Vincent Alsop and the Emancipation of Restoration Dissent

R. A. Beddard

doi:10.1017/S0022046900050570

Vincent Alsop and the Emancipation of Restoration Dissent

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

R. A. Beddard

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R. A. Beddard: Affiliation:
Fellow, Tutor and Lecturer in Modern History, Oriel College, Oxford

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The Presbyterian congregation which used to meet in Tothill Street, Westminster, during the later Stuart period is now chiefly remembered for its succession of distinguished pastors. There were three of them, each a figure of importance in the dissenting community of London: first Thomas Cawton, a Bartholomean, under whose direction the congregation was formed and held together in the precarious years following the enactment of religious Uniformity; then Vincent Alsop, an accomplished controversialist who took issue with the doctors of the Church of England, and who, for a quarter of a century, faithfully tended his flock in good times and bad; finally there was Dr. Edmund Calamy, the learned historian of Caroline nonconformity, one of a new generation of Presbyterian divines, during whose early ministry the meeting removed from Tothill Street to other and more spacious premises in the nearby Princes Street. Our present purpose is to take a closer look at one of these ministers, the middle one—Vincent Alsop, ‘a man of great worth and piety’, who superintended his Westminster congregation from 1677 to 1703, the year of his death. His ministry, as we shall show, was to make an important contribution to the emancipation of Old Dissent, especially in the 1680s.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , April 1973 , pp. 161 - 184

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900050570 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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^{page 161 note 1} For the Tothill Street congregation in general, see Wilson, W., The History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses, in London, Westminster, and Southwark, London 1808–1814, iv. 57 ff. (Cited below as Wilson, Dissenting Churches).Google Scholar

^{page 161 note 2} for Cawton, see Ibid., iv. 59–63; Matthews, A. G., Calamy Revised, Oxford 1934, 106.Google Scholar

^{page 161 note 3} Wilson, Dissenting Churches, iv. 63–6.

^{page 161 note 4} Ibid., iv. 69–89.

^{page 161 note 5} The Life and Errors of Dunton, John, Citizen of London, London 1818, i. 174. (Cited below as Dunton, Life and Errors).Google Scholar

^{page 161 note 6} Gordon, A., Freedom after Ejection, Manchester 1917, pp. 68, 77, 87, 154, 158, 160, 168, 181, 186.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 1} Calamy, E., A Continuation of the Account, London 1727, iiGoogle Scholar. 635; Drysdale, A. H., History of the Presbyterians in England, London 1889, 457.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 2} Neither of the two authoritative short lives of Alsop as much as mentions his post- Revolution activities, see D.[ictionary of] N.[ational] B.[iography] and Biographia Britannica, London 1747, i. 131–3.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 3} Matthews, Calamy Revised, 8.

^{page 162 note 4} Anti-Sozzo, sive Sherlocismus Enervatus: in Vindication of Some Great Truths Opposed, And Opposition to Some Great Errors Maintained by Mr. William Sherlock, London, Printed for Nathanael Ponder at the Peacock in Chancery-lane neer Fleet-street, 1675. The Preface is signed ‘N.N.’ Though an anonymous publication, bishop Thomas Barlow's copy in the Bodleian Library (Line. 8° C 470) has his autograph note on the cover: ‘The author of the followinge booke was one Mr Alsopp, a nonconformist minister of Northamptonshire, as one (who should know) tells me. March 8, 1674[5]’.

^{page 163 note 1} Hence Anthony Wood's waspish remark on Alsop, ‘who since the death of their famous A. Marvel hath been quibler and punner in ordinary to the dissenting party, tho' he comes much short of that person’; Wood, A., Athenae Oxonienses, ed., Bliss, P., 3rd ed., London 1813–1820, iv. 106.Google Scholar

^{page 163 note 2} Calamy, A Continuation of the Account, ii. 634. For brief notices of the controversy, see Whiting, C. E., Studies in English Puritanism from the Restoration to the Revolution, 1660–1688, London 1931, 79Google Scholar; Stoughton, J., History of Religion in England from the Opening of the Long Parliament to 1850, 4th ed., London 1901, ivGoogle Scholar. 25–6. (Cited below as Stoughton, History of Religion.)

