'VJ ti}^y'') ''\.:'mM THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE HISTORY THE LATER PURITANS, LO?rr>0!f : PRINTED BY C. F. HODGSON, OOUGU SQDAEE, FLEET STREET. THE HISTORY ,_'" -- '.;• \OF THE lO^T]^ PURITANS : FROM THE OPENING OF THE CIVIL WAR IN 1642, TO THE EJECTION OF THE NON-CONFORMING CLERGY IN 1662. BY J. B. MARSDEN, M.A, SECOND EDITION. LONDON : PUBLISHED BY HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. PATERNUSTEK ROW. T. HATCIIARD, PICCADILLY. MDCCCLIV. ;^v CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. A.D. 1642—3. Page Opening of the civil war 1 The puritans take part against the king 5 Reasons for their conduct 8 — 12 The king's duphcity 13 Bad influence of the queen 17 The puritans underrated their strength 20 Occurrences of the war 24 — 29 Lord Brooke 30 Hampden 31 Lord Falkland 37 CHAPTER II. A.D. 1643—4. The hierarchy dissolved 42 The Westminster assembly 44 Committee for scandalous ministers 45 Sufferings of the clergy 45 — 50 Were they treated with justice ? 63 Errors of the long parliament 54 Violence of the people 55 — 58 Opening of the Westminster assembly 60 Its composition 62 — 65 The presbytcrian system 65 Archbishop Ussher's scheme 69 The independents 70 The erastians 72 The Scotch representatives 74 The sectaries 76 The solemn league and covenant 80 — S6 The assembly's directory 87 The catechism 89 5 I, ; yv - / - y L VI CONTENTS. PnRC Character of the assembly 90 — 96 Battles of Newbury, Bolton, and Marston-Moor 97 — 99 Trial and Execution of Laud 100 CHAPTER III. A.D. 1643-5. Real character of the puritans at this time 107 State of religion in London 109 — 115 Marshall, Manton, Calamy, Hugh Peters 116—128 State of religion throughout England 128 Baxter's sermon during the battle of Edge Hill 130 Writes the Saint's Everlasting Rest 131 State of religion in the puritan army 133 Cromwell's fourteen squadrons 135 The officers religious men 136 The chaplains 141 CHAPTER IV. A.D. 1645-8. Treaty of Uxbridge , 143 Demands of the parliament. Presbyterianism 144 The Irish question. The treaty failed 148 The question of a jus divinum 149 The liturgy proscribed 151 The independents oppressed 153 The presbyterians intolerant 155 — 158 The self-denying ordinance 159 Cromwell's power increases. His conduct 1(J2 — 170 The presbyterians and the parliament decline 171 Battle of Naseby. The Naseby papers 173 — 177 Was Charles concerned in the Irish massacre? 177 — 183 His former duplicity about Rochelle 185 His letters to the Pope 189 His treaty with the Irish rebels 192—196 Bitterness and retaliations of the jjarliamentary army 198 Siege of Latham house and Wardour castle 199 Cruelties practised by the royalists 208 — 211 Progress of the war. The king retires to Newark 213 — 215 Siege of Colchester 215 — 221 CONTENTS. VU CHAPTER V. A.D. 1646—8. Pago Religious state of England at the close of the war 222 The antinomians 223 — 227 Antinomianism in the army 228 Growth of the sectaries 230 — 234 Rise of quakerism. George Tox 235 —242 Progress of the independents 242 And decay of the presbyterian party 243 Deplorable condition of the church of England 245 — 250 New doctrines arise 250—254 CHAPTER VI. A.D. 1647—8. A military despotism 255 The army subdues the parliament 256 — 263 The universities reformed. Cambridge 264 Oxford. The episcopalians resist 267 — 274 Evils of the covenant. Treaty of Newport 275 — 282 Increasing violence of the republicans and the army 282 — 286 CHAPTER VII. * A.D. 1648—9. The trial of the king 287 Were the puritans guilty of his death ? The question discussed at length 289—300 The king was destroyed by the army and the republicans .... 301 Cromwell's share in the king's death 303 Arguments of the regicides 305 — 310 The execution of Charles 311 Conduct of Owen and Milton 315 Execution of the three royalist lords, Hamilton, Holland, and Capel 317—320 Cromwell's Irish campaign 322 CHAPTER VIII. A.D. 1649—63. Puritanism triumphs, but dangers are at hand 326 The religious puritans involved witli the ruling powers 327 The government oppressive and insincere 329 — 332 Cromwell invades Scotland 334 Vlll CONTENTS. Page Tlie battle of Dunbar. Presbyterians and independents f.ght 33/ Execution of Love 340 Leaders of the commonwealth rapacious 345 Battle of Worcester. Severities that followed 34/ Moral and religious state of England and of the army 349 — 352 A great apostaey was at hand. Its four causes considered . . 353 For which four causes are assigned 354 — 301 CHAPTER IX. A.D. 1653—8. Cromwell continues to rise. Barebones parliament 362 The law of marriage 366 Cromwell's new constitution 367 The triers. Their proceedings 371 — 376 Cromwell's respect for learning 377 The fifth monarchy men 379 Another parliament dissolved, Cromwell despotic 381 Basis proposed for a national church 383 Independent's synod of the Savoy 384 Cromwell wishes for the crown 385 His anxieties. " Killing no murder," published 388 His sickness, death, and character 395 — 404 CHAPTER X. A.D. 1G59— 62. Richard Cromwell. The restoration 404 Dejection of the puritans. They assist in the restoration . . . 407 The presbyterians duped by the foreign protestants 409 The presbyterian chaplains apj)ointed 414 They ask for ecclesiastical reforms 415 — 420 The bishops oppose them 420 Conduct of Clarendon in the privy council 423 Bishopries offered to the puritan leaders 426 The Savoy confei-ence. No concessions made 429 — 434 Venner's conspiracy 435 John Bunyan. His sufferings. The Pilgrim's progress .... 436 — 441 Trial and behaviour of the regicides 441 Persecution of the quakers 444 The act of uniformity 446 Its justice and policy considered 449 — 460 Final c^jection of the nonconformist clergy 461 — 465 A universal decay of piety. Conclusion 465 — 473 THE HISTORf m THE LATEK PURITANS. CHAPTER I. A.D. 1642-1643. The close of the year 1642 was memorable in chapter England. A revolution had begun, and both parties, I. CHARLES the king and the parliament, had made the last i. appeal to arms. Alarmed for his own safety, and ^^ ^'^^• still more perhaps for that of the queen, Charles abruptly left his palace of Whitehall, to which, except as a captive, he was never to return, on the 10th of January. A great storm had burst. He had sent a message by his attorney-general to the two houses of parliament, impeaching of high treason lord Kimbolton, and five members of the house of commons — Denzil Hollis, sir Arthur Haslerigg, Mr. Pym, Mr. Hampden, and Mr. Strode. They had traitorously conspired, he said, to subvert the fundamental laws of the kingdom, to alienate the affections of the people, and to levy war against the king.* The house of lords was appalled ; the * Clarendon, Hist, of the Rebellion, book i. p. 357, Oxford ed. 1712. B 2 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER commons passed a liurried vote, forbidding the ___]__ servants of the crown at their peril to arrest the ciiAs.i. accused or any of its members; and both houses requested time for consideration. The next day the king himself went down in person, attended only by his guards, and without making any previous inti- mation of his purpose, to arrest the five members upon the very benches of the house of commons. They had just received a timely warning, and escaped into the city; and the king retired, con- founded, to AVhitehall. The parliament was calm although indignant ; but London was furious, and all England was aroused. The queen, who was supposed to have instigated this rash outrage, was removed to Holland as a place of safety. The king in vain endeavoured first to justify and then to ex- cuse his conduct. Angry crowds assembled daily before the windows of his palace to applaud the par- liament, and with vociferous shouts and exclamations to express their abhorrence of his tyrannical attempt. The guards were insulted by the people ; from words they came to blows ; and the terms of Roundhead and Cavalier, now for the first time employed, con- tinued long after to distinguish the plebeians from the adherents of the king. In shame and apprehension Charles retired from "Westminster ; and after a short and restless sojourn at Hampton court, at Windsor, at Theobalds in Hertfordshire, and at Newmarket, he finally retired, in the month of March, to York. Here, in a city which was still the vice capital of England, he remained during the summer, in princely state, and w ith something even of feudal grandeur. He had calculated much on the fidelity CUA.S. I. A.U. 1642. THE LATER PURITANS. 3 of his subjects in the north, and his reception was chai-ter equal to his hopes. The gentry and great nobles - of Yorkshire and the adjacent counties, with few exceptions, hastened to their sovereign. A great number of peers soon followed from all parts of England ; and even the house of commons was re- presented in the persons of more than sixty of its members.* Some of these belonged to the popular party. There w^ere amongst them those who had voted for the impeachment of Strafford and of Laud. Though averse to revolution they were still anxious for improvement, and they carried over to the royal cause the confidence of great numbers of the people. If passion and prejudice had not crushed them, there was still the nucleus of a party who might have saved the monarchy. Such were lord Digby, lord Falkland, Mr. Hyde, sir John Colepepper, and others. Prom these materials the king without difficulty constructed a great council, or parliament ; and thus gave to his proceedings some at least of the venerable forms of the constitution. At the same time the secession of so many members of both houses served to distract the nation and to embarrass the parliament in London. Men asked themselves, of the two rival legislatures which must be obeyed — the king at York with at least the shadow of a parliament, or the parliament at West- minster w^ithout even the shadow of a king ? But in revolutions the gravest questions are decided by the fears and passions of the multitude. While the cautious were perplexed the great body of the people * Clsirendon, 1). i. p. M9. B 2 CHAS. I. AS). 1642, 4 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTF.n had resolved ; clioosing their party cither from their general sense of justice or the pressure of some private grievance. When they were now, in fact, girding on the sword the question of constitutional right had become insipid. Men took their places variously, as they were impelled by different motives. The aristocracy in general adhered to the king ; for they had not felt the insults and oppressions under which the people groaned. They had lived on their estates, in no fear of Laud, of the star-chamber, or of the court itself ; regarding themselves indeed as the equals and companions rather than as the sub- jects of the monarch. The baronial spirit of feudal independence was not extinguislied, and they heard the complaints of the multitude only from a distance. The great towns, with scarcely an exception, and a decided majority of the industrious classes, the yeo- men, the merchants, and the traders of England, were staunch supporters of the parliamentary cause. The labouring poor seem to have been equally divided ; great numbers fought on both sides, and apparently with equal ardour : a proof that the nation, though misgoverned, was not unhappy. It was a war of principles. The questions at issue were those indeed which affect national prosperity in its most vital points ; but they were not those which press at once upon the comfort of the poor, and remind the cottager, by his own sufferings, of his duties to the cause of freedom and of the state : food was abundant, and trade was not in decay. The prelatic party, lately so powerful as to guide the king and crush the parliament, was no longer in THE LATER PURITANS. existence ; the bishops were in exile or in prison ; cuaptkk and the clergy were terrified or dispersed. The great party to whom the name of Puritans a u^&i has been assigned in history, was ranged almost to a man against the king. It is difficult, however, to give an exact explanation of the word as it was now made use of. With the royalists, to be devout was to be a puritan. With the exception of profligates and Laudians, the title comprehended all. Eishop Hall, the champion of episcopacy, was a ringleader of the sect. Even bishop Sanderson, a high church- man, the chosen friend and spiritual comforter of Charles in his deepest sorrows, complains that he was not exempted from the scandal ;* he too was called a puritan. In its general acceptance, the word was under- stood to mean, that those to whom it was applied were the successors of Cartwright and Brown in the reign of Elizabeth ; — the men to whom prelacy had always been distasteful, and who had all along been disposed in favour of a presbyterian or a con- gregational church. But the confines of the party were now enlarged : there was a vast accession of new men, who were as little disposed to walk in the trammels of Cartwrisrht as in those of Whitcinft. They regarded the old contests as in a great mea- sure obsolete ; they saw that the religion of Laud and his party, however sincere, was superstitious, and dangerous to liberty ; and they determined to resist it. They were chiefly laymen ; and while * " Could that blessed archbishop Whitgift, or the modest and learned Uooker, have ever thought, so much as by dream, that men concurring with them in o|)iuiou should, for some of these very opinions, be called puritans?"— Pax Eeclesiic, p. Gi. 6 THE HISTOllY OF ciiAiri-K they had resolutely set themselves against Laudian '-^ prelacy, they had never carried their speculations A.D.'i6i2. so far as to inquire what substitute should occupy its place. They resisted an enormous evil ; they had not, even in thought, advanced to the bare contemplation of the fearful chasm which its over- throw would make. This is the course which a reformation, honestly begun, not unfrequently takes. Men of ulterior designs are prepared to impose some favourite scheme when the propitious moment shall arrive ; — men of perfect honesty are often surprised at their own successes, and van- quished by their own triumphs. They did not look beyond the present ; they felt the dangers of a dominant superstition, and they strove against them ; and long after the struggle had begun they still looked no farther. Thus the opponents of Laud contended for simplicity and purity in Christian worship, and they sought for nothing more. These men formed the great body of the puritans when the war broke out. There were some of them whose aim was chiefly political : they felt more for the dangers of the state, and less for the perils of the church. Still they were not two parties, but the same men influenced from time to time by different but concurring motives. To speak of the political as distinct from the religious puritans is, we conceive, to misrepresent the facts of history. The war had two objects : it was a struggle for liberty against an arbitrary sovereign, and for reli- gion against tyranny and popery as represented by the Laudian party and the court. It was im- possible to sever in practice these two independent CHAS. I. \.L>. lOi-i. THE LATER PURITANS. 7 aims. The parliaDient in London became puritans cH.vinEu to a man ; and the religious puritans, without : — exception, became the firm adherents of the parlia- ment. So far the fusion was perfect ; and we shall, therefore, speak of the parliamentary and of the puritan cause as one. As events pressed upon each otlier, feuds broke out and secessions occurred. Still, however, upon the whole, it was a war be- tween the puritans on the one side and the adhe- rents of the king and his prerogative upon the other. Eor the share which the people of England took in the war against the king the puritans are respon- sible. The character of the party is deeply concerned in the decision we form upon their conduct in this affair. No point in their history has been more severely censured ; none has been more misrepre- sented or less generally understood. If success be the measure of right, they were wrong undoubtedly; for though they conquered Charles, they perished from the earth, and their name has been made a by- word. But this coarse estimate suffices no longer. The time has come when we wish to take a juster view. Two centuries have passed, and with them something at least of the rage and cla- mour which have long distorted this period of our history. We begin to perceive that measures may have been wise which were not successful; and that even success is to be measured by its remoter con- sequences rather than its immediate results. A great question, tlien, lies at the threshold of our history — Were the puritans justified in taking arms against the king ? W^as the civil war a vulgar instance of mere rebellion, — the resistance of those CIIAS. I. A.D. 1642. 8 THE HISTORY OF cuAPTER who refuse to obey whenever obedience can no ''• longer be enforced ? Or was it a patriotic enterprise, which the constitution justified, whicli the hap- piness and well-being of the state demanded, and over which religion, the pure religion of the gospel, threw her sublimer sanctions ? It is true that Charles was the first to draw the sword and to proclaim war, but the responsibility of arousing the nation against the king rests upon the parliament, that is, upon the puritans. They accepted the appeal to arms with alacrity ; they had been preparing for this issue ; they regarded it as the lesser evil ; they were persuaded that it was only thus, upon the field of battle, that their lives, their rights, their protestant faith, could be secured. When Charles had dissolved the last parliament abruptly in the spring of 1640 the friends of the popular cause could not conceal their satisfaction. Saint John, a leader of the puritans, was overjoyed; he returned home exulting in his defeat. *' It all goes well," he said to Mr. Hyde ; " things must be worse yet, before they can improve !"* And this was the general opinion. Por many reasons it is difficult to do justice to the puritans. The subject is overlaid with preju- dice, and upon a superficial glance appearances are mucli against them. When the king took the field, the parliament were already in a false position. The reasons they assigned were not sufficient to justify an armed resistance ; and this the leaders of the popular party well knew. The grounds upon which * Clarendon, i. p. HI. cir A.D. lS. I. THE LATER PURITANS. 9 they professed to excuse themselves were, indeed^ cuaptek either frivolous, or unconstitutional, or palpably unjust. In the first place, they insisted that the king should return to London, for his absence in the north was a capital grievance : it shewed his majesty's distrust of his loyal subjects, his dislike to the house of commons, and his disregard of his people's welfare. All this was but an indifferent pretext for a civil war. They had already excluded the prelates from the house of peers, and set aside the royal prerogative of dissolving parliament, un- less with its own consent ; they now demanded the control of the militia and the Tower, the power of creating peers, of disposing of the royal children in marriage, of appointing and dismissing the king's ministers — in short, the destruction of the crown as an independent estate of the realm. " Should I grant these demands," said Charles, " I may still be waited on bare-headed ; I may have my hand kissed ; I may have swords and maces carried before me ; — but as regards any true and real power, I should be but the mere shadow of a king."* The parliament, again, professed to arm, not against the king but against his evil counsellors, holding the constitutional fiction that the king can do no wrong. But this made their conduct still more perplexing. The royal prerogatives ought to have been safe beneath the sacred maxim, even had the king's person been assailed. The evil advisers of the sovereign should, however, have been singled * Rushworth's Collections, i, p. 788. 10 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER out and punislicd witliout injury to their master. — But the parliament drew no such distinctions. The A.D. i6ii king's prerogative and his privy councillors shared one fate and fell beneath the same desolating storm. Wentworth lord Strafford, the prime minister, died upon the scaffold as a traitor, and the king's undoul)ted rights perished soon afterwards in the house of commons. Laud was in prison as a perni- cious adviser; but still the attack upon the sovereign was keenly pursued elsewhere. The command of the army was his by antient law and usage ; and the right of influencing his own cliildren in the affair of marriage belonged to him by nature ; yet he was deprived of both. If the parliament fought against the king, their demands were unreasonable ; if against his advisers, their behaviour was unjust. It was evident either that they were wrong, or that there was some motive for their conduct which they had not disclosed. Their professions and their actions were at variance ; at least there was an obscurity which seemed to wait for its explana- tion. And this was in truth the real cause of their perplexity : they did not venture to trust the whole of their case to the decision of the nation at large, to whom their proclamations were addressed. The decisions of history may have been taken from their own statements, but those statements were imper- fect. Whether necessity or policy dictated their reserve, it has been upon the whole injurious to their character. The king had no such difficulties to cope with. Wherever lay the merits of the quarrel, he had the advantage of a cause well defined and clearly un- A.D. 1642. THE LA'l'Eil PURITANS. 11 derstood. Assisted by the ablest members of his chapter council, by Hyde (better known to us as lord ^— — Clarendon, the historian of these eventful times), and lord Falkland, Charles drew up and dispersed through the whole kingdom a series of manifestoes, which seemed, for a time, to revive the devotion of his subjects and to threaten the cause of the parlia- ment with utter ruin. These w^cre the more impli- citly received, because Charles had now no recent acts of tyranny to justify, or even to excuse.* Since the death of his favourite minister, lord Strafford, more than a year before, he had in fact ceased to govern ; his power had been transferred to the parliament ; and the generosity of the English character induced thousands to forgive the past in consideration of his fallen and altered fortunes. He protested that he contended for the antient law^s of England, and for the rights of the sovereign as the sovereign had enjoyed them ever since the con- quest. He was the representative of the antient monarchy, and of the English constitution as it stood beneath the Tudors and Plantagenets ; and he summoned his people, in the name of all their vene- rable institutions, to rally round their king. The parliament found it far more easy to denounce the royal manifestoes than to answer them. As far as they went they scarcely admitted of an answer. Eor in truth the great fault of tlie king lay not in demanding more than his predecessors but in con- ceding less. In states in which the monarchy acts without control, or where the control is irresolute * Guizot, Hist. Kiig. Rcvol. i. p. -Ml. CHAS.I. A.D. 1W2. 12 THE HISTORY OF ciiArxER and feeble, the personal character of the sovereign ^' decides the character of his government. The same institutions are made either to crush or to jn'otect the people, as the hand that wields them is unfeeling and capricious or wise and patriotic. Charles had been a bad imitator of great examples ; and he had made the common mistake of feeble minds, that in order to be strong it is necessary to be violent. He had copied the severity of former sovereigns with great exactness ; but he had seldom had their pre- texts, and never their successes. The worst points in his career have a singular parallel in the events of the reign of the most popular of English mo- narchs. In those instances in which he has been most severely blamed he could have pleaded the example of Elizabeth herself. He had brought on a revolution and thrown the kingdom into the wildest uproar by attempting what she had done with perfect impunity. He had gone down to the house of commons to seize five members on a charge of treason : they escaped, and he apologized ; but his kingdom was in flames. Elizabeth had threat- ened the house, had silenced the speaker, had seized an obnoxious member on the benches, and hurried him without pretence of trial to prison ;* he was confined for several years, and scarcely a murmur arose. Charles had employed the star-chamber and the court of high commission to oppress his sub- jects ; but the star-chamber was no new device of recent tyranny ; nor had the court of high commis- sion much exceeded the boundaries of its timer * In 1587, the case of Morriec, sec Hist. Early Puritans, p. 200. THE LATER PURITANS. 13 honoured cruelties. Even ship money was but, under chapter another name, a repetition of those aids and bene- '. — volences wliich the kind's of Encrland had often im- ^^"^^^/: posed by their own authority. Laud again, it was true, had been severe against the puritans ; but Whitgift had consigned them to the gallows. If Charles had married a papist, Elizabeth had at least contemplated a union with the duke of Anjou. But unhappily the king understood neither his people nor himself. lie did not perceive that the circumstances of the nation had undergone a mar- vellous change, and in consequence the relation of king and people to each other. He wished to govern as his ancestors had governed, but it was impos- sible ; he might as reasonably have attempted the revival of the crusades, and imposed a tax for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. He would have no innovations ; forgetting the wise observation of lord Bacon, that he who resists all change is himself the greatest of all innovators. Still his case as he presented it to the world was clear ; and it Avas free from violent inconsistencies. He thought himself a good man, and he wished to be an absolute, if not an arbitrary, sovereign. The true cause of the war may be explained in one word; it was the king's inveterate duplicity. The parliament felt that it was never safe. The popular leaders had to treat with an enemy whose word, whose oath, it was impossible to trust. What- ever the pretext that glossed it over, the war was, on the side of the puritans, a war of self-defence. Of late years, public opinion has inclined more and 14 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER more to tlic popular cause. We do not attribute '■ — this to the increase of democratic opinions, or to a AD. loi-j growing" indifference to the horrors of civil war. It is sufficiently explained by the more intimate ac- quaintance we have gained with the character of Charles I. The publication of innumerable papers, pamphlets, and diaries of that restless age, enables us to form a judgment in many respects more com- prehensive and more correct than the decisions ot those who were actors in the scene. And all that has come down to us from republican or royalist, from the court of Charles or the camp of Cromwell, confirms the suspicion which the parliament enter- tained, that tlie king was not only indifferent to truth, but that he habitually held its sacred obliga- tions in profound contempt. Dissimulation is too mild a word ; there was in him the utter want of the kingly virtues of integrity and honour. Charles had lately passed all their bills, and conceded some of their most unreasonable demands (for tliey had begun, as desperate men, to be most unreasonable) ; but now the very facility of his concessions excited their distrust. What he gave up without a struggle he might one day reclaim with vengeance. Every day his tone changed with his circumstances. Slowly retiring from London, he professed his anxiety to conciliate the parliament at whatever cost. Arrived at York and now surrounded by his friends, " he resolved," says lord Clarendon, the wisest of all his advisers, and the greatest of his chroniclers, " to treat them in another manner than he had done." In fact, " he would now have nothim^- extorted from ClIAS. I. A. D. 1642. THE LATEU PURITANS. 15 him that he was not very well inclined to consent chapter to."* On the 15th June he puhlislied a declaration, countersigned by thirty-five peers, besides the com- moners of his privy council, in which he afhrmed that he was basely slandered by those who charged him with the design of making war upon the parlia- ment. "He professed before God, and declared to all the world, that he always had, and did still abhor all such designs." At the same time another proclamation was addressed ,to the people in which he again protested, " before Almighty God and his K-edeemer, that he had no more thought of making war against the parliament than he had against his children."! Yet the queen was then in Holland selling and pawning the crown jewels and raising the munitions of war ; he himself was busied with military preparations ; and on the 23rd of August, | being now equipped for a campaign, he set up his standard, and in due form proclaimed war upon the parliament ! Such falsehoods could proceed only from the weakest counsels or the most infatuated mind. They probably deceived none, but they irritated thousands. And the men of virtue beo^an already to retire from a cause which, whether good or bad, was content to call in the succours of deceit and falsehood. § * Clarendon, i. p. 459. f Clarendon, i. p. 456. X Clarendon says the 25th j Whitelocke, the 22nd ; several others, the 23rd; Ludlow, the 24th: a strange discrepancy on a point of such importance. § I spare my readers and myself the jmiu of multiplying instances of Charles's confirmed du|)licity, and of the ruin he thus brought upon him- self. 1 intended to have enlarged the dark catalogue injustice to historical truth ; but it is unnecessary, and therefore it would be ungenerous. I quote one instance only from the memoirs of col. Hutchinson. "The king, who had received money, arms, and ammunition, which the queen CHAS. I. A.D. 1642. 16 THE IIISTOTIY OF CHAPTER Whether the kind's Diisconduct arose from weak- '. — ncss or from vice, from want of firmness or want of principle, is a point whicli, deeply as it touches his personal character, cannot be allowed to have tlie least weight in the question between himself and the popular leaders. The consequences to others were the same. If the protestantism of the nation was outraged, if its liberties were endangered, it was of little importance to those who undertook their defence at the hazard of their own lives, whether Charles's heart or his head was most in fault. His great apologist describes him as one with whom the most clamorous advisers were always the most successful. If he had not displayed a strength of character on some occasions which is scarcely con- sistent with it, the charitable supposition might be entertained that he was merely a weak man, rash in judgment, and easily diverted from his purpose. It is probable that he often surrendered his own judg- ment to worthless advisers, and was the dupe of their cabals. If we may trust the representations, not of factious republicans, but of his most faithful ser- vants, his household was a nest of traitors. His closet and even the queen's bedchamber were had procured in Holland by pawning the crown jewels, sent out commis- sions of array to arm the jieople in all counties. . . . Thus he got contri- butions of plate, money, and arras in the countiy. While these things were in transaction the king made a solemn protestation before the lords, as in the presence of God, declaring that he would not engage in any war with the parliament, but only for his own defence ; that his desire was to maintain the protestant religion, the liberties of the subject, and privilege of parliament. But the next day he did some action so contrary to this protestation, that two of the lords durst not stay with him, but returned to the parliament ; and one of them coming back through Nottingham- shire, acquainted Mr. Hutchinson with the sad sense he had in discovering that falsehood in the king." p. 113. THE LATER PURITANS. 