Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:11:35.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ruling Eldership in Civil War England, the Scottish Kirk, and Early New England: A Comparative Study of Secular and Spiritual Aspects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

William M. Abbott
William M. Abbott
Affiliation:
an associate professor of History at Fairfield University.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Within early modern Christianity the idea of church government always entailed a basic contradiction. How could a spiritual body, devoted to Christ's teachings of love and forgiveness, exercise coercive authority? Given the widely accepted need of any sixteenth- or seventeenth-century government to enforce religiously based codes of behavior, churches and church officials were inevitably involved with the secular authorities in detecting and judging offenders. Inasmuch as such judgment had to include the threat of punishment, church officials of any kind were open to the charge of violating their Christian mission, which by nature was to be persuasive and educative rather than punitive, and also their Christian character, which, even among more radical Protestant sects, was to be more otherworldly than that of the laity.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 38 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Thomas, Goodwin, “The Government and Discipline of the Churches of Christ,” in The Works of Thomas Goodwin D.D. (London: Printed for the author, 1697), 4:19.Google Scholar

2. George, Yule, Puritans in Politics: the Religious Legislation of the Long Parliament 1640–1647 (Appleford, U.K.: Sutton Courtenay, 1981), 52Google Scholar; Shaw, William A., A History of the English Church During the Civil Wars and Under the Commonwealth, 1640–1660 (London: Longmans-Green, 1900), 1:195–201.Google Scholar

3. John, Rushworth, Historical Collections: The Fourth and Last Part: In Two Volumes (London: C. Thomason, 1701), 1:212.Google Scholar

4. Ibid.; Shaw, , History, 1:275–77, 298.Google Scholar

5. Directions of the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament. After advice had with the Assembly of Divines, for the electing and choosing of Ruling-Elders in all the Congregations (London, August 20, 1645), 10.Google Scholar

6. Shaw, , History, 2:99–110Google Scholar; Surman, Charles E., “Classical Presbyterianism in England 1643–1660” (Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, U.K., 1949), 138–40.Google Scholar

7. Yule, , Puritans in Politics, 151.Google Scholar

8. Shaw, , History, 1:237.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., 298 ff.

10. Surman, , “Classical Presbyterianism in England,” 136, 143Google Scholar; see also Shaw, , History, 2:119.Google Scholar

11. Paul, Robert S., The Assembly of the Lord (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1985) 170–71Google Scholar; DeWitt, J. R., Jus Divinum: The Westminster Assembly and the Divine Right of Church Government (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1969), 79–85Google Scholar; Bradley, Rosemary D., “The Failure of Accommodation: Religious Conflicts between Presbyterians and Independents in the Westminster Assembly 1643–1646,” Journal of Religious History [Australia] 12 (1982): 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Samuel, Miller, An Essay on the Warrant, Nature, and Duties of the Office of the Ruling Elder, in the Presbyterian Church (New York: Jonathan Leavitt, 1832), 146Google Scholar. See also Robert Baillie's account, in Shaw, , History, 1:161–62.Google Scholar

12. Michael, Mahony, “Presbyterianism in the City of London, 1645–1647,” The Historical Journal 22 (1979): 114.Google Scholar

13. See Shaw, , History, 2:137Google Scholar; Tai, Liu, Puritan London (London: Associated University Presses, 1986), 54–55.Google Scholar

14. John, Morrill, “The Church in England, 1642–9, in Reactions to the English Civil War 1642–1649, ed. John, Morrill (New York: St. Martin's, 1982), 96–97Google Scholar; Shaw, , History, 2:33, 125–36Google Scholar; Christopher, Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (New York: Schocken, 1964), 252Google Scholar. See also Cox, J. Charles, “Minute Book of the Wirksworth Classis, 1651–1658,” Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (01 1879): 147.Google Scholar

15. Surman, , “Classical Presbyterianism,” 139 ff.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., 139, 216–17.

17. 1 Timothy 3:1–4; Titus 1:6–9 (King James Version).

