not much in proof of Smyth's instability, or against the soundness of his judgment, when we are told that he adopted those theological opinions which Arminius had maintained in opposition to Gomarus, and which were favored in England by divines like Laud and Bancroft. Nor can we certainly conclude against him when we are told that he became scrupulous about baptism, and denied that it could be properly administered to the children of Christian parents. But when we find what the beginning was of his quarrel with the Amsterdam church, we see what ailed him. "He, with his followers," says Ainsworth in behalf of the church, "breaking off communion with us, charged us with sin for using our English Bibles in the worship of God." His position was that the official ministers of a church

-the pastor and teacher-“should bring the originals, the Hebrew and Greek, and out of them translate by voice." Withdrawing from the church, for this reason, with his adherents, he afterward discovered that what he called "the tri-formed presbytery" (consisting of pastor, teacher, and ruling elders) was "a false ministry," and he denounced it accordingly. Then he learned that, “in contributing to the church treasury, there ought to be a separation from them that are without," inasmuch as the contribution is a religious communion. Another of his crotchets was that the singing of improvised compositions (the tune and the hymn coming "by gift of the Spirit") is "a part of God's proper worship in the New Testament;" and on that ground, also, he quarreled with his former brethren, "who contented themselves with joint harmonious singing of the Psalms of Holy Scripture." Evidently the man was, in Ainsworth's phrase, and more literally than Ainsworth thought, "benumbed in mind." Yet such were the materials of the Amsterdam church, and

such was the man's personal influence, especially over those who had come with him out of England, that in his secession he drew after him a considerable body of followers.1 He died not long after that secession; but the church which he gathered-sometimes called "the remainders of Mr. Smyth's company"-outlived him, and, after a while, returned into England to testify and to suffer there in the great cause of religious liberty.

At a later date, the Amsterdam church was agitated, and finally rent in twain, by another controversy-probably the one which Robinson "and others of the best discerning” in his church had foreseen as "likely to break out," and from which they desired to escape. The question arose whether the church should be self-governed, or governed by what Smyth had called "the tri- formed presbytery." Whether there should be elders in the church was not disputed; nor whether, in addition to the pastor and teacher, known as the "teaching elders," there should be other elders, sharing equally with them in the duty of overseeing and ruling the congregation. All this was agreed to on both sides as the obvious interpretation of apostolic precept and example. The elders, including the pastor and the teacher, were to rule, and were all equal in the function of ruling; but in what sense were they to rule? Were they executive officers merely, presiding in the assembled church, conducting its worship, preparing matters for its consideration, guiding its deliberations, but concluding nothing save with the consent of the

1

1 The church which Smyth gathered does not appear to have been a Baptist Church, as that name is commonly understood. Had he insisted on immersion as the only baptism, there would have been some traces of a controversy on that point between him and Ainsworth, or between him and RobinHe and his party held that those who had been baptized in their infancy must be rebaptized on a personal profession of faith, and, in that sense, they were Ana-baptists. Smyth is sometimes called "the Se-baptist," because, when he renounced his former baptism, he baptized himself before proceeding to baptize his followers. Robinson's Works, i., 452; iii., 168, 169.

son.

brethren? Or, on the other hand, were they to open and shut, to censure and absolve, to direct and control all things according to their own judgment and without appeal, the only duty of the brotherhood in such matters being the duty of submission?

On this question, the pastor and the teacher were opposed to each other. Johnson, as a Puritan, had adopted Cartwright's ideal of ecclesiastical polity; and, when he separated from the National Church, he might very naturally carry with him, into his new relations, the Presbyterian feeling that a congregation ought not to govern itself as an equal brotherhood, but ought rather to be governed by its officers in a consistory or session. Ainsworth had never been a member of the clerical order in England; and, naturally, he had no hierarchical prejudices. He was only a Christian scholar, profoundly and minutely learned, whom the church, because of his gifts, had chosen to be one of its elders, laboring in word and doctrine, as it had chosen Johnson to be another. It was easy for him to understand that the elders, whether ruling only, or ruling and teaching, were not lords over God's heritage, but servants of the church, responsible to their constituency for their official acts, and governing not by power but by light, and with the free consent of the brotherhood to every act of government. After much contention, the "Ainsworthians," as they were called, withdrew from the "Johnsonians," and the church was finally divided. (Dec., 1610).1

Which of the two parties was the more numerous does not appear. It is said that Johnson and his adherents removed, after a while, from Amsterdam to Embden, in the neighboring province of Friesland; and that there his church, claiming to be the same with the old Southwark church of which he was the pastor and Greenwood the teacher, dwindled in its loneliness, till not far from the time of his death

Hanbury, i., 240–256.