The Death Of Presbyterianism
9
THE DEATH
OF PRESBYTERIANISM
Hywel R. Jones
In two recent issues of the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society,1 the problem of “Presbyterian continuity” is raised. What is being referred to by this epithet is the apparent lack of homogeneity between the Presbyterianism of the nineteenth and seventeenth centuries on the one hand, and the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries on the other. This serves to remind us that we are not dealing with a static rigid entity. Presbyterianism in England was a movement which developed or declined according to one’s viewpoint.
In the attempts which have been made to relate seventeenth- and nineteenth-century Presbyterianism, two major approaches become evident. A. H. Drysdale sought to establish a basic continuity in his standard work on the Presbyterians in England, subtitling it rather significantly Their Rise, Decline and Revival.2 After describing the eighteenth century as “a poisonous fungus,” he refers to some seventeenth-century congregations which did not become Independent or Unitarian, and affiliated themselves to the Presbyterian Church of England as it was constituted in 1836, thus substantiating his subtitle.
On the other hand, a basic disjunction has been posited. H. S. Skeats and C. S. Miall state that after 1689 “the denomination vanished as suddenly as it had arisen, and, excepting in literature, has left little trace of the greatness of its power.”3
Last year, a book appeared from the Unitarian wing, compiled by four authors and entitled The English Presbyterians: From Elizabethan Puritanism to Modern Unitarianism.4 Again, the subtitle is revealing, as in the book a line of development is claimed between Presbyterians and Unitarians. Drysdale is taken to task for his stricture on eighteenth-century theology, and Unitarian historians like E. M. Wilbur are chided for not owning their Presbyterian forebears. Some of the “best” elements of Presbyterian Puritanism are preserved in Unitarianism, it is claimed, namely a “parish” outlook and service to the community in all its needs. This is a typical twentieth-century religious value judgment, but there is much valuable information in this book.
Clearly then, something happened in Presbyterian circles in the eighteenth century which causes a slight flutter to modern Presbyterians,5 and indeed to anyone who does not view flat contradictions as synthesizing parts of a larger whole. What did happen? What factors were at work? Can a pattern be traced in its decline? Did Presbyterianism become extinct in the eighteenth century, or was it a case of a landslide so massive that there would have been no Presbyterianism in the nineteenth century had there not been a transfusion of Presbyterian blood from north of the border?
The roots of Presbyterianism in England go back to the Continental Reformation, and first appear in the Elizabethan era. In order to appreciate what took place in the eighteenth century, we must select some facts from earlier periods. We shall deal with our subject under four heads: the emergence, ascendancy, exclusion, and disintegration of Presbyterianism.
The Emergence of Presbyterianism
Thomas Cartwright voiced Presbyterian ideals in Cambridge in 1570, and clashed with Whitgift. With the Queen obstructing the desires of Parliament for further reform, the scene was set for the 1572 Admonition to the Parliament.6 This was an important year because it saw the establishment of the Wandsworth classis.7 This was a presbytery in a local parish and not extending over a number of churches.
The decade 1573–1583 saw three movements come to the fore. First, there was the growth of “Classes” or “Conferences” where the “Brethren” met to discuss the demands of the “Common Book.” Such were held in Warwickshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, and Oxfordshire. Secondly, more parish presbyteries came into existence, for example the well-known one at Dedham. Thirdly, a Book of Discipline was compiled and laid before the London Conference in 1584. This did not appear in English until 1644, but it was soon circulated, appearing in manuscript form in 1587. It was subscribed at the Warwickshire Assembly in 1588, and within two years had been signed by over 500 clergy.
A mortal blow was dealt to the Presbyterian cause in May 1577 by an edict suppressing the “Prophesyings.” Elizabeth banned these, and soon Archbishop Whitgift actively prosecuted the edict by the Test Articles and the High Commission. Large numbers of ministers were suspended over a wide area. The tyranny of the bishops, the lessening of the Roman Catholic threat by the defeat of the Armada, the Mar-prelate tracts, and the threat of banishment to any non-conforming person, all combined to smite a virile Presbyterianism, hip and thigh, and it more than halted ever after. Indeed, one may wonder whether its spirit was ever the same again.
