Chapter 1: Religious Conflict and the Decision to Leave England
The godly and discerning know well what wars and opposition Satan has raised, sustained, and continued against the saints, in one form or another, ever since the light of the gospel first broke forth in our honorable nation of England. England was the first of the nations that the Lord adorned with this light after the thick darkness of popery had covered and overspread the Christian world. Sometimes Satan opposed the saints through bloody death and cruel torments; at other times through imprisonment, banishment, and other harsh treatment. He was unwilling to see his kingdom fall, the truth prevail, and the churches of God return to their ancient purity and recover their original order, liberty, and beauty.
But these means could not overcome the chief truths of the gospel. They began to take root in many places, watered by the blood of the martyrs and blessed from heaven with gracious growth. Satan then turned to his ancient strategies, used long before against the first Christians. The bloody and barbarous persecutions of the heathen emperors had failed to stop and overthrow the progress of the gospel. It had quickly spread, with astonishing speed, through the best-known parts of the world at that time. Satan then began to sow errors, heresies, and extraordinary dissensions among those who professed the faith themselves. He worked on their pride and ambition, along with other corrupt passions found in all mortal people, even, to some degree, in the saints themselves. Grievous consequences followed: bitter disputes and resentment, schisms, and other terrible disorders. Satan also took the opportunity these gave him to slip in many vile ceremonies and useless church laws and decrees, which have remained snares to many poor and peaceable souls even to this day. Thus, in ancient times, persecution by the heathen and their emperors was no greater than the persecution Christians inflicted on one another, the Arians and their accomplices persecuting the orthodox and true Christians. Socrates bears witness to this in his second book. These are his words:
“The violence truly,” he says, “was no less than that of old practiced towards the Christians when they were compelled and drawn to sacrifice to idols; for many endured various kinds of torment, frequent torture on the rack, and dismembering of their joints; confiscating of their goods; some deprived of their native soil; others departed this life under the hands of the tormentor; and some died in banishment, and never saw their country again,” etc.
Satan seems to have followed the same method in these later times, since the truth began to spring up and spread after the great falling away brought about by Antichrist, that man of sin.
Passing over the countless examples in various nations and other parts of the world, I will take our own country as an example. That old serpent could not prevail through the fiery flames and other cruel tragedies that his instruments carried out everywhere in Queen Mary's days and before. He therefore began another kind of war and worked more secretly, seeking not merely to oppose but to ruin and destroy the kingdom of Christ by more hidden and subtle means. He kindled the flames of contention and sowed the seeds of discord and bitter enmity among those who professed the faith and seemed to be reformed. When his former methods failed against the principal doctrines of faith, he directed his strength against the holy discipline and outward government of Christ's kingdom, through which those holy doctrines should be preserved and true godliness maintained among the saints and people of God.
Mr. Foxe records that, besides the worthy martyrs and confessors who were burned or otherwise tormented in Queen Mary's days, many people, both students and others, fled the country, numbering 800. They formed separate congregations at Wesel, Frankfurt, Basel, Emden, Marburg, Strasbourg, Geneva, and elsewhere. Among them, especially those at Frankfurt, a bitter war of contention and persecution began over the ceremonies, the service book, and other popish and antichristian things that remain England's plague to this day. These are like the high places in Israel, which the prophets denounced and which brought Israel to ruin. The better party sought, in keeping with the purity of the gospel, to root them out and abandon them entirely. The other party, under veiled pretenses and for their own purposes and advancement, sought just as stubbornly to continue, maintain, and defend them. This appears in the account of the dispute published in 1575, a book that deserves to be better known and considered.
One side labored to establish the right worship of God and the discipline of Christ in the church according to the simplicity of the gospel, without mixing in human inventions. They sought to have, and to be governed by, the laws of God's word, administered through the offices and officers of pastors, teachers, elders, and so forth, according to the Scriptures. The other party, despite their many disguises and pretenses, tried to retain the rank of bishops in the popish manner, with their extensive power and jurisdiction. They also sought to retain all the courts, church laws, and ceremonies, together with the endowed church offices, revenues, subordinate officers, and other means that had formerly upheld their antichristian greatness and enabled them to persecute the poor servants of God with lordly and tyrannical power. The contention was so great that neither God's honor, nor the persecution they shared, nor the mediation of Mr. Calvin and other worthy servants of the Lord in those places could persuade these supporters of episcopal government. Instead, they used every means to disturb the peace of this poor persecuted church. They went so far as to accuse some of their chief opponents of rebellion, high treason against the emperor, and other such crimes. These accusations were most unjust and ungodly, yet typical of prelates.