18. Henry Wilkinson brought this up in the Westminster Assembly in 1643. Paul, Robert S., The Assembly of the Lord, 169Google Scholar. It had also been a question in Scotland. Yule, , Puritans in Politics, 197Google Scholar. See also John, Maxwell, The Burthen of Issachar (Oxford: n.p., 1646), 4.Google Scholar

19. Paul, , Assembly of the Lord, 344.Google Scholar

20. Apologeticall Narration, quoted by Benjamin, Hanbury, Historical Memorials relating to the Independents or Congregationalists (London: The Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1841), 2:224.Google Scholar

21. Thomas, Edwards, Antapologia (London: John Bellamie, 1644), 62–63.Google Scholar

22. Hezekiah, Woodward, A Short Letter, Modestly intreating a Friends judgement upon Mr. Edwards his Booke, he calleth an Anti-Apologie (London: n.p., 1644), 31Google Scholar; Richard, Mather, Church-Government and Church-Covenant Discussed, In an answer of the Elders of the severall Churches in New England (London: Benjamin Allen, 1643), 76Google Scholar; A Vindication of the Presbyteriall-Government and Ministry: Together With an Exhortation, to all the Ministers, Elders, and People (London: C. Meredith, 1649), 86, 87Google Scholar; James, Guthrie, A Treatise of Ruling Elders and Deacons (Edinburgh: George Mosman, 1699), 41.Google Scholar

23. Elsie Anne, McKee, Elders and the Plural Ministry (Geneva: Librarie Droz S.A., 1988), 75, 79, 101Google Scholar;William, Bradshaw, English Puritanisme: Containing the maine Opinions of the rigidest sort of those that are called Puritanes ([Amsterdam?]: n.p., 1640), 20.Google Scholar

24. Worthley, Harold F., “The Lay Officers of the Particular (Congregational) Churches of Massachusetts, 1620–1755: An Investigation of Practice and Theory” (Th.D. diss., Harvard University, 1970), 155, 210, 243Google Scholar. See also Cooper, James F. Jr., Tenacious of Their Liberties: The Congregationalists in Colonial Massachusetts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 25.Google Scholar

25. Brian, Manning, “Puritanism and Democracy, 1640–1642,” in Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays in Seventeenth-Century History Presented to Christopher Hill, ed. Donald, Pennington and Keith, Thomas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 154Google Scholar; Thomas, Goodwin, “Government and Discipline” (see note 1), 4:15Google Scholar; A Vindication of the Presbyteriall-Governtnent and Ministry, 114; Foster, Walter R., The Church Before the Covenants (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1975), 69Google Scholar; James, Guthrie, A Treatise (see note 22), 40–41, 67Google Scholar; Margo, Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002), 6, 142, 444Google Scholar; David, Mathew, Scotland Under Charles I (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955), 273.Google Scholar

26. McDonald, Alan R., “Ecclesiastical Representation in Parliament in Post-Reformation Scotland: The Two Kingdoms Theory in Practice,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 50 (1999): 45Google Scholar, quoting the Second Book; Walter, Makey, “Presbyterian and Canterburian in the Scottish Revolution,” in Church, Politics, and Society: Scotland 1408–1929, ed. Norman, MacDougall (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1983), 152Google Scholar; Makey, , The Church of the Covenant, 1637–1651 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1979), 124–25.Google Scholar

27. Makey, , “Presbyterian and Canterburian in the Scottish Revolution,” 152Google Scholar; Makey, , Church of the Covenant, 125.Google Scholar

28. Church of Scotland, The Second Book of Discipline, ed. James, Kirk (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1980), 92, 93.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., 92; Makey, , “Presbyterian and Canterburian,” 153Google Scholar; Makey, , The Church of the Covenant, 126.Google Scholar