17 haunted with spies. Ilis secret whispers were chapter repeated, his most confidential counsels were di '- — vulged. With high vaunts of honour, which stood ^["/\^ji2 them in the place of religion, the cavaliers wlio surrounded the king and formed his court were devoid of truth and virtue. Levity, selfishness, a disdain of moral restraints, and an audacious con- tempt of religion, marked them as a hody. But liahitual falsehood seems to have heen the master- vice. It would he unjust to charge the depravity of the courtiers entirely upon the king ; but it is diffi- cult to believe that a sterner adherence to the truth in the king himself would not have imparted a purer tone to the morals of his household. The vices of the great are always contagious, and a court addicted to falsehood indicates a want of veracity in its head ; at least it is certain that neither friend nor foe could place the least reliance upon the royal word of Charles. There is one circumstance which explains, and in some measure perhaps extenuates, the king's habitual insincerity. He was governed by the queen. This indeed, in the eyes of his puritan subjects, was an aggravation of his guilt, and their conclusion was not altogether unreasonable : her influence certainly increased their danger tenfold. Henrietta Maria was the evil genius of Charles. Her influence was always in exercise, and it was always bad. She was a papist and a foreigner; cold, heartless, and in- triguing ; capable of the most winning graces, but naturally insolent and proud. Of her beauty, the portraits which her devoted husband loved to multiply, and which still adorn the stately halls of c CIIAS. I. A.D. 1G42. 18 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEu Windsor, leave nothing to be said. In lier presence - — the king was impotent. Her tears, her rage, her feigned love, her unaffected arrogance subdued him, and still she retained firm possession of his heart. To pacify the queen, promises were not held sacred, and principles vanished like a mist. Without one English sentiment, without affection for its people or love for its sovereign, except so far as love was sclfislniess,* she governed the council by intrigue, and the king by her personal influence. Whether Charles deserved the odium which assailed him may possibly be questioned ; but no champion will appear to defend the heartless woman who forced her too complying husband into danger, and basely fled and left him to be a captive, and to die alone, when her own violent counsels were beginning to produce their fruit. We are disgusted with the brutality of the sectaries who denounced her in their prayers by name, and invoked the vengeance of heaven upon "Jezebel;" but even such acts of violence produce no reaction in her favour : for we are compelled to feel that, however unbecoming, they were not un- merited. The worst actions of Charles's life may be traced at once to the queen's pernicious influence. His consent to the death of his minister and fa- vourite, lord Strafford, within a week of the day on which he had written with his own hand to assure him that he had nothing to fear, is known to every one. He seemed meanly to sacrifice his minister in order to save himself; but in fact he yielded to * See Mr. Warburton's collection of jjapers, " Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers." His character of the queen is still more unfavourable than my own. Her moral conduct, as a woman and a wife, was, it appears, by no means faultless. I. ClIAS. I. A.D. 1642. THE LATER PURITANS. 19 the clamours of the queen, supported unhappily in chapter this instance by the clergy about the court. It was the queen who plotted the mad attempt to seize the five members in the house of commons. It was she who prevailed upon the king to sign the bill for the degradation of the bishops, and their exclusion from the house of lords. Those who knew him most in- timately believed that no possible emergency could induce him to consent to a measure so hateful to his feelings and so fatal to his cause. But the queen triumphed : and some of his best advisers immediately withdrew from the council ; others de- termined, in sheer despair, to be carried quietly along the stream.* There could in fact be no doubt as to the queen's intentions. She meant her husband to govern after the fashion of her native land, and she meant her children to be educated in the Homish faith. The weakest minds entertain the most gigantic projects. She thought herself capable of making the sovereign despotic, and of restoring the nation to the see of Eome. And we must add, that but for the puritans she would probably have suc- ceeded, for a while at least, to the utmost of her wishes. These were the real motives by which the puritan party was induced to dare the fearful hazards and certain miseries of intestine war. To judge fairly of their conduct, we must place ourselves in their circumstances, and calculate, if we can, the con- flicting perils of submission and resistance. If they trusted too much or too soon, they were undone; * Clarendon, i. p. 42!). c 2 20 THE IITSTORY OF ■HAi'TEK and civil liberty and the protestant faith fell with them. On the other hand, they seem to have cHAs.i. niiscalculatcd their own strennrth. They made too A D 1612 . vast an effort, and overshot the mark. The king was not so powerful, nor they themselves so weak, as they supposed. The vessel was in the storm, among rocks and shoals visible to the naked eye, and they spread every sail. The speed of the chariot Avas impetuous, and they lashed the horses. There were among themselves, and in the parliament, men warmly attached to the popular cause who were of this opinion. Enough, they said, had been already done ; the king w^as humbled ; protestantism was safe ; the constitution was delivered. Poremost in this small party was sir Benjamin Rudyard, a fer- vent patriot, a calm sagacious statesman. He was an orator in the highest sense. His speeches remind us of the sententious wisdom of Tacitus. They were published at the time on fly sheets, and made a strong impression. On perusing them we feel how rich our country must have been in great men, since even Hudyard has been forgotten in the crowd. " No doubt,"* said he, in his place in parliament, on theOthof July, 1642, — "no doubt there is a relative duty between a king and his subjects : obedience from a subject to a king : protection from a king to his people. The present unhappy distance between his majesty and the parliament makes the whole kingdom stand amazed in a terrible expectation of fearful calamities." He then proceeds to urge upon the house of commons the duty of conciliation. * Ilarlcian Miscellany, vol. v. p. 77. The speech was originally " printed for llicliaril Lownds, 1642." CIIAS. I. A.D. 1042. THE LATER PURITANS. 21 lie implores tliem to contrast their present triumphs chapter with their recent position. " If any one had told - us three years ago that we should have a parliament, that ship-money would he done away with, that monopolies, the high commission court, the star chamher, and the votes of hishops would he abolished, that the jurisdiction of the privy council would be regulated and restrained, that we should have trien- nial parliaments, — nay, more, a perpetual parlia- ment, which no one but ourselves could have the right to dissolve, — truly we should have thought this too much to be real. Well," he adds, " all this is come to pass, and yet we do not enjoy it ; we still call out for more guarantees. The actual possession of all these privileges is the best guarantee that we can have, for they protect each other." Who shall tell us what the history of our country, and the fate of the puritans, would have been had his concluding words fallen upon attentive ears ! " Let us take care, in seeking an imaginary safety through so many dangers, we do not put in peril that which we possess already. It is now that we are called upon to exercise all the wisdom of which we are capable ; for we are on the eve of fire and chaos. If once ' blood toucheth blood,' we fall into a certain evil to obtain an uncertain success. Every one has a right to make a last effort to prevent the effusion of blood ; for the shedding of blood is a sin which calls aloud for vengeance ; it stains a whole country. Let us save our liberties and property, but in such a way that we may also save our souls." These were wise counsels ; they became a senator and a christian ; but they were unavailing. And yet, when war was 22 THE HISTORY of ciiAPTKR resolved upon, Uudyard liimself adhered to the '■ — popular cause. (.HAS. I. -|-|. ^1 1^ ^ divine rio-ht in kini^s, as the courtiers A.D. 1G42. ^ .• of Charles, and still more of his sons,* affirmed, an * III the house of lords, the carl of Shaftesbury spoke thus in 1675. " There is another principle got into the world, my lords, that hath not been long there : for archbishop Laud was the first author that I re- nicmber of it ; and I cannot find that the Jesuits, or indeed the popish clergy, have ever owned it, and it is withal as dangerous as it is new. It is the first of the canons published in IGiO—that monarchy is of divine right. If this doctrine be true, our magna charta is of no use ; our laws are but rules amongst ourselves during the king's pleasure. Monarchy, if of divine right, cannot be bounded or limited by human laws; nay, what's more, cannot bind itself; and all our claims of right by the law, or constitution, all the jurisdiction and privilege of this house, all the rights and privileges of the house of commons, all the ])roi)erties and liberties of the people, are to give way, not only to the interest, but the will and pleasure of the crown. And the best and worthiest of men must vote, holding this principle, to deliver up all we have, not only when reason of state, and the separate interest of the crown rcrpiire it, but where it is known the will and pleasure of the king would have it so ; for that must be to a man of these prin- ciples, the only rule of right and justice." But the reaction of loyalty, so termed, was not to be stayed by argument however wise. The divine right of kings became the fashionable doctrine. By a decree in convoca- tion, July 21, 1C83, "against certain pernicious books and damnable doc- trines, destructive to the sacred i)ersons of princes, their state and govern- ment, and of all human society," the University of Oxford unanimously denounced twenty-seven propositions, " all and every of which " they declare to be " false, seditious, and impious, and most of them to be also heretical and blasphemous." A few of the propositions (which they recite in order to condemn) are as follows : — " 3. That if lawful governors become tyrants, or govern otherwise than by the laws of God and man they ought to do, they forfeit the right they had unto their government. "4. The sovereignty of England is in the three estates, namely, king, lords, and commons. The king has but a co-ordinate power, and may be overruled by the other two. "8. The doctrine of the gospel concerning patient suff'cring of injuries is not inconsistent with violent resisting the higher powers in case of per- secution for religion. " 9. There lies no obligation upon Christians to passive obedience when the prince commands anything against tlie laws of our country." The unanimity witli which these propositions were condemned at one of our great seats of learning, i)roves the tendency to extreme theories of CIIAPTEU I. A.U. 1642. THE LATER PURITANS. 23 armed resistance is of course a crime. Under all circumstances it is rebellion, a foul outrage against the sovereign, a heinous sin against the more awful .^'I'^^/l-.l majesty of God. Such doctrines have been popular amongst us, and they may be so again. But if con- sistently with the duty that we owe to God, and, in- deed, (for so the puritans maintained) as part of our allegiance to the King of kings, the obligation some- times devolves upon the subject of resisting an otherwise lawful prince on account of the wickedness of his conduct, then the question is not so easily dismissed. Was the war inevitable? Had nego- tiation, had forbearance, been carried to their utmost limits ? Would the parliament have deserved better of their country had they listened to men like Rud- yard ? Or would they have flung away with more than childish folly the last hopes of liberty and of the protestant faith in England ? To set at rest these doubts, is to establish or to destroy the reputation of the later puritans, and of the patriots of 1612. Upon the whole perhaps they were precipitate ; we cannot charge them, in this the beginning of their armed resistance, with rebel- lion. And even here our pen hesitates ; for we judge them in the light of facts, which in their day no wisdom could foresee. Men are not to be blamed goveruraeut even in strong and educated minds. The authors are quoted from whose writings the several jjropositions are extracted ; all memhers of the imiversity are interdicted from reading the said books, under the penalties prescribed by the statute ; and the books are ordered to be publicly burnt. Amongst the writers condemned, we find men of the most opposite views. Buchanan, Bellarmine, Milton, Goodwin, and Baxter, for instance, are quoted as the authors of proposition 3. Vide State Tracts, l)rivately printed in the reign of king Charles II., i)age 153. These de- crees were repealed by the university in 1710. ClIAS. I. A.D. 16-12, 24 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER because tlieir knowledge is imperfect, nor because they bring human weakness to the purest cause : for these are the sad conditions of our race under all circumstances. It is enough to justify the puritans if, upon the whole, their motives w^ere pure and their conduct wise. And, after all, we leave the subject — where, indeed, while history is read, it must ever dwell — in the deep musings and dispas- sionate thoughts of those who ponder the events of past ages with the hope (alas, too often vain !) of teaching moderation to those who shall come after, by displaying the virtues, the errors, and the calamities of generations that have passed away. The occurrences of the civil war it is not our purpose to relate. Incidentally they will often claim our notice, as they illustrate the motives of the contending parties, and more especially the conduct of the puritans. The king had proclaimed war, after all, with precipitation, and his subjects afforded him but tardy succours ; he had scarcely set up his standard a week when the sergeant-major- general of his intended army told him that he would not answer for his majesty's safety, even when he lay in his bed in Nottingham castle. Hoping to increase his forces he marched to Derby, and thence to Shrewsbury, where he was well received. His fortunes had been desperate ; for while he was at Nottingham without one full regiment, the parlia- mentary chieftain, the earl of Essex, had arrived at Northampton with a well-appointed army of seven thousand men. On his march to Shrewsbury Charles halted at Wellington, and reviewed his THE LATEU PURITANS. 25 forces ; and here, tliough little qualified by nature chaptei for such a task, he harangued his soldiers. " Gen '■ — tlemen," said he, " I cannot suspect your courage ; a.d.\w2, your conscience and your loyalty have brought you hither to fight for your religion, your king, and the laws of your land. You shall meet with no enemies but traitors ; most of them brownists, anabaptists, and atheists, who desire to destroy both church and state, and who have already condemned you to ruin for being loyal to us." He concluded with reading a solemn protestation in their presence. The first article was thus expressed : " I do promise in the presence of Almighty God, and as I hope for his blessing and protection, that I will to the ut- most of my power, defend and maintain the true reformed protestant religion, established in the church of England, and, by the grace of God, in the same will I live and die." The second article ran thus : '' If it please God, by his blessing upon this army, raised for my necessary defence, to preserve me from this rebellion, I do solemnly and faithfully promise, in the sight of God, to maintain the just privileges and freedom of parliament, and to go- vern by the known laws of the land to my utmost power ; and particularly to preserve inviolably the laws consented to by me this parliament. When I willingly fail in these particulars I will expect neither aid from man nor protection from heaven." To those who had not yet learned to distrust his royal word, nothing could have been more satisfac- tory. He would be a protestant king, and he would govern constitutionally. It was scarcely kingly, perhaps, to single out brownists and anabaptists, 2G THE HISTORY or ciiArTER grouping tliem with atheists, as the leaders of the '■ — rehels. Nor would the truth of the assertion bear AD^ti ^ moment's consideration. But hitter provocation had not been wanting. Already, it is said by the royalist historian, the pulpits of the sectarians resounded with malignity and scorn. Ministers of the gospel, by their functions messengers of peace, became, we are assured, the trumpets of war and the incendiaries of rebellion ; and the words of Scripture , were wrested and perverted to suit their odious pur- poses. Taking for his text the words of Moses (Exo- dus xxxii. 29.) " Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother ; that he may bestow upon you a bless- ing this day;" one of these men incited his hear- ers to the slaughter of neighbour, friend, or relation, who opposed the parliament. " Cursed be he who keepeth away his sword from blood;" (Jeremiah xlviii. 10.) was the text of another, from which he proved the sinfulness of giving quarter to any of the king's soldiers. " Arise therefore, and be doing ;" (1 Cliron. xxii. 16.) shewed to another congregation that it was not enough to wish well to the parliament, if they brought not their purse as well as their prayers, and their hands as well as their hearts, to its assistance. The king's party heard with disgust and horror, and doubted whether such a prostitution of the sacred office were not the unpardonable sin which hath forgive- ness neither in this world nor in the world to come.* At Shrewsbury the king's army was con- * Clarendon, book vi. p. 23. These statements I make on Clarendon's authority, with a caution to the reader that on such matters, he is not CHAS. I. A.D. VA2. THE LATEll PURITANS. 27 siderably increased, numbering about eight thousand chapter men. lie resolved to march for London by way of Banbury, hoping to meet with the forces of the parliament, and to give them battle on his march. Essex was not reluctant to measure his strength against his sovereign. The two armies first met in battle* upon the plain of Edgehill in AVarwick- shire, on the afternoon of Sunday, the 23rd of Octo- ber, 1642. The conflict was long and fierce ; night parted the combatants, and five thousand men lay dead upon the field. The king had hoped in a single encounter to close the war ; to press on to London, and there dictate his own terms. But the battle produced no results ; each side retired in good order, and each side claimed the victory. The man was not present at Edgehill who was never known to quit a doubtful field ; Cromwell was not there. Hampden was too late, and lost the op- portunity of shewing whether he were equally great in counsel and in fight ; he came up with his regiment during the night after the battle. But the project of the royalists was entirely broken. Instead of pressing on to London, the king retired always to be trusted; for his hatred of the puritans led him to believe every story to their disadvantage. A few violent fanatics amongst the obscure sects probably, even at this early period, indulged in these atrocious excesses ; and, though obscure in station and few in number, their in- fluence with the lower orders may still have been considerable. Clarendon, together with the texts noticed above, mentions Marshall's famous ser- mon, " Curse ye, Meroz, &c." But this was preached before the house of commons, upon a solemn fast, Feb. 23, 1G41, long before the war broke out ; and therefore (however violent and unjustifiable) it had no immediate connection with the state of the sectarian pulpit now, in Oct. 1()42. * There had been a slight skirmish at Worcester between prince Rupert and the parliamentary array in which a few men were lost on both sides. This was the first encounter. A.D. 1642. 28 THE HISTORY OF ciiArTER to Oxford with liis forces, and there the winter was '- — spent. There were many skirmishes, wdth various ciiAs.i. g|jQ(;(3gg^ j^jj^j some feeble attempts were made on both sides for an accommodation ; but, upon the whole, the king's affairs had a favourable aspect in the spring. The queen returned from Ilolland in the summer, bringing with her large supplies both of men and money. Her energy and promptitude contrasts strangely with the king's uncertainty of purpose. She brought wdth her two thousand in- fantry, a thousand cavalry, a hundred waggons of ammunition, and eight pieces of artillery. The house of commons betrayed its sense of her import- ance by impeaching her of treason. The war had now spread into every part of the country ; and great men fell in murderous skirmishes, which inflamed the passions on botli sides without contri- buting to the success of either. Hampden was killed at Chalgrove, near his own house, by a foraging party headed by prince E-upert ; and lord Brooke, an enthusiast against prelacy, at Lichfield, by a random shot from the cathedral. The parliamen- tary forces under lord Tairfax were defeated at Atherstone on the 30th of June, and again, under sir William Waller, at the battles of Landsdown and Eoundwaydown, on the 5th and 13th of July. Most of the western counties now submitted to the king. His nephew, xn'ince Hupert, took the city of Bristol after a short siege, and Charles himself invested Gloucester for several weeks : it was relieved at tlie last extremity by the sudden appearance of the parliamentary forces under the earl of Essex. The king and prince llupert then combined their armies, THE LATER PUTIITANS. 29 intercepted Essex on his return to London, and cuAi-Ti-n gave him battle at Newbury. It was a dreadful ' — struggle, and the result was in favour of the parlia- J^"'\^yi2 ment : for during the night the kmg retired, leaving the field in possession of the earl of Essex. And here the great and virtuous lord Falkland fell. Thus ended the campaign of 1613, but not the war, of which the termination seemed as remote as ever. Charles returned, with his army dispirited, if not beaten, to Oxford. Essex was received in London with enthusiasm. The parliament and the citizens felt that they had had a great deliverance, and their exultation was unbounded. The house of commons went in a body to salute their general and to return him thanks. The lord mayor and aldermen waited npon him, to represent the city, and proclaimed him the saviour and protector of their lives, their fortunes, their wives and children. The tide of success had suddenly turned, and it never after- wards forsook the parliament. The battle, upon which the fate of the monarchy was in fact suspended was fought on the 20th of September, 1643. The war had swept away three great men, whose influence, had they lived, must have impressed itself upon the times, and might have changed the cha- racter of English history. These were lord Brooke and Hampden on the popular side, and lord Falkland among the royalists. Had Brooke survived, it is probable that a republic would have been established on broad and perhaps permanent foundations. Had Hampden lived, a constitutional monarchy might have been restored in the person of Charles I. Had lord Falkland been alive to support the moderate A.J). 1C42. 30 THE niSTOUY OF CHAPTER counsels of IlydCj the king would never have been '. — betrayed, by worthless counsellors and the queen's ciiAs. I. ijitrigue, into those acts by which he forfeited at length the lingering affections of his subjects and his own self-respect. The loss of these men may be distinctly traced in the events which followed. Lord Brooke was an extreme puritan, resolute and stern; he regarded the whole hierarchy as a part of antichrist, not merely an encumbrance, but an imposture, nis mind was rough and manly ; but the finer distinctions in which purer intellects dis- cover the boundaries of truth and error were un- known to it. If he had not declared himself a republican, he was one in heart. He was as much Cromwell's superior in piety as in bold and soldier- like simplicity, and in courage he was at least his equal. Had lord Brooke been living, there would, we suspect, have been one man at least whom Cromwell could neither cajole nor terrify. There might have been a commonwealth, but there would have been no protectorate ; Cromwell at least would not have been the lord protector. We owe to an entry in the diary with which Laud beguiled his imprisonment, some particulars of liis death, w^hicli explain the archbishop's not less than the soldier's character. Lord Brooke was killed by a shot from the tow^er of Lichfield cathedral. He had left the splendour and repose of Warwick castle, his princely home, to share the perils of a common soldier. He was cased in armour, but his visor was raised and the ball entered his eye. A stone yet marks the spot on which he fell. *' First," says his grace, " observe that this great and unknoAvn enemy to THE LATER PURITANS. 31 cathedral churches died thus fearfully in the assault chapter of a cathedral : a fearful manner of death in such a quarrel. Secondly, that this happened upon St. ^["'^^ ^ Chad's day, of which saint the cathedral bears the name. Thirdly, that this lord, coming from dinner about two years since from the lord Ilerbert's house in Lambeth, upon some discourse of Paul's church, then in their eye upon the water, said to some young lords that were with him, that he hoped to live to see that one stone of that building should not be left upon another ; but that church stands yet, and that eye is put out that hoped to see the ruins of it."* But in an age of great men, Hampden was per- haps the first. His character w411 never perish. It is enshrined in the magnificent portraiture of Clarendon ; it has been drawn afresh, and some of its less noticed or more questioned honours placed in a clearer light, by the most brilliant of living writers.! But had no historian embalmed his me- mory, even tradition would have been loath to part with so great a name. Hampden, a country gen- tleman, residing on his ancient estate in Bucking- hamshire, the representative in parliament of the neighbouring borough of Wendover, was amongst the first to resist the unconstitutional exactions of the court. The king had been advised to impose a tax under the name of ship-money, without the consent of parliament. Thousands murmured, but * In Neal, Hist. Puritans, iii. p. 16. t Macaiilay, Essay on Hampden, &c. The character of Hampden given by Hume, Hist. vol. vii. p. 521, and note G G, scarcely deserves even this brief notice. ClIAS. I. A.D. 1012. 32 THE niSTOUY OF ciiArxER nampdon refused to pay tlic illegal impost, which amounted to no more than twenty shillings. He was prosecuted, and the question was argued in the exchequer court at Westminster. Pour of the judges were in his favour, the majority decided that the tax was legal. But, in the public discussion of the subject, Hampden had gained a great victory, the honours of which no adverse decision could tarnish. The calmness and self-possession he main- tained on this occasion at once placed him high in the opinion of all parties. He seemed rather to meet the prosecution as a lofty patriot than as the factious leader of a discontented party ; as if he were anxious to defend the law, rather than to shield or justify himself. He appeared to plead on behalf of the constitution, the rights and liberties of England, and he was equal to the task. It con- centrated all his powers, but he was without agita- tion or disturbance. Nothing so much affects us wdth the notion of true greatness as tranquillity in the heat of argument or the midst of danger. Even ordinary lookers on perceived in his unaffected courtesy and perfect repose of mind, when he him- self was most exposed and when all around him was a hurricane, that Hampden was a great man. His influence was now unbounded, both in parlia- ment and with the nation. He was returned for his native county, and the voice of England saluted him as the father of his country, the pilot who must steer the vessel through the storm. No man living had such influence, no man of his rank had ever attained to such an eminence. His reputation for honesty was universal ; it was clear he sought (MAS. I. A.D. 1643. THE LATER PURITANS. 33 no private ends ; lie had sacrificed himself to serve chapter his country. In parliament he was equally revered. ^' lie is a rare instance of one whose popularity was unbounded both with the people and the house of commons ; whose weight as a senator was even greater than his weight amongst the populace ; for it rarely happens that the qualities which charm the multitude are valued in the house of commons ; or that the idol of the senate retains his influence with the common people. Had he been merely elo- quent, Hampden would scarcely have been distin- guished in the long parliament. He possessed other endowments, which qualified him to be the leader of that assembly. He had a wonderful afi'ability and command of temper in debate ; he appeared to be modest and submissive, as though he sought for in- formation, while in fact, by suggesting his own doubts, he infused his opinions into those from whom he seemed to learn them. It was no slight advantage to him even in the house of commons, that nature had formed him in one of her finest moulds. While his mind was powerful, his person was elegant and his manners were refined. Slender and of the middling height, his head was covered with a pro- fusion of dark brownhairwhichfell gracefully upon his shoulders.* Ilis features were the index to his mind ; they commanded respect, and yet invited * Tt is well known that Hampden's grave was opened al)out twenty years since, when the body was found in a perfect state. The intelligent head gardener at Hampden, who was present, and from whose lips I had the story, was struck with the resemblance the countenance bore to an old neglected and unknown portrait in the mansion ; he represented this to the late earl of Buekiughamshire, the owner of HamiHlen house, and D CHAS. I. A.D. 1643 34 THE HISTORY OF ciiAi'TEu confidence; there was nothing in them cither to '■ — abash the timid or to encourage the familiar. An air of thoughtful dignity presided, as though he were occupied, hut not oppressed, with weighty cares. After the king's attempt to seize him, as one of the five proscribed members, in the house, his firmness in opposing the court began to assume a sternness to Avhich he had hitherto been a stranger ; yet during the first year of the parliament, he seemed rather to moderate and soften the violent tempers which lie observed in others than to in- flame them. His opponents thought his modera- tion a disguise, and that he was rather cautious than irresolute. He begot many opinions, they said, and suggested motions the education of which he committed to other men ; and he sometimes withdrew before the division when he himself had suggested the debate. Still they detected neither malice nor duplicity ; the impression he always left was that of an ingenuous and conscientious person : " he was indeed," says lord Clarendon, who wrote of him, not without a tinge of prejudice, " a very wise man and of great parts, and possessed with the representative of the Hampden family, who was then abroad. The picture was cleaned in consequence, and proved to be a portrait of John Hampden, having his initials, and the date 164 — upon it. The profusion of hair was such, that the labourers who assisted at the disinterment spread a report (which I have heard repeated in the neighboiu-hood) that the body was that of a female. An abundance of hair was then fashionable. Nothing can be further from the truth than the half-savage slouch and air with which modern sculptors and engravers choose to disguise the leaders of the puritans during the civil war. I ajjprehcnd it would be difficult to meet with two more refined gentlemen in any society in the present dav than Hampden and the earl of Essex, not to mention others. CIIAI'TF.R I. A.I). 1G4.3. THE LATER PUHITANS. 35 most absolute spirit of popularity and the most absolute faculties to govern the people, of any man I ever knew." When the question of resisting the ^'"'\1/„ king in arms was at length debated, he was resolute for war ; and when the war had once begun, he was the advocate of the most vigorous measures. lie raised and took the command of a regiment com- posed of the neighbouring yeomen, his tenants and constituents; and Hampden's "green coats " were famous for valour and good conduct. He fell wounded in a severe skirmish with prince Rupert within a few miles of his house at Hampden. He returned home in great pain, and lingered through a week of mortal agony. But he was tranquil, and his soul was not dismayed. His thoughts were divided between his unhappy country and his own eternal prospects. He dictated letters to the par- liament, urging the necessity of a more vigorous prosecution of the war ; and he again and again expressed his happiness in God, and the blessed hope he possessed, through the merits and passion of his Son, of soon exchanging his bed of anguish for a mansion in the world of peace.