^{page 163 note 3} Dunton, Life and Errors, i. 174.

^{page 163 note 4} Palmer, S., The Nonconformist's Memorial, 2nd ed., London 1777, ii. 236.Google Scholar

^{page 163 note 5} Dunton took issue with Wood's judgment of Alsop's powers, commenting that he ‘might as well have told the world that Mr. Alsop was born blind’ as that he had no genius for wit: Life and Errors, i. 174, ii. 714.

^{page 163 note 6} Alsop's reply to Goodman was Melius Inquirendum. Or A Sober Inquirie Into the Reasonings of the Serious Inquirie: Wherein The Inquirers Cavils against the Principles, his Calumnies against the Preachings and practises Of the Non-Conformists Are Examined, and refelled. 1678. The Epistle Dedicatory is signed ‘G.W.’

^{page 164 note 1} Clayton's sentiments were reputed to be ‘very much for unity and peace in the Church; but his opinion is, that they might be preserved by a mutual forbearance in matters of Ceremony, without a rigid imposition of them; for he knows it is equally superstitious to show too much zeal, either for or against them’: Dunton, Life and Errors, i. 353. See also , D.N.B., and Woodhead, J. R., The Rulers of London 1660–1689, London 1965, 48.Google Scholar

^{page 164 note 2} Their order was signed by the Clerk, Wagstaffe, and prefixed to the text of the sermon, which Stillingfleet dedicated to Clayton.

^{page 164 note 3} The Bodleian Library volume (Ashmole 1204) contains some of the main items in the controversy.

^{page 164 note 4} The Mischief of Separation. A Sermon Preached at Guild-Hall Chappel, May II. MDCLXXX. Being the First Sunday in Easter-Term, Before the Lord Mayor, London, Printed for Henry Mortlock, at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard, and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall, 1680.

^{page 164 note 5} Demand produced a second edition in the same year. The Bodleian Library copy is Pamph. C 150 (1680), item XIV.

^{page 165 note 1} For a discussion of the Irenicum, see G. R. Cragg, From Puritanism to the Age of Reason, Cambridge 1966, 199–200. Stillingfleet found it necessary to re-edit the work when it was re-issued after the restoration of the hierarchy, though even this did not safeguard him from the insinuations of disloyalty made by fiercer churchmen. The dissenter Morrice records in mid-September 1686 one such stricture: ‘Dr. Parker not long since said that Dr. Stillingfleet, D. of P., was an old knave. Mr. Chetwin, chaplain to the Earle of Dartmouth, answered why so. Saith the Dr. because he writ his Irenicum. Saith Mr. Chetwin he hath retracted that in part in his preface. But for all that he is an old knave for writing so much for erastianism. Mr. Chetwin replyed to the Dr. if he be a knave that writ so much for erastianism and hath retracted it, what a knave is he that hath writ more for it, as you have done Dr., and never retracted it’: Dr. Williams's Library, London, Morrice MS. P, 626–7.

^{page 165 note 2} ‘Lirry’ is a variant of ‘lurry’, meaning a confused patter or babel.

^{page 165 note 3} Alsop returned to the subject of the ‘ceremonies’, which he condemned as ‘those Dregs of Romish Superstition, and Troublers of our Nation’, in his essay, Of Scandal: Together with A Consideration of the Nature of Christian Liberty and Things Indifferent, London, Printed for Benj. Alsop, at the Angel over against the Stocks-Market, 1680. To this he added An Exercitation on that Historical Relation, Matth. 15. 1–9. Mark 7. 1–13. Concerning Eating with unwashen hands; By way of Appendix or Supplement To the Discourse, concerning Indifferencies. He did not, it seems, publish all his writings on the subject, see his holograph ‘Of church government and ceremonyes’ in the Congregational Library, London (MS. I. 7).