30. Church of Scotland, Second Book of Discipline, 92.

31. Makey, , Church of the Covenant, 126, 126–27Google Scholar; Church of Scotland, Second Book of Discipline, 90.

32. John, Maxwell, The Burthen of Issachar, 2Google Scholar; Robert, Baillie, An Historical Vindication of the Government of the Church of Scotland (London: Samuel Gellibrand, 1646), 17.Google Scholar

33. Margo, Todd, Culture of Protestantism (see note 25), 370–71Google Scholar. See a description of this ceremony in The Platforme of the Presbyterian Government … of The Church of Scotland (London: R. Austin, 1644), 4–5.Google Scholar

34. Church of Scotland, Second Book of Discipline, 93.

35. Ibid., 193.

36. Guthrie, , A Treatise (see note 22), 22, 64.Google Scholar

37. Alexander, Henderson, The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: James Bryson, 1641), 30Google Scholar; Todd, , Culture of Protestantism, 371; Church of Scotland, Second Book of Discipline, 95.Google Scholar

38. Makey, , Church of the Covenant, 152Google Scholar; Mathew, , Scotland Under Charles I (see note 25), 59.Google Scholar

39. Todd, , Culture of Protestantism, 372.Google Scholar

40. Makey, , Church of the Covenant, 140–52Google Scholar; Mathew, , Scotland Under Charles I, 46–47Google Scholar; Foster, , Church Before the Covenants, 69.Google Scholar

41. Platforme of the Presbyterian Government … of the Church of Scotland, 11; Yule, , Puritans in Politics, 197, n. 89.Google Scholar

42. Patrick, Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 350–55.Google Scholar

43. Worthley, , “Lay Officers” (see note 24), 152–55Google Scholar; Bradshaw, , “English Puritanism,” in Several Treatises of Worship and Ceremonies (London: n.p., 1660), 44, 43Google Scholar; Henry, Jacob, Reasons Taken Out of Gods Word and the Best Humane Testimonies ([Middleburg?]: R. Schilders, 1604), 67.Google Scholar

44. Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 289–90, 762.Google Scholar

45. Morgan, Edmund S., Roger Williams: the Church and the State (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1967), 70.Google Scholar

46. John, Cotton, The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England (London: Matthew Simmons, 1645), 33, 25Google Scholar; Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 277Google Scholar. James F. Cooper notes one exception: Cooper, , Tenacious of Their Liberties (see note 24), 227, n. 11.Google Scholar

47. Edmund, Morgan, ed., Puritan Political Ideas (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), 93, n. 3.Google Scholar

48. Thomas, Hutchinson, The History of the Colony of Massachusets-Bay, from the first settlement thereof in 1628 (Boston: T. and J. Fleet, 1764), 433Google Scholar; Cooper, , Tenacious of Their Liberties, 26Google Scholar; Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 234, 219Google Scholar; Young, Ralph F., “Good News from New England: The Influence of the New England Way of Church Polity on Old England, 1635–1660” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1971), 8–10.Google Scholar

49. Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 219–20Google Scholar, n. 170, 461, 766. Elders Thomas Leverett and Thomas Oliver of First Church Boston are two examples. Pierce, Richard D., ed., The Records of the First Church in Boston, 1630–1868, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 39 (Boston: The Society, 1961), 41, n. 3Google Scholar; James, Cooper, “The Confession and Trial of Richard Wayte, Boston, 1640,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd sen, 44 (1987): 315Google Scholar. Philip Groves of the Church of Christ in Stratford is another example. Samuel, Orcutt, A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut (New Haven, Conn.: Turtle, Morehouse, and Taylor, 1886), pt. 1, 165.Google Scholar

50. Thomas, Hutchinson, History … of Massachusets-Bay, 432Google Scholar; Mather, , Church-Government (see note 22), 77Google Scholar; Cooper, , Tenacious of Their Liberties, 26Google Scholar; Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 360.Google Scholar