The Ascendancy of Presbyterianism
The acceptance of the Solemn League and Covenant bound the Long Parliament to uphold the reformed religion, uproot popery and prelacy, and to establish a Presbyterian polity in the Church. This was not the eager will of the nation as in Scotland, but the price to be paid for Scottish military help against Charles I who had appealed to the Irish for aid in the Civil War. In March 1646 an ordinance was enacted by Parliament to establish Presbyterianism throughout the land. Technically it was in the ascendant; but it was a hollow victory and did not last very long. The rise of Cromwell and with him the Independents, and the might of the army soon laid the hopes of the Presbyterians in the dust. But it must be said that Presbyterianism was suffering from two weaknesses at this time, and these will reappear later in the story.
First of all, Presbyterianism had no real hold at grassroots level on the country as a whole. C. E. Surman has shown by his researches in Classical Presbyterianism in England 1643–16608 that Presbyterianism had been planted on a wider level than was once thought. However, the front was not as formidable as it appeared to be. There were some who upheld the principles of Scottish Presbyterianism, but there were many who viewed it as a price to be paid. There had been no government in the Church since 1642, and some felt that they could delay no longer, though dissatisfied with particular points. This was true of the ministers at Lancaster.9 There was a lack of settled ministers and so difficulties arose over selecting elders, with the resulting lack of effective discipline.
Secondly, Presbyterianism was not as sure of its own ground as one might expect. There were divisions in the camp to which attention was drawn at the time; and also doubt was cast on the precise nature of sixteenth century Presbyterianism. To begin with, it was common for the word Presbyterian to be synonymous with Puritan in the 1640s. Richard Baxter wrote: “Any man that was for a serious, spiritual way of worship (though he was for moderate Episcopacy or liturgy) and that lived according to his profession, was commonly called a Presbyterian as formerly he was called a Puritan.”10 This may help to explain why the sermons preached before the Long Parliament do not call for the establishment of Presbyterianism according to divine right. They repeatedly urge the need for godly preachers. Professor G. Yule submits on this basis that following the defeat of Presbyterianism in the 1590s its emphasis changed to more spiritual matters, and “questions of Church government receded into the background.”11 This is surely an exaggeration, but it has its element of truth.
Though the Scottish commissioners did sway a body of opinion in their favor under pressure, there were far more who were against the kind of episcopacy under which their forefathers had suffered, than there were those who opposed the very principle of a hierarchical episcopate in the Church. This had become evident in the response to Archbishop Ussher’s Reduction of Episcopacy.12 Baxter agreed to this, and so did Burgess, Marshall, Vines, and Gataker. Baillie wrote in 1640 of “a great faction” supporting Ussher’s views,13 and again, “All are for reducing them (the Bishops), but their utter abolition, which is the only aim of the most godly, is the knott of the question.”14 Again he writes: “Presbytery is with this people considered to be a strange monster.”15 How could he say this?
It seems that such criticism was directed against two matters, namely, the readiness to submit to the Erastian intrusion of Parliament, and the reluctance to accredit the demand that individual congregations be required to submit to superior jurisdiction. With regard to the first matter, Parliament claimed the right to veto the decisions of the Assembly, and wrote to the Assembly saying, “The same principles that settle in Presbyteries by divine right . . . undermine the foundation of all appeals to Parliament.”16 Baillie called 1646 Ordinance “a lame Erastian presbytery.”17 With regard to the second matter, John Bastwick in Independency Not God’s Ordinance published in 164518 referred to the English scheme as “Presbyterian Government Independent” as distinct from the Scottish scheme “Presbyterian Government Dependent.” He complained that the former restricted the classical and provincial assemblies to a merely advisory role.
The publication in English of the Book of Discipline in 1644 indicated the divergence between English and Scottish Presbyterianism. There a distinction was drawn between “the sacred discipline of the Church described in the Word of God,” and “the synodical discipline gathered out of the synods and the use of the Churches.” In the 1644 publication, this distinction was endorsed by the printing of the former in black letters, the latter being merely “profitable,” and open to emendation “as far as it is not expressly confirmed by the authority of Holy Scripture.” The presbytery in a local church was the basic unit of church government, and the desired scheme of classes, synods, and assemblies was grounded on a moral obligation, e.g., “Wherein, albeit no particular Church hath power over another, yet every particular Church of the same resort, meeting and counsel, ought to obey the opinion of more Churches with whom they communicate.”19
In this same period two books appeared which further confused the issue. Both opposed the Scottish system, and at the same time quote Cartwright by way of support. One was a reprint of William Bradshawe’s English Puritanisme20 in which the autonomy of the local congregation was stressed within the principles of Cartwright’s Book of Discipline. This book was greatly praised by William Ames, and had a wide influence.