* The great minister of the last agef expired with a prayer for his country upon his lips. Hampden in his latest moments uttered the same petition nearly in the same words — " O Lord, save my bleeding country." Enlarging on the thought he had thus expressed, he added, " Have these realms in thy especial keeping. Confound and level in tlie dust those who would rob the people of their liberty and * Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, ii. p. 43.9. f William Pitt. D 2 36 THE IITSTOUY OF ciiAiTER lawful prerogative. Let the king sec his error, and - turn the hearts of his wicked counsellors from the ciiAs. I. j^r^ijge r^j-^(j wickedness of their desiorns." Here the patriot was for an instant lost in the humble be- liever. " Lord Jesus," he exclaimed, "receive my soul." The thought of his country returned, and again oppressed him. He mournfully uttered, " O Lord, save my country. O Lord, be merciful." Ilere his speech failed him, and in an instant his spirit fled. The tidings of his deatli were received with exultation in the royal army, and by the par- liament with a sorrow that bordered on dismay. The king shewed how well he understood his worth, in the generous offer of sending his own physician from Oxford to attend him. He was carried to the grave by his regiment, singing the 90th Psalm as they went, and the 42nd on their return. In the same vault his wife had recently been laid ; and the reader who would learn how tender and j^et liow wise John Hampden was — affectionate without weakness, and pious without affectation — may turn aside to the sequestered church of Great Hampden, and read the exquisite memorial wliich describes her virtues and his own bereavement. In private life he seems to have been revered : a man of ancient family, accomplished, eloquent, and brave. He was very temperate in his diet, and appeared to hold all his passions in supreme contmul. His industry was unwearied ; his vigilance never seemed to be tired out ; his penetration was such, that the most subtle failed to impose upon him ; and his personal courage was equal to his other gifts. But these were not his best endowments. CIIAS. I. A.D. 1643. THE LATER PURITANS. 37 As a christian he was exemplary ; and Baxter, in chaptek the greatest of his writings, anticipates, as one of the joys of heaven itself, that he shall again converse with lord Brooke, and Pym, and Hampden, amongst the spirits of just men made perfect.* Within a few weeks of Ilampden's death lord Palkland fell. It is one of the calamities of a civil war, that very slight differences compel men to fight on opposite sides. Opinions which would scarcely divide a cabinet or produce a hostile vote in parlia- ment in ordinary times, now arm those who sub- stantially think alike, against each other. If we calmly investigate lord Falkland's principles, and compare them with those of Ilampden, we shall find that they had the same end in view ; they differed only as to the means of bringing it about. Falkland was in heart a friend to liberty ; Ilampden in heart was loyal to the throne. They saw with equal dismay the frightful inroads of tyranny in church and state, and each to his last hour distrusted the intentions of the king. Had they sat in council to- gether, they would probably have agreed to lay the same restraints upon Charles, and would both have crushed the Laudian party. Falkland seems to have been more earnest or less scrupulous than Hampden in procuring Strafford's death ;t he spoke in favour of the bill of attainder, which Ilampden never did. His invectives against the insolence and oppression of the prelates had often rung through the house of * The i)assage occurs in " The Saint's Everlasting Rest," in the earher editions. It was struck out after the restoration, but, as Baxter assures us in his autobiography, not because his judgment was altered with respect to those great men. t Memorials of John Ilampden, by Lord Nugent, vol. i. p. 376- CIIA?. I. A.U. 1643. 3S THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTER commons. " It liath been more dangerous," he .said, "for some men to go to a neighbour's parish, when they had no sermon in their own, than to be obstinate and perpetual recusants. While masses liave been said in security, a conventicle hath been a crime ; and which is yet more, the conforming to ceremonies hath been more exacted than the con- forming to Christianity ; and while men for scruples have been undone, for unnatural offences they have only been admonished," His Avords had the greater weight, because he was not an enemy ; he respected the order while he denounced the men. " My opinion is, that we should not root up this ancient tree, dead as it appears, till we have tried whether by this or the like lopping of the branches " (referring to tlic expulsion of the bishops from the house of lords) " the sap which was unable to feed the whole, may not serve to make what is left both to grow and flourish." When the appeal to the sword was made at last, the one felt the dangers of tyranny and was insensible to other perils ; the other, perhaps more sagacious, while keenly alive to the dangers of arbitrary government, apprehended the remoter evils of a triumphant democracy. Falkland again, as brave as Ilampdcn, was of a gentler mould, and a more hesitating spirit, and perhaps regarded war witli more aversion. Two years before the war broke out, there appeared no reason why Falkland and Ilampdcn should not fight upon the same side, if indeed it were possible to conceive that they should fight at all. Lord Falkland's character is known to us, and will now be known to all ages, by Clarendon's imperishable tribute to the memory of TUE LATER PURITANS. 39 his friend. Meditating often upon this (one of the chapter most affecting passages in modern history), we have '- — arrived at two conclusions, neither of which was it A.D^^iei the purpose of the noble historian to reveal. Falk- land was dissatisfied with the cause for which he fought, and Falkland was in heart a puritan. He was Charles's secretary of state, but he had accepted the office with great reluctance. The king's service, he said, as then managed, required a compromise of principle which he was not disposed to make. The intrigues of diplomacy disgusted him. He was ashamed of the equivocations and subterfuges and mean evasions of which others made their boast. He was still urged to accept office, on the plea that the king's emergencies justified the proceedings he disliked. He replied, that if they were justifiable in others, they would be wrong in him while his con- science was dissatisfied. At length, overwhelmed by importunities, and by his personal afi'ection for the king, he accepted office, and of course espoused the royal cause. He embraced it with perfect integrity but without warmth and without enthusiasm. He dreaded the triumph of the parliament, but he dreaded scarcely less the triumph of the kingj for he saw Charles unchanged, and his ruling coun- sellors possessed with a spirit of the blindest in- fatuation. His spirits fell ; he mused in solitude and in society ; he was pale, and sad, and silent ; and as he muttered to himself, (unconscious of the presence of others,) "peace, peace !" were the words which fell for ever from his lips. On the morning of the battle of Newbury, he dressed himself with 40 TllK HISTORY OF CIIAPTl I. :r more than usual care, and his cheerfulness returned ; it was the hope of release that now gleamed upon *:"''f:.!: him. He was weary of the times, he said; he longed A.L>. 1(543. * for peace, and should have done with the Avorld before night ; and he wished his body to be found in decent plight. He soon met with the death he sought. We cannot believe that so much virtue existed apart from religion — the pure religion which in the royal camp branded its possessor with the title of a puritan. The Romish party had made strenuous efforts to win lord Falkland to popery, for his mother was a papist. lie was well versed in the questions at issue, and well grounded in a purer faith. lie left a treatise upon the errors of popery, now unfortunately lost, of which Clarendon, who had seen it, and who was himself no mean judge of the controversy, pronounces that it was worthy of a place amongst the works of our best divines. It was not the fasliion with the royalists to speak much of piety ; at the best, it was rather tolerated than approved. And had it been otherwise, none would seek in the pages of the cold and stately Clarendon for the intimations, however slight, which are meant to reveal to others the spiritual condition of those of whom he writes. Be this, however, as it may, with the death of lord Falkland wisdom and moderation forsook the counsels of the king, and faction selfishness and violence rushed in. And with the death of Hampden a spirit (perhaps the only one) had already been withdrawn that might have guided the house of commons, repressed its turbu- lence, and directed it in the pursuit of every safe THE LATER PURITANS. 41 and constitutional reform. Hampden and Falkland chapter I. might have saved the state. But the great arbiter of the destinies of men and nations had otherwise decreed. They fell in the prime of life. Ilampden was but forty-nine years of age, and Falkland only thirty-six. CUAS. I. A.D. 1643. 4-2 THE HISTORY OF A.D. 1643. CHAPTER II. A.D. 1G13— 1644. cuAPTEK The cares of the parliament and the liopes of the "• puritans were not confined to the management, nor cuAs.i. i3ounded hy the issues, of the war. Another ohject of vast importance divided their attention. They were intent upon a second reformation. By an act dated the lOtli of September, 1642, (which was to take effect from the 5th of November, 1643,) the hierarchy was dissolved, and the church of Elizabeth, of Parker and of Whit gift, was denuded of its splen- dours. Meanwhile the disposition grew every day more apparent to destroy it altogether, and to re- place it with another. Various motives concurred to produce this hostile feeling. The delinquencies of the high prelatic section of the church had been very great. The Laudian party, though crushed in London, was still powerful with the court ; it had undergone no change ; it still verged on popery. To subjugate the people to their priests, and to assimi- late the usages of the church of England to the pomp of the church of Home, was the whole of its ambition. Preformation it abhorred, in the sense in which reformation was understood by the parliament and people. Erom the Laudians, therefore, there II. CIIAS. 1. A.U. 1643. THE LATER PURITANS. 43 was nothing to liopc. Again, the indiscriminate chapteu severity with which all the dignitaries and bishops had been treated by the parliament (moderate as some of them were known to bo) had driven them for refu£:e to the kincj : some indeed had fled abroad and some were in prison. It was therefore impos- sible to assemble a legal convocation ; and even had it been assembled, the majority would not have undertaken the reformation of the church; the minority might reason and protest, but it was evident that a minority could accomplish nothing. A thorough reformation, such as the times required, must be effected, if at all, by rougher hands, and in a manner of which the forms of the constitution in church or state afforded no example. Besides, as the breach widened with the king, the parliament felt, no doubt, that it was politic to strengthen their cause with the aspect of a religious quarrel. This was necessary to their influence with the nation; for there was still a loyalty abroad which would have forbidden the people to fight against the king, had they not believed that the popular cause was that of the protestant faith and of pure religion. The difficulties of the parliament were great, and in part they were owing to themselves. The disorders of the church required a searching hand, and their own violence alienated those moderate churchmen who, perhaps, knew best the seat of the disease, and certainly were by no means indisposed to apply a pungent remedy. Deprived of their assistance, it seemed, upon the whole, more easy to the parliament to overthrow the national church than merely to amend it ; it was safer to rebuild than to repair the 4ii THE HISTORY OF cHArxER ancient edifice. In this embarrassment they devised !!l _ two measures : the one was meant to clear away the ciiAs.i. difjiculties which hindered the work of demolition ; A.U. low. J i 1 T 1 the other was designed to reconstruct the church upon more popular, and, as they believed, more scriptural foundations. Pirst, they instituted an inquiry into the morals and fitness of the clergy then beneficed in England ; this was to be managed by a committee of the house of commons. And, secondly, they convened a great assembly or confe- rence of puritan divines and laymen, to advise upon the constitution of the future church. This was the origin of the once famous Westminster Assembly. The machinery for cleansing the church of un- faithful ministers was already in existence. The parliament had not sat three days when, on the 6th of November, 1640, the house of commons resolved itself into a committee of religion.* The state of public feeling was evident from the labours which instantly devolved upon the new tribunal. Almost every parish had a grievance, and within a few days the table of the house was loaded with petitions. The complaints were various. Some ministers were "scandalous," some were "of mean parts," some were "ill affected," and parliament was earnestly implored, in every case, to afford redress. Since the house of commons, at this early period, was by no means hostile to the national church, we conclude at once that great abuses existed, and that there were real grievances to be redressed. Overwhelmed with business, the committee of religion, which * Walker's Sufifcruiys of the Clergy ; Lomlou, 1/14, part i. p. 62. THE LATER PURITANS. 45 consisted of the whole house, appointed several sub- chapter committees, to receive complaints against the clergy — — — and to assist in the work of reformation. There ^^\\^l'.l:l were at least four of these, known by their chairmen as White's, Corbett's, Harlowe's, and Deering's committees. White's was. the most famous, and it seems to have absorbed the rest. It was *' the com- mittee for scandalous ministers ;" and its duty, as indicated by its title, was to enquire into the morals of the clergy, and in general to investigate their fitness for the sacred office. It entered upon its task without reluctance, and within a few months had received above two thousand petitions against various ministers ; while, at the same time, Corbett is said to have boasted that his own committee had received nine hundred more.* A Scythian warfare followed against the hapless clergy ; and before the war had broken out a thousand had been deprived. At first the concurrence of the house of lords was necessary; but after the war began, the house of commons became every day less episcopalian and more democratic. It now dispossessed the scandalous clergy on its own authority, and appointed others in their place. During the whole of the war " the committee of religion" continued sitting, and the work went on. At length, few adherents of tbe royal cause, and perhaps not one of the Laudian party, remained. The benefices of England were now in the hands of the puritans. It is impossible to compute the amount of suf- fering inflicted by these measures. A proscribed * Walker, part i. p. 65. 11. CHAS. I. A.l). 1G13. 46 THE HISTORY OF ciiAiri.ii clergy in a civil war, with the popular and victorious party opposed to them, must have hcen in a pitiable state. AVhetlicr designedly or not, much injustice was done, and grievous were the hardships which some exemplary ministers endured. . Hammond, Sanderson, Pocock, and Bryan Walton, men whose renown as casuists, as divines, as oriental scholars, has not grown dim, were soon deprived. Arch- bishop Usshcr languished in poverty, and bishop Hall in absolute want. Prideaux, bishop of Wor- cester, was both deprived and plundered. He lived till 1650 in cheerful submission to his hard lot, and died in great want, leaving to his children, as he said in his last testament, no legacy but pious poverty, God's blessing, and a father's prayers.* Perhaps his determined support of tlie royal cause may in some measure excuse his opponents. He had pronounced a sentence of excommunication throughout his diocese upon all who took up arms against the king ; an offence which, in a civil war, was not likely to be forgiven. It would not be difficult to present the reader with a hundred names of clergymen expelled and beggared, equally virtuous, perhaps equally learned, and only less illustrious. A record of the sufferers was published after the restoration by Walker, a clergyman of Exeter. Some of his statements have been chal- lenged. He certainly displays a bitter spirit ; and when he speaks of the motives of the puritans, he, like most of their opponents, is to be heard, if heard at all, with hesitation. But in the mass of facts which he * Fuller, Church History, vol. ii. p. 2:32. THE LATER PURITANS. 47 has rudely thrown together, there are some of which chapter we must avail ourselves. A sincjle column of his f 'I I VS I folio furnishes the names of two ejected ministers a.d. im3. whose expulsion is a disgrace to the parliament : these are Euller and bishop Pearson. Puller, the author of the well-known *' Church History," himself a puritan — so stigmatised, at least, in the days of Laud ; and again at the restoration when Laudian principles revived — a man whose catholic principles breathe through every page of his his- torical writings, whose sagacity and gentle humour are apparent in his lives of the " Worthies of Eng- land," and of whose fervent piety some flashes appear in his " Holy State." Pearson was after- wards bishop of Chester. We can add nothing to the sentence in which the historian of the sufferings of the clergy records his name. " Instead of all eulogiums and characters, let it be said that he was the expositor of the Apostle's Creed."* The exact number of the expelled ministers it is not easy to determine. Walker gives a list of more than four thousand parishes, from which, he says, the incum- bents were sequestered or expelled ; and he com- putes the number of the suffering clergy at six thousand ; or, including their families and children, at no less than thirty thousand.! Calamy, an eminent leader of the presbyterians, who replied to Walker, and convicted him of some mistatements, computes that not more than two thousand suffered. But even accepting this, the lowest computation, two thousand ejectments present a melancholy * Walker, part ii. p. 68. t Ibid- i- p. 99. II. CIIAS. I. A.D. 1643. 1 48 THE HISTOllY OF ciiAPTEu array of sufTcring : and, in many instances, we know that it was undeserved ; in some few, it fell upon the brightest lights of cliristendom. The long parliament, however, expelled the episcopal clergy just as, a hundred years before, the reformation had expelled the E-omish priests. The expulsions, indeed, were far more unsparing. At the reforma- tion, it is certain that not three hundred of the old clergy were actually dispossessed ; now, at least two thousand were deprived. The reflection may per- haps occur, that more severity at first, and a more searching discipline in purging the reformed church from a superstitious clergy, might have prevented the sufferings which we now relate. To the Romish leaven which still pervaded it the puritans ascribed the necessity for their worst excesses. To vindicate these proceedings, and perhaps further to inflame the people against the old paro- chial clergy, White was instructed to publish what is now one of the most curious documents which the civil wars produced. lie was chairman of the committee of the whole house for religion, and of the sub-committee for scandalous ministers ; and in both he played his part with great alacrity. He had been amongst the first to assert, in a speech in parliament, that bishops were unscriptural;* and in his preface he now maintained that the prclatic church, as a part of antichrist, should be totally destroyed. Ilis treatise, a quarto pamphlet of fifty pages, published by authority of parliament in November 1643, is entitled. The First Century of * A speech of master John White, counsellor, concerning episcopacy, printed by William Cooke, \M\. CHAS. I. A.D. 1613. THE LATER PURITANS. 49 Scandalous and Malij^nant Ministers ; and it con- chapter . II tains a record of the crimes for which a hundred of '■ — the clergy had been sequestered or deprived. It seems to have been intended as the first of a series ; but whether the public taste revolted, or the work were sufficiently well done to need no repetition of the blow, a second century was not published.* It is well for the character of the clergy of that age that a few copies of this rare work exist. For no honest mind can rise from its perusal without feeling that if their morals were impeached, their loyalty was often most in fault. The gravamen of the charge is their hatred of the parliament and its proceedings ; the pretext for depriving them is the immorality of their lives ; and the two charges are so oddly blended, that, painful as the subject is, we are diverted and amused. The accusations are such as these : — The vicar of MuchhoUand in Essex boweth twelve times to the east when he goeth into the church, and preacheth that baptism doth wash away sin ; and hath affirmed that he never knew any good that the parliament did, unless it was to rob the country. — The vicar of Hedburn in Hertford- shire is a drunkard, and hath expressed much malignity against the parliament. — The vicar of Parnham lived in adultery, and hath betaken him- self to the army of cavaliers. — Hep worth frequents * Baxter mentions a second century, but he does not appear to have seen it. Walker (Suff. Clergy) had heard that a second century was published, but he had never been able to obtain it. Probably they referred by mistake to some other work bearing a similar title. Walker in his Hist. Independency gives " a first century" of republican plunderers who were enriched with the sequestered estates of the royalists. For party purposes the same title would suit on either side. E 50 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER ale-houses, and is incontinent, and also he affirmed '■ — that the parliament were a company of factious A D^ici spirits. — Thomas Heard, vicar of West Tukely, is a drunkard ; he refused to administer the sacrament except to those who receive it kneeling, and he hoped to live to see all the puritans hanged. — Southern, vicar of Malcndino in Essex, frequented the ale-house, was a swearer, refused to administer the sacrament except to those who knelt, and then in one kind only.* But these charges were not sufficient ; and the eager centurist proceeds to relate more flagrant crimes. Southern had compared painful preachers to ballad singers ; he had perse- cuted his hearers for going to other churches when there was no sermon at home ; above all, " he had expressed malignity against the parliament ; and is vehemently suspected of living incontinently, and hath been several times presented by the church- wardens." f Such were the promiscuous charges against the English clergy as hurled by their most formidable foe. With some show of justice there is enough of malice to excite indignation and yet of folly to provoke a smile. Still the question upon which issues of great moment hang is not determined by these consi- derations. Not only the character of the clergy of those days, but that of the puritans themselves (whom we identify through this discussion with the parliament) is at stake. Were the great body of the clergy scandalous and profane, or was the parliament tyrannical ? The truth of an accusation * First Century, &c., arts. -1, 47, IV ; from a cojiy in the British Museum. ^ First Century, &c , art. !)7. THE LATER PURITANS. 51 is one thing ; the wisdom, tlie temper, with which chaptkk the charge is insisted on is another. ^i It is not pretended that the episcopal clergy were ^has. r. altosfether blameless. Their warmest advocates allow that it would be false and even ridiculous to affirm that there were not amongst them some men of wicked lives, a reproach and scandal to their office.* The disordered state of public affairs for several years, and the want of all other discipline than that which was enforced against puritanism, had pro- duced its natural effects. Baxter declares that in the counties with which he was acquainted, Wor- cester and Shropshire, six to one at least of the sequestered clergy were, by the oaths of witnesses, proved insufficient or scandalous, or both, and especially guilty of drunkenness or swearing, f Earnestness in religion was suspected and decried : it was natural that sloth should luxuriate. When the hand of vengeance fell heavily upon the most laborious of the clergy, it is probable that those who wished to commend themselves to the ruling powers would prove their zeal by scoffing at the piety as well as the scruples of the puritans. Por many years complaints against the clergy had now been loud. The vacant livings had been filled with a much more keen regard to the political opinions of the clergy, and their abhorrence of puritanism in every form, than to the more important considera- tions of learning, zeal, or piety. When a living fell vacant in the gift of the crown, a list of names was laid before the council on which every puritan * Walker, Sutf. part i. p. 7^. t Baxter's Own Life and Times, book i. p. 7-l« E 2 52 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER was marked, and, Avlmtovcr Lis merits or his claims — might be, he was of course rejected. Laudians only <^ "AS. I. ^QYQ advanced. Had the inquisition been fairly con- ducted by tlie parliament, the results might have been very painfid, but churchmen would have had no reason to complain. As spiritual guides, a vast number of the clergy were utterly incompetent ; an^d the mischiefs of utter incompetence, not to speak of open vice, in a christian minister, are of such dreadful consequence, that we are disposed to regard severity in such a case with no disapproba- tion. A minister who is not apt to teach is not fit for his office. His parishioners have a right to christian instruction. To affirm that mere incom- petence does not justify the removal of a minister, or at least the compulsory introduction of an efficient assistant, is simply to sacrifice the flock ; to main- tain, in fact, that whatever redress the clergy may have in the recovery of their rights, the people shall have none. Upon these grounds a searching inquisition was necessary ; and the parliament would have entitled themselves to the gratitude of future times, had they conducted it fairly and with temper. But the clergy as a body were maligned as profligates, in order that as royalists they might be ejected from their livings. Baxter himself allows that " some able godly preachers were cast out for the war alone," simply because they were royalists ; but he adds, " comparatively they were very few."* Pew or many, they were all that could be found. Public opinion soon revolted and prepared the way for the * i. 74. CHAS. I. A.U. 1643. THE LATER PURITANS. 53 reaction wliicli took place at the restoration. They < hai-ter who really believe that the clergy of those times "' were such men as White describes must be prepared with reasons for so harsh a decision. That the hatred of puritanism led to a contempt of real piety in some, and to what was more disgraceful, an affectation of contempt in others, is not unlikely. But between the absence of religion and the sensual vices of Tiberius at Caprese there is still a chasm. Tlie clergy did not live in convents, where crime was unobserved ; nor in a state of celibacy, at once an excuse for lust and its temptation. They mingled with their parishioners in daily life ; they were sur- rounded by their own families. It was an age of great religious knowledge, and now for thirty years of free and violent discussion. And the moral character of English society was, at least, as high as at any previous period of our history. It is very improbable that any considerable number of the parochial clergy, then, were men of abandoned lives : though it is, we fear, too true that few of them were able teachers of the new testament. Under the plea of fencing the church against schismatics, Laud and his party had succeeded in keeping out of its benefices almost every man of evangelical piety. But whatever they may have been, the real cause of their ejectment was in many cases, perhaps in most, their attachment to the king. It was the unhappi- ness of Charles that he had made the pious clergy his opponents. It was the calamity of the loyal clergy to suffer for the king's misconduct rather than their own. Yet the position of the puritans was here again one of extreme difficulty ; and upon 54 THE HISTORY OF tiiAi'TKu the decision of the question as to the necessity of -^ — '. — the war, tlicir justilication after all depends. If tiiAs. I ^Yic war were ri2,-ht, the exclusion of the loyal clerGrv A.D. 1643. o •> t/ 0.7 may have been one of the direful yet just necessities the war involved. It was impossible to contend against the local influence often thousand clergymen residing in their own parishes, with access to every liouse, and a confidential intercourse with every parishioner, and all of them secretly or openly banded against the parliament ; and it would have been well for the reputation of the parliament if they had honestly announced their measure, and boldly defended it, on these grounds alone, as a measure of precaution forced upon them by the necessities of a civil war. Of the revenues of the sequestered livings, one-fifth was reserved for the ejected ministers ; an act of justice, stinted as it was, which ought to be recorded to the honour of the parliament ; and one that was not copied by the royalists when the days of retribution came and the puritans were in their turn expelled in 1662. It is said indeed that, in the convulsions that followed, the scanty pittance was seldom paid ; but in a civil war this may have been a wrong which it was im- possible to prevent. The rest of the tithe was given to the new incumbent if the income were small ; in richer livings the parliament seized the lion's share to carry on the war. It was one of the fatal errors of the long parlia- ment to destroy existing institutions without having considered how to supply their place. This indeed Avas their singular defect. Sincere reformers, they were not so great as statesmen ; courageous in re- THE LATER PURITANS. 55 moving abuses, they were weak in foretliouglit, and chapter weaker still in the power that gives to forethought "• expression and stability. The gratitude they really ^"'^^ '■ deserve is that which belongs to those who devote their lives to a contest with oppression. They gained many a victory both in arms and politics, but they threw away most of their advantages, and left the battle to be fought again. They had destroyed the high prelatic party. They had abolished episcopacy. They were pruning the church with no unsparing hand. Its revenues were within their power. So were its venerated shrines. They had begun to despoil its churches and cathe- drals of their decorations with a ruthless barbarism. Several orders had been made in 1641 for the re- moval of superstitious ornaments and relics of idolatry. The cross in Cheapside was attacked first ; Harlowe himself assisting a noisy crowd, who pro- bably thought, as the cross fell, that Laud and popery were laid prostrate. St. Paul's cross fol- lowed ; it was merely a pulpit of wood, with a leaden roof surmounted with a cross, standing in the church- yard. Every man of taste will deplore the destruction of the market cross ; and the most zealous protcstant may be allowed to regret the crusade against the venerable pulpit, in which, says an old writer, more learned men had appeared, and out of which more good and sound divinity had been delivered, than perhaps any one pulpit since the first preaching of the gospel could ever glory in.* But the 24th of August, 1643, rang the knell of the fine arts in connection with our churches and cathedrals ; the * Walker's Suflferings, jmrt i. p. 24. CHAS. I. A.D. 1643. 