This contention did not die with Queen Mary or remain overseas. At her death, these people returned to England under gracious Queen Elizabeth. Many received bishoprics and other promotions, as they had aimed and desired. Their deeply rooted hatred of the holy discipline of Christ in his church has continued to this day. Fearing that it would prevail, they used every plot and device to keep it out. They stirred up the queen and the state against it as a danger to the commonwealth. They argued that in such ignorant and superstitious times, the fundamental points of religion most needed to be preached; that various harmless ceremonies could be retained to win over the weak and ignorant; and that, although reform of various things was desirable, this was not the time for it. These and many similar arguments were used to silence the more godly and bring them to yield to one ceremony after another and one corruption after another. Through these tricks, they deceived some and corrupted others. At last they began to persecute all the zealous believers in the country, by word and deed, if they would not submit to their ceremonies and become slaves to them and their popish trash. These ceremonies have no foundation in God's word but are relics of that man of sin. Those persecuted often understood little of what this discipline meant. The more the light of the gospel grew, the more the bishops pressed people to formally assent to these corruptions. Despite all their former pretenses and fair appearances, anyone whose eyes God had not justly blinded could easily see where these things were leading. To heap further contempt on God's sincere servants, they insultingly and most unjustly imposed on them the name “Puritans,” which the Novatians are said to have assumed for themselves out of pride.
It is grievous to see the consequences. Religion has been disgraced, and the godly grieved, afflicted, and persecuted. Many have been exiled; several have lost their lives in prisons and in other ways. Meanwhile, sin has been encouraged, ignorance, irreverence, and atheism have increased, and the papists have been encouraged to hope that their day will come again.
This made that holy man Mr. Perkins cry out in his exhortation to repentance on Zephaniah 2:
“Religion,” he says, “has been among us these 35 years; but the more it is proclaimed, the more it is despised and reproached by many,” etc. “Thus not profaneness nor wickedness, but religion itself is a byword, an object of mockery, and a matter of reproach; so that in England at this day the man or woman that begins to profess religion, and to serve God, must resolve with himself to sustain mocks and injuries even as though he lived among the enemies of religion.”
Common experience has confirmed this and made it all too apparent.
A later observation, made in passing, worth noting
When I first began these scribbled writings, around 1630, and afterward pieced them together in times of leisure, I little thought that the downfall of the bishops, with their courts, church laws, ceremonies, and so forth, was so near. Nor did I think I would live to see or hear of it. But it is the Lord's doing, and it ought to be marvelous in our eyes!
“Every plant which mine heavenly Father hath not planted,” says our Savior, “shall be rooted up” (Matt 15:13). “I have snared thee, and thou art taken, O Babel” (the bishops), “and thou wast not aware; thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the Lord” (Jer 50:24). But will they insist on striving against the truth and against God's servants? What, even against the Lord himself? “Do they provoke the Lord to anger? Are they stronger than he?” (1 Cor 10:22). No, no, they have met their match. “Behold, I come unto thee, O proud man, saith the Lord God of hosts; for thy day is come, even the time that I will visit thee” (Jer 50:31). May not God's people now say, and these poor people among the rest, “The Lord hath brought forth our righteousness; come, let us declare in Sion the work of the Lord our God” (Jer 51:10)? “Let all flesh be still before the Lord; for he is raised up out of his holy place” (Zech 2:13).
In this situation these poor people may say, among the thousands of Israel, “When the Lord brought again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream” (Ps 126:1). “The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we rejoice” (Ps 126:3). “They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy. They went weeping, and carried precious seed, but they shall return with joy, and bring their sheaves” (Ps 126:5-6).
Do you not now see the fruits of your labors, all you servants of the Lord who have suffered for his truth and been faithful witnesses to it? And you, the little handful among the rest, the least among the thousands of Israel? You have not only had a time of sowing; many of you have seen the joyful harvest. Should you not then rejoice, yes, rejoice again, and say, “Hallelujah, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, be to the Lord our God; for true and righteous are his judgments” (Rev 19:1-2)?
But you will ask: What is the matter? What has been done? Why, are you a stranger in Israel, that you do not know what has been done? Have not those Jebusites been overcome, who vexed the people of Israel so long, even holding Jerusalem until David's days, and who were thorns in their sides for so many ages? They had now begun to scorn the idea that any David should interfere with them. They began to fortify their tower like the old Babylonians. But those proud Anakim have been thrown down, and their glory laid in the dust. The tyrannical bishops have been expelled, their courts dissolved, their church laws deprived of force, their service abolished, and their ceremonies rendered useless and despised. Their plots for popery have been prevented, and all their superstitions discarded and returned to Rome, where they came from. The monuments of idolatry have been rooted out of the land. Their proud and irreverent supporters and cruel defenders, such as bloody papists and wicked atheists and their malicious companions, have been astonishingly overthrown. Are not these great things? Who can deny it?