The other was by the five Independents present at the Westminster Assembly, and entitled An Apologeticall Narration.21 Reference is made in this to Paul Baynes’s Diocesans Tryall,22 which upheld parishional as against diocesan or provincial churches. Cartwright had used the word Church in an ambivalent sense23 (referring to the Church universal and local), and so Independents came to rest under his wing. Sidrach Simpson could declare that the term Independent originally applied to those who stood for Presbyterian government. Thomas Goodwin wrote in the Apologeticall Narration: “We believe the truth to lie and consist in a middle way between that which is falsely charged on us, Brownism, and that which is the contention of these times, the authoritative presbyterial government in all the subordinations and proceedings of it.”24
In England, at this time, men were thinking and drawing tentative lines on Church polity, with their differences, rather than campaigning for positions already polarized. Baxter wrote after 1662 of Presbyterianism as having been “but a stranger here . . . I found that most (that ever I could meet with) were against the jus divinum of lay elders, and for moderate primitive episcopacy.”25
The Exclusion of Presbyterianism
In 1660, Ashe, Manton, and Calamy were asked by some in Scotland for their view of the future course of religion in England. Their reply is most revealing, coming as it did before the Act of Uniformity, and indicating the course Presbyterians followed for the following thirty or so years. This is what they wrote and how they thought.
The general stream and current is for the old prelacy in all its pomp and height, and therefore it cannot be hoped for that the Presbyterian government should be owned as the public establishment of this nation, while the tide runneth so strongly that way; and the bare toleration of it will certainly produce a mischief, whilst papists and sectaries of all sorts will wind themselves under the covert of such a favour: therefore no course seemeth likely to us to secure religion and the interests of Christ Jesus our Lord, but by making presbytery a part of the public establishment, which will not be affected but by moderating and reducing episcopacy to the form of synodical government, and a mutual condescendency of both parties in some lesser things which fully come within the latitude of allowable differences in the Church.26
There are two lines of thought here which supply the key to Presbyterianism in this period, and pave the way for its subsequent disintegration, and the figure of Richard Baxter is involved in both. First, they realized that the return of the king meant the end of their hopes for a national Church on a “presbyterian” basis. The Declaration of Breda and the meeting at the Hague gave the Presbyterians grounds for hoping that their scruples would be favorably entertained. On this basis they planned a policy, and this is the second line of thought here. They desired to make as many concessions as they could in return for the tempering of the hierarchical episcopate. This could enable them to remain in the Establishment. They did not want to be tolerated outside.
When the Presbyterian leaders met the king, Baxter urged that union could easily be achieved “by making only things necessary to be the terms of union, by the true exercise of Church discipline against Sin, and by not casting out the faithful ministers.” Ussher’s scheme for a reduced episcopacy, which was discarded by the Long Parliament and the Westminster Assembly was advanced by the Presbyterians in July 1660 as such a basis. Repeated attempts were made to affect such a comprehension: for example, the Worcester House Declaration between the Convention and the Cavalier Parliament, and the Savoy Conference, Sir Robert Atkyns’ Bill, the interview with Bishop Wilkins following Black Bartholomew.27 August 24, 1662, as Pepys forecast, “made mad work among the Presbyterians.”
Even after the Act of Uniformity and Ejection, the desire for comprehension in the Establishment continued, and it had a sad, two-fold consequence.
First of all, the Presbyterians became divided among themselves about the matter. Opposing reactions to the Five Mile Act brought two parties into being, dubbed “Dons” (Bates and Manton were among these), and “Ducklings” (these included Annesley and Janeway). The Dons became somewhat alienated from the Independents who wanted a toleration outside the Church; at times they even worked against each other.
The Royal Indulgence of 1672 pleased the Independents, but it divided the Presbyterians who supported its withdrawal in the following year. Their feelings are expressed by Philip Henry:
It is a thing diversely resented, as men’s interests lead them; the conformists displeased, the presbyterians glad, the independents very glad, the papists triumph. The danger is . . . lest the allowing of separate places help to overthrow our parish order, which God hath owned, and to get divisions and animosities among us which no honest heart but would rather should be healed. We are put hereby . . . into a trilemma, either to turn independents in practice, or to strike in with the conformists, or to sit down in former silence and sufferings . . . till the Lord shall open a more effectual door. That which . . . he then heartily wished for was—That those who were in place, would admit the sober nonconformists to preach sometimes occasionally in their pulpits; by which means he thought prejudices would in time wear off on both sides, and they might mutually strengthen each other’s hands against the common enemy—the papists, who he foresaw would fish best in troubled waters. This we would choose much rather than to keep a separate meeting. But it could not be had.28
Their hopes of one established national Church with its parish system were dashed. Only in particular congregations could government by elders be retained, and no higher Church courts were possible. The parity and presbyterial ordination of ministers was retained, and the latter became the badge of Presbyterianism. Baxter wrote in 1668 of the Presbyterians: “Their congregations were, through necessity, just of independent separating shape and outward practice, though not upon the same principles.”