56 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER lords and commons in parliament ordaining " the — — — removal of all ornaments of superstitious idolatry ;" ■which was afterwards explained to mean, the de- struction of all images, pictures, or painted glass, in which the trinity or any reputed saints were figured, as well as the destruction of organs, copes, surplices, superstitious vestments, roods and fonts.* But except in the matter of fonts, organs, and copes, this ordinance contained nothing new. These were the old " injunctions" of queen Elizaheth, of the re- formers, and of the canons of the church of England. The removal of superstitious ornaments was then, as it is at this day, one of the duties of churchwar- dens ; and the ordinance imposed no new commands though it reminded them of past neglects. At the same time, however, it expressly cautioned them against the destruction of works of art with which no superstition was connected. A clause was intro- duced commanding the officers to whom this work of reformation was committed to preserve the arms, statues, and monuments of the ancient nohility and gentry ; and it declared that nothing contained in these ordinances should extend to the effigy of any king or other dead person who had not been com- monly reputed or taken for a saint. Thus in fact the puritans shewed more caution than the reformers; and if their ordinance had been obeyed we should have had little, perhaps nothing, to regret. But in a time of civil war faction and malice will avenge their wrongs. If the lord of the soil took arms against his neighbours, they in return mutilated the recumbent figure in which he proudly recognized * Scobell's collections, part I. pp. 53 and GO. THE LATER PURITANS. 57 some ancestral hero who had fought at Agincourt chapter or Cressy. If the rector was unpopular, the chancel "' which the law ohlWed him to repair, was battered '^'"^^- ^■ =• . '- A.D. 1643. or half burnt. And this led, of course, to retalia- tions from the other side. Thus the churches suf- fered most where the two parties were most inflamed against each other. At Lichfield the death of Lord Brooke was avenged upon the cathedral. The soldiers of the parliament demolished the monu- ments, pulled down the curious carved work, battered in pieces the costly windows, and then destroyed the records in the chapter house. Having accomplished this feat of arms, they stabled their horses in the nave, held their courts of guard in the transepts, broke up the pavement, polluted the choir with filth, and hunted a cat every day with hounds throughout the church, delighting themselves with the echo through the vaulted roof. And, if so vile a story (which we repeat on the authority of writers of that age whose abhorrence of the puritans is their constant boast) should not seem incredible, they brought a calf into the church, wrapped in linen, carried it to the font, sprinkled it with water, and gave it a name in derision of the sacrament. A horse is said to have been baptized in a similar manner and signed with the cross (the great ofi'ence in baptism) by the soldiers of captain Beaumont's regiment at Yaxley in the diocese of Peterborough.* When we reckon * Walker's Sufferings, part i. p. 26, I shall be censured by some of my readers for repeating these charges on no better authority ; but it should be considered that, as no writers on the other side could have desired to expose their party by a recital of these disgusting actions, their silence goes for nothing. And there was no third party, there were no calm, indifferent spectators, of this great conflict. It absorbed all men. CllAS. I. A.V. ltU3. 58 THE HISTORY OF cii.vpTEK up the weight and character of the two parties in "• the war, the vile debaucheries and the drunken frolics of a few common soldiers, on either side, are too contemptil)le for notice. Not so when we desire to gain a fair estimate of the state of feeling which prevailed in common life. The citizens of Lichfield must have been forgiving beyond the usual limits of forbearance if these outrages were forgotten in half a century ! Thus in every parish there was some note of change, and the hope or dread of a revolution in the church. The future was all uncertain. A national church was to be retained ; upon this point there was no difference ; but its character, its forms and usages, were still to be considered. These had sud- denly become perplexing questions to the parliament, and they called to their assistance a council of lawyers and divines. The Westminster assembly arose out of the emergency of what we may properly term the puritan crisis. The parliament had for some time contemplated an assembly of this description, and had more than once requested the king to sanction it. But there were some points upon which the king and his ad- visers were more sagacious than the parliament, and Charles withheld his consent. An assembly of divines of differing parties might give excellent advice upon some specific measure ; but they could do nothing when the broad question lay before and we may add, all passions, into the cause on one part or the other. At the restoration bishop Hackett spent nineteen thousand pounds of his own money in rejiairing the cathedral ; and many hundred cartloads of rubbisli ncre carried from its interior. These fiiets carry their own comment with them ; and shew the extent of barbarous and wanton mischief. CHAS. I. V.IJ. 1(A3. THE LATER PURITANS. 59 them, how to fabricate a national church : for no- cii.vrTER thing could be clone without a compromise, and the "• compromise involved the abandonment of principles which the divines on both sides thought it would be sin to part with. Here concession was not disgrace but apostasy : episcopalians must argue for one form of government, and presbyterians for another. The former, in general, denied that a church could possibly exist without episcopacy ; the latter set out with the assumption that bishops were nothing more than presbyters ; to erect them into a separate order was to corrupt the institutions of Christ. The stone of stumbling lay at the threshold, and honest men of each party, with the rigid views each enter- tained, felt that there was no rolling it aside. And there was a third party now coming into sight, the independents or congregationists, less at present in numbers than either of the other two, but quite equal to them in zeal and determination, and destined at no distant day to triumph over both. Erom elements thus compounded it was in vain to seek for unanimity ; from the deliberations of such a body no practical measure of sufficient width to em- brace the spiritual wants of a nation could be sup- plied. Much was expected from the Westminster assembly : it was ushered in with the solemnity, and something of the pomp, of a general council ; but its work has failed, and its fame has perished ; and its failure might have been foreseen. Political considerations were not wanting to ren- der the aff'air still more embarrassing. The parlia- ment wanted the assistance of the Scotch against the king, and all Scotland was devoted to the pres- A.D. 1643. 60 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTEK byterian cause. The general assembly who control : — the kirk of Scotland, (and who at this juncture con- cHAs. I. trolled both the church and nation,) assembled in Edinburgh in July, lGi2 ; and the English parlia- ment addressed to them a letter, descriljing the perilous state of their affairs and their desire to obtain help from Scotland. They added an expres- sion of their deep anxiety to promote a godly refor- mation both in church and state. The assembly ans\ycrcd on the 3rd of August, expressing their sympathy, and recommending a closer union in religion. They desired " that in all his majesty's dominions there might be one confession of faith, one directory of worship, one public catechism, and one form of church government." In a word, they recommended the subversion of episcopacy, and the establishment of a presbyterian church, similar to their own, in England. Upon this correspondence the ungenerous assertion has been founded that the Scotch imposed presbyterianism upon England as the condition of taking arms against the king. This is scarcely true j but at the same time we may admit that the wishes of a neighbouring state, which had an army of twenty thousand men to lend, were likely to have more than their just weight with the leaders in the war. The transaction was not dishonourable to the Scotch ; in their circum- stances the wish was natural ; at the same time it embarrassed the parliament, and gave the presby- terians in London a commanding influence, which their position would not otherwise have secured. The assembly was at length convened* by the sole * For the history of the Wcstmiustcr assembly, sec Neal's Ilist. of the II. CIIAS. I. A.U. 1643. THE LATER PURITANS. 01 authority of the two houses of parliament. The chapter ordinance (for so their acts were styled, now that _ the concurrence of the crown was withheld,) hears date June the 12th, 16i3, and the title runs thus : " An ordinance of the lords and commons in par- liament, for the calling of an assembly of learned and godly divines and others, to be consulted with by the parliament, for the settling of the government and liturgy of the church of England, and for vin- dicating and clearing of the doctrine of the said church from false aspersions and interpretations." It sets forth that the present (it w^ould have been more correct to say the recent) church government, " by bishops, archbishops, deans, chapters, arch- deacons, and so forth, is evil, offensive, and burden- some, an impediment to reformation and religion, and very prejudicial to the state." It had been resolved, therefore, that the hierarchy should be removed, " and that such a government should be settled in the church as might be most agreeable to God's holy word." An intimation followed, " that it should be brought into a nearer agreement with the church of Scotland and other reformed churches abroad." To accomplish this, and "for the better clearing of the doctrine of the church of England fromall false calumnies and aspersions," the assembly was convened. They were to consult and advise of such matters and things, touching the premises, as Puritans, iii. chap. 4 — 6 ; Clarendon's Hist. ; Fuller's Church Hist. ; Baxter's Life (by himself) ; Milton, in his Hist, of England, and the Assembly Man (both in Harleian Miscell. v.) ; and of modern writers, Hetherington's Hist, of the Westminster Assembly ; Chambers' Life of Bishop Reynolds ; Price's Hist, of Nonconformists ; Palmer's Preface to Calamy's Ejected Ministers. These I have consulted, and several others. II. CIIAS. I. A.D. 1{M3. 62 THE UISTORY OF II AFTER should be proposed to tlicm hy either house of par- liament. And they were commanded to meet in Henry the Seventh's chapel on the first day of July. The ordinance appoints and enumerates the members of the assembly, and enjoins their attendance, and it declares that their sittings shall be removed from place to place, or be finally dissolved, as parliament shall direct. And they are strictly charged in their discussions to confer and treat among themselves of such matters as should be proposed by both or either of the said houses of parliament, and no other ; to deliver their opinions from time to time as both or either house required ; but not to divulge anything, by printing, writing, or otherwise, without the con- sent of parliament. The parliament even appointed the chairman or prolocutor. It provided that in case any difference of opinion should arise, the dis- agreement, together with the reasons for it, should be referred back to the two houses. It undertook to pay each member of the assembly during his at- tendance the moderate, and yet perhaps sufficient, sum of four shillings a day, at the charges of the commonwealth. It discharged the members from the penalty of non-residence, and provided for the filling up of any vacancies in the assembly which death might occasion, by the two houses themselves. And, lastly, it forbad the asseml)ly or any of its members "to assume any jurisdiction, power, or authority, ecclesiastical or otherwise, except what was herein expressed." To the assembly were summoned a hundred and twenty-one divines, to whom one-and-twcnty more were shortly added. Eour Scotch ministers were THE LATER PURITANS. G3 invited, and two lay assessors. To these we must ciiapter add ten English peers and twenty members of the "• house of commons, makinq; an apparent total of <^"'^s-^- ^ '■ A.D. 1643. upwards of one hundred and seventy. But these numbers existed only on the parchments upon which they were inscribed. On the first day sixty-nine were present ; the attendance afterwards varied from sixty to eighty, and this only during the earlier sittings. The composition of this body deserves at- tention. The thirty laymen, members of the two houses of parliament, were introduced more, we suspect, to watch the proceedings and curb the excesses of the clergy, than to give dignity to the assembly by their presence. Of the divines there were three parties, or, including the episcopalian clergy, four; but the latter were few, and their canonical habits amidst the Genevan cloaks of the majority, led a spectator to the shrewd conclusion that times were changed indeed and they themselves the nonconformists.* Archbishop Ussher, Westfield bishop of Bristol, Brownrigg bishop of Exeter, Nicholson afterwards bishop of Gloucester, with Sanderson and Hammond and Dr. Eeatley, were the chief of this small body, which did not exceed twenty.! The bishop of Bristol was present at the solemn opening ; but the king had by proclamation a few days before forbidden the assembly, declaring its acts illegal, and threatening those who should take part in it with his severe displeasure ; and when this was known in London the episcopal clergy re- tired. Walker asserts that the primate of Ireland sat for a while, but afterwards attending the king * Fuller, Church Hist. iii. p. 448. t Clarendou, b. i. p. 530. Q4i THE niSTORY OF ciiAPTEK at Oxford, and refusing to return, was formally ex- "' pelled. It must be admitted that, except as to the ciiAs.i. disparity of numbers, the episcopalian party could not have been more ably represented. And they were probably summoned with a sincere desire on the part of the parliament to benefit by their advice. The king's proclamation forbidding the assembly, compelled them to retire. But another event took place within a few weeks which would have had of necessity the same effect ; this was the imposition of the solemn league and covenant. But in revolu- , lions events succeed with the speed of lightning, and to the actors themselves they come as unexpectedly. When the assembly was convened the covenant had not been thought of; and when it was imposed the bishops had previously withdrawn. The majority of the divines represented the opinions which Cartwright had formerly espoused. They were prcsbyterians, or, as it has been more correctly expressed by one who knew them well, they either favoured the presbyterian discipline, or in process of time were brought over to embrace it.* Yet they had received episcopalian ordination and had lived hitherto in communion with the church of England. So rapidly did men change their opinions, or so un- settled had their principles become. Yet the pres- byterian party were not ordinary men, nor men of fickle minds. Amongst their leaders were Calamy, Corbet, Gataker, Hildersham, Sperstowe, Vines, and others whose names are still dear to nonconformists ; most of whom left to the world some record of mi- FuUer. THE LATER PURITANS. 65 nisterial ability, of solid learning, or of zeal and piety, cnAPTrR which time has not destroyed. "" The system of church government which the ^"^^•^• presbyter ians were anxious to introduce was in a great measure that which now prevails in the kirk, or national church, of Scotland. It admits of no superiority of one minister above another. Every presbyter regards himself as a bishop of the new testament. Still each parish is not a republic inde- pendent of the rest ; for in this point, and in this alone, lies the essential difference between the pres- byterian and the independent or congregational system. Strict obedience is enforced on the part of every congregation and its minister to superior judi- catories, of which there are several, rising one above another in authority. The lowest of these is com- posed of the ministers and lay elders of the parish, and is termed in Scotland the kirk session or paro- chial consistory. It possesses considerable power, and is in fact a body politic for its own domestic government. Then the ministers of a number of contiguous parishes, together with certain represen- tatives from the parochial consistories, form a pres- bytery ; a higher court, having power to revise the decisions of the lower. A plurality of presbyteries, differing according to circumstances, form a provin- cial synod ; and the general assembly of the church, composed of representatives from the presbyteries (and in Scotland from the universities and some other public bodies,) forms the last supreme tribu- nal. The whole number of the general assembly in Scotland is three hundred and sixty- four ; of whom, it is to be observed, one hundred and sixty- two are F 66 TOE HISTORY OF CHAPTER laymen. Every court is bound to lay the record of '■ — all its proceedings from time to time before the A.u. 1643. tribunal which is its immediate superior ; any part of its proceedings may be brought by appeal or complaint under the review of a higher jurisdiction; and every minister, when he receives orders, comes under a solemn engagement to maintain and defend the doctrine, discipline, and government of the church ; and never to attempt anything, directly or indirectly, which may tend to its subversion or prejudice. Thus the general assembly, as the court of last resort, revises every litigated decision ; and has the power of enforcing, without control, obe- dience to its decrees : it is a supreme tribunal ; and, with the concurrence of a majority of the presby- teries, it may enact laws for the government of the whole church.* In England it was designed to establish a similar church government. There were to be four courts, the parochial, classical, provincial, and national, corresponding to those in Scotland. But there was one point on which the house of commons was inexorable, and its firmness was fatal to the rigid presbytcrian party. Erom the inferior courts there must be a last appeal, and the question was whether it should lie to a secular or a purely spiritual court. The presbyterians maintained that in spiritual things it was a dishonour to Christ him- self, the churches' sole head and king, to permit a secular body to sit in final judgment on its own previous decisions. The parliament was of another * From a paper drawn up by tlic rev. George Hill, principal of St. Mary's college in the university of St. Andrews, inserted in Dugald Stewart's life of Robertson the historian. THE LATER PURITANS. 67 mind: it contemplated with little satisfaction the setting up of a spiritual tribunal independent of itself. No arguments could move it here. If pres- byterianism meant a supreme spiritual court, over which it could exercise no control, a pure presby- terian church in England it would tolerate no more than prelacy itself. An accommodation, a modified presbyterianism, was the consequence ; and the mortification of the extreme presbyterians was un- disguised. Waving the question of the divine authority of particular forms of government, presbyterianism is not without its advantages. The regular gradation of its course produces order ; the equality of its ministers, a general contentment ; and the admission of the laity is at once a check upon ecclesiastical intolerance and on that professional bias to which even the strongest minds are subject ; and at the same time it affords to laymen a field Avithin which, without irregularity, the high ambition of being useful to the great cause of rcKgion may be fairly exercised ; the tyranny of ecclesiastics seems to be prevented ; and the aftairs of the church cannot, in the most drowsy periods, devolve exclusively upon the clergy, as in England during the last century. Thus two prolific sources of mischief are cut off. The system is well framed for giving considerable energy to its own decisions, and for maintaining a due subordination amongst its component parts. Its principal defects are its somewhat democratic character and its power of crushing individuals. It has been said, that had it been introduced without restraint in England, the people would soon have F 2 CllArXER II. CIIAS. I. A.I>. 1&13. (HAS. I. A.L). 1G43. 68 THE UISTORY OF CHAPTER learnt that tlie episcopal jurisdiction tliey had cast — off was nothing in comparison "with the tyranny they had estahlished. And this is supported by the argument, tliat while under an episcopal government the bishop is the judge, in presbyterian churches it is the minister and elders who decide. The parish consistory has the power of excommunication. If the delinquent appeals to a higher court, to the presbytery, or higher still, to the provincial synod, in each case it may so happen that his own minister who inflicted the censure, and the elders who con- curred in it, are members, influential members, of the higher court ; and at all events the appellant who feels himself wronged suffers, for the present, beneath the odium of disgrace ; and yet upon him it lies to prove himself aggrieved.* But a presbyterian would probably reply, that our objections are rather fanciful than real. The Scotch, thoughpresbyterian, are not republican. King James's oracular aphorism, "nobishop no king," still waits for its accomplishment. A presbyterian nation is found, after centuries of trial, to retain its love of regal and its dislike of episcopal government with the same tenacity ; and with regard to church censures, it must in justice be allowed that in Scotland cases of oppression do not frequently occur. Church censures are not uncommon : with us they are scarcely known; for our preposterous affection for the antient canon law makes excommunication a civil sentence ; that is, it makes it in most cases impossible, in others, contemptible or worse. And as to milder censures, the penance of standing in a winding-sheet at the * Sliort Hist, of the Cliiircli of England, sect. 591. u. (•HAS. r. A.U 1643. TEE LATER PURITANS. 69 church door is at variance with the hahits, and the chapter common sense, of modern times ; and therefore equally useless as an example or a punishment. It only serves to give fools an occasion to make a mock of sin. On the question of discipline, it would scarcely be wise to challenge a comparison with some preshyterian churches. Between prelacy and presbytcrianism there was a middle path. And if the fact, that it was advocated by one of the wisest, of the meekest, and of the best men that any church possessed, could in these frenzied times have had weight, it would certainly have received attention. Archbishop Ussher pro- posed a system which he termed reduced episcopacy. He would have retained the episcopal office, he would have abandoned its superfluous splendours. In each rural deanery (generally including twenty or thirty parishes) he would have placed a suffragan bishop. Once a month the bishop was to assemble a synod of the incumbent pastors within his jurisdic- tion, and by their votes decide the questions that might come before him. Once or twice a year there w^as to be a diocesan synod, in which the suffragans and their clergy, or a certain number of them, should meet in the presence of a superintendent or archbishop of the diocese ; and here the transactions of the monthly synods were to be revised. And, lastly, he proposed a provincial synod, consisting of all the bishops, diocesan and suffragan, and such of the clergy as should be elected out of every diocese. The primate of either province might be the mode- rator, or, in his room, one of the bishops appointed by him. This synod might be held every third GHAS. 1. A.D. 1G13 70 THE HISTORY OF HAi'TEH year, in each of the two ecclesiastical provinces into which England is divided ; or, if the parliament were sitting, one national synod might be formed, in which all appeals from inferior courts should bo received, and all ecclesiastical affairs determined.* The fate of this intermediate scheme was singular. Perhaps it was not without force that moderate men remarked that its rejection seemed a token of the divine displeasure against the spirit of these un- happy times. When it was first presented, it satisfied the puritans, but neither the bishops nor the king. Afterwards, the king ofi'ered this very scheme at the treaty of the Isle of "Wight ; but now neither the parliament nor the puritans would listen to it. At the restoration of Charles II., the presbyterian clergy once more presented it as a scheme with which they were at last contented ; but now both the king and the bishops again rejected it with scorn, t But in revolutions compromise is treason, and he who urges, with whatever wisdom, the counsels of moderation, sits with Canute on the sounding beach and rebukes the lashing tide. The independents formed another party, small indeed at present, says a quaint writer, but like the cloud seen by the prophet's servant already portend- ing danger and destined ere long to overspread the whole hemisphere of presbytery. They had five leaders, whom the majority styled the dissenting brethren. These were Nye, Simpson, Bridge, Bur- roughs, and Thomas Goodwin. Laud's severities had once driven them to Holland ; and here, at * Ncal ii. p. ;<7-J. t Ncal, ii. J), HJli, aiul Buxto', Lilc, i. p. G2, aud li. p. 23S. CHAP. I. A.D. 1643. THE LATER PURITANS. 7l E/otterdam and Arnheim, they had erected congre- .chapter gational or independent churches. Ilolland had long heen the refuge of the hrownists, and they now returned eager to destroy the church which to them at least had heen no tender parent. The difference between the independents and presbyterians on church government is by no means great. This was admitted at the time by the best of the presbyterians.* They held that every par- ticular congregation of christians has entire and perfect jurisdiction over its own members. But they allowed that each congregation was to a certain extent bound to submit to the decision of neigh- bouring churches. If, for example, any one church or congregation gave offence, it must submit to an open examination conducted by the other churches, who mis^ht exclude it from christian communion and leave it isolated. This, they say, is all the authority of ecclesiastical power that one church may exercise over another, " unless we call in the civil magistrate, for which we find no authority in scrip- ture." They rejected episcopacy, but professed agreement in doctrine with the articles of the church of England. Their spirit was more generous and catholic than that of most of their antagonists. They found, they said, much to blame in the church of England ; yet they allowed " multitudes of its parochial churches to be true churches and its ministers true ministers of Christ." "While abroad, they had gladly held occasional communion with it, and had themselves received to the Lord's supper those English churchmen whom they knew to be devout. They had also lived on terms of christian * Neal, iii. p. 114. 72 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEK cliarity with tlic Dutch churches, holding a brotherly "• correspondence with their divines, and admitting cHAs.i. some of the members of their churches to com- munion with themselves in the sacrament and other ordinances.* Thus the extreme sections of the elder puritan body as it existed in the reign of Elizabeth, and they only, were represented in the assembly. There were the successors of Cartwright and the disciples of Brown ; but the church puritans, the successors of the men of tlie reformation, were in effect shut out ; and the few \vho sincerely desired to render the church efficient but not to overthroAV it, de- prived of their countenance, were outvoted and put down. The event shewed that in forbidding the assembly the king had not been well advised. His conscience, however scrupulous, was not responsible for its proceedings. He had not summoned it, nor could he prevent it. Had he waited patiently, he might still, if he possessed the power, have annulled its proceedings when conciliation and arguments had failed. His precipitation compelled the church- men to withdraw, and left their opponents a victory without a contest. Within a few weeks the greater rashness of the parliament would have transferred the odium of expelling the episcopalians to them- selves. By adopting the covenant and imposing it on the assembly, the old churcli party would have been driven out. Had they not retired already, then at least they must have been expelled. Their presence in such scanty numbers did not indeed * Apological Narration of tlic Independents, presented to the house of commons, 1()44, by Goodwin, Simpson, Nye, Burroughs, and Bridge, the Independent leaders. THE LATER PURITANS. 73 promise much for the interests of episcopacy ; still chapter Usslicr and Sanderson and a few such men must '. — have made their presence felt. When they withdrew ^"^fjg episcopacy was lost. The erastians formed a third party : they were so called from Erastus, a physician of Heidelberg, who had written a treatise on church government in the year 1568. His theory seems to have been, that the minister of Christ is a mere lecturer upon divinity, without power of any kind, except the power of persuasion and of argument. The punish- ment of all offences, whether civil or religious, belongs to the magistrate. Baptism, the Lord's supper, and all the institutions of Christ, are free to every man. The minister may explain the ne- cessary qualifications, and dissuade the bad from communion, but he may not refuse the rights of fellowship with the church, nor inflict any kind of censure. The tendency of this theory is evi- dently to make the church completely dependent upon the civil power. We learn therefore, without surprise, that erastianism was equally cherished by the parliament and abhorred by the assembly. It is said that only one of the divines, Thomas Coleman of Lincolnshire, was thoroughly erastian. Sometimes Lightfoot came to his assistance. They were two men of great oriental learning, and their attachment to the study of Hebrew literature and customs led them to the conclusion that the chris- tian church ought to be constituted after the Jewish model;* that as in Israel the jurisdiction, both civil and ecclesiastical, was vested in the Hebrew * Iletherington, Hist. West. Assem. p. 142. 74 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER monarch, there ought to be the same kind of blended '■ — government under the christian dispensation. The A.D. 1643. chief strength of the party within the assembly was in the lay assessors, the representatives of the par- liament. Selden, Whitelocke, and St. John, backed by the house of commons, and in a short time by the whole civil authority then existing in the nation, were no unequal match for the rest of the assembly. What they wanted in force of argument they made up in wit and sarcasm; weapons scarcely suited for grave divines, nor very safe for theologians to employ against a house of commons. Selden, " the learned Selden," seems to have treated the whole of their proceedings with an easy ridicule; such at least was the opinion of his contemporaries. " Selden visits them," says the caustic author of the Assembly Man, " as the Persians used to see wild asses fight. When the commons have tired him with their new law these brethren refresh him with their mad gospel. To speak truth, this as- sembly is the two houses' attiring-room, where the lords and commons put on their vizards and masks of religion."* The legal attainments of St. John, the solicitor general, were scarcely less formidable than Selden's wit ; and the calm determination and thoughtful reasoning of Bulstrode Whitelocke silenc- ed many whom perhaps it did not convince. Scotland was represented in the assembly by six commis- sioners ; and never were stranger materials, and more discordant, moulded into six human forms. Lord Maitland and Johnston of Warriston were the leaders ; and they were assisted by four divines. * The Assembly Man. Harlcian Miscel. v. p. 90. CI1A3. I. A.D. 1043. THE LATER PURITANS. 