^{page 166 note 1} The Mischief of Impositions: Or, An Antidote Against a Late Discourse, Partly Preached At Guild-Hall Chappel, May 2. 1680. Called, The Mischief of Separation, London, Printed for Benj. Alsop, at the Angel and Bible in the Poultrey, over against the Stocks-Market, 1680. The Epistle Dedicatory is signed ‘T.P.’ This and the previous quotation come from the text of the first edition.

^{page 166 note 2} See my ‘Observations of a London clergyman on the Revolution of 1688–9’, The Guildhall Miscellany, II(1967), 411.Google Scholar

^{page 167 note 1} Dr. A. B. Grosart, in his life of Alsop in the D.N.B.

^{page 167 note 2} For the parallel in propaganda, see Furley, O. W., “The Whig Exclusionists: Pamphlet Literature in the Exclusion Campaign, 1679–81”, Cambridge Historical Journal, XIII (1957), 31.Google Scholar

^{page 167 note 3} Bodleian Library, MS. Rawlinson D 973, fol. 210^v: John Shipman's notes on various people's tabletalk. Unless stated to the contrary all MS. references are to the Bodleian collections. All such quotations have been punctuated according to sense, and all contractions extended.

^{page 167 note 4} Luttrell, N., A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs, Oxford 1857, i. 246. (Cited below as Luttrell, Historical Relation).Google Scholar

^{page 168 note 1} Alsop also in 1680 edited the Divine Meditations of the parliamentary general, Sir William Waller, whose son was the arch-harrier of papists in the capital, and issued A Seasonable Warning to Protestants based on the St. Bartholomew Day massacre of the Huguenots in 1572, an historical work of pronounced polemicism.

^{page 168 note 2} See my ‘William Sancroft, as Archbishop of Canterbury, 1677–1691’ (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, dissertation), 119 ff.

^{page 168 note 3} See Horwitz, H., ‘Protestant reconciliation in the Exclusion crisis’, in this Journal, XV (1964), 201Google Scholar–17. Stillingfleet was not only a protégé of the Finches, but at times the clerical spokesman of the Finch view on church politics. For his promotion by the Finch interest, see Bennett, G. V., ‘King William III and the Episcopate’ in Essays in Modern English Church History, ed. Bennett, G. V. and Walsh, J. D., London 1966, 110–11.Google Scholar

^{page 168 note 4} Palmer, The Nonconformist's Memorial, ii. 236.

^{page 168 note 5} See below, Appendix 1.

^{page 169 note 1} Matthews, Calamy Revised, 8.

^{page 169 note 2} There are seven volumes of correspondence: MS. Rawlinson Letters 49–54 and 104. for their general significance, see Matthews, A. G., ‘The Wharton Correspondence’, Congregational Historical Society Transactions, X (1927), 52–65.Google Scholar

^{page 169 note 3} MS. Rawlinson Letters 51, fol. 268: [Thomas Case] to Wharton, 20 July 1681.

^{page 169 note 4} For William Taylor, senior and junior, see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 479.

^{page 169 note 5} For Wharton's political role after 1660, see Jones, G. F. Trevallyn, Saw-Pit Wharton, Sydney 1967.Google Scholar

^{page 170 note 1} MS. Rawlinson Letters 51, fol. 153: L[ewis] S[tuckley] to Wharton, 31 October 1675.

^{page 170 note 2} For Shower, see Wilson, Dissenting Churches, IV. 66; Matthews, Calamy Revised, 441; D.N.B., s.v.

^{page 170 note 3} Palmer, The Nonconformist's Memorial, ii. 236.

^{page 170 note 4} Alsop signed his letters after the Revolution brought complete safety, see Brit. Mus., Birch MS. 4275, fol. 16; MS. Rawlinson Letters 51, fol. 368. However, other letters dating from the London persecutions are unsigned, see Ibid., fols. 268, 296.

^{page 170 note 5} See 162 n. 4; 163 n. 6; 165 n. 3; 166 n. 1.

