The Authorship of Ancient Bounds

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, This unsigned tract' published in 1645 is one of the most interesting and historically significant documents in the polemic literature of the Puritan Revolution; it has also been described as "one of the halfdozen most important contributions ever made to the theory of religious toleration in England."2 The authorship has never been established, though some speculation has attributed the work to Francis Rous, Puritan mystic and leading member of Parliament. But certain references in contemporary documents, together with considerations of thought and style provide conclusive evidence that the pamphlet is from the pen of Joshua Sprigge, army chaplain, Fellow of All Souls College, constant advocate of toleration, and author of several sermons and political tracts, among them the important history of the army under Fairfax, Anglia Rediviva.3The tentative ascription of the pamphlet to Rous was suggested by W. K. Jordan on the basis of "close similarity in style, point of view, and eccentricities between it and the Balme of love, which is known to be from his pen."4 C. R. Gillett, editor of the Catalogue of the McAlpin Collection,5 also attributes the pamphlet to Rous, following the suggestion of C. A. Briggs, one of the collectors; the reasons for this attribution are not stated. Jordan's case rests entirely upon his reading of internal evidence, and he himself admits that "the book exhibits far greater tolerance and largeness of view than Rous apparently possessed in 1645."6 Other scholars of the literature of the period have not adopted the ascription,7 and Jerald Brauer, in a dissertation on Rous, effectively disposes of the bases for the attribution by indicating that the document has none of the phrases and expressions peculiar to Rous, and only that sort of ideological similarity which is characteristic of many documents of the same period. He shows, in addition, that Rous in 1645 was working closely with the Presbyterians, who were then seeking to establish a compulsory state church, and that his activities were certainly not in keeping with the plea for toleration voiced by the author of Ancient Bounds.Part of the external evidence for Sprigge's authorship is afforded by two references in Bartlet's Model of the Primitive Congregational Way,10 a formal statement of the moderate Independent position on Church government and toleration, published just two years after Ancient Bounds. The first mention of Sprigge comments upon his thorough consideration in that pamphlet of the magistrate's responsibilities toward religion: "M. Sprig, in his Ancient Bounds hath spoken so much and so fully to this particular, that I need not say 192