However, even if there had been no repressive legislation following the Restoration, one may wonder whether in 1662–88 the Presbyterians would have attempted to establish their particular polity, such was their antipathy to being tolerated outside the Establishment. There was therefore not as much to be eroded later as there might otherwise have been. Presbyterianism was largely a movement of thought and concern.
Secondly, a theological difference came to light among the same men, and it divided roughly into the same parties. This forms the prelude to the Antinomian controversy, and the background to the Salters Hall Divide of 1719 which signaled the evidences of a disintegration already at work in Presbyterianism. Here again the influence of Richard Baxter was potent and that in two directions.
On the one hand, a less detailed credal statement was regarded as being a sufficient basis for Church purposes. In 1654, at the Committee set up by Oliver Cromwell to draw up fundamentals to serve as the basis on which toleration could be exercised, Baxter suggested “The Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Decalogue alone as our essentials and fundamentals, which at least contain all that is necessary to salvation.”
He was criticized for this on the grounds that such terms were wide enough to include “Papists and Socinians.” His reply is reputed to have been “So much the better.” He further wrote: “Two things have set the Church on fire, and been the plagues of it above one thousand years. 1. Enlarging our creed and making more fundamentals than God ever made. 2. Composing (and so imposing) our creeds and Confessions in our own words and phrases. . . . O what mischief hath the Church of Christ suffered by the enlarging of her creed. . . . Every new article that was added to the Creed was a new engine to stretch the brains of believers, and in the issue to rend out the bowels of the Church.”29
On the other hand there was a relaxing of the Calvinism of the Westminster Assembly. Though Baxter respected Dort and Westminster, he had from early days been an open critic of High Calvinism which he termed Antinomianism. He confessed his approval of “Amiraldus’s way about universal redemption and grace.”30 As in Amyraldianism, Baxter rejected double predestination (reprobation) and maintained the universal accessibility of God’s grace. Justifying faith was viewed as including obedience. He wrote: “As the accepting of Christ for Lord . . . is as essential a part of justifying faith as the accepting Him for our Saviour, so consequently sincere obedience . . . hath as much to do in justifying us before God as affiance.”31
In addition, Baxter, instead of speaking of man’s reason as fallen, gave it the position of accrediting what was revealed truth or not.
Far-reaching intellectual movements came to the fore in the Restoration era, the Cambridge Platonists, who appealed to and for “Reason” and “Virtue” as being the sum-total of Christianity; the Latitudinarians were influential churchmen who eschewed theological intricacies and concentrated on the “duty of man”; the writings of John Locke who, practically speaking, substituted reason for revelation, and the skeptical Deists who showed how “fallen” reason was, albeit indirectly. It was impossible for religion to be immune from such epidemics. In point of fact, the inconsistencies and defections of Baxterian theology and practice became the weapons in hands less conservative than Baxter’s of tearing down Presbyterianism in the eighteenth century.
Under the Indulgence of 1672 a Merchants’ Lecture was instituted at Pinners Hall for Presbyterians and Independents.
Baxter came under bitter attack after preaching four sermons there. The dispute was raised again in 1687 when Thomas Cole, an Independent, preached at Pinners Hall, and two years later when some sermons of Tobias Crisp were reprinted by his son Samuel. In the introduction to the book, Baxter was criticized, and in the contents was the Antinomianism to which he deeply objected with its teaching on justification before faith, and God seeing no sin in His people. This caused internal divisions among the Presbyterians, and marked them off still further from the Independents. When he next preached, Baxter accused the signatories, among whom were some of his friends, of “hanging out a sign to show where Jezebel dwelt.” He followed this with a book entitled The Scripture Gospel defended . . . against the Libertines. Each succeeding lecturer took up opposing sides and the debate was prolonged.
Dr. Daniel Williams, who assumed Baxter’s mantle, entered the fray in his defense with a book entitled Gospel-Truth Stated.32 A nine-year pamphlet war resulted. The controversy turned on the place of the law and obedience in the matter of salvation.