75 Maitland now professed to be a thorough presby- chapter terian; but he was a bad man — bad beyond the powers of language to express. After the restora- tion of Charles II. he became a furious prelatist, and, when duke of Lauderdale, headed a ferocious persecution against his countrymen and former allies the Scottish covenanters. The duke of Alva might have envied him the number of his victims, and the grand inquisitor himself have learned, with such gratitude as fiends can feel, the diabolic art of in- venting torments and niaking cruelty a jest. John- ston seems to have been one of the originals from which modern writers have drawn the character of a gloomy presbyterian. He had studied law with care; his intellect was vigorous, his memory was extraordinary. To him the presbyterian cause was all the world, and more. He regarded the covenant as nothing less than the setting up of Christ upon his throne ; and his zeal for it passed all bounds. Eor this his family, and everything besides, was neglected. He was a fluent speaker, and vehement and therefore popular. He had iron strength and nerves. Three hours' sleep sufficed him for the twenty-four. His devotions were prolonged every day for many hours. In his family worship he would often pray two hours at once ; and while thus engaged whatever struck his fancy he regarded as an answer from above, and by such impressions his conduct was determined.* We turn with more satisfaction to the clerical representatives of the kirk. Henderson appears to have been learned and * Burnet, Hist, of his Own Times, vol. i. p. 37. Burnet was Warriston's nephew. 76 THE niSTOHY OF CHAPTER zealous, and great in council. George Gillespie, — — — though one of the youngest members, was one of (, HAS. I. ^1^ ablest debaters in the assembly ; with the fire A.D. 1C43. *' of youth he had the wisdom of age. Baillie was a man of great sagacity, but cunning and of a narrow mind. lie had but one object in view, to establish a presbyterian church in England ; and men with him were good or bad as they thwarted or assisted in his darling project. Hutherford was eminent in his own day as a controversialist. To us his con- troversial writings are of no importance. We know him, and the followers of Christ of every name will know him long, as the writer of a simple volume of religious letters. Such is the dignity of pure reli- gion, and such its stability in a world of change. The Westminster assembly is only known in history ; his connection with it would not have saved the name of Rutherford from entire oblivion; but a little book of pious thoughts, the confiding eflPu- sions of a spiritual mind, hastily thrown off at leisure hours, still secures for Rutherford the veneration of grateful thousands. A humbling thought, and yet consolatory : the recreations of leisure the real business of life ! The sectaries who had first broken out in the reign of James I. still continued to increase. Some years had now passed since bishop Hall enumerated in the house of lords no fewer than four-score, congregations of several sectaries, which were all taught, he said, to spit in the face of their mother the church of England, and to defy and revile her government.* While they confined their assaults * Shaking of the Ohve Tree, p. 42G. THE LATER PURITANS. 77 to the prelacy the parliament felt no uneasiness ; chapter but now, their numbers still increased, though "' prelacy was extinsjuished ; and every wild and ^'"^^^■^• blasphemous opinion had its appropriate oracle. The sectaries, as troublesome to the parliament as they had once been to the bishops, were of course unrepresented in the assembly of divines. But so too were the anabaptists, who still laboured under a degree of popular odium unexplained, and there- fore probably unmerited. The church of England had decided that the baptism of infants was in anywise to be retained, as most agreeable to the word of God ; and so thought the Westminster divines. But a calm discussion of a question which had now been rankling in the heart of the reformation from its early dawn, and still acquiring strength, would not have been un- seasonable. In the judgment of the sternest pres- byterian, an anabaptist was at least not worse than an erastian; yet discussing at great length the principles of the latter, they passed over the tenets of the former with contempt.* This tacit compact to exclude those who doubted the validity of infant baptism from the christian family produced bitter fruits in after years. And the same exclusiveness is still hindering that perfect union within the church of Christ for which every believer prays. And even amongst the sectaries there were shades of difference : all were not equally absurd ; all were * Dr. Featley was an eminent member of the assembly ; from which he was expelled for holding correspondence with archbishop Ussher, after Ussher had been himself expelled as a royalist. I suppose he was the author of a work which bears his name with the amusing title of " Dippers dipt, or Anabaptists ducked and plunged over head and cars." London, 4to. 1645. To such scurrility did even learned and good men descend. 78 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER not blasphemous. They were schismatics ; but a '. — schism may be healed ; and the only salve is kind- ciiAs.i. j^ggg ^^^ expostulation. It reflects no credit on the assembly that these emollients were never tried. Such was the composition of the assembly. Their first task, undertaken at the parliament's command, was the revision of the thirty-nine articles. Ten weeks were spent in the consideration of the first fifteen. "Whether this long deliberation amidst the horrors of civil war be an evidence of the calmness or of the insensibility of the Westminster divines ; whether it were solemn trifling under circumstances in which to trifle was no common act of folly ; or whether it bespoke real greatness of mind and a lofty determination, the reader will decide. The alterations made, after all, were few and chiefly verbal. In the second article, the words "who truly suffered," referring to the Redeemer's sacrifice, are explained to mean, that "the Hedecmer for our sakes truly sufl'ered most grievous torments in his soul from God." In the third article, the descent into hell is thus expressed : "As Christ died for us, and was buried, so it is to be believed that he con- tinued in the state of the dead, and under the power and dominion of death, from the time of liis death and burial until his resurrection, which has been otherwise expressed thus : he went down into hell." In the sixth, which enumerates the canon of scrip- ture, there is no mention of the apocryphal books. The eleventh article, on justification, is expressed rather more at large, but without alteration of the sense : and the same remark applies to the four- teenth, on works of supererogation. In the fifteenth THE LATER PURITANS. 79 article, the words "all we the rest, although baptized chaptek and born again in Clirist," are altered thus : " all — - — we the rest, although baptized and regenerate." a.d.^ims. The correction is remarkable. The Westminster divines chose to assert that "all we," that is, "all baptized persons, except Christ only," are in some sense " regenerate ;" and they preferred this ex- pression to the more general language of our reformers, " born again in Christ ;" they erase the one and introduce the other. The revision went no farther than the fifteenth article ; for while the assembly were thus employed in revising that which, by the confession of their own few, yet often unimportant, alterations, scarcely required amendment, men of sterner minds else- where were preparing measures of another character. The war throui?hout the summer had been favour- able to the king, and the parliament anxiously sought assistance from the Scotch. The parliament were now no longer attached to episcopacy. The difference between Scotland and themselves was little more than tliis ; the one were eager to impose, what the others were not, at the juncture, unwilling to accept. Events, no doubt, soon shewed that the parliament had little sincere regard for presl)yte- rianism. They seemed, however, now ready to em- brace it as an alternative. It was necessary to re- establish the church of England in one form or other; and the presbyterian model was accepted. Under the circumstances this was the only course within their reach, unless indeed they would restore episcopacy. English commissioners were sent to Edinburgh from the parliament and the assembly of 80 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEK divines with ample powers, and the result of their '■ — conference was the solemn leapjue and covenant. It *^l!\!;,o was framed by Henderson, and amended in some points hy sir Harry Vane and the commissioners from England. It was submitted to the general assembly in Edinburgh on the 17th of August, and passed unanimously amidst an enthusiasm which shewed itself in the shouts of some, and " the bursting tears of a deep, full, and sacred joy of others."* When the document reached Westminster it was re- considered by the assembly, and, after a few days' debate, adopted, one voice alone dissenting. The 15th of September, 1643, witnessed one of the strangest events in the ecclesiastical history of England, or perhaps of Christendom. The house of commons and the assembly of divines met in the church of St. Margaret, Westminster, and, with all the solemnity which prayer and fervent exhortation and a solemn oath could give, renounced for ever, for themselves and their children after them, the church which reformers had established and martyrs sprinkled with their blood. The service was begun with prayer. Mr. Nye then addressed the audience in a speech which lasted for an hour, pointing out the scriptural authority for such covenants, and their manifold advantages. Henderson followed and con- firmed his statements. Tben came the closing scene. Nye ascended the pulpit, and, slowly pausing at the close of every article, read aloud the solemn league and covenant. The whole congregation, statesmen and divines, the representatives (so they at least maintained, and so in fact they were,) of the * Hetheringtou. CIIAS. I. A.U. 1G43. THE LATER PURITANS. 81 nation and of the clmrcli of Enp^land arose, and, like chapter • n. the Jews of old, lifted up their rij^ht- hands to heaven, and swore hy the great name of God to accept and maintain the covenant. The members of the house of commons then subscribed the deed upon one roll of parchment and the assembly of divines upon another. Prayer and praise Avere offered up by Gouge, an eminent puritan minister, and the service closed. The covenant was taken by the house of lords with the same solemnities a few weeks afterwards ; for the lords were now submissive to the commons : they merely registered their edicts and did their bidding. The covenant consisted of six articles. In the first, the covenanters pledged themselves to the re- formation of religion, and to "the endeavour to bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity, in religion, in confession of faith, form of church government, directory for worship and catechizing." In this article they also pledged themselves to preserve entire the church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government. The church of Scotland was the model to which England and Ireland must be conformed. The pledge in fact amounted to the acceptance of a presbyterian church. Secondly, they promised to endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profane- ness. The meaning of this word prelacy had given rise to some discussion ; it was explained to signify " church government, by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending A.D. 1643. 82 THE HISTORY OV CHAPTER on that hierarchy." The third article binds them "• to preserve the rights of the parliament and the ciiAs.i. liberties of the kingdom, and to defend the king's person and authority. In the fourth, they promise to discover all malignants, incendiaries, or others who shall hinder the reformation of religion, divide the king from his people, or excite any factions among the people, contrary to the league and cove- nant ; to bring them to public trial and condign punishment. Eifthly, they profess their regard for peace and union ; and lastly, they declare in the most solemn manner their determination never to forsake the covenant, never directly or indirectly to be withdrawn from the pious confederacy, nor even to become indifferent- or neutral in a cause which " so much concerned the glory of God, the good of the kingdom, and the honour of the king." A con- fession of national and private sin follows ; with a vow, that each would amend his own life and urge repentance upon others. " And tliis covenant we make," they say in conclusion, " in the presence of Almighty God, the searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed ; most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his Holy Spirit to this end," &c.* The covenant had already been embraced in Scot- land, where it was subscribed by citizens of every rank with the greatest enthusiasm : — essentially it was a Scottish measure. In the preamble, when it was printed afterwards, Scotland has the post of * Hetherington, p. 128. C1IA9. I. A.D. 1643. THE LATER rTJRITANS. 83 honour. It is said to be " designed for the peace of chapter the three kingdoms of Scotland, England, and "' Ireland, agreed upon by commissioners from the parliament and assembly of divines in England, with commissioners of the convention of estates and general assembly of the church of Scotland, and by both houses of parliament, and assembly of divines in England."* But in England it awakened no enthusiasm. The king issued a proclamation in the month of October, in which he denounced it as "being in truth nothing else but a traitorous and seditious combination against himself and the esta- blished religion of this kingdom," charging his sub- jects on their allegiance not to presume to take it.f In vain the parliament ordered it to be enforced on all persons above the age of eighteen years ; in vain the assembly of divines prepared an exhortation urging its adoption. The people of England were not disposed to cast off one spiritual despotism merely to embrace another. Baxter, the lecturer of Kidderminster, had more influence for miles around than the Westminster divines and the Scotch assembly, though backed by the house of commons. He tells us that he prevented its being taken, not merely in Kidderminster, but through the whole of Worcestershire, except, he adds, in the city of Worcester, where he had but little influence.:}: Such is the weight of character : one country clergyman prevailed against the rulers of three kingdoms ! However, two hundred and twenty- eight members of the house of commons subscribed the covenant. * Baxter, Life, ii. p. 39L Hetherington, p. 128. t Rushvvorth, v. p. 482. % Life, i. p. 64. G 2 84 THE HISTORY OF ciiAi'TEK Amongst the number appears the name of Oliver '■ — Cromwell. We do not stop to ask how faithfully A.D.^M3. ^^ observed its conditions, or how far it is probable that he and many others ever meant to do so. But let the reader check his rising indignation. Contempt of solemn oaths is not peculiar to roundheads and usurpers. King Charles II. twice subscribed, twice swore, to this self-same covenant ; at Spey, on the 23rd of June, 1650 ; and again at Scone, on the 1st of January, 1651, the day of his coronation ; — as a part, and, in the eyes of all those who placed the crown upon his head and risked their lives in his service, the most essential part, of his coronation oath ; the very tenure by which he held his sceptre. The imposition of the covenant was a disastrous measure. With unquiet spirits it became unpopular because it was enforced. A rigorous conformity, such as the prelates had been unable to command, Avas bound upon their necks with the additional torment of an oath. Then, it soon appeared that amongst those who had imposed it, and who had solemnly embraced it, there was no real unanimity, in some of them, perhaps, not much sincerity. In a short time a violent quarrel raged between the presbytcrians and the independents ; and the pres- byterians had no other weapons to wield against their opponents than those which their prelatic oppressors, in former days, had wielded to so little purpose against themselves. They declared the presbyterian to be the only true and scriptural church government. It existed, they said, jure divino. Just so bishop Bancroft had argued for prelacy in 1588, for the first time since the reforma- A.U. 1&13. THE LATER PURITANS. 85 tion ; and incalculable miscliief to the cliurch party chapter followed. The assembly of divines now asserted, — - — in an evil hour, the same dogma on behalf of the '^"■^'' ^" presbyterian scheme, and it was the rock on Avhicli presbyterianism split and foundered. However slender their capacity for state affairs the assembly were at least polemics and logicians ; and they should have known that, with a keen-sighted adver- sary already on the field, nothing is more hazardous than to begin the fight with peremptory assertions which can neither be mitigated nor explained. But the controversy will find a place in our relation of the occurrences of later years. To return to the assembly. It continued to sit with occasional interruptions till 1619; when it was changed into a committee, which sat weekly for the trial and examination of ministers. In March, 1G52, Cromwell forcibly dissolved the remains of the long parliament, and with it the lately renowned assembly broke up and separated, without any formal dissolution. In order to place before the reader at a single view the theological labours of the Westminster assembly, and to offer some re- marks upon its character, we shall suspend our narrative, and place in one group the fruits of its six years' existence, and the result of its one thousand one hundred and sixty-three sittings.* Its contributions to theology are too important to pass unnoticed. They consist of a confession of faith, a directory for public w^orship, a larger cate- chism, and a lesser one for children. The confession of faith derives additional importance from its * Hetherington, p. 326. CIIAS. I. AD. 1643. 86 THE niSTORY OF ciiArTER adoption by the general assembly of the church of __!!^ Scotland. At the reformation, the reformed churches in general drew up a document of this kind, which in some instances formed a treatise of considerable bulk — a dissertation or body of divinity, in rather striking contrast with the studied brevity of our own confession contained in the thirty-nine articles; The assembly's confession was modelled after these examples, and is perhaps inferior to none of them, except in originality. It does not however detract from the real merit of these later divines, that they availed themselves of the labours of the reformation; or that Bullinger and Calvin, especially the latter, should have left them little to accomplish, except in the way of arrangement and compression. The "Westminster confession should be read by those who cannot encounter the more ponderous volumes of the great masters from which it is derived. It is in many respects an admirable summary of chris- tian faith and practice. None can lay it down with a mean opinion of the Westminster divines. The style is pure and good, the proofs are selected with admirable skill, the arguments are always clear, the subjects well distributed, and sufficiently com- prehensive to form at least the outline of a perfect system of divinity. On the other hand, one fault pervades the whole : it is cast in the most exact and riirid mould of ultra- Calvinism ; and treats the most difficult questions, those of God's eternal decrees and purposes, with an air of confidence which has always repelled tbe great majority of English chris- tians. Our national dislike of extreme opinions has here, as well as on other abstruse speculations, II. CHAS. I. A.D. 1643. THE LATER PtlUITANS. 87 social and religious, proved our safeguard. Preter- chapter ition and reprobation, both of men and angels, lay- before them as anatomical subjects prepared for spiritual dissection,* and they seem to operate with a dexterous and untrenibling hand. Had they but always written upon the divine decrees as in their concluding sentence, they would have done well; and their confession of faith would then have sur- vived the odium in which tlie assembly itself, with whatever justice, has been overwhelmed. " The doctrine," they say, " of this high mystery of pre- destination is to be handled with especial prudence and care; that men attending the will of God revealed in his word, and yielding obedience there- unto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God ; and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel." The directoryt prescribes the new form of public worship ; for the prayer-book was now suppressed, and divine service was henceforth to be conducted in the manner which, for want of a better term, we designate extempore. But the directions for public prayer, both before and after the sermon, are copious and exact. The assembly meant to furnish presbyterian ministers not merely with instructions, but with materials for public prayer. Like the bidding prayer in our 55th canon, the directory * Chapter iii. of God's Eternal Decrees, sections iii. iv. v. vi. vii. ; chapter x. of Effectual Calling, section iv. t Neal, vol. iii., appendix ii. ClIAS. I. A.D. 16i3. 88 THE HISTORY OF ciiAiTEK suggests, ill metliodical arrangement, a number of topics suitable for devotion ; and this in language which scarcely needs the slightest alteration to give it the character of prayer. If a minister committed to memory the section " of public praj^cr before the sermon," he could offer memoriter before the con- gregation an act of intercession varied, solemn, and appropriate, though far inferior, we still think, to our sublime and simple litany. There is a chapter " on the preaching of the word," and every sentence is admirable. So much good sense and deep piety, the results of great and diversified experience, and of a knowledge so pro- found, have probably never been gathered into so small a space on the subject of ministerial teaching. It is one that has received attention in successive ages from teachers of different schools and of various tastes and habitudes of mind. Chrysostom among the fathers was a teacher of sacred rhetoric ; and of the moderns, Claude and Porter, the abbe Maury and the venerable Simeon, have written Avhat the student for the ministry will not venture to disre- gard. But a brief chapter of four pages here com- prises an amount of wise instruction Avhich will not readily be found elsewhere. The divines of Westminster were amongst the masters of this sacred art ; whether we estimate their power by the entliusiasm of their crowded congregations, by the better test of their writings and printed sermons, or by the still higlier touchstone of permanent success — success, not in laying the foundations of a strong party, or in reconstructing a national church, for in both they miserably failed, but in turning CIIAS. I. A.D. 1643. THE LATER PTJRITAKS. 89 sinners from the error of their ways, in edifying the chapter church, and fitting men for God. If the fiction so — - — long believed were true, that the pulpit at this period echoed only to the strains of rant and rhap- sody, the Westminster divines at least were not in fault. After a variety of lessons, marked by great judgment and good sense, as to the ciioice of texts, the method in which they are to be analyzed and divided, the manner in which doctrines are to be deduced and objections answered, the subject brouo-ht home to the conscience of the hearer, (a work, they well remark, of great difficulty in itself, requiring much prudence, zeal, and meditation, and, to the natural and corrupt man, very unplea- sant,) they proceed to considerations of a still more solemn kind, and conclude with a series of admoni- tions to the preacher to look to the condition of his own heart, and to keep alive the flame of love and holiness within. Of the catechisms it is unnecessary to speak at length. The confession was drawn up first, and the catechisms were afterwards constructed on its model : it was determined that there should be no proposition in the latter that was not contained in the confession. The shorter catechism is now most known. It is generally used by the church of Scotland, and by almost every class of orthodox dissenters in England. In many respects it well deserves the celebrity it has obtained, though it is not entirely free from the ruggedness of ultra-cal- vinism ; and several of the questions turn u])on points in theology which scarcely pertain to the education of a christian child ; and thus too much CHAS. I. A.D. 1643 00 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER of a hard scholastic tone pervades it. On the other "• hand, many points of fundamental doctrine are well explained ; and, above all, the conditions of the gospel are expounded with force and clearness. On the doctrine of tlie sacraments we do not per- ceive a shade of difference from the teaching of the church of England.* It has been the hard fate of the Westminster * We make the following extracts from the shorter catechism : — " 91. Q. Hoto do the sacraments become effectual means af salvation ? "A. The sacraments become eifectual means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them, but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith re- ceive them. "92. Q. What is a sacrament? " A. A sacrament is an holy ordinance, instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and tlie benefits of the new covenant, are repre- sented, sealed, and applied to believers. " 93. Q. What are the sacraments of the new testament ? "A. The sacraments of the New Testament are, baptism and the Lord's supper. "94. Q. What is baptistn F "A. Baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord's. "95. Q. To whom is baptism to be administered ? "A. Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him ; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized. " 96. Q. What is the Lord's supper ? " A. The Lord's supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ's ajipointmcnt, his death is shewed forth, and the wortliy receivers are, not after a corjioreal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all its benefits, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. " 97. Q. What is required to the worthy receiving of the Lord's supper ? "A. It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord's supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord's body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience, lest, coming imworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves." THE LATER PUHITANS. 91 assembly to encounter the censures of English chapter historians of the most opposite opinions, unanimous '. — alone in this, to spurn the memory of a body whose "^'\^J3 existence was ushered in with so much pretence, and whose end was mean if not ridiculous. Clarendon overwhelms them with lordly scorn, and Milton with resounding periods of magnificent abuse. Neal, tlie puritan champion, awards that faint praise which is virtual censure. And Walker pro- vokes a smile by the ludicrous violence of his pretended contempt and undissembled hate. In Scotland only the memory of the Westminster divines is still cherished ; and their conduct is ex- hibited by living writers to the admiration of a people who revere them as the men who completed the edifice which Knox began. But time wears away the keen edge of censure, just as it stills the first tumults of applause. We can no longer believe, with Clarendon, that some of them were infamous in their lives and most of them of mean parts in learning, if not of scandalous igno- rance; men of no other reputation than that of malice to the church of England.* Nor can we accept Milton's diatribe as within the fair limits of the most declamatory censure. They were men, he says, who had preached and cried down with a great show of zeal the avarice and pluralities of bishops and pluralists ; they had said that one cure of souls was a sufBlcient employment for one spiritual pastor, if not a charge far above human strength. Yet now they were not unwilling to accept (besides one, if not two or more, of the best livings,) college * Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 530. 92 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTKK masterships in the university, and rich lectures in '. — the city, setting sail to all winds that might hring adTw3 o^^^ ^^ their covetous bosoms. Milton's temper was always harsh, if not vindictive ; and we must, in justice, bear in mind that he had already — to avenge liimself upon his wife, who had left his roof on some trifling quarrel — published his unchristian " Doctrine of Divorce," and that the maligned assembly had already censured it. But it is difficult to represent to modern readers, with adequate fidelity, the deep and bitter intensity of hatred with which the assembly was visited. " The Assembly Man " is, perhaps, one of the finest pieces of satiri- cal prose-writing in our language ; its unknown author pursues these puritan divines with shafts of envenomed malice ; compared with him Milton is calm, and Clarendon generous.* But all this, and more that might be quoted to the same purpose, is exaggeration. The truth is, the weakness and consequent failure of the assembly was inherent in its birth. Its feeble constitution was ill adapted for the rough wear of troublous times. It was the mere child of the long parliament ; its toy at first, and then, as it grew fretful, its annoyance. It had no legitimate character of its own. It was not a convocation of the church of England ; it was not a general assembly after the manner of the kirk of Scotland ; it was not even a synod, much less a general council. It was a mere convention of the parliament, f a sort of clerical * The Assembly Man, written IG-IJ- It is in tlic Ilarlcian Misc., vol. v. t Rusliworth so terms it. "The assembly of divines at Westminster uas, ju'operly speaking, the parliament's eonvcntion. Members of both THE LATER PURITANS. 93 committee to the house of commons, which might chapter advise when its advice was asked, and could do no "' more. It was proposed at first, that in order to its *^"'^^- ^■ ^ ^ A.D. 1643. formation, two delegates should be sent from each county : hut this was not done ; in fact, it was a packed assembly. Clarendon and Milton agree in this (and they have not been contradicted), that the members of the assembly were elected on the nomi- nation of the members of the house of commons ; and that they were chosen with a view to their political opinions, rather than with regard to higher qualifications ; so that men who might have been expected there, were not invited, and others, who had no weight, except what they derived in revolu- tionary times from holding extreme opinions, were selected in their place. " A certain number of divines were called, neither chosen by any rule ecclesiastical, nor eminent for either piety or know- ledge above others left out, only as each member of parliament thought fit in his private fancy." So Milton writes ; and lord Clarendon to the same purpose. " If," he says, " an orthodox divine of high character were named in parliament by one who had not the confidence of the ruling faction, this was argument enough against him, and he was at once rejected." These charges, we repeat, have never been denied ; and we are bound to admit their truth. The parliament had resolved upon a revolution, at least in spiritual matters ; and in revolutions the leaders are soon compelled to seek houses to a great number sat in this assembly, and had the same hberty with the hundred and twenty divines to debate and give their votes in any manner." 94 THE HISTORY OF cii Ai'TER their instruments from the most willing and deter- "• mined, not the most judicious and profound. cHAs.i. Thus the assembly hecame obsequious to the A D 1643 parliament, just as the parliament had become ob- sequious to the Scotch. They sanctioned the solemn lea^-ue and covenant with all the solemnities of religion ; and, if oaths and treaties could have done it, would have imposed a presbyterian church upon the nation. But the real effect of this daring measure was to disgust the people ; though to complete, it is true, the destruction of the old epis- copacy. In London only was it popular; for London was submissive to the parliament ; and the citizens who refused to adopt the covenant were disqualified to sit in the common council or to vote at elections. As a political measure its effect was to gain the assistance of the Scotch, who crossed the border in the spring and joined the parliamentary forces. But it could not add to the credit of the divines of the assembly that they had been concerned in such an enterprise. Episcopalians detested them because they overtlirew the church ; independents because they endeavoured to set up a rigid presbytery ; patriots and men of peace, because they fomented an internal war by the introduction of what was then considered a foreign soldiery. Politicians saw through their assumption and their vanity : they made use of them, despised them, and threw them off. After this, the conduct of the parliament to- wards the assembly soon began to express indif- ference, and at length contempt. Their debates were interrupted; their weekly payments were withheld. If they plunged unwarily into state THE LATER PURITANS. 