But who has done it? Who? He “that sitteth on the white horse, who is called Faithful, and True, and judgeth and fighteth righteously” (Rev 19:11), “whose garments are dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God” (Rev 19:13). “For he shall rule them with a rod of iron; for it is he that treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of God Almighty. And he hath upon his garment, and upon his thigh, a name written, The King of Kings, and Lord of Lords” (Rev 19:15-16).
Hallelujah.
1646.
To return more closely to my purpose: through the hard work and diligence of some godly and zealous preachers, and God's blessing on their labors, many people in the northern parts of the country, as elsewhere, were enlightened by God's word. Their ignorance and sins were revealed to them, and by his grace they began to reform their lives and act conscientiously. No sooner was God's work evident in them than the irreverent multitude mocked and scorned them. The ministers were pressed to accept the yoke of signing their assent or be silenced. The poor people were so harassed by church-court officers, royal messengers, and the commissary courts that their affliction was truly great. Nevertheless, they bore it with much patience for several years. The continuing and increasing troubles, together with other means the Lord raised up in those days, eventually led them to see further into these matters by the light of God's word. They saw not only that these base and beggarly ceremonies were unlawful, but also that they ought not submit to the lordly and tyrannical power of the prelates. Contrary to the freedom of the gospel, that power loaded and burdened people's consciences, and by its coercion made an irreverent mixture of persons and things in God's worship. They also saw that the prelates' offices and callings, courts, church laws, and so forth were unlawful and antichristian, having no warrant in God's word. They were the same as those used in popery and still retained.
A famous author writes of this in his Dutch commentaries, concerning King James's arrival in England:
“The new king,” he says, “found there established the reformed religion, according to the reformed religion of King Edward the Sixth. Retaining, or keeping still the spiritual rank of the bishops, etc., after the old manner, much varying and differing from the reformed churches in Scotland, France, and the Netherlands, Embden, Geneva, etc., whose reformation is cut, or shaped much nearer the first Christian churches, as it was used in the apostles' times.”
The reformed churches were shaped much nearer the original pattern than England, for they dismissed the bishops, with all their courts, church laws, and ceremonies, at the outset, and left them among the popish [wording unclear] to which they belonged.
Therefore, those believers in these parts who saw the evil of these things, and whose hearts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for his truth, shook off this yoke of antichristian bondage. As the Lord's free people, they joined themselves by a covenant of the Lord into a church, in the fellowship of the gospel. They undertook to walk in all his ways, already made known or yet to be made known to them, to the best of their ability, whatever it should cost them, with the Lord's assistance. That it cost them something, the history that follows will show.
These people formed two distinct bodies, or churches, which gathered separately because of the distance between their homes. They came from several towns and villages in Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, where those counties border most closely on one another. In one of these churches, besides other people of note, was Mr. John Smith, a man of considerable gifts and a good preacher, who was afterward chosen as their pastor. But later, falling into certain errors in the Low Countries, these people, for the most part, buried themselves and their names in obscurity there.
In the other church, which must be the subject of our account, there were other worthy men besides Mr. Richard Clifton, a sober and respected preacher. Through his hard work and diligence, he had done much good and, under God, had been a means of bringing many to conversion. There was also that famous and worthy man Mr. John Robinson, who afterward served as their pastor for many years, until the Lord took him away by death. Mr. William Brewster was there too, a respected man who was afterward chosen as an elder of the church and lived with them into old age.
After these things, however, they could not long remain in any peaceful condition. They were hunted and persecuted on every side, so that their former afflictions seemed like flea bites compared with those now brought upon them. Some were seized and thrown into prison; others had their houses surrounded and watched day and night and barely escaped their persecutors' hands. Most were forced to flee, leaving their houses and homes and the means of earning their living. Yet these troubles, and many harsher ones that later befell them, were no more than they expected. They were therefore better prepared to bear them with the help of God's grace and Spirit.
Seeing themselves harassed in this way, with no hope of remaining there, they agreed together to go to the Low Countries. They had heard that there was freedom of religion for everyone there. They had also heard that various people from London and other parts of the country, exiled and persecuted for the same cause, had gone there and were living at Amsterdam and elsewhere. For about a year they had remained together, meeting every Sabbath in one place or another to worship God among themselves, despite all the diligence and malice of their enemies. Seeing that they could no longer continue in this condition, they resolved to get over to Holland however they could. This was in 1607 and 1608, as the next chapter will explain more fully.