All this did not augur well for the “Happy union” and the Common Fund. The case of Richard Davis precipitated the collapse of the London Union. The 1691 Heads of Agreement33 was a compromise basis in which neither side disavowed what the other could not accept, but on which they could cooperate. Dissension was rife between September 1692 and April 1695 when the London Union came to an end, though it continued in other parts of the country. When Williams was voted out of the Pinners Hall lectureship, the remaining Presbyterian leaders left en masse and set up a lecture at Salters Hall on the same day and hour as the other.
The Act of Toleration passed in 1689 dealt the death blow to any hopes that might have remained among the Presbyterians of being reunited with the Establishment. From now on, it was obvious to themselves as well as to all that their path lay outside the Establishment. However, they had been repressed from without by the Clarendon Code, restrained from within by their fear of sectarianism and love of national solidarity. In addition, they had tolerated doctrinal equivocation and defection in their midst, and had squabbled with the Independents. These enervating factors boded ill for the future.
The Disintegration of Presbyterianism
The factors which have just been noted contributed toward the downfall of Presbyterianism. They can be gathered together and related to the two major points of the Church’s polity and discipline, and the Church’s doctrinal purity.
In connection with the former, Calamy revised Matthew Sylvester’s cumbrous but valuable life of Baxter. In the introduction to this revision which appeared in 1702, Calamy described contemporary Presbyterianism in terms which he confessed as being tantamount to a “mere independent scheme.” He says: “Each worshipping society must determine for itself all necessary circumstances. . . . Synods still have their use in a way of consultation, admonition and advice to repress disorders, determine differences and regulate by consent such things as are of common concernment.”34
By way of reply, Benjamin Hoadly drew attention to the fact that Calamy was attempting “at once to defend the cause of the Ejected Ministers, and to propose a scheme as is as little agreeable to their main cause as that of the Established Church.”35 However, it must be remembered that there were men still living who had been ejected in 1662, John Howe was one of them, and he warmly commended the work. Only Dr. Daniel Williams disagreed with Calamy, and he did so privately.
This is a factor worth bearing in mind in the attempted diagnosis of the disintegration. Seeing that in a Presbyterian church, no authority was vested in the church meeting, a minister had a free hand in what he preached. If the trustees were men of the world, as so often they were, the minister was untouchable. The English Presbyterian minister was freer, in point of fact, than his Scottish counterpart, because there was no Synod or assembly before which he could be legally summoned to answer for his beliefs.36 This comes to light in the Salters Hall issue—the absence of an effective government in the Church was equivalent to the lack of a bulwark and a court of appeal.
With regard to the doctrinal purity of Presbyterianism, some factors need to be noted. In Calamy’s work already referred to, there is evidence that within the Church at large (the Presbyterians thought in these terms) room was found for a good deal of latitude of belief. Locke’s letter concerning toleration had influenced Calamy, and now there was a reluctance to discipline the heretic within the gate, as well as the tolerating of those outside. In 1713, Calamy recommended John Fox who had difficulties about the doctrine of the Trinity and about subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles, to refrain from doing so, as he had done, and trust the omission would not be uncovered. Calamy upheld the doctrine of Scripture against Le Clerc and the doctrine of Trinity, but would not discipline young men who were open to newer ideas.
There were some who found it impossible to hold their footing in Baxterianism and, instead, stood firmly and consciously in Arminianism. There was Joseph Standen in the West Country, Samuel Bourn who refused to subscribe to the Assembly Catechism 1711, Joseph Dodson, and Nicholas Billingsley. In A View of the Dissenting Interest in London . . . from 1665 to December 25, 1731, we read a description of the heterdoxy of the time as, “Very often first manifested in their attacking the divine decrees by applauding the doctrine of universal redemption as a sentiment that is full of benevolence; from thence they appear fond of pleading the cause of the heathens, and of the possibility of salvation merely by the light of nature in a sincere improvement of the powers and faculties of men; and by degrees these charitable sentiments produce a small opinion of revelation, and of the necessity of it in order to salvation. . . . No wonder they became hereupon sceptics and amongst other truths the doctrine of the Trinity is with them a matter of jest and ridicule.”
Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding37 was becoming the textbook of dissenting academics. Joshua Oldfield used it in London from 1699, Thomas Dixon in Whitehaven in 1710, and Samuel Jones was also using it at Tewkesbury. Here Presbyterian ministers were trained and churches would be affected as a result.