95 affairs they were reminded, without any excess of chapter courtesy, to abstain from matters in which they had "• no concern. The parliament had its thirty mem- ^'""^^ ^• . . . . '' A.U. 1643. bers sittmg with them ; to overawe them with their presence, and to report their misdemeanors : all they resolved upon had again to he submitted to the decision of parliament, where not unfrequently their theology was questioned and their decisions were reversed. It was a mighty scheme — tlie reformation of the reformed religion ; and one that in their hands profoundly failed. In Scotland their success was greater ; but in Scotland presbyterianism had taken root, and there the solemn league sustained a very different character. There men lifted up their hands to heaven and swore, with the enthusiasm of patriots and the fervour of confessors, to defend the only true form of worship they or their fathers had ever known, from the powers of antichrist. In England men were asked to swear by the same form of adjuration that they would renounce the church in whose happy communion some of the holiest men of their generation, as they well knew, still lived, and in defence of which the most illustrious of their ancestors had died. They were to denounce as antichrist the church of archbishop Ussher and bishop Hall, of Jeremy Taylor and of Hammond ; the church of Ridley and of Latimer, and of the noble army of the English martyrs in the cruel days of Mary. Even in the midst of civil war, enough of moderation and good sense was left to forbid the mad attempt. The taking of the cove- nant in Scotland was perhaps the most solemn scene in the religious history of nations. The forced (HAS. I. A.I). 1G43 96 THE HISTOUY OF CHAPTER imposition of it in England was an insult and a burlesque. In short, the Westminster assembly has left to ecclesiastics of every church, and in all ages, this useful caution ; that public assemblies of divines, if they meet to discuss beneath the patronage of the civil powers, are too apt to run into the extremes of obsequiousness or of faction; that if the questions before them are not few, and of instant moment, and w^ell defined, they will launch out into interminable discussions and break up into narrow parties. The cause of God and of undefiled religion, owes but little gratitude to synods, or convocations, or national councils. The necessities of the church may some- times call for them; but they are the churches medicine and not its nourishment. They engender strife ; and seldom fail to give to those who take the lead in them a distaste for the humbler, yet in trutli far nobler, duties which are the proper calling of the christian minister. The assembly of divines, during the six years through which their tedious sessions were prolonged, accomplished nothing. They had scarcely broken up before their work had perished. Eut their parishes meantime had received many a wound ; and in the absence of the faithful pastor, false doctrine, heresy, and schism had lifted its head — not soon to be destroyed. The tendency of clerical parliaments has always been the same. It is to unfit the mind for vigorous action except beneath excitement ; to impart a relish for publicity and an itching for debate. The bustling member of a convocation may not, it is true, be an unfaithful steward ; but of all faithful ministers he stands in CIIAS. I. A.D. 1644. THE LA.TER PUEITANS. 97 tliG most exposed, and the most perilous condi- chapter tion. — — — While the parliament and the assembly of divines were thus occupied, the king remained at Oxford with his court and army, and the war went on. The campaign of 1613 closed with the battle of Newbury and the death of Falkland. Each side was eager to renew the conflict, and the year 1611 opened with a dismal prospect. No decisive advantage had been gained by eitlier party ; but their wounds rankled, and their passions were inflamed. Everything foreshewed a long and bitter contest, and a widening breach between the contending powers. The parlia- ment met in Westminster on the 22nd of January, but only twenty-two members of the upper house were present ; the house of commons numbered three hundred and eighty. On the same day the king met his council at Oxford — his mongrel parliament, as he styled it, in a confidential letter to the queen. Eorty-five peers assembled ; nearly an equal number were absent on his service, or in prison, or abroad. In all, eighty-three members of the peerage still clung to the royal cause. The lower house at Oxford consisted of one hundred and sixty-five members, seceders from the parliament in Westminster. The parliament opened the campaign with an over- whelming force of thirty-six thousand men, besides the Scotch allies, who numbered one-and-twenty thousand. The royal array was less numerous, though increased by ten Irish regiments. The parliamentary generals in a few weeks gained several advantages in the western counties, which were barely compensated by prince Rupert's gains H CHAS. 1. A.D. 1G14 98 THE HISTORY OP ciiArTER in Lancashire. Amongst other towns, he reduced — Bolton and Liverpool. They -were insignificant places then ; but they resisted bravely ; and the horrors which modern readers associate with the peninsular war and tlie triumphs of Napoleon had tlieir counterpart in these provincial sieges. In the streets of Bolton the slaughter was indiscriminate. Women, and infants at the breast, were massacred unsparingly, together with soldiers who had laid down their arms, and with four clergymen of the town, who of course were puritans : their names were Heycocke, Tilsbury, Harpur, and Fogge.* If we may credit a Lancashire minister who lived and wrote at the time, and almost upon the spot, eighteen hundred souls perished in the sack of Bolton. At Liverpool, which surrendered upon quarter, three hundred and sixty, friends and foes, were indiscriminately slaughtered in the streets. t On the 29tli of June the king in person engaged sir William Waller at Cropredy near Oxford. Waller was defeated, and the joy of Charles was great ; but it was soon turned into sorrow. On the 2nd of July the battle of Marston Moor was fought beneath the walls of York. Prince Rupert commanded, with twenty thousand men, for the king. The earl of Manchester com- manded for the parliament ; and second in command, but first in daring, and in the power of infusing his own mind into other men at will, was Cromwell, his lieutenant-general. The battle was decisive. At * Whitelockc, p. 85. t Life of Adam Martindalc, from liis MSS. in the British Museum ; edited by the Rev. Richard Parkinson, canon of Manclicster. 1845. pp. CHAS. I. A.D. 1644. THE LATER PURITANS. 99 night three thousand royalists lay dead ; there were chapter sixteen hundred prisoners ; and to Cromwell and his - cavalry, hy the acclamations of the field, re-echoed through the kingdom, was the victory ascribed. In the north of England the royal cause was now lost, and in a few days even York surrendered. In the west of England the earl of Essex gained many ad- vantages for the parliament ; of which the least was not, that the queen, who had left Oxford in affright, and now resided at Exeter, where she had given birth to a daughter, retired to Ealmouth, and from thence to Erance ; never again to meet her unhappy lord. On the 26th of October, Essex arrayed his army against the king in the second battle of New- bury. Charles was again unfortunate, after a mur- derous struggle ; and the next morning he retired to winter quarters at Oxford. Two years had passed since he unfurled his standard at Nottingham, and since the first battle of Edge Ilill. There had been sieges and skirmishes in every county ; four pitched battles had been fought, and the land was every- where defiled with blood. Thousands longed for peace upon any terms ; but the leaders on each side were stern. The parliament was resolute, and the king was false as ever, and unforgiving. The year 1644* closed with a dismal tragedy. The archbishop of Canterbury had for upwards of three years been a prisoner in the Tower. He was * It may be necessavy to remind the reader that the year then closed on the 25th of March ; but many writers had ah-eady begun to date it from the 1st of January. This is a source of constant perplexity, and has given rise to numerous mistakes. A respectable modern writer, for example, is in doubt whether Charles was beheaded in 1648 or 1649. Our forefathers felt the inconvenience, and attempted to redress it by writing the year from the 1st of January to the 25th of March thus :— January, &c. 164^. h2 CllAS. I. A.D. It; 11. 100 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER now impoaclicd hy the house of commons, and hrouglit up for trial on the charge of higli treason before the shadow of an upper house, which still sat at Westminster. The prosecution was managed by the commons ; and by an ordinance of both houses he was condemned to die. The indictment was con- tained in ten articles ; but the main heads Laud, in opening his defence, reduced to two.* In six, he was charged with attempting to subvert the laws of the land ; in the remaining four, with the design of overthrowing the protestant faith and restoring popery. These crimes, it was said, in the aggregate amounted to high treason. The trial continued through seventeen days ; the charges were urged by the commissioners of the house of commons witli all the advantage of numbers, of legal skill, and of well-practised eloquence. Bitterness, personality, and invective lent their aid. An Englishman who now reads the trial may indeed commiserate the old man who pleaded at the bar ; but stronger emotions and a deeper sense of shame steal over him as he reflects that the scene was in the house of lords, and that the actors were his countrymen. Laud, no doubt, was a great delinquent ; liad he been deposed from his sacred olTice, had he been heavily fined, had he been imprisoned for the re- mainder of his days, his sentence would have been well deserved. More tlian any living man he was responsilde for the destruction of thechurcli of Eng- land which had recently taken place, and for the * Cantcihurv's Doom ; or a history of the trial of Laud, late archl)ishop, Sec. ; by William Prynne ; puhlished by order of the house of eommoiis, lOlfi. THE LATER PURITANS. 101 war which was then raging. lie had tampered chapter with popery, and forced upon a protcstant people its '■ — detested symbols. The pope had even shewn his ai).i644. gratitude by the offer of a cardinal's hat. The arch- bishop indeed declined it : he did not mean, we are persuaded, that England should actually submit herself to the popes of Rome ; but the offer itself was infamy. In civil affairs he had invariably urged those measures which were most opposed to liberty. He would have governed with an iron sceptre. Kc was for uncontrolled dominion in the king, implicit submission in the people. Like lord Strafford, he would have had the king to govern without a par- liament if possible ; and if not, by a parliament who should be his tools. The most violent proceedings of the star chamber and the court of high commis- sion were congenial to his nature : he had exulted in the sentences inflicted there ; and his meanness did not forbid him to receive a share of the enormous fines which his myrmidons imposed. He had been a persecutor. He had used his unlimited power to injure and destroy, by means the most unscrupulous, those who held the truths of the reformation, and displayed in their lives the precepts of the word of God. And it seems to be a part of the divine economy that vengeance should fall heavily, even in this life, upon such. They that take the sword shall perish by the sword. But his delinquencies were not higli treason ; and his prosecutors were driven to repeat the wretched subterfuge they had invented to accomplish the de- struction of lord Strafford. No one of the crimes alleged was treason in itself ; yet when put together CllAb. I. A.D. l&il. 102 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER they were treason by accumulation ; as if, to quote L — lord Strafford's memorable answer, a given number of black rabbits could make one black swan ! The archbishop defended himself with eloquence and with undaunted courage, even by the admission of his enemies. But until the sentence was passed, and he came forth to die upon the scaffold, we see nothing of the meekness of the christian martyr. Treated with insult, he returned it with contempt. More tlian once he forgot the dignity of his calling and of his sacred office, and descended to abuse. His death alone has retrieved his character. While generosity is esteemed a virtue, men will be ashamed to deal roughly with one upon whom retributive vengeance fell so heavily. In private life he might have been respected and beloved. The few friends he had were devoted to him. His learning was great, and he was a patron of learning in others ; but his under- standing was mean and his temper violent. Still the man must have but little charity who can read his speech and prayer upon the scaffold, and doubt that, in death at least, he was a humble christian, lie was credulous and frivolous. He had great faith in omens ; and alarmed himself with his own dreams, which he carefully remembered. Before his committal to the Tower, he was confined for ten weeks in the house of the usher of the black rod ; and the impression he made upon the usher's wife, Heylyn, his biographer and chaplain, has thought it worth while to record. Simple as it is, it perhaps reveals his character more than any laboured com- position. The archbishop, she said, was one of the best of men and most pious souls j but withal one THE LATER PURITANS. 103 of the silliest fellows to hold talk with a lady that chapter ever she met with in all her life.* But if Laud was — — '- — weak and vain, the violence of the parliament ^.u. lim. was therefore less excusable. Besides he was old and harmless, and hastening to his grave. His death was a pitiful triumph to the parliament ; and as an example its edge turned against themselves. The cause seemed weak which dreaded an aged and defenceless churchman ; and their own experience in the star chamber might have taught some of them that there is no more certain method of raising insignificance to the dignity of heroism, and em- barking in its behalf the sympathy of millions, than excessive punishment. Passion, however, and a mistaken policy, blinded them to these considera- tions. They condemned the archbishop to suffer the penalties of high treason — to be hanged, drawn, and quartered: nor was it without difficulty that the house of commons was induced to remit any part of the ferocious sentence. On his own humble petition, and at the twice repeated remonstrance of the house of lords, he was at length permitted to die by the axe. The sentence, thus mitigated, was executed on Tower Hill, on the 10th of January, 16M— 5. The archbishop was destroyed to gratify the Scotch. Writers of the most opposite parties con- cur in this. The " covenant," said the royalists in scorn, required a noble "victim" to confirm it, and the rebels of two nations cemented their compact in the blood of Laud. The puritan historians admit * Heylyn, Life of Laud, book v. p. 11. lOi THE UISTORY OF cHAPTEu the imputation without shame and without apology.* '- — Laud's conduct had aroused the deepest indignation ad\^6« in the north. Ilis delinquencies at home were great ; but they had been greater still in Scotland. There he had fomented civil war by leading Charles to subvert the constitution. lie had been the king's chief adviser in his rash endeavour to overthrow the presbyterian kirk by violence, and on its ruins to erect a prelacy ; an injury, and to an angry nation an insult, not to be forgiven. The scheme proved utterly abortive ; but the exasperation it caused was fatal to the archbishop, and eventually to the king himself. But the parliament was not reluctant to assist in his destruction ; and the citizens of London were wrought into a state of frenzy. After the sentence was passed, many closed their shops, and vowed never to open them again while the archbishop lived. The city thirsted for his blood, as though a curse impended which nothing else could expiate. "This malice and madness," says Isaac Walton, with his accustomed simplicity, " is scarce credible; but I saw it."t The Westminster assembly was then sitting. But it offered no pro- test against the deed of blood : from the puritan divines no whisper of regret was heard. They saw with complacency, we are afraid with approbation, a hoary minister, the chief bishop of the church of * So Ludlow writes; "About the Kith of Juuuary the Scotch marched into Knj^land : the lords and commons, for their encouragement, having sentenced and caused execution to be done upon William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, their capital enemy, on tlie lOtli of the same month." — Memoirs, p. 3iJ. — Ludlow was general of horse in the parliamentary army, t Isaac Walton, Life of Sanderson. THE LATEll PURITANS. 105 England, after a long imprisonment, reviled and cuAPTiiR insulted during the bitter ordeal of his trial, and — i!: — then led out to a violent death. Marshall, one of f"-^f:^'- A.D. 1C44. the chief of the presbyterians, by the parliament s order, attended him upon the scaffold ; and sir John Clotworthy, a lay member of the assembly, stood there too, tormenting the victim in his last moments with unfeeling and fanatical impertinence. The archbishop had made his last address to the people, and his last prayer to God : " O eternal God and merciful Eather, look down upon me in mercy ; in the riches and fulness of all thy mercies look down upon me ; but not till thou liast nailed my sins to the cross of Christ, not till thou hast bathed me in the blood of Christ, not till I have hid myself in the wounds of Christ so that the punishment of my sins may pass over me." He rose from prayer and undressed himself. " God's will be done," he said; " I am willing to go out of this world ; none can be more willing to send me." Clotworthy interfered. What, he asked, was the most comfortable saying for a dying man ? Laud meekly answered, in Latin, " I desire to depart and to be with Christ." Again Clotworthy demanded, how a dying man ought to express in the fittest manner his assurance of salva- tion. The archbishop gently answered, " that such assurance was to be found within, and that no words were able to express it rightly." His unfeeling tormentor demanded, a third time, some text of scripture whereon such assurance might be truly founded. The dying man made answer in general terms, that "it was founded on the word of God concerning Christ and his dying for us." Clotworthy A.U. 164i. 106 THE HISTORY OF cHAi'TEn still persisting, Laud turned to the executioner as ^ — to the gentler and discreeter person, and in a few moments his headless trunk lay bleeding on the scaffold.* It was a day of shame for the AVest- minster assembly. The storm of revengeful passion was furious, and they bent before it. In their col- lective capacity they did not lift a hand to stay the madness of the people, nor whisper a request to parliament, nor offer up a prayer to God for mercy to the prisoner. Ileart and hand they joined in his execution. Yet some of the assembly were great men, most of them were sincerely good. If these men became insensible to right, and indif- ferent to scenes of blood, what must have been the peril of common natures in a civil war ! But when hatred and revenge step in, coloured with the pre- text of zeal for God, the consequences are always terrible. The admirers of the Westminster divines must regard their acquiescence in this unrighteous sentence with silent shame and sorrow ; and their enemies can say of them nothing worse than this, — that a body of christian ministers, sitting in calm deliberation from day to day in the city in which he was tried and beheaded, looked on with composure, if not with secret exultation, when archbishop Laud was put to death. * Heylyn, Laiul, part il. pp. 5-1, 55. THE LATER PURITANS. 107 CHAPTER III. A.D. 1613— IGiS. Religion, it has been said, operates most upon ciiaptej those of whom history knows least. Its benign '"" influences are chiefly to be traced in private life. ^"^^^ ^ It eludes the grasp and touch of history. The 1643-4-5. historian cannot penetrate the hearts of men, where religion has its seat. He may describe their con- duct and trace it to what appear to him the most likely motives. But even here his disadvantages are great ; for the conduct of religious men is conver- sant, to an extent unknown in other aifairs, with matters which pass in secret between themselves and God. Ecclesiastical writers, who understand the importance of their work, have always felt the difiiculty : and to some extent it is insuperable : it belongs to the very nature of their task. Yet by this clue, imperfect as it is, we must endeavour to ascertain the real character of the puritans during the stormy period of the civil war. Their conduct lies open, in the broad face of day. No party, civil or religious, was ever less anxious for concealment. Their sincerity is not now to be impeached. We dismiss at once the sweeping charge of hypocrisy with which popular historians 108 THE HISTOUY OF tiiAi'TEu have so long amused us, and we dismiss it with ]lh contempt. It is true in the same sense, and pro- ciiAs. I. i^ably to the same extent, in which it might be said i6.i3_4_5. that the troops at Waterloo were not brave, because a few recruits fled from their ranks and hid them- selves in ditches. Of their motives it is more diffi- cult to speak. In excited times men change their motives and put off their moral sameness rapidly : and few men arc so calm as not to imbibe the con- tagion of external uproar, and transmit it to their inner man. Thus motives are exchanged for mere impulses. A lofty principle still abides within, but it is governed in its modes of action by circum- stances, and by the passions of the majority. There is something in great calamities w^liich conceals their magnitude till they really appear and are present with us. This is the case with war. Till the fight begins, the question of peace or war has been the intellectual strife of statesmen. The mustering of the hosts for battle, the drill and the parade, has been the sport of children ; a splendid pageantry and nothing more. Then comes the stern reality ; — the first battle and its consequences ; the agonies of thousands on the field, the sliamc of defeat, the insolence of triumph, the desolated street, and the despairing widow. The puritans, if they had precipitated the conflict, had at least a becoming sense of the difficulty and peril of the solemn crisis when at length it came. Having accepted the alternative of civil war, they entered upon it in a spirit of deep devotion. They believed that the cause and the battle were the Lord's; and to Ilim they appealed for help against the III. CIIAS. I. A.l). THE LATEU rURTTANS. 109 mighty. Society was disturbed to its lowest depths, chapter There was not a heart in England capable of reflec- tion that did not beat high with hope or fear, or with the distress of an uncertain vague anxiety. 1&13-4-5. Thousands prepared for battle; tens of thousands knelt and prayed. Whenever there is danger, fear no doubt assumes the aspect of piety, and we are liable to mistake the expression of mere alarm for that of sincere devotion. This must be admitted, and some allowance must be made; but still the devotion of the puritans is not thus explained ; it was part of their habitual piety. And the state of religion during the war, in the metropolis, in the country^ and in the puritan cmnp^ reqviires our attention. London was entirely devoted to the parliamentary cause, to presbyterianism, and to the Westminster assembly. Here puritanism in England achieved her greatest triumph. The principles which she proclaimed elsewhere were here enforced, and all her practices were eagerly embraced. All the puritans of later days refer with pride to puritan London in the civil war, and their boast is not unreasonable. No European metropolis has ever displayed a higher character for purity of morals, for calmness in the midst of danger, for disinterested patriotism (even if it were misled), for a universal respect for religion, united with earnestness and zeal in the discharge of all its duties. An almost perfect unanimity prevailed, and enthusiasm ran high. The offerings of the wives and daughters of the citizens to the parliamentary chest resembled those of the Hebrew women to the tabernacle. III. CHAS. I. A.U 110 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER Wedding rings and jewels were literally poured out in bushels. Money and plate were furnished in the same profusion. To the royalists it seemed as 1W3-4-3. if a strange kind of frenzy had smitten the citizens.* Tlicy appeared all at once to despise their wealth, to impoverish their families, and to neglect them- selves, for the sake of the public cause. Yet the pursuits of trade went on : commerce was not impeded in the river or on the seas ; and even literature was undisturbed. The consciousness of power, or the more invigorating consciousness of right, imparted an air of tranquillity strangely at variance with the perils which threatened the city from day to day. AVhen the royal army was drawn up at Brentford there was some disturbance, and London prepared for an assault. But even then Milton wrote his sonnets in Aldersgate-strcet,t and the learned Gataker, the pastor of Botherhithe across the Thames, pursued his philological speculations on diphthongs, Unguals, and bivocals, or upon the awful mysteries of the tetragrammaton and the sacred name Jehovah, like Archimedes, undis- turbed4 The press was at work incessantly. Passing by the rush of political writings which every day, and almost every hour, produced, the calmer walks of literature were crowded as before ; and theology, not only in the shape of sermons and appeals, but in its higher forms of critical and * Bates, Hist. Civil Wars in England, p. 43. lie was physician to Charles I. + " Captain, or Colonel, or Knight at Arras," &c. written when the city was threatened, 1645. X His " Dissertatio (le Nomine Tetragrammato," and his " Dissertatio de Diphtliongis, sive Bivocalibus,'' were both published during the war. THE LATE]l PURITANS. Ill systematic divinity, had never been so popular, chapter Where so much was published, many must have "'' read. Scholars pursued their studies; and mer- *"'^^-^- chants and tlieir families relaxed themselves with ifri3-4-5. books. Through the whole of London and its suburbs, order and sobriety prevailed. Play-houses and public spectacles were prohibited, and the once favourite bear-garden was closed. If not sinful, they were at least unsuited to a season of national distress. Sunday was hallowed with a seriousness unknown before. Ships were not permitted to unload the most perishable commodities ; neither fruits nor fish were sold ; milk was forbidden to be cried in the streets, or sold after nine o'clock. There was a profound cessation from all worldly business : the streets were still, the churches were crowded. There were no private entertainments, no fashionable walks ; but within the family circle, religious conversation, the exercises of devotion, the reading of God's word, and catechising, filled up the day : and on the morrow the puritans came forth by thousands from a day of perfect rest — the rest not of a mind that stagnates, but that more refreshing and profound repose which an entire change in the direction of our tide of thought supplies — like giants refreshed with wine. Aiming to be a saint, each man unconsciously became a hero. Eamiliar with the thoughts of death, and assured that God was upon his side, the royal army was no longer formidable ; and some of the greatest battles were decided by the courage of the unpractised Londoners. The profound repose of a great city on the sabbath impresses the most unthinking. Between 112 THE ITISTOUT OF CHAPTER the restlessness of other days and the sudden still- ., '. ness of the day of rest the contrast is sublime. ciiAs. I. jyTj^^^j^.^ herself seems to have paused in adoration of 1C43-4-6. her Maker, and man appears to have recovered the sense of his immortality. Whatever were its vices, the age was not frivolous ; the puritans were not men of vacant minds, and the Sunday rigidly ob- served was not a weariness. But the monthly fast was even more solemn than the weekly sabbath. The parliament set apart the last Wednesday in the month as a day of humiliation. It was the strongest eni?ine in the whole of their artillerv, and the kins^ himself acknowledged its importance. He annulled their ordinance, appointed another day by procla- mation, and issued a suitable form of prayer. On both sides, after a time, this public humiliation became a political pretence ; and our fathers, like the Jews of old, fasted for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness.* At first, how- ever, it was observed in London with the deepest seriousness. Little was eaten through the day, and the value of the mid-day meal was by assessment contributed to the state. Mirth and business ceased ; the city sat solitary ; and from morning till night the only sounds were those of prayer and sup- plication and other exercises of religion. Burgess and Marshall were eminent divines, and often con- ducted these services ; on one occasion they preached and prayed for seven hours before the two houses of parliament upon a fast-day. They received a vote of thanks and a present of silver plate. The service, long as it was, must have interested an * Isaiah Iviii. 4. THE LATEU PURITANS. 113 audience proverbially impatient of tedious speeches chapter and verbose harangues. The services before '■ — another congregation, as related at the time, are no ^^'^ exaggerated picture of the manner in which these 1013-4-5, devotions were conducted in perhaps every parish church in London. Dr. Twiss (he was prolocutor to the assembly of divines) commenced the public service with a short prayer. Mr. Marshall followed, and prayed with great power and pathos for two hours. Mr. Arrowsmith then preached an hour, and a psalm was sung. Mr. Vines now prayed nearly two hours ; Mr. Palmer preached an hour ; and Mr. Seaman followed and preached nearly two hours. Henderson, the great Scotch divine, then addressed the congregation on the evils of the times and their remedies ; and at length Dr. Twiss closed a service of at least nine hours' duration with a short prayer.* Its benefits, spiritually considered, must have been very questionable. It must have left the hearers prostrate in body and dangerously excited; and then enthusiasm in its worst forms was not far remote. But the recurrence of such a fast the king, no doubt, would have reason to deplore. The pulpit of the metropolis displayed a galaxy of light and genius such as it had never before, and perhaps has never since, exhibited. Its influence was never greater. Whether its power were rightly used, it is not so easy to determine. Political topics were freely introduced ; and, if we accept the popular canon which excludes from the pulpit tlie slightest reference to political affairs, the puritan * Life of Marshall, in Brooke's Lives of the Puritans. I 114 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER divines of this period fall beneath a sweeping cen- "^' sure. But in times of public agitation (when alone ciiAs.i. -^g application is important) it is impossible to apply 1643-4-5. the rule. A national fast, for instance, brings to- gether a congregation who feel or fear some great calamity ; it may be a civil war. Is it meant that the preacher shall abstain from any reference to the subject with which every mind is burdened ? If so, he mocks the expectation of his hearers. The best sermon upon a commonplace would be so much impertinence. It would neither warn, nor comfort, nor direct. Shall he discuss the sins of the age, and, holding the balance fairly, exhibit with equal justice the faults of each of the contending parties ? Then each party, as it feels in turn the keen edge of his reproof, decries 'him as a politician. Availing himself of his special mission as the ambassador of a God of love, shall he counsel peace ? It is well if the stronger party, and that whicli is most averse to peace, do not denounce him as a traitor ! To decide the matter calmly, we must ask ourselves whether, if the sermons of these great divines had overflowed with loyalty, and invoked the enthusiasm of the people in l)chalf of Charles, we should have felt them still open to the same objection. Eor the rule which restrains a puritan must of course condemn a royalist. The question is of great importance ; nor has it yet been discussed with all the attention it deserves. It will be found on consideration, we suspect, that the objection is to the abuse rather than the practice — to the coarse handling of political questions in the pulpit, than to the right of the christian minister to introduce tliem. It is a dis- A.D. 1GJ3— 4— 5. THE LATER PURITANS. 