Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:27:47.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Campaign against The Humble Proposals of 1632

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Carolyn Polizzotto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Early in 1652 the leading Independent divine John Owen, with a group of other ministers, published a plan for the reform of the Church entitled The Humble Proposals. The scheme aroused antagonism and opposition. The existence of petitions against it, one of them published by Roger Williams under the title The Fourth Paper (1652), was noted by David Masson in his Life of Milton. The protest was more intense, and went on longer, than Masson suggests. Petitions were soon followed by a number of tracts, some of them anonymous, others raising the issues in an introductory epistle or an appendix to material with a wider reference. Taken together, they clearly indicate a well-organised campaign behind the scenes.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , October 1987 , pp. 569 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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 Owen, John, Goodwin, Thomas, Nye, Philip, Simpson, Sidrach et al., The Humble Proposals, London 1652.Google Scholar For his invaluable assistance and for his encouragement, I wish to thank Dr Geoffrey Nuttall. I am grateful to the Rothmans University Endowment Fund for a postdoctoral fellowship and a further grant-in-aid.

2 Masson, D., Life of John Milton, Cambridge-London 1859-1890, iv. 390–8.Google Scholar

3 Polizzotto, C., ‘Liberty of conscience and the Whitehall Debates of 1648-9’, this Journal xxvi (1975), 69–82.Google Scholar

4 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Dep. c. 169 [Nalson xvi], fos 88r-9r (no. 37), 304r-5r (no. 115), 90r-1r (no. 38); printed by Grey, Z., An Impartial Examination of the Fourth Volume of Mr D.Neal's History of the Puritans, London 1739, appendix, 144–8,Google Scholar 144, 149-52. For assistance in locating these MSS, I have to thank the Librarian of St John's College, Cambridge. For Wollaston, see Tolmie, M., The Triumph of the Saints: the Separate Churches of London 1616-1640, Cambridge 1977, 150, 171;Google ScholarWhite, B. R., Hanserd Knollys and Radical Dissent in the Seventeenth Century, London 1977, 14, 27.Google Scholar For Simpson and Harrison, see Greaves, R. L. and Zaller, R. (eds), Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals in the Seventeenth Century, London 1982-1984.Google Scholar For Consett, see White, B. R. (ed.), Association Records of the Particular Baptists of England, Wales and Ireland to 1660, London 1971-1974, 116, 122 n.20.Google Scholar Lodington has not been identified. For others named, here and below, and not further identified, see DNB.

5 For Butler, see Greaves and Zaller, op. cit. For Charles Vane, see Masson, op. cit. index. For Danvers, see Greaves, R. L., ‘The tangled careers of two Stuart radicals: Henry and Robert Danvers’, in Baptist Quarterly xxix (1981), 32–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Goad, see , J. and Venn, J. A., Alumni Canlabrigienses, Cambridge 1922-1954, I. ii. 225Google Scholar.

6 They left New England on 10 November 1651, Rowe, V. A., Sir Henry Vane the Younger: a study in political and administrative history, London 1970, 199.Google Scholar For Clarke, see Greaves an d Zaller, op. cit.

7 For Calvert, sec ibid.; see also Terry, A. E., ‘Giles Calvert, mid-seventeenth-century English bookseller and publisher: an account of his publishing career’, unpubl. MSc diss., Columbia University 1937,Google Scholar who draws attention to the possibility that he published a number of tracts which bear no printer's name (such as some which attacked The Humble Proposals).

8 , Rowe, op. cit. 25, 198–200.Google Scholar

9 Greenhill, William et al., A Declaration of divers Elders and Brethren of Congregational Societies, in and about the City of London, London 1651.Google Scholar

10 Journals of the House of Commons (1651-9), [London] 1813, vii. 259.Google Scholar

11 Severall Queries, London 1652, 17.Google Scholar

12 , Williams, The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody, London 1652, appendix, 318, margin.Google Scholar

13 Mercurius Politicus, 29 04.-6 May 1652, 1578.Google Scholar

14 Commons Journals vii. 86, 113-14; Voles of Parliament touching the Book commonly called the Racovian Catechism, London 1652Google Scholar.