51. Thomas, Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, ed. Mayo, Lawrence S. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936, 1:359Google Scholar; Edmund, Morgan, Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea (New York: New York University Press, 1963), 141Google Scholar. The Cambridge Platform stated that ruling elders could assist ministers in ordaining church officers. Cooper, , Tenacious of Their Liberties, 26.Google Scholar

52. See Pierce, , ed., Records of the First Church in Boston, 41–47, 51.Google Scholar

53. Cooper, , Tenacious of Their Liberties, 26Google Scholar; Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 199, 202, 210, 243–44.Google Scholar

54. See Hutchinson, , History, ed. Mayo, , 1:360Google Scholar; Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 273, 285; and Records of the First Church in Boston, 38–47, in which only two elders are listed (Leverett and Oliver). Philip Groves of Stratford was the sole ruling elder in his church from 1640 to his death in 1675. Orcutt, History of … Bridgeport, pt 1, 165.Google Scholar

55. Church of Scotland, Second Book of Discipline, 170, n. 18; Mather, , Church-Government, 76Google Scholar. See also James, Noyes, The Temple Measured (London: Edmund Paxton, 1647), 16, 29.Google Scholar

56. See comments in May and June 1641 by Lord Saye and Sele and MPs William Thomas, Nathaniel Fiennes, Sir Symonds D'Ewes, Arthur Haselrig, and an anonymous MP. William, Fiennes, Two Speeches in Parliament of the Right Honorable William, Lord Viscount Say and Seale (London: T. Underhill, 1641), 2Google Scholar; John, Nalson, An Impartial Collection of the Great Affairs of State (London: S. Mearne and others, 1682), 2:215–16, 222, 225Google Scholar; Diary of Thomas Moore, British Library [hereafter BL], Harl. MSS 478:51a–51b; Yale Center for Parliamentary History transcript of Bodl., Rawlinson MSS. D. 1099, f. 55b; Diary of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, BL, Harl. MSS 164:1015; Yale Ctr. Parl. Hist, transcript of Diary of Moore, BL, Harl. MSS 478:55v; A Speech when Master Hide was in the Chayre upon the Bill concerning Episcopacie (London: n.p., 1641), 4Google Scholar. See also the primitive episcopal plan put forward by Sir Edward Dering, in John, Rushworth, Historical Collections: The Third Part: In Two Volumes (London: Richard Chiswell and Thomas Cockerill, 1692), 1:294–95Google Scholar; and The Order and Forme for Church Government by Bishops and the Clergie of this Kingdome Voted in the House of Commons on Friday, July 16, 1641 (London: n.p., 1641)Google Scholar. I examine these 1641 debates in a forthcoming festschrift chapter.

57. Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S., ed., Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660 (London: Stationery Office, 1911), 1:865–66.Google Scholar

58. Surman, , “Classical Presbyterianism” (see note 6), 144Google Scholar; Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:749, 865–69; John, Rushworth, Historical Collections: The Fourth and Last Part: In Two Volumes, 1:213.Google Scholar

59. Brian, Manning, “Puritanism and Democracy” (see note 25), 154Google Scholar; John, Owen, The Works of John Owen, D.D. ed. Goold, William H. (Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter, 1851), 8:50.Google Scholar

60. Shaw, , History, 2:4Google Scholar; John, Selden, The Table Talk of John Selden, ed. Reynolds, Samuel H. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1892), 156.Google Scholar

61. , J. S., The Infancy of Elders: A Short Treatise composed for Vindication of the Christian liberty of Freeborne denizens of England (London: n.p., 1647), 5.Google Scholar

62. Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:1199.