115 grace to religion that some of tlic most violent poll- chapter tical diatribes should have been listened to in the "'• house of prayer. Religion has often been debased chas. i. in this manner, and politics have not been sanctified. Angry passions have been kindled against others, and religion has been made to tear open the wounds she should have healed— a spectacle unnatural and hideous. The great puritan preachers did not, how- ever, thus degrade their office. With a few excep- tions, their language was at this period decorous and their manner calm. Their printed sermons in vast numbers are still extant, and these sufficiently vindicate their reputation. They were no adven- turers. They had been brought up in the church of England ; they were entitled to its best preferments ; and they might have held them in their youth from Laud, in their grey hairs from Charles II., had not their own consciences forbidden. Assumins^ the necessity of the war, and the justice of their scruples, their conduct commands respect, and they stand in the first ranks of those who have bravely dared and nobly suffered in a righteous cause. During the first two or three years of the war, the self-restraint of the puritan divines both in language and conduct is remarkable. They speak of the king with as much respect as if he were still in the palace of his fathers. His errors they attribute to his evil counsellors ; their own sufferings and insults are seldom men- tioned. In public and in private they still prayed for Charles, and even for the queen. Amongst the more eminent of the clergy of whom we speak, were Marshall, Manton, Calamy, and Burton. All of these preached in London during the war ; and in I 2 CIIAS. I A.n. 116 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER the history of those times tlieir names and labours must always find a place. Stephen Marshall, the lecturer of St. Margaret's 1643-4-5. Westminster, Avas a constant preacher on special occasions before the house of commons. Ilis abilities were great, and as a divine his attainments were considerable. But it was in the pulpit that he triumphed. Ey general consent he was the greatest preacher of the times. His manner, like his mind, was ardent, and when he began to speak he w^as swept along with a fervid eloquence which seemed to spurn control. He had espoused the great quarrel with the utmost resolution; and the topics he selected kindled in his hearers intense emotions. *'Meroz cursed " w^as the title of a sermon preached upon a fast-day. " The song of Moses the servant of God," was " opened in a sermon before the house of commons " on a day of thanksgiving for a recent vic- tory. The very texts thus used were shocking to the royalists ; and if it were true that Marshall prosti- tuted them to faction and rebellion, no censure can be too severe. The cursing of Meroz was but too congenial to the taste of the puritans ; for their theology was now deeply tainted with the Jewish leaven, a fact which explains their severity, and yet redeems much of their conduct from the charge of wilful cruelty. They drew no distinction between the precepts of the new testament and the facts aud histories recorded in the old. We deplore their ignorance and blame their violence, yet we respect the feelings of devout and fervent gratitude which found utterance in solemn allusions to the songs and harmonies of heaven. Funeral sermons were now THE LATER PURITANS. 117 in great repute; and Marshall, together with his chapter unrivalled eloquence, had feeling and discernment ; '■ — so that his efforts in this difficult and peculiar walk ^"^^,^; '' of ministerial science were highly prized. His 1043-4-5. sermon upon the death of Pym produced a vast im- pression. Pym had heen one of the managers of the impeachment of Strafford, and again of Laud ; and one of the first to urge the necessity of appealing to the sword. No regrets for the past troubled him when death appeared. He was still, he said, loyal as ever to the king. He was justified in all that he had done by the laws of the realm and the indis- putable right of parliament. Marshall visited him during his last illness, and describes the serenity of his mind. He was calm and cheerful, " with the same evenness of spirit which he possessed in health, and a clearer evidence of God's love in Jesus Christ." He died a year after the war began. He longed for the triumph of the cause, and was about to quit the scene amidst darkness and disaster. But lie uttered no complaints. His submission to the will of God was perfect. To himself, he said life and death were equally welcome ; if he lived he would do what service he could to God and to his country ; if he died he should dwell in the presence of the Lord he served, who would carry out his work by other hands. His family weeping around his bed, he told them that he had looked death in the face ; he knew the worst of it, and feared it not ; and he assured them his heart was filled with more joy than his tongue could utter.* His enemies circulated a re- port that, like Herod, he was eaten of worms and * Marshall, funeral sermon for Pym before parliament, 1()43. III. CUAS. 1 A.D. lis THE HISTORY OF ciiaiti:k died accui'scd. The parliament, in consequence, ex- posed his body for several days to public view, and published an attestation from ten physicians in con- im-i-5. tradiction of the slander. But Marshall's funeral sermon uas a nobler vindication. Hitherto Pym had been revered as a patriot and a statesman ; and as an orator he had been listened to in the city, and in parliament, with profound delight. Kow the impression was deeper and more tender. Pym had lived a patriot but he had died a saint. And Mar- shall, who had pourtrayed his virtues with an elo- quence only inferior to his own, almost succeeded to his vacant honours. Clarendon affirms that Laud never had such influence with Charles as Marshall with the parliament. But the preacher himself did not survive many years. It has been the favourite practice of earnest christians to trea- sure up the last words of holy men, and those of Marshall deserve to be recorded. In answer to some complimentary remark he exclaimed, " I cannot say, as you do, I have not so lived that I should be afraid to die : but this I can say, I have so learned Christ that I am not afraid to die."* He was buried, with great mourning, in Westminster abbey ; but at the restoration his grave was violated, and his body, with that of Pym and others, contemp- tuously disinterred. A mean revenge ; but the royalists could point to a precedent still more in- famous. The heartless fanatic to whom the house of commons had assigned the palace of Lambeth after the death of Laud, had torn open the coffin of an archbishop, and thrown his remains upon a dunghill. =• Ncal, vol IV. p. \W. THE LATER PURITANS. 119 And one outrage must be avenged with the com- chapter III. CIIAS.I, A.D. mission of another ! Eoremost, again, amongst the spiritual leaders of the puritans was Dr. Manton, the rector of New- i&»-4-5 ington, and afterwards of Covent-garden. Wanting Marshall's vehemence and power, he had other qualities of a high order. His judgment was clear, his imagination rich, his memory strong, his elocu- tion graceful. AYith him the unhappy condition of the country was not, as with Marshall, an absorbing theme. He dwelt chiefly upon spiritual things ; and upon these he spoke, says one who heard him, with a holy zeal, as though he had a living faith within of the divine truths he taught. The effects of his ministry were visible in the crowds who thronged around him, and in the sacred influences shed upon his hearers. While his judgment and learning were admired by men of education, the poorest heard him with profit and delight. One of his bio- graphers relates a story worth a thousand eulogies. He had been preaching at St. Paul's upon some public occasion, when, as he returned home, a poor man pulled him by the sleeve and told him that of the sermon he had just preached he could understand but little. " I came," said he, " hoping to get some good to my soul, and I have been disappointed." Dr. Manton felt the deserved reproof, and replied with tears : " Eriend, if I did not give you a sermon, you have given one to me."* The name of Calamy is justly dear to non-con- formity. Por upwards of a century the Calamys were amongst its leaders ; men not eminently * Calauiy's Ejected Ministers, art. Manton. 120 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTKR great, but in general consistent, wise, and tem- — — — perate ; not wanting in zeal, but chastening zeal ^"vD.'^' with prudence; at once tlie helm and ballast of 1643^-5. an impetuous party. Dr. Edmund Calamy the elder (for his son and grandson bore the same name, and bore it with distinction,)* was the minister of a church in Aldermanbury. He was unrufHed by the storms around him ; sedate and calm ; yet his gentle manner was full of interest to his hearers. For twenty years he held a w^eek-day lecture, and had a crowded congregation. It is a curious fact, and illustrates the times, that on these occasions seldom fewer than sixty coaches were counted at the door. These twenty years extended over a space in which England saw more changes, in civil and religious politics, than at any other time in centuries. Yet his popularity continued. In the base and shameful times of Charles II., " a lady of the court" was impeded in her way through Newgate-street by a throng of carriages. She was curious to learn the cause of the delay. It was neither a pageant nor an execution. But one Dr. Calamy lay in Newgate for preaching a sermon, in which he had said " that the ark of God was lost, and the glory was departed from Israel."! And the civic aristocracy of London were calling at his prison to pay the just tribute, since they could do no more, of their affectionate respect. Iler influence with the king at once obtained his release ! There were other ministers in London of the * Historical Account of my Own Life ; by Edmund Calamy, D.D. ; 1731; (the grandson ;) vol. i. p. 52, &c, t Calaray's Historical Account, i. p. 56. THE LATER PUUITANS. 121 highest reputation, and their influence was thrown chaptkh into the popular cause. Some of them still loved — — — episcopacy (Gatakcr, for instance), hut not one of *^"^^|^; ^■ them denounced the war. Some of them had been m^-i-s. sufferers in the days of Laud ; all of them dreaded the return of prelacy and absolute power, and thought it right to resist it with the sword. There was one, in particular, of whom the very sight was a sermon against oppressors. Dr. Burton was the rector of St. Matthew's in Friday-street : he preached constantly ; he was to be seen in the pulpit, from week to week, without his ears ! The full history of his sufferings is too long, if not too shameful, to be told. After various prosecutions for libels, so called, against the prelates and the pope, ending with suspension and imprisonment, he still dared to protest, in a sermon preached in Priday-street, against the archbishop's innovations. He was again imprisoned and prosecuted in the star chamber ; Prynne and Bastwick were included in the same indictment. It is a waste of words to say they were condemned. Burton was deprived of his benefice, and degraded from his ministry. Prynne was a lawyer and Bastwick a physician, and they were degraded from their professions. Each of them was fined five thousand pounds, con- demned to stand in the pillory in AYestminster, to have his ears cut off, and to be imprisoned for life in one of the remotest castles in England. They underwent their punishment in Palace Yard with triumph, in the presence of an immense, indignant, multitude, whose sympathy it was impossible to restrain. They regarded themselves as martyrs in 122 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEK a glorious cause, and exulted in their sufferings. "^- •Rnrton possessed that mother-wit which always ciiAs.i. delights the multitude. Pointing to the pillory he t^t^-5. exclaimed, *' The gospel will yet shine upon Eng- land, even through those holes T In a few days they were sent to their dungeons. Burton was consiixned to Lancaster castle, and one hundred thousand citizens escorted him as far as Highgate. His friends contrived to visit him at Lancaster ; he was therefore removed to Guernsey, where the sen- tence of solitary imprisonment could be thoroughly enforced. But these outrages were not long to be endured : the tide turned ; the long parliament met ; Charles and Laud were undone within a single week; and in a tumult of indignation the sentences of the three sufferers were at once re- versed, and their fines remitted. After three years' absence, the prisoners now returned to London; and London, famous for its shows and spectacles, had never witnessed such a sight. The procession formed on horseback at Brentford, and for eight miles the crowds along the road were such that it could scarcely move one mile an hour. Between Charing-cross and Guildhall three hours were spent. The roads were strewed with flowers and branches, the streets were hung with garlands, and hundreds of thousands bid the patriots welcome with bless- ings, and huzzas, and tears of joy. Burton quietly returned to his church in Triday-strect ; and here he was to be seen in his pulpit from Sunday to Sunday during the whole period of the war. It was not in the power of malice to desire, or of ingenuity to suggest, a weekly spectacle so hurtful THE LATER PURITANS. 123 to the royal cause. If a gleam of returning loyalty chaptkh or reverence for the ancient prelacy appeared, a '- — sight of the deaf and maimed old minister of '■^'^'^,^'^' Triday-street dispelled it in a moment. Burton 1013-1-5 was caustic rather than violent, and his punishment seemed the more outrageous. He was one of the few London clergy who retained tlieir livings and yet opposed the presbyterians. He formed his church in Friday-street upon the congregational system. His sufferings secured for him forbearance and respect from the dominant party, whose cause indeed he had been amongst the foremost to advance. When the storm rolls heavily, the monsters of the deep are thrown upon the shore. The convul- sions of the state now produced some rare specimens of human nature in its most unaccountable forms. Under the same circumstances similar eccentricities return; for though a revolution may call into action the energies of great men, it is more lilcely to give importance for a time to the vain, the ambitious, and the bad. And there is a certain class which is not, and never can be, known till society has broken loose — common men in ordinary times, boding spirits when the night is dark and the tempest rages. Hugh Peters was such an one. His character, as drawn by writers of the royal party after the restoration, is that of a monster of hypocrisy, cunning, lewdness, and ferocity. But we are now approaching a time when the statements of either party, even with respect to facts, are not to be implicitly received: prejudice and passion begin to warp the greatest minds and to obscure the brightest intellects. If Hugh Bctcrs had been 124 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER such as the royalists describe him, he would have "^- no place in history : he would merely stand amongst CUAS.I. ruffians and assassins. To the mass of mankind A.D. iRjs^Ls. liis life would afford no lesson, and his death no warning. There have been such men, no doubt ; but Hugh Peters belonged to another order. His youth was thoughtless. He had been dis- graced at the university, if not expelled : but in the midst of a career of folly, the solemn discourses of Sibbs, and other excellent men whose names adorn the annals of the puritans, arrested his atten- tion and wrought a marvellous and abiding change. He entered the ministry deeply impressed with the importance of his work, and preached for some time at St. Sepulchre's in London. There he had six or seven thousand hearers ; " and I believe," he wrote when he was a dying man, " above one hundred were persuaded every week from sin to Christ." A mere youth as he was, he must have been a greater prodigy of grace than, according to the royalists, he was of every vice, had he not felt the evil influence of a maddening popularity. He was soon charged with some rash expressions. He had prayed for the queen, " that light might shine into her soul, and that she might not perish in the day of Christ." Laud was in power, and Hugh Peters found himself a close prisoner in Newgate. Here he lay some time, though several noblemen interceded for liim, and offered bail ; at length he was released. He escaped to E-otterdam, where he gathered a congregation, and formed an independent church. After a few years we find liim in New England, the pastor of a church at Salem. Here THE LATER PURITANS. 125 he remained seven years, esteemed and useful, as a chapter minister of Christ. Most unhappily for himself, he — was deputed by the puritans abroad to visit En g- ^"^J'^' land, to obtain some relaxation of their fiscal burdens 1643-4-5. from the parliament. When he arrived the war had begun ; and from that moment the character of Peters seems to have undergone a total change. He was frenzied with the roar of cannon and the sight of blood. His infatuation lasted him for life, and brouo'ht him to a hideous death at last. He became a zealous preacher in the army ; and either his own ambition, or the force of his character and the current of tlie times, placed him at the head of the fanatics — a numerous and dreadful party, and an hourly increasing one. He stood ostentatiously close to Laud upon the first day of his trial, in the house of lords ; and, though a mere spectator, was allowed to upbraid and contradict the prisoner.* When the archbishop was brought to the scaff'old Mr. Peters stood there too, belted with a sword. Many of the puritans were shocked, but the parlia- ment rewarded him with a grant of a part of the archbishop's library. Prom this time his career recalls to mind the mailed bishops of the dark ages, who could either shrive an army or lead it into battle. He was present at the siege of Lyme, of which he gave " a large relation " to the house of commons, t He was at the siege of Bridge water : the defence was obstinate, and it was resolved to storm it ; and, " the Lord's-day before, Mr. Peters encouraged the soldiers to the work." He was with the storming party in the field at night, and * Canterbury's Doom, p. 56 t Whitelocke, p. 88. 126 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEu at the last moment " exhorted them to do their — duty." "Witliin a week he presented himself before ciiAs.i. ^j^g house of commons with letters from Fairfax A.D. 1043-1-5. the general : again he made " a large relation " of the siege, and was rewarded with a hundred pounds "for his unwearied services."* He was at the siege of Winchester and the storming of Bristol; and was again deputed by the successful general to bear to the house of commons the tidings of his victory. Peters was rewarded with £100 a year for himself and his heirs ; and as the war closed, the parliament, though now compelled to levy a weekly tax, were still in a condition to grant their faithful servant an annuity of £200 a year.f He now girded on the sword in earnest, and became the colonel of a regiment in Ireland. He was at the fall of Drogheda, and wrote to the speaker in laconic terms : " Sir ; the truth is, Drogheda is taken ; 3552 of the enemy slain, and 64 of ours. Colonel Castles and colonel Simons of note. Ashton the governor killed, none spared. We have also pro- ceeded to Trim and Dundalk, and are marching to Kilkenny. I come now from giving thanks in the great church. We have all our men well landed. I am yours, Hugh Peters. "J Yet this wretched man, when freed from the trammels of a direful fanaticism, was not inhuman. He had thoroughly convinced himself that the saints should have a two-edged sword in their hands, and the praises of God upon their lips. This was one of a favourite class of texts with himself and with his party. His * Whitelocke, p. 157. t Ibid. p. 204-222. X Brooke's Lives of tlie Puritans, vol, iii. p. .35.5. THE LATER PTJUITANS. 127 religion was soured with this Jewish leaven. But chapter where its influence did not extend, he was generous '- — and even humane. The sufferings of the Irish ^^jy' ' protestants who survived the popish massacre had 1&43-4-5. touclied his heart ; and he went over to Rotterdam and hegged thirty thousand pounds for their relief : a prodigious sum to he raised by the exertions of one man, and alike honourable to himself and to the German churches. He repaid the Hollanders for the sanctuary they had afforded him with valuable diplomatic services; and he was an earnest solicitor in behalf of the protestants of the valleys of Piedmont, who were suffering the most inhuman persecutions from the duke of Savoy.* Religion at home still occupied his care ; and the parliament requested his advice how Wales should be evange- lized. He gave a lion's counsel. It was, to sequester all the livings, appropriate the tithes, and send out six preachers to evangelize the country on a stipend of £100 a year. The parliament approved of his advice, and acted on it. Wales was placed under the six evangelists, and their own coffers were replenished. In the interval of his laborious mis- sions Peters continued to preach in London. He had now attached himself to the extreme democratic party in the house of commons, and to the army, which, conscious of its power, had begun to dictate to its former masters. In the pulpit his hand, like Ishmael's, was against every man. He improved the whole of his time, says one of his rivals and cotemporaries, in preaching against the prcsbytcrian government, against the assembly, against unifor- * Ludlow, p. 368. 128 THE niSTOPvY of CHAPTER mity, against the common council, against the city '■ — of London ; and (towering above all other delin- ciiAs.i. q^iejicics) he preached in favour of a universal tolera- 1643-4-5. tion.* Such were the strange contradictions in this man's character : good and evil, the extremes of liberty and of a griping bigotry by turns prevail- ing. That his influence was great, we may infer from the respect paid to him by the house of com- mons ; and he contributed his full share to the introduction of that gloomy ferocity which began to distinguish the parliamentary cause towards the conclusion of the war. His faults were great ; but still he had some virtues ; and he is a fearful instance that a man of weak judgment and impetu- ous feelings may lend himself to the commission of the greatest crimes, and yet delude himself with the notion that he is acting in obedience to the will of heaven. At the restoration Peters was excepted from the general amnesty, and suffered death as one of those who had sat in judgment on the king. He had been a minister of Christ and yet a man of blood, and he perished unrcgretted. In him all men acknowledged the fulfilment of God's own decree ; whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. He met his dreadful death undaunted; and had he lived like a saint, we should have been forced to own that he died like a martyr. The state of society and religion throughout Eng- land at this period must be collected from such incidental notices as gleam here and there upon us through the miseries of a civil war. The vindictive * Edwards's Gaiigraena, p. 88 — liG ; a furious book agaiust the secta- rians and independents. III. CilAri. I. A.D. THE LATEH PURITANS. 129 passions were not all at once let loose, nor did cuArxnR rapine and lawlessness prevail. In Devonshire, it is true, a body of " clubmen," marauders who fought and plundered indiscriminately, gave some uncasi- iw3-4-5. ness ; but they were soon suppressed. Elsewhere the current of life was not much ruffled for a state of war. Except where the armies lay, or where a town was besieged, the affairs of life proceeded in the usual course. The land was tilled, the markets were thronged, the parish church was crowded. Individual hate and personal rancour had not yet appeared to any great extent. There was even an interchange of courtesies between the rival parties. Newsbooks, as they were termed, were now profusely distributed through England. In 1643 their number was enormous ; yet, upon the whole, the temper they display on both sides is less acrimonious than that of our modern newspapers upon slighter pro- vocations. Judging by these productions, posterity will say of us, that the reform bill occasioned more bad passions than the civil war. The queen was at Oxford, and the parliamentary journalist heard that her majesty was deaf. He contents himself with a prayer that " her ears may be opened, and her eyes and heart too !" There is much of this harm- less jesting; and but little malice. But this for- bearance could not last. Nor must it be assigned entirely to the influence of religion. The same absence of revenge and cruelty had been observed two hundred years before, in the wars of York and Lancaster; and Philip de Comines, an illustrious foreigner, who chanced to be then in England, re- K CHAS. I. A.D. 130 THE HISTOKY OF CHAPTER latcs with admiration tlic forbearance of the two hostile parties, except upon the fiekl of battle. Baxter was preaching in the village of Alcester iwa-4-5. when the roaring of the cannon announced the battle of Edge-hill. It was fought on Sunday : as was the second battle of Newbury. The puritans held the Jewish doctrine of the sabbath to its full extent, but they drew different conclusions from the Jews of old. The Jews, if we may believe the author of the book of Maccabees, perished unresisting on the sabbath ; the puritans fought without a moment's hesitation ; for they regarded the work before them as the special work of God. The distant thunder of the cannon increased, but it disturbed neither the preacher nor the congregation ; the people sat, and the worship of God went on. When the sermon was done, in the afternoon, the report was still more audible, " which made us all long," says Baxter, *' to hear of the success !"* Was it the eloquence of the great puritan preacher that entranced his hearers, and suspended their alarm, within hearing of a battle in which five-and- twenty thousand of their countrymen were arrayed against each other ? If so, the recorded eloquence of ancient or of modern times certainly relates no triumph to be compared with Baxter's. In a moment of intense excitement he stilled the most ungovernable feelings to which man is liable ; anxious suspense, and fear, and passionate expectation. The scene in Alcester church is not less sublime, though Baxter's merit may be less, if we suppose that in this calmness and self- control there was nothing unusual, that it was no- * Baxter's Life, i. p. 43. THE LATER PURITANS. 131 thing more than the habit of profound abstraction chapteu from passing things, into which puritan divines had — schooled their coni^reorations. After a time the re- ^"'\^'^' currence of battles and scenes of blood, no doubt, 1643^-5. produces apathy, and the soldier's wife who follows with the camp shares the courage of her husband. But the parishioners of Alcester had not been trained to war : it was the first battle fought on English soil for centuries. Their parish minister, Mr. Samuel Clarke, for whom Baxter preached, was himself eminent amongst the puritans, and he had taught his people, it would seem, the noble lesson of peace in the midst of danger : he had taught them, in a word, to put their trust in God. Amidst the wild uproar of the war there were still scattered through the land innumerable house- holds which, to use the puritan phrase (much ridiculed, but most appropriate), waited upon God. The miseries of a war at home exasperated some to madness; but they tutored others in the best lessons of adversity, and taught them the necessity of a closer intercourse with heaven. Erom many a parlour the incense of family worship went up un- ceasingly ; in many a home the brightest graces of the christian character blossomed pure and lovely, like flowers in snow, amidst surrounding horrors. It was in such a home that Baxter, with broken health and in the full prospect of its blest enjoy- ment, wrote his meditations on " The saint's ever- lasting rest." He lived long and wrote much ; but he left nothing behind him which will bear com- parison with this sweet and solemn treatise. The turmoil of a busy life, hitherto spent amidst con- K 2 132 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTEK fusion, seems to liave been a help, and not a '- — hindrance, to his soul ; he saw the vanity of earthly cHAs.i. tijjj-jnps, and felt, or at least described, as no other 1643-4-5. writer uninspired has ever done, the instant realities of an eternal state. He unfolds the gates of heaven, and permits us for an instant to be ravished with its celestial splendours, and to hear the distant melody of its everlasting songs. His descriptions of an outer world of darkness few can read without an awful sense of the realities of hell. The misery of a lost spirit, its remorse and anguish and despair, the torments of the body and the stronger torments of the soul, once impressed, can scarcely be for- gotten. Here indeed lay Baxter's fault : he is often distressing to a timid or an anxious mind. The con- solations of the gospel are not always allowed their full pre-eminence, and there is in consequence a lowering shade, a want of perfect light and joy, such as implicit faith in the great sacrifice for sin imparts. Still the work, immortal in its way, stands, with Milton and " the Pilgrim's Progress," on a height from which it has long defied the shafts of criticism. The reader who is not acquainted with it knows little of the puritans. Addison took up by chance a leaf of one of Baxter's writings, and the author of the Spectator was so charmed with it that he purchased all the rest. " The Saint's Rest " was written amidst the din of war and the depression of sickness. It was begun in Derby- shire, and finished within a few months under the hospitable roof of Sir Thomas Bouse in Worcester- shire. Happily, Baxter had neither books at hand nor strength to read them : he communed with his THE LATER PURITANS. 133 own heart and with his bible. And thus after two chapter centuries his book is fresh and natural, and happily — — — free from the decorations (of which Baxter deplored ^^^^; ^• the want) of Occam's Dialectics, Thomas Aquinas, icn^-i-s. or St. Augustine. It was published just as the war in England closed, and passed at once through several editions. The spiritual appetite of the country must have been vigorous and extensive ; it must have spread far and wide. " The Saint's E-est" appealed to no passions and stirred no controversy. Its sudden popularity is a token that there were thousands of the puritans whose piety the war had left untarnished ; men whose affections were set on things above, amidst the w^reck and dissolution of all around them. The wide circula- tion of Baxter's work enables us to detect their existence, and to form some conjecture as to their numbers. But still the domestic piety of England during the civil war, among puritans and royalists, is involved in much obscurity. Many journals were kept by excellent men on both sides. But they chiefly relate to public affairs ; the delibera- tions of the parliament or the assembly, and the movements of the camp. Without any disposition to underrate their value, we should thankfully exchange whole volumes of these political diaries for a few pages of some unpretending record which might admit us into the confidence of a pious English family in those days, — which would make us acquainted with the real character of their home religion, and lay bare, if possible, the true condition of their hearts. As if, however, to compensate for this deficiency. 