15 Commons Journals vii. 258-9.

16 Williams, R., The Fourth Paper, London 1652, 63.Google Scholar

17 , Masson, John Milton, iv. 39, 423, 438.Google Scholar

18 Severall Queries, 17. The unlikely presence of John Goodwin's name among the subscribers to The Humble Proposals was obtained by a manoeuvre: see Goodwin, J., The Apologist Condemned, London 1653, 4–5Google Scholar.

19 Richard Baxter to Thomas Hill, in Nuttall, G. F., Richard Baxter, London 1965, 75Google Scholar.

20 Williams, Fourth Paper, Epistle to Reader.

21 Owen, G. D., ‘The conspiracy of Christopher Love’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, session 1966, i. 99.Google Scholar

22 Norwood, Robert, The Form ofan Excommunication made by Mr. Sympson, [London] 1651;Google Scholaridem, A Declaration or Testimony made after Excommunication, [London] 1651;Google Scholaridem, Proposals for Propagation of the Gospel, [London 1652];Google Scholaridem, A Brief Discourse, London 1652Google Scholar.

23 Severall Queries, 19.

24 Williams, R., The Hireling Ministry None of Christs, London 1652,Google Scholar dedicatory epistle, sig. A2V.

25 Commons Journals vii. 130, 137, 190.

26 , Williams, Fourth Paper, 23.Google Scholar

27 Ibid. Epistle to Reader.

28 French, J. Milton (ed.), The Life Records of John Milton, New York 1966, ii. 321;Google Scholar iii. 157, 206; v. 421.

29 , Masson, John Milton, iv. 432–3; DNB.Google Scholar

30 Complete Writings of Roger Williams, New York 1963, vi. 262.Google Scholar

31 , French, op. cit. ii. 355;Google Scholar Masson, op. cit. index (Charles Vane).

32 DNB, as Biddle; , Rowe, Sir Henry Vane, 197–8;Google ScholarMcLachlan, H. J., Socinianism in Seventeenth-century England, Oxford 1951, 190–3;Google ScholarCommons Journals vii. 144.

33 Wolfe, D. M., Complete Prose Works of John Milton, New Haven-London 1966, iv. 1,Google Scholar introduction 89.

34 zeal Examined, Epistle to Reader.

35 Baxter, Richard, Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. Sylvester, M., London 1696, I. i. 75.Google Scholar

36 [Williams, Roger], Qveries of Highest Consideration, London 1644, 13;Google Scholar Polizzotto, ‘Liberty of Conscience’.

37 zeal Examined, 45-6.

38 Ibid. 27, Epistle to Reader.

39 Owen, ‘Conspiracy’, passim.

40 , McLachlan, Socinianism 234–9;Google ScholarMassachusetts Historical Society Collections, III. i. 35-7.

41 [Rich, Robert], Love Without Dissimulation, London 1666], 6.Google Scholar

42 Reliquiae Baxterianae, I. i. 75.

43 Zeal Examined, 47, note on errata; , Rowe, Sir Henry Vane, 200Google Scholar.

44 Pride, Thomas et al., The Beacons Quenched, London 1652, 12, 16.Google Scholar

45 ‘The Publishers of the First’ also presented a tract with the same title ‘to the Lord Protector and the Parliament’, but this was in 1654 and was answered by the Quakers and by John Goodwin: apart from its origins, it is another story, or at least (since several of the dramatis personal are the same) another instalment, beginning with the Nominated Parliament and its collapse, continuing with the conference of ministers called to define the ‘Fundamentals of Religion’ and ending with the prosecution of the Quaker James Nayler for blasphemy.

46 Commons Journals vii. 190.

47 Owen, John, A Sermon preached to the Parliament, Oxford 1652, 36.Google Scholar

48 John Durie to Richard Baxter, 29 Oct. 1652, in Nuttall, G. F., ‘Presbyterians and Independents: some movements for unity 300 years ago’, Presbyterian Historical Society Journal X (1952), 7Google Scholar.

49 White, B. R., ‘William Erbery (1604-1654) and the Baptists’, Baptist Quarterly xxiii (1969-1970), 116.Google Scholar

50 Commons Journals vii. 259.