63. Selden, , Table Talk, 156.Google Scholar

64. Diary of Walter Yonge, BL, Add. MSS 18780:72; Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:1189.

65. Yule, , Puritans in Politics, 347; Diary of Yonge, BL, Add. MSS 18780:109.Google Scholar

66. Shaw, , History, 1:197.Google Scholar

67. See Nathaniel Fiennes' attack in 1641 against the bishops' courts: Rushworth, , Historical Collections: The Third Part, 1:178–79Google Scholar. See also Robert, Baillie, An Historicall Vindication, 16.Google Scholar

68. John, Cotton, The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England, 25–26.Google Scholar

69. A Vindication of the Presbyteriall-Government and Ministry, 54–55. For the authorship of this tract (probably Edmund Calamy and Christopher Love), see Carol, Schneider, “Roots and Branches,” in Puritanism, ed. Bremer, Francis G. (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1993), 195Google Scholar; and Tai, Liu, Puritan London, 67.Google Scholar

70. , J. S., The Infancy of Elders, 15, 24Google Scholar; The Lamentation of the Ruling Lay-Elders (London: n.p., 1647), 1–4.Google Scholar

71. Diary of Walter Yonge, BL, Add. MSS 18780:114.

72. Surman, , “Classical Presbyterianism” (see note 6), 146.Google Scholar

73. For several examples, see Adam, Martindale's autobiography in Shaw, History, 2:119Google Scholar; and Surman, , “Classical Presbyterianism,” 141.Google Scholar

74. J. S., Infancy of Elders, 17, 23, 4, 13–14; Lamentation of the Ruling Lay-Elders, 1–2. See also The Scottish politike Presbyter, Slaine by an English Independent (London: n.p., 1647).

75. The Four-Legg'd Elder, or, a horrible Relation of a Dog and an Elders Maid (London: n.p., 1647); Infancy of Elders, 18, 24–25.

76. McDonald, , “Ecclesiastical Representation” (see note 26), 50Google Scholar; Christopher, Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England, 248Google Scholar; Geoffrey, Parker, “The ‘Kirk By Law Established’ and the Origins of ‘The Taming of Scotland’: St. Andrews 1559–1600,” in Perspectives in Scottish Social History, ed. Leah, Leneman (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988), 3Google Scholar; Michael, Lynch, “The Scottish Early Modern Burgh,” History Today 35 (1985): 14Google Scholar; Smith, Lesley M., “Sackcloth for the Sinner or Punishment for the Crime? Church and Secular Courts in Cromwellian Scotland,” in New Perspectives on the Politics and Culture of Early Modern Scotland, ed. John, Dwyer, Mason, Roger A., and Alexander, Murdoch (Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1982), 119–20.Google Scholar

77. Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 3, 9, 13, 14, 16Google Scholar; Graham, Michael F., “Equality before the Kirk? Church Discipline and the Elite in Reformation-era Scotland,” Archiv fur Reformationgeschicte 84 (1993): 298, 300Google Scholar; Smith, , “Sackcloth for the Sinner,” 120.Google Scholar

78. Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 10Google Scholar; Smith, , “Sackcloth for the Sinner,” 123–30.Google Scholar

79. Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 4, 8, 13Google Scholar; Foster, , Church Before the Covenants (see note 25), 78.Google Scholar

80. Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:71–72.

81. Worthley, , ‘Lay Officers’ (see note 24), 243Google Scholar; Thomas, Hutchinson, History, ed. Mayo, L. (see note 51), 1:153–54Google Scholar; John, Winthrop, Winthrop's Journal, “History of New England 1630–49,” ed. Hosmer, James K. (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1908), 1:143.Google Scholar

82. Rushworth, , Historical Collections: The Third Part, 1:178.Google Scholar

83. Diary of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, BL, Harl. MSS 166:204, 206; Diary of Lawrence Whitacre, BL, Add. MSS 31116:207v.

84. Surman, , “Classical Presbyterianism,” 138.Google Scholar

85. Diary of Walter Yonge, BL, Add. MSS 18780:103.

86. Diary of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, BL, Harl. MSS 166:267v.

87. Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:791–92.