^{page 171 note 1} Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, iv. 106.

^{page 171 note 2} Luttrell, Historical Relation, i. 250.

^{page 171 note 3} For Griffith, see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 236–7.

^{page 172 note 1} Griffith connected the spate of prosecutions with the Tory offensive in the City, as may be seen from his apprehensive remark to Lady Wharton, that ‘Sir William Pritchard is just now upon the hustings declared Lord Maior elect, and that one line is newes enough for one letter’: MS. Rawlinson Letters 51, fol. 296: 25 October 1682. Pritchard was a leading city Tory: Woodhead, The Rulers of London 1660–1689, 133; Luttrell, Historical Relation, i. 231, 232, 233 ff.

^{page 172 note 2} Ibid., i. 242.

^{page 172 note 3} Archbishop Sancroft repeatedly directed the clergy and churchwardens of his peculiars in the City to present dissenters to the Dean of Arches in his visitations of the parishes: Tanner MS. 34, fol. 278. Compton gave similar directives within the metropolis: Luttrell, Historical Relation, i. 254. Both prelates collaborated in preferring dependable Tories: see my article, ‘The Commission for Ecclesiastical Promotions, 1681–84: An Instrument of Tory Reaction’, The Historical Journal, X (1967), 11–40.Google Scholar

^{page 172 note 4} Cragg, G. R., Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution 1660–1688, Cambridge 1957Google Scholar, chapter ii; Nuttall, G. F., Richard Baxter, London 1965, 109–11; Luttrell, Historical Relation, i. 245–6, 250, 251, 254, 255 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 172 note 5} Ibid., i. 250.

^{page 172 note 6} Matthews, Calamy Revised, 237.

^{page 173 note 1} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. P, 415: 16 January 1683/4.

^{page 173 note 2} See Matthews, Calamy Revised, under individual London pastors.

^{page 173 note 3} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. P, 415.

^{page 173 note 4} Ibid., 424.

^{page 173 note 5} See my ‘William Sancroft’, 119 ff.

^{page 173 note 6} Macaulay, , The History of England, ed. Firth, C. H., London 1914, ii. 873, 99a; iii. 1376.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note 1} The text is given in Costin, W. C. and Watson, J. Steven, The Law and Working of the Constitution: Documents 1660–1914, London 1952, i. 343–5.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note 2} The existence of a specifically Anglican Tory opposition in James's first and only parliament, especially in die House of Lords, has not attracted the attention it deserves.

^{page 174 note 3} Brit. Mus., MS. Portland Loan 29/184, fol. 3: 2 April 1687.

^{page 174 note 4} See my article, ‘The Loyalist Opposition in the Interregnum’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XL (1967), 102.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note 5} Kenyon, J. P., Robert Spencer Earl of Sunderland 1641–1702, London 1958, 153.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note 6} For ‘The Humble Address of divers of Your Majesties Subjects in and about the City of London, commonly called Anabaptists’, see The London Gazette, No. 2234 (14–18 April 1687); Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q,, 90, 101; The Ellis Correspondence, ed. Ellis, G. A., London 1829, i. 274.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note 7} For ‘The Humble Address of several of Your Majesties Subjects who, by Your Majesties Bounty and Goodness, enjoy their Lives, forfeited by being in Arms against Your Majesty and Government’, see The London Gazette, No. 2235 (18–21 April 1687); Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q,, 101.

^{page 175 note 1} Ibid., 91; Dobrée, B., William Penn Quaker and Pioneer, London 1932, 228 ff.Google Scholar; Braithwaite, W. C., The Second Period of Quakerism, Cambridge 1961, 133Google Scholar. For his missionary activities, see P.R.O., Baschet Transcripts, 2 June, 20 and 23 September 1687; Brit. Mus., MS. Portland Loan 29/184, fols. 31, 34, 38.

^{page 175 note 2} For examples of their continued suffering, see P.R.O., S.P. 44/71, 186, 256, 263; and for the government's checking persecutors, see P.R.O., S.P. 44/336, pp. 391–2; 44/337, PP- 32–3; 44/56, pp. 353, 355, 357, 367.

