Elizabethan Non-Conformist Texts

Leland H. Carlson, Albert Peel, Leland H. Carlson, Albert Peel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136522963
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Originally published in the 1950s by George Allen & Unwin.
When originally published, these volumes were making available very rare material (tracts and manuscripts etc.) for the very first time. Most of the documents exist in their original state as difficult to locate, read and understand - for example: there are only two copies of A Plaine Refutation (1591) and two copies of A Brief Discoverie of the False Church.It is impossible to understand the rise and development of Independency and of the democratic idea in religion and in politics without reflection upon some of this rare material.

III. LETTERS.

1. AN ANSWER TO HARRISON’S LETTER.

After his flight from England in 1573, Cartwright sojourned in many places, and in September, 1577, he became factor to the Merchant Adventurers at Middelburg. Whether his duties as factor were full-time and a means of earning his living, or whether the office was tittle more than a cloak to enable him to serve the Puritan Adventurers in a ministerial capacity, is not clear. In the following year Walter Travers was ordained minister to the English Presbyterian congregation in Antwerp, watched with suspicion by the English Governor, but backed by Walsingham, (up to a point), Davison, and others. In July, 1580, Travers returned to England, and Cartwright substituted for him as minister in Antwerp, to the Governor’s greater perturbation. In December Travers decided not to return, and in October, 1582, the Adventurers moved their headquarters from Antwerp to Middelburg. During Cartwright’s absence, Middelburg had received from Norwich the congregation of Robert Browne and Robert Harrison, from thirty to forty in number.¹ The congregation met in Browne’s house, and, with the aid of Richard Schilders the printer, Browne quickly published A Treatise of reformation without tarying for anie, and of the wickedness of those Preachers which will not Reforme till the Magistrate Commaunde them, A Booke which sheweth the Life and Manners of all True Christians, and A Treatise upon the 23. of Matthewe.

Over 1,000 copies were printed, and many were sent into England, despite the Prince of Orange’s attempt to suppress them. The Adventurers reported to Walsingham that Cartwright had examined the books and found many errors in them:

so farre from approvinge the same, . . he dothe utterly mislike the epistle, touchinge the reformation withoute attendinge the Magistrate, and some other points of the doctrine therein contained, wherein he saithe Mr. Browne hathe absurdly erred.

Towards the end of 1583 Browne left for Scotland, after writing A trve and short declaration, both of the gathering and ioyning together of certaine persons: and also of the lamentable breach and division which fell amongst them.

Harrison seems to have been less intransigent than Browne, and was perhaps inclined to sympathize with Cartwright’s view that while the Church of England was imperfect it was not therefore wrong to attend its services and account it Christian. Discussion between Protestant ministers both in exile for their opinions was natural and inevitable, and it led to this letter from Cartwright to Harrison, a letter which survives because Browne printed it with a much longer reply, characteristically saying that he printed the reply first lest the reader should be misled at the beginning. There are no dates, but it seems probably that the letters were written late in 1584, and printed in 1585.

Browne’s letter¹ occupies pp. 1–85, Cartwright’s pp. 86–96. The copy used is that in the Dr. Williams’s Library (9.4.6.). In the original Cartwright’s answer is in italics.

[86]	AN ANSWERE VNTO A LETTER OF MASTER HARRISONS BY MASTER CARTwright being at Middle-borough.

Grace and peace &c. Beloued for so much as I left you the choyce for the first conference, whether you would haue it in writing or by speech of mouth; I attended some dayes for your answere of that matter: which because it was not returned, I esteemed that you held you still to the request of your letters, which was to receaue some thing from me by writing. For answere therefore, so it is that your letters affected me diuersely: For where your first page had raysed me vnto some hope for the reuniting of your selfe, with the rest of your company vnto vs, from whome you haue thought good to sunder your selues. The second page which layeth forth the conditions of our peace, did cast me, and as it were beate me from it againe; howbeit the mercy of God vpholding me in some good hope of profiting you, or receauing some profite from you. I thought to cut out this time out¹ of my weightiest and most necessary business, wherein I might gieue you that contentment which the Lord hath inhabled my hand vnto. Vnto you not vnwilling to come vnto vs, the passage (as it seemeth) is stopped in diuers respectes: The short whereof, is the receauing without publique repentaunce of those which come from the Churches of England, where because in the outwarde profession that the lawes of that lande doe iustifie, there appeares vnto you no lawfull assemblies of the Churche of Christ: your feare is least in vniting your selues, with such you shoulde be vnequally yoked, and made fellowe members of some other body then of that whereof Christ Iesus is the head. First therefore if it bee shewed that the ordinary assemblyes of those which professe the Gospel in Englande be the Churches of Christ, it seemeth that the way will bee paued and plained for mutuall entercourse betweene vs, thus therfore it seemeth it may be perfourmed, those assemblyes which haue Christ for their head and the same also for their foundation are Gods churches, such are the assemblyes of Englande, therefore [87] &c the assumption is euidēt in that by beleeuing that christ is our righteousnes we are made members of his body & thereby as liuely stones laide vpon him, as vpon a foundation, we growe into one spiritual house with him, now that they haue the like precious faith with vs, is conuinced not onely by their owne professiō, but also by the testimonie of the spirit of God, who by manifold graces powred vpon thē, euen vnto an apparant sanctification of numbers of thē, do beare them witnes that they be members of the body of christ, who as the head hath partaked vnto them his holy spirite, they that haue perfourmed vnto them the speciall couenant which the Lorde hath made with his churches of powring his spirit vpō thē & putting his words in their mouthes are the churches of God: but such are the assemblies in England as touching the spirit of God it hath bin said before, whereupon also it followeth that he hath likewise put his word in their mouthes, considering that the spirit of God is not giuē but by the word, & seing that the Lord in mercy hath set vp diuers burning lamps in those assemblies whereby light is conueyed more or lesse into all the parts almost of that land, it seemeth that the church of England should receiue iniury if it should not be accounted among the golden candlesticks which seeme to keepe out darknes & might [sic] from the Lords sanctuary, vntill such time as the day starre spring & Lucifer do rise in our hearts. If you say all do not beleeue the gospel truely which professe it, the same exceptiō lyeth against all other churches how reformed soeuer, if that there be fewer faithfull in our churches then in others, the trueth of the church standeth not in the nomber, for if there were but in euery church one truely and vndissemblingly faithfull, al the rest holding the faith of our Lord Iesus christ in wordes onely, yet shoulde all those churches be vnto vs the churches of God, and if you say the assemblyes, as it were all the branches or armes of the candlesticke haue not lightes set vpon them, the greater nomber of them being dwnped [? damped] with dumbe ministerie, notwithstanding by the way you confesse those ass...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• I. CARTWRIGHT’S EXAMINATION IN 1590 AND THE OATH Ex Officio Mero
• II. RESOLUTION OF DOUBTS ABOUT ENTERING THE MINISTRY (Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MSS.)
• III. LETTERS
• IV. The Holy Exercise of a True Fast. 1580, 1610 (B.M. 4324. e.l.)
• V. A SHORT CATECHISM (Ellesmere MSS.)
• VI. PREFACE TO An Hospitall for the Diseased, 1579. (B.M.C. 31 b. 13.)
• VII. SPEECH AT DAUGHTER’S BETROTHAL (Rylands MSS.)
• VIII. WORKS OF DOUBTFUL AUTHORSHIP
• INDEX