88. See John Pym's statements in February 1641. Sir Simonds, D'Ewes, The Journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ed. Wallace, Notestein (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1923), 413, n. 19Google Scholar. See also Nathaniel Fiennes' 1641 speech, in Rushworth, , Historical Collections: The Third Part, 1:178–79.Google Scholar

89. Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 12–13Google Scholar; Todd, , Culture of Protestantism (see note 25), 140–41.Google Scholar

90. Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 12Google Scholar; Graham, , “Equality before the Kirk?,” 303Google Scholar; Baillie, , An Historical Vindication, 17Google Scholar; John, Maxwell, The Burthen of Issachar, 3.Google Scholar

91. Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 12Google Scholar. See also Margo, Todd, “Profane Pastimes and the Reformed Community: the Persistence of Popular Festivities in Early Modern Scotland,” Journal of British Studies 39 (2000): 144.Google Scholar

92. Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 17–18Google Scholar; Smith, , “Sackcloth for the Sinner,” 124Google Scholar; Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 4.Google Scholar

93. See Sir Symonds D'Ewes on September 13, 1644. Diary of D'Ewes, BL, Harl. MSS 166:113v.

94. Surman, , “Classical Presbyterianism,” 163Google Scholar, referring to 5 Elizabeth c. 23: “An Act for execution of the writ De Excommunicato Capiendo“; Selden, , Table Talk, 66Google Scholar. See also Nathaniel Fiennes' 1641 speech, in Rushworth, , Historical Collections: The Third Part, 1:181.Google Scholar

95. Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:837.

96. Surman, , “Classical Presbyterianism,” 153–55, 163Google Scholar; Edmund, Morgan, Roger Williams, 69.Google Scholar

97. Bulstrode, Whitelocke, Memorials of the English Affairs from the Beginning of the Reign of Charles the First (Oxford: n.p., 1853), 1:493Google Scholar; Yule, , Puritans in Politics, 360–61; Diary of Yonge, BL, Add. MSS 18780:114.Google Scholar

98. Ibid., 103.

99. See, for example, Nathaniel Fiennes and Harbottle Grimston in the 1641 debates. Rushworth, , Historical Collections: The Third Part, 1:181–82, 187.Google Scholar

100. Diary of Yonge, BL, Add. MSS 18780:8; Diary of D'Ewes, BL, Harl. MSS 166:267v.

101. Henry, Walker, Corda Anglæ, Or, The General Expressions of the Land ([London?]: n.p., 1644), 3.Google Scholar

102. A Vindication of the Presbyteriall-Government and Ministry, 72–73.

103. See Robert, Greville, Lord, Brooke, A Discourse opening the Nature of that Episcopacie which is exercised in England (London: Samuel Cartwright, 1641), 3–5, 35–41Google Scholar; William, Constantine, The Interest of England, How it consists in Unity of the Protestant Religion (London: Lawrence Blaicklocke, 1642), 29Google Scholar; The Journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ed. Coates, Willson H. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1942), 46Google Scholar. See also an anonymous paper of March 10, 1641, in Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I, 1640–1641, ed. Hamilton, W. D. (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans', and Roberts, 1882), 498.Google Scholar

104. J. S., Infancy of Elders, 4; Lamentation of the Ruling Lay-Elders, 1–4. See also The Scottish politike Presbyter, Slaine by an English Independent.

105. Diary of Lawrence Whitacre, BL, Add. MSS 31116:224v.

106. Smith, , “Sackcloth for the Sinner,” 119Google Scholar; Foster, , Church Before the Covenants, 69Google Scholar; Makey, , Church of the Covenant, 131–32, 139–52Google Scholar. See also Mathew, , Scotland Under Charles I, 272–73.Google Scholar

107. Parker, , “‘Kirk By Law Established,’” 5Google Scholar; Graham, , “Equality before the Kirk?,” 289–309.Google Scholar