^{page 175 note 3} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q, 114; The Diary of Dr. Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, ed. Hunter, J., Camden Society, London 1843, 51.Google Scholar

^{page 175 note 4} For Baber, see D.N.B.; North, R., Examen, London 1740, 362Google Scholar; Thomas, R., ‘Comprehension and Indulgence’, in From Uniformity to Unity 1662–1962, ed. Nuttall, G. and Chadwick, O., London 1962, 235 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 176 note 1} The London Gazette, No. 2238 (28 April-2 May 1687); Luttrell, Historical Relation, i. 402.

^{page 176 note 2} For Read, see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 406.

^{page 176 note 3} For Burgess, see D.N.B.; Wilson, Dissenting Churches, iii. 495–501, 567, 568; Calamy, A Continuation of the Account, ii. 875.

^{page 176 note 4} For Withers, see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 540.

^{page 176 note 5} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q., 102.

^{page 177 note1} Loc. cit.

^{page 177 note2} Cf. Jones, J. R., ‘James II's Whig Collaborators’, The Historical Journal, III (1960), 65–73.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 177 note3} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice, MS. Q., 114.

^{page 177 note4} For Agus (alias Agarst, Agas, Agust), see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 3.

^{page 177 note5} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q,, 114, 118; cf. 102.

^{page 178 note 1} For the text, see The London Gazette, No. 2238 (28 April-2 May 1687).

^{page 178 note 2} Macaulay, The History of England, iii. 1376. Nor was he what Macaulay tried to make him, ‘the chief agent who was employed by the government to manage the Presbyterians’: Ibid., ii. 873. That was Sir John Baber: see North, R., Exarnen, London 1740, 362.Google Scholar

^{page 178 note 3} An almost verbatim record of the speech occurs in Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q., 115.

^{page 179 note 1} For the text, see below Appendix II.

^{page 179 note 2} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q., 118.

^{page 179 note 3} For the text, see below Appendix III and IV. Cf. James's reply to the Independent delegation; Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q,, 115; also 85, 112.

^{page 179 note 4} Ibid., 115.

^{page 179 note 5} See above 178 n. 1.

^{page 179 note 6} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q., 126.

^{page 180 note 1} Ibid., 118.

^{page 180 note 2} Macaulay, The History of England, ii. 873. Stoughton thought Alsop's address ‘inexcusable’, but his feeling towards him seems to have been influenced by the erroneous belief that he had become a complete courtier, even to the extent of accepting an alderman's gown. He clearly confused him with the Common Councillor, Russell Alsop: Woodhead, The Rulers of London 1660–1689, 17; Stoughton, History of Religion, iv. 120 and note.

^{page 180 note 3} See above 165 n. 3 and 166 n. 1. The fact that Benjamin Alsop published his father's controversia presumably caused Anthony Wood to give the author's (i.e., father's) Christian name as Benjamin: Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, iv. 106.

^{page 180 note 4} Dunton, Life and Errors, i. 214; cf. i. 147–8; Matthews, Calamy Revised, 8.

^{page 180 note 5} E.g., Lacey, D. R., Dissent and Parliamentary Politics in England, 1661–1689, Rutgers 1969, 341 n. 23.Google Scholar

^{page 181 note 1} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. O, 118. The italics are mine.

^{page 181 note 2} Matthews, Calamy Revised, 355.

^{page 181 note 3} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q, 126; cf. 118. The bishop was Dr. Samuel Parker of Oxford.

^{page 181 note 4} Ibid., 126.

^{page 181 note 5} P.R.O., S.P. 44/337, p. 281: James II's warrant to the justices of assize and gaol delivery for the Western Circuit.

^{page 181 note 6} Dr. Williams's Library, Morrice MS. Q, 112.

^{page 183 note 1} Mat. vii. 12.

^{page 184 note 1} ‘resovled’ in MS.

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