Baxter was assured that Scripture alone made safe from attack everything essential to Christianity. Scripture and tradition not only walked hand in hand: they were inseparable. They were soon divorced, however, and that under the pose of adhering to Scripture alone. In 1695, Locke wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures38 and drove a wedge between the Christianity of the Scriptures and that of the creeds. His paraphrases of the Epistles were intended to consign the commentators and the “puritan lecture” to oblivion by appealing to “St. Paul himself.” In 1707 John Mill’s New Testament39 with its 30,000 variant readings appeared, and placed the supreme standard in the realm of doubt. Then in 1712, Samuel Clarke published his Scripture-doctrine of the Trinity,40 and, along with William Whiston’s Primitive Christianity Reviv’d, it was dubbed “Arian.”41
These two factors of a lack of government in the Church and the presence of error combined in the Salters Hall issue of 1719. Samuel Clarke’s book had influenced a minister named James Peirce, and in the year following its publication he moved to Exeter. There the Trinitarian controversy arose, and the Exeter Assembly failed to deal with the matter. The thirteen trustees wrote for advice to the London ministers who (Calamy was among them) replied that respected ministers of the district should be consulted, and so seven were chosen. They were all orthodox and so Peirce wrote to London to John S. Barrington for aid who was a member of the Committee of the Three Denominations. Barrington submitted some “Advices” to the Committee which sought to establish the need for adequate witnesses for a case of heresy in future, and that Scripture alone and not a human creed should be in the text of orthodoxy. After argument and alteration, the Committee gave its approval, but determined to place the “Advices” before the full body of London ministers. This met on February 24, 1719, and the debate revolved around whether a clause (sent by seven from Exeter but omitted by the Committee) requiring subscription to the Trinity should be inserted or not. A decision was finally taken and the clause was excluded by a majority of four. The triumphant non-subscribers were largely composed of Presbyterians, and though Arianism was not a denominational matter, it was largely in control of the Presbyterian congregations, so that the difference did harden, by and large, into denominations.
Churches were taking up their positions on either side of the divide, and men were gravitating toward whichever side harmonized with their particular views or feelings. It would be well for us to grasp that though the issue was precipitated by a statement regarding a particular doctrine, the issue that emerged was much larger and concerned subscription to a detailed doctrinal statement in principle, or freedom to enquire. John Humfrey spoke of his attitude to Luther, Calvin, the Westminster Assembly, and the Synod of Dort in the following words: “I will not captivate my understanding to any of them.”
The results of this attitude began to be heard in Presbyterian pulpits from Nathaniel Lardner, Edward Sandercock (formerly Independents), Samuel Chandler, and George Benson in London; Henry Winder and John Brekell in Liverpool, Josiah Owen at Rochdale, Samuel Bourn at Birmingham. Another manifestation of this liberal attitude appeared in the critical revisions of the Westminster Catechisms by Strong of Ilminster in 1735, and Bourn in 1736. The latter revised Strong’s work and it appeared in 1738, signed by leading Presbyterians, and Drysdale called it “the first manifesto of the Arian party.” It also smacked of Arminianism. These were used with children instead of the Catechism. John Taylor of Norwich was an influential figure in this decline, and his predictions for the future of Presbyterianism were the exact reverse of what he stated. He wrote:
If the Dissenters stand firm on liberty and love, . . . if they refuse all party schemes and stand upon the basis of universal Christianity; if they allow the free study of the Bible and encourage the labours of their honest and learned men; if they are steadfastly determined to establish their faith, practice and worship on the Word of God alone, as it shall from time to time be made known to them . . . then they will act to their own true principles. . . . But if ever they abandon liberty and love; if they stiffly adhere to party names and schemes; . . . if they discourage the honest and learned men that would throw in more light and truth among them, they will become weak and dwindle into nothing.42
In this the dissenting academies, out of which Joseph Priestly the militant apostle of Unitarianism emerged, had an influence. As a result, churches were affected as free-thinking ministers were appointed by wealthy trustees. In 1770 there were at least 500 Presbyterian congregations in England, but by 1812 there were less than half and the majority of these were Unitarian. The four northern counties were comparatively unscathed, but here the Scottish tradition was strongest.
English Presbyterianism at its best and most promising was smitten down by Elizabeth and her bishops. Thereafter it struggled with its discipline, and then with its discipline and doctrine, until discipline became impossible and doctrine eroded. To claim that it died cannot be sustained if by “death” we mean total extinction, but it is a perfectly justifiable description if we mean that it became utterly helpless in the areas where it persisted, to recover itself. The Presbyterianism to be seen in England today is the result of the resuscitatory measures of the Scots in the nineteenth century.