108. John, Maxwell, Burthen of Issachar, 11.Google Scholar

109. Michael, Lynch, “The Scottish Early Modern Burgh,” 15Google Scholar; Helen, Dingwall, “Town Councils in Edinburgh 1550–1650,” in New Perspectives on the Politics and Culture of Early Modern Scotland, ed. John, Dwyer, Mason, Roger A., and Alexander, Murdoch (Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1982), 27.Google Scholar

110. Mitchell, Alex F. and John, Struthers, ed., Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1874), 456.Google Scholar

111. Diary of Lawrence Whitacre, BL, Add. MSS 31116:204.

112. Yule, , Puritans in Politics, 152–53.Google Scholar

113. Diary of D'Ewes, BL, Harl. MSS 166:204; Diary of Yonge, BL, Add. MSS 18780:8.

114. Diary of Yonge, 8; Diary of Whitacre, 206v.

115. Yale Center for Parliamentary History, transcript of Diary of D'Ewes, BL, Harl. MSS 166:249b; Diary of Walter Yonge, BL, Add. MSS 18780:88.

116. Diary of Yonge, 103–4v.

117. Rushworth, , Historical Collections: The Fourth and Last Part, 1:204.Google Scholar

118. Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:836; Diary of Yonge, 109; Yule, , Puritans in Politics, 179.Google Scholar

119. Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:792–93.

120. Ibid., 836.

121. Church of Scotland, Second Book of Discipline (see note 28), 170 and note 18; Allen, Carden, “God's Church and a Godly Government: A Historiography of Church-State Relations in Puritan New England,” Fides et Historia 19 (1987): 62Google Scholar; Edmund, Morgan, Roger Williams, 70Google Scholar. For Calvin's position, see Elsie Anne, McKee, Elders and the Plural Ministry, 30.Google Scholar

122. Church of Scotland, Second Book of Discipline, 171.

123. Smith, , “Sackcloth for the Sinner,” 122–23Google Scholar; Graham, , “Equality before the Kirk?,” 296Google Scholar; Todd, , Culture of Protestantism, 142.Google Scholar

124. Foster, , Church Before the Covenants, 70–71, 78, 79Google Scholar; Dingwall, , “Town Councils” (see note 109), 26–28Google Scholar; Smith, , “Sackcloth for the Sinner,” 122Google Scholar; Makey, , Church of the Covenant, 149.Google Scholar

125. Graham, , “Equality before the Kirk?,” 293.Google Scholar

126. Seidman, Aaron B., “Church and State in the Early Years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony,” New England Quarterly 18 (1945)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Puritanism in Seventeenth-century Massachusetts, ed. Hall, David D. (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968), 77, 82Google Scholar. Governor John Winthrop insisted that the magistrates were to be as “nursing fathers” to the churches. Carden, , “God's Church and a Godly Government,“ 53.Google Scholar

127. Thomas, Hutchinson, History, ed. Mayo, (see note 51), 1:122–23, 358.Google Scholar

128. Cooper, , Tenacious of Their Liberties, 32Google Scholar; Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 243–44, 90, 91, 210–12, 214, 218.Google Scholar

129. Worthley, , “Lay Officers,” 210, 243–44, 374, 568.Google Scholar

130. 130. Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland, 13th Report Appendix (London: Stationers' Office, 1891), 1:297–99.Google Scholar

131. Rushworth, , Historical Collections: The Third Part, 1:179.Google Scholar

132. Firth and Rait, Acts and Ordinances, 1:789.

133. Rushworth, , Historical Collections: The Fourth and Last Part, 1:205.Google Scholar

134. Selden, , Table Talk, 20.Google Scholar

135. Tai, Liu, Puritan London, 55–83.Google Scholar

136. Die Lunae 21 December 1646: An Order Against chusing Elders for Common-Counsell Men ([London: n.p.], 1646).

137. Baxter to John Bryan, 12 November 1656, Dr. Williams Library, Baxter MSS 1:254.