134 THE IIISTORr OF ciiAPTKR the cliaractcr of the army is presented to us without '. — the least reserve. We can form an intimate *^ Td^ acquaintance with its ofTicers and men. We are, 1613-4-5. in fact, as well informed of the true condition of the parliamentary forces, with regard to conduct, habits, and religion, as with that of our own troops abroad during the recent war ; and, by the admis- sion of friend and foe, no such army was ever marshalled. The men were as peculiar as the cause for which they fought. At first, when the drum was beat, all comers were enlisted. And the parliamentary army was a rabble, like the king's, of serving-men without employment, loungers at the public-house, and the refuse of the village, the usual prey of the recruiting sergeant. Ilampden's regiment was an exception. His boundless popu- larity had long stirred the whole county of Buck- ingham, and his regiment of green coats was raised among the yeomanry and freeholders. In a few instances the tenants and retainers of the great landlords followed with their patriarch to the field. But this feudal custom was chiefly visible on the other side ; for the old nobility shared the fortunes of the king. In London the troops were of a higher station in society. The students of the inns of court and their friends formed themselves into a life-guard for the carl of Essex : they brought not only zeal and courage, but that aptitude for new pursuits of the most unlikely character which is peculiar to young men of education. They drilled themselves for a few weeks under a person ex- perienced in military affairs, at tlic artillery ground in London, and were at once expert in war ; and THE LATER PURITANS. 135 from their corps, not amounting to a hundred, a chapteu considerable number of the parliamentary generals, "'• afterwards so renowned, were chosen.* But these ^■"^^''5•^• A.D. were exceptions : it was reserved for Cromwell's 1643-4-5. penetration to perceive that in a cause like theirs the parliament must rely for its soldiers upon the middling classes of society, upon men who had both property and conscience, who had something to lose as well as much to gain. "Writing to his friend and cousin Hampden, when disheartened by a few unsuccessful skirmishes, " I will raise men," he says, " who will have the fear of God before their eyes, and who will bring some conscience to what they do, and I promise you they shall not be beaten."! Cromwell represented Cambridge in parliament, and his influence was great in the eastern counties. There he went beating up for recruits, not at the tavern and the market-cross, but in the assemblies of the puritans, where men discussed the wrongs of their country, and the dishonour which popery and Laud had done to God. He raised fourteen squadrons of horse. They were yeomen's sons j men of character and substance ; and, outwardly at least, of fervent piety. Their discipline was admirable. Their presence was hailed with satisfaction wherever they appeared. They were the guardians of property and morals. In this regiment a man was fined a shilling for an oath ; if drunk he was set in the stocks "or worse;" * Generals Fleetwood, Ludlow, and Harrison, and colonels Rich, Tomlinson, Twistlcton, Fiennes, and Whitley, all famous in the war, were of this corps. — Ludlow, Memoirs, p. !/• t Carlyle, Letters, &c. of O. Cromwell, i. ji. 163, &c. 136 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEn if he called his comrade a roundhead he was "'• cashiered. Cromwell himself was at once the cHAs.i. general and chief pastor: he guided then- devotions 1643-4-5. and he commanded in the field. Clarendon, whose insight into character, and power of describing it, is, amongst English historians, unrivalled, fails to present us with any just view of Cromwell as a relisrious man. There were elements in the rude soldier which the philosopher and statesman could not comprehend. Cromwell, he says, spent much of his time in praying witli his soldiers and in religious conversation ; and he resolves the pecu- liarity of his conduct into the vulgarity of mind which had given him a distaste for society and elegant pursuits. But the example of Cromwell and his legion infected the whole army. The commanders held prayer-meetings as officers in general hold councils of war. The two, indeed, w^ere never sepaiated. The plan of a battle was de- voutly spread before the Lord. Deliberation followed earnest prayer ; and prayer was preceded by the reading of the scriptures. Nor were they merely read : they were consulted for authorities and precedents, with the same confidence with which a lawyer consults the statute-book or refers to previous judgments of the court. The common soldiers joined in similar devotions. In some regi- ments, from every tent the murmurings of prayer arose and the louder voice of praise. Religion was the recreation of the puritan soldiery. The hours that were not spent in discipline were devoted to improvement, to religious conference, to singing hymns and psalms, in which they took great THE LATER PURITANS. 137 delimit, and liearini? sermons. Martindalc was chai-tkr . HI chaplain to the troops which defended Liverpool ' — against prince Eupert. lie says, " I lived in peace ^'^^^•^• in the beleaguered town, and enjoyed sweet com- 1&13-4-5. munion with the religious officers of the company, who used to meet every night by turns, to read the scriptures, to confer of good things, and to pray together."* Their pious demeanour was not, as in most armies, an exception to the general practice ; for we can scarcely turn over a page of the military memoirs of the puritans without finding some such intimations. The battle-cry on both sides was significant. The royalists chose some patriotic sentiment : "The queen," for instance, in one fight; " For God and the king," in another. The puritans, when they gained the ramparts in the storm of Bristol, shouted with a voice that rose above the clash of arms and the ringing of their musquetry, "For the Lord of hosts." This was afterwards their favourite word at Dunbar and Worcester, and in many a field of blood. At Naseby their cry was "God is with us" The appeal went to every heart and gave fresh courage : it was feebly answered from the royalists with an idle sentiment, which stirred no emotion now that the question was of death or victory—" For the Queen Mary." Before an engagement the sound of prayer and sinsjins:, and the awful tones in which some fervent preacher was denouncing the enemies of God and of his saints, floated on the wind to the royal camp, and filled many a brave heart and many a proud spirit with dismay. Amongst the royalists, no * Martindale's Diary, Chetbam Soc. Ed. p. 37. 138 THE HISTORY OF cHAi'Ti:u doubt, these fervours were easily explained : it was '"• a vulgar fanaticism, and nothing more. But the cHAs.i. terror was not lessened hy the explanation ; for who 1643-4-5. so formidable as an armed fanatic? And there were those in the king's army who keenly felt and helplessly deplored the contrast between the rebels and themselves. In the enemy's camp, a morality lofty and severe; fervent prayer and exhortation before the fight, and louder thanksgivings after- wards offered upon the very field of blood. In the king's army, licentiousness and oaths, and, in general, a contempt of all seriousness in religion that disdained to be concealed. In the parliamentary army under the earl of Essex, the first commander-in-chief, each regiment had its chaplain. The appointment was felt to be of great importance. It was not left to novices and men despairing of preferment ; the best of the presbyterian divines were to be met with in the camp. Too often the chaplain of a regiment is in danger of contempt. Soldiers are apt to despise the man who claims authority and yet retires from danger ; and they undervalue the patient virtues of the christian minister which hazard neither life nor limb. The parliamentary army was an exception. It received its impulses, we might say its com- mands, scarcely less from its chaplains than from its ofiicers. On the night before the battle of Edge Hill, Stephen Marshall, himself chaplain to the general, went from tent to tent and fired the soldiers with a determined courage by his fervent exhor- tations and more fervent prayers. The clergy who attended the earl of Essex's army, says Baxter, THE LATEU PURITANS. 139 " were famous and excellent divines." To mention chapter the names of some of them is all that is necessary "" to justify tliis high praise. Dr. Burgess, deputy- <^^"'^^-^ chairman of the Westminster assembly, was, as 1&13-4-5. well as Marshall, chaplain to the commander-in- chief. Byficld, the assembly's scribe or secretary, was chaplain to sir Henry Cholmondcly's regiment ; Perkins to colonel Goodwin's ; Simeon Ashe to the earl of Manchester's ; Dr. Spurstowe, Hampden's friend and the rector of his parish, was also chaplain to his regiment. The presbyterians had few greater men. He had been one of bishop Hall's opponents in the famous episcopalian controversy; he was afterwards master of Catherine hall, Cambridge. In all the deliberations of the assembly of divines his name had weight, — and in the counsels of those in power, who often sought for his advice. A long life gave him the opportunity, which others wanted, of proving his integrity by suffering for the cause in which he had embarked. AYithout retracting any of his earlier opinions as to the justice of the war, he bitterly deplored the king's death. He refused to own Cromwell's authority and was deprived of his mastership. Yet he was a noncon- formist to the last. After the restoration he defended the old cause against its old opponents the prelatic churchmen ; he was driven into obscurity, and died as he had lived a cheerful benevolent and holy man. Six alms-houses which he built and which still exist at Hackney, prove that his own misfortunes had not steeled his heart to the wants of others. Baxter was solicited by Cromwell to become his chaplain ; he declined the invitation and 110 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTKu lived to regret his unwise decision. There were "^- several points in Baxter" s character which fitted cHAs. I. Yiini in a remarkaLlc deirrce for such a post. He ifri3-4-5. had talents eloquence and zeal ; and an amazing love of disputation, to which he could always bring no small share of dialectic skill and learning. lie liked the rigid preshyterian system as little as Cromwell himself : and the general proposed that he should form, not a preshyterian, but " a gathered church" among his squadrons. At this early period of the war Cromwell would probably have felt (and without shame he might have been willing to confess) the influence of such a mind as Baxter's. The fate of Cromwell and of the puritan cause, nay of England and her happiness for a century to come, perhaps quivered in the scale when Baxter refused to march with Cromwell's regiment. One ill con- sequence appeared immediately. It was now that Cromwell, not choosing a preshyterian, and perhaps not willing to ask the services of any inferior man to Baxter, became the chaplain as well as the general of his own squadrons. This amazingly increased his influence; he now held the two swords, the temporal and spiritual. In his troops the spark lay hid which soon overspread the army with its insane excesses, and covered England with innumerable sectaries of the wildest kind. The contagion spread through the army rapidly, for it was in accordance both with the logic of the camp and its prepossessions, that Cromwell's being the bravest troops, should be the most enlightened christians. But if Cromwell intruded into the ministerial office, there were ministers of the gospel, CIIAS. I. A.D. THE LATER PURITANS. 141 besides Iliigli Peters, who, in return, aspired to chapter military command. Palmer, a Nottinghamshire clergyman and a zealous preacher, appeared with a captain's commission at the head of a troop of 1643-4-5. horse ; and " one Mr. Coates, a minister, an honest, godly man,"* was the captain of four hundred infantry ; and yet neither Coates nor Palmer aban- doned their sacred functions. Palmer proved him- self a coward, and laid down his commission ; but he resumed the ministry without objection, and was esteemed among the nonconformists as a preacher in the days of Charles II. f These instances must have been uncommon : still there was a strange fusion of the clerical and military character. It is a curious fact that each of the chaplains wore a sword " for form's sake," as one of them expresses it ; and the men who abhorred a surplice girded on with pride the symbols of des- truction, and the implements of death. But such it appears was the fashion of the times. :|: The chaplains had joined the army under the im- pression, which was universal on both sides, that one battle, or at least a short campaign, would conclude the war. AYhen it became apparent that the struggle was likely to be prolonged they grew weary of the service. One after another they silently withdrew. The consequences were in every way unfortunate. In losing its presbyterian chaplains the army lost its best advisers. They were not only men of piety but of cultivated minds. Their passions were subdued, their experience embraced every change of human * Hutchinson, pp. 175, 208. t Ibid, p. 429. X Maitinilale's Diary, p. 37. III. CHAS. I AD 142 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER life. They had lived in dungeons, in exile, and in want ; and, more trying still to virtue, they had hcen caressed by parliaments and applauded by the 1643-4-5. multitude. In heart and soul they were loyal to the king ; none of his own chaplains were more sincere than they when they prayed, as they never failed to do, that he might reign once more upon his father's throne and in the hearts of a loving people. Their retirement left the army to itself; it soon became rebellious, and broke out into the wildest excesses of uncontrolled fanaticism. THE LATER PURITANS. 143 CHAPTER IV. A.D. 1645—1648. CHAPTER IV. The necessities of the king and the urgent repre- sentations of his council at len2:th induced him to ° , CHAS. I. offer proposals for a treaty. The parliament, though a.d. igis elated with its tide of recent success, could not easily decline a conference to which it was urged by the whole kingdom, now longing for repose. Commis- sioners from both sides were appointed, and a period of twenty days assigned for their deliberations. They assembled at Uxbridge on the 30th of January, 1645. The treaty opened with an ill omen. It was remarked, that while the deportment of the royalists was full of hope and confidence, the parlia- mentary commissioners were reserved and cold. On the first day Love, who was chaplain to the parlia- mentary garrison at Windsor, preached a furious sermon in the parish church. The king's commis- sioners, he said, came there with hearts full of blood ; there was as great a distance between this treaty and peace as between heaven and hell ; it was in- tended only to amuse the people till the royalists had power to injure them.* The king's commis- sioners remonstrated against the insult, and the * Claremlon, b. ii. p. 579. Whitelocke, p. 123. 144 THE IIISTOllY OF CHAPTER parliament sent for Love and heard his explanation ; ^^'- but he escaped unpunished. But the chances of cHAs.i. (j^yji y/iXY^ and the changes througli which men pass, A.D. 1G15. J i • • 1 r^ 11) are strange. Love, protestmg aganist Lromweii s usurpation, and still avowing his allegiance to the Stuarts, perished on Tower-hill six years afterwards, by the same axe which had dripped with the blood of Laud and of his royal master. Uxbridii:e consisted then as now of one wide street. The king and his party occupied the south side ; the parliamentary commissioners lodged upon the north. Prayers were read daily in the parish church before the royalists. The puritans assembled in the large chamber of an inn. Here Marshall preached, while Henderson assisted. The two parties often crossed the street for mutual intercourse ; there was a constant exchange of courtesies ; in religion only there was an austere reserve. There were men of great sincerity, and of great piety on both sides ; they had been friends, they still were fellow country- men. Prayer in common might perchance have softened asperities which no arguments could re- move. But after Love's sermon it was not tried. The parliament made three demands ; of which the first had reference to religion ; and the commis- sioners entered upon this point at once. It was proposed that episcopacy should be immediately abolished ; that the book of common prayer should be totally suppressed ; that the directory, which was just issued, should be introduced and authorized ; that " such a national cliurch should be established as might be most agreeable to God's word and the practice of the best churches ;" and lastly, that the CHAS. I. A.U. 1645. THE LATER PURITANS. 145 king liimsclf should take the covenant, and oblig-c chaptkr his subjects to accept it. The king was assisted by his chaplains Drs. Sheldon, Potter, Hammond, and others ; the parliamentary divines were Henderson, Vines, and Marshall. The church politics of the parliament were now complicated with various diffi- culties, and its conduct often appears, at first sight, a confused heap of contradictions. As the price of the Scotch alliance it had plunged into the toils of the solemn league and covenant. Against ail comers it was bound to defend the presbyterian cause. Consistency obliged the commissioners to force it upon the king. But few of the leaders in the house of commons were sincere. The covenant had been purposely so expressed as to leave a shade of ambi- guity, of which, all along, they intended to avail themselves. Eervent presbyterians, in their sim- plicity, believed that the church which " should be most in accordance with God's word and the practice of the best churches" must of course be presbyterian. The sectaries and independents secretly reserved this point. They considered themselves pledged only to subvert prelacy and popery ; and then, having cleared the ground, to build anew. Thus Henderson and Marshall, at Uxbridge, were mere puppets, moved about in a game they did not under- stand, and by men whose intentions they were not allowed to penetrate. In the management of their argument they fell into the common error of endea- vouring to prove too much ; and in doing so, ruined their cause with its lukewarm friends as well as with its adversaries. They maintained, before the com- missioners on both sides, that presbyterianism was L 146 THE HISTORY OF ciiArxEu prescribed in holy writ. They were not satisfied to ^^' nrg;e that it was the best or the most convenient cHAs. I. fQj^.j^ . [^ -^yag ^i^g Qj^ly Q^Q . [^ existed iure divino. A.D. 1645. ' _ _ '' _ ' , '^ The constitution of the christian church was a part of God's revelation to mankind ; and that constitu- tion was presbyterian and nothing else : no other church was lawful. In the assembly they had to maintain this dogma against the independents ; at Uxbridge, against the episcopal divines. The latter, not to be outdone, advanced the same claim on behalf of their own church government. They took up the position of bishop Bancroft, in the days of Whitgift, and asserted, with equal if not with greater vehemence, the exclusive and divine right of episcopacy.* But the arguments on each side fell short of their pretensions. " My lords," said the marquis of Hertford, " here is much said concerning church government in the general ; the reverend doctors on the king's part affirm that epis- copacy injure divino ; the reverend ministers on the other part, affirm that presbytery injure divino : for my part, I think neither the one nor the other, nor any government whatever, to he Jure divino; and I desire we may leave this argument, and proceed to debate upon the particular proposals." The ques- tion was repeatedly proposed, by Ilyde and others, to the parliamentary commissioners, whether epis- copacy were unlawful. Was it, in its own nature, and ^9^r se, a sinful institution ? But they failed to extort a direct answer. The Scotch commissioners, Maitland, Johnstone, and the rest, were held in check by the representatives of the English parlia- * Whitelockc, p. 123. CM AS. I. A.D. 16-15. THE LATER PURITANS. 117 ment ; and the selection of such names as St. John, ciiai'teu Whitelocke, Denzil Ilollis, and the younger sir — Henry Vane, who regarded presl)yterianism, some of them with aversion, and all of them with indifference, told significantly that the house of commons viewed the preshyterian claims with jealousy. The king himself advanced one argument, through his divines, which required no proofs to make it plain. He was bound, he said, by his coronation oath to defend the rights of the church : in his conscience he could not consent either to abrogate episcopacy or to alienate the church lands, which latter, he thought, would be direct sacrilege.* Hyde, now the king's chancellor of exchequer, was one of the commissioners. In private conversations with the other party he dis- covered that none but the Scotch, and the West- minster divines, were in earnest in the matter. In short, the parliament was more unconcerned and less united in what concerned the church than upon any other point discussed at Uxbridge.f The remaining demands of the parliament were, that the militia should be placed at its disposal, and that the king should prosecute the war against the Irish rebels with vigour, notwithstanding a treaty he had lately made with them. Even those of the parliamentary commissioners who were most anxious for peace insisted, both publicly and in private, upon having the whole command of the militia by sea and land, atid all the forts and ships of the kingdom at their disposal ; without which, to repeat the words of Clarendon, they looked upon themselves as lost, and at the king's mercy. The * Clarendon, book vii. p. 5S6. t I'j- 1' 581. L 2 CIIAS. I. A.D. 1645. 148 THE TITSTORY OF ciiAPTEH most reasonable amonsrst them tlioufirlit tliese secu- ritics necessary to their safety. " To refuse them could, they believed, proceed from nothing else but the resolution to take the highest vengeance upon their rebellion."* So low had sunk the reputation of Charles's honour and veracity. The Irish question was debated with great asperity on both sides. The king was roundly charged with abetting the rebels ; and his commissioners replied by charging on the parliament the whole guilt of a rebellion which had even forced his majesty to call in the assistance of the Irish papists. In short the treaty failed ; the commissioners left Uxbridge at the expiration of the twenty days ; and each side prepared, with animosities hitherto unknown, to renew the war. The contest for presbyterian supremacy which had now been waged, in the assembly against the independents and sectaries, and at Uxbridge against the episcopalians, was advanced in the course of the summer against a more powerful antagonist. As it was intended to erect ecclesiastical courts and to cover the nation with a net-work of novel juris- dictions, it became necessary to settle and define tlieir limits, as well as the nature of their powers. Por the highest of the presbyterian courts, the Westminster assembly, claimed the supreme right of excommunication. The parliament, however, insisted upon an appeal from the ecclesiastical to the civil tribunal — from the national synod to themselves. The assembly remonstrated against this impiety; and in return the parliament informed * Clarendon, Itook vii. p. 589. THE LATER PURITANS. 119 them that they had violated its privileges and in- chapter curred the penalties of a premunire. The discussion '- — was prolonged with some interruption for a whole ad\^645. year. So jealous had the parliament now become of the power of ecclesiastics that even exclusion from the Lord's supper was a question on which it insisted on hearing an appeal from the excluded party. This was Erastianism without disguise, and the assembly chafed beneath it. Touching the question ofajtis divinmn, the parliament propounded to the assembly of divines a series of questions, which the historians of that grave body speak of with indignation, and which certainly throw an air of ridicule over the high pretensions of the presby- terian champions. They desire, for instance, to be satisfied upon the following amongst other points : 1. Whether congregational and parochial elderships appointed by ordinance of parliament, or any other congregational or presbyterial elderships, are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ ? — and whether any particular church govern- ment be jui^e divino ? — and what that government is ? 2. Whether all the members of the said elder- ship, as members thereof, or which of them, are jure divino, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ? 3. Whether the superior assemblies of elderships, viz., the classical, provincial, or national, whether all or any of them, and which of them, 2iVQJure divino, and by the will and appointment or Jesus Christ ? 4. Whether appeals from the con- gregational elderships to the classical, provincial, or national assemblies, or any of them, and if so, which of them, are ju7'e divino ? And are their powers upon such appeals jure divino, and by the A.U. 1C15. 150 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTKR will and appointment of Jesus Christ ?* And thus _ill_tliey proceed through the prcsbyterian system. tiiAs.i. ^^(.| lastly, they demand, whether there be any- thino- in tlie word of God which forbids the supreme magistracy in a christian state from determinmg what are the notorious and scandalous offences which deserve church censures, and what shall be the manner of suspension for the same ?— and in what points, they ask, concerning such offences, is the supreme magistracy by the word of God ex- cluded ? The assembly were required to give their proofs from scripture and in writing. But they found it an easier, and no doubt a much safer task, to close the controversy with an opponent that, in the last resort, could wield the terrors of a pre- muniref in the general terms of the following proposition : — " The Lord Jesus, as king and head of his church, hath therein appointed a government in the hand of church ofl&cers distinct from the civil magistrate." The conduct of the house of commons at this period was not unlike that of Henry VIII. while the reformation was in progress. Undetermined themselves, they forbad the right of choice to others. Their reformation hitherto had gone no further than the dislike of prelacy had forced it : they had rejected much, they had established no- * Ilethcrington, p. 281. f Preraunire, a barbarous word for premonere j it took its original from the exorbitant power claimed and exercised by the pope in England. The punishment was, that the convicted party forfeited his lands and ])ropertv to tlic king ; tliat lie was imprisoned during pleasure, or even during Hfe ; and further, he was placed beyond the protection of the law, he could bring an action for no injury, however atrocious, nor obtain a remedy for any grievance he might sufl'cr. Blackstone, Comment, book iv. chapter viii. THE LATER PURITANS. * 151 thing in its place ; but as their difficulties increased <^"ArTEK IV. they shewed a still increasing aversion to the ancient service. The directory was published in A.Diieio. January : it set forth that the liturgy had proved an offence to many of the godly, and to the re- formed churches abroad, and it was therefore to be set aside.* This was a great advance upon their first intentions, which had been merely to revise and amend the ritual. But their prejudices still gathered strength, and in the month of August they forbad the use of the common prayer-book altogether, not only in any church, chapel, or public place of worship, but in any private place or family within the kingdom of England ; under a penalty of five pounds for the first offence, ten pounds for the second, and for the third offence, one whole year's imprisonment, without bail or mainprize.f At the same time, the use of the directory was enforced ; the clergy were commanded to conform to it under a fine of forty shillings for each omission ; and " whoever depraved it, in preaching, writing, or teaching," w^as liable to be convicted in a summary manner, and fined not less than five pounds for each offence. Thus presbyterian wor- ship was established, though not the presbyterian discipline. The puritans had not profited by the lessons of adversity. They too had their penal statutes and their act of uniformity. To those who are disposed nicely to adjust the balances of crime, their conduct seems right or wrong as it is worse or better than that of their opponents. Such writers have remarked, on the one hand, that the * Ordinance, &c., die Veneris, 3 Januarii, 164-1. t Ordinance, &c., 23 Aug. 1G45. 152 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER punishments whicli the ordinance inflicts arc light ^^' in comparison Avith the prisons and gihbets of cHAs.i. 'Wlnta'ift and his school: and, on the other, that A.D. 1645. ° ... the episcopal act of uniformity of 1662 is lenient in comparison Avith this inglorious specimen of puritan oppression. The act of 1662 only afl'ected the clergy ; this included the laity. That did not forbid private or family prayer, although extem- pore ; this forbad the use of the book of common prayer even in the domestic circle, under the mon- strous penalty of five pounds for the first, and one hundred pounds for the third, offence.* The inde- pendents joined with the presbyterians in these merciless measures, though they themselves were at the time exposed to similar exclusion ; and the puritans of 1615, are responsible to posterity for an act of which there are few parallels in the dreary records of intolerance. It admits, unhappily, of no excuse. Revenge or retaliation must not be pleaded in justification of those who rule men, or of those who fear God : as senators or as christians, they are beyond the worthless shelter of such apologies. Kor will necessity avail. A state of war confers, it is true, the rights of war ; but they are to be exerted sparingly, and only when necessity compels. Had the king systematically availed himself of the occasions when the liturgy was read to foment his quarrel with the parliament — had the use of the prayer-book been the signal of his party — perhaps it might have been difiicult to blame his opjionents for snatching from his hands the machinery of war. The same principle of self-defence upon which the saying of mass was forbidden to papists when the * Walker, Sufferings, &c., part i. p. 28. CUAS. I. A.D. 1645. THE LATER PriUTANS. 153 kingdom was in danger, miglit possibly have ex- chapter cused, but only for a time, the suppression of the ^^' prayer-book. But when the ordinance was made no such pretence existed : the battle of Nascl^y had been fought, and Charles was no longer formidable. Two years afterwards, when the war was at an end and the king a prisoner, the parliament voted "liberty to tender consciences by way of indul- gence ;" but within two days, as if alarmed at their own concessions, they reconsidered the question, and resolved, " that the indulgence as to tender consciences shall not extend to the book of common prayer."* Kivals may exult and zealots may excuse ; it is for those who have made the wrongs of the puritans their own, who have felt their sorrows through the persecutions of a century, and who abhor oppression more than they love a party, to review these measures with the deepest shame, and to give utterance to the loudest indignation. The independents were treated with only less severity than the adherents of the liturgy. To relate the various turns of the conflict throuijh which they struggled for equal rights against parliamentary committees and majorities of the assembly of divines, would be wearisome and un- profitable. A committee of accommodation was appointed by the house of commons to arrange the differences of the two parties. The independents differed but little from the presbyterians on church government, and in doctrine not a shade. They asked to be included in the national church about to be founded, on two conditions; namely, to reserve * IG Oct., 1647. Whitclocke, p. 276. 154 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTi:u the right of ordination to themselves, and to he ^^' exempted from the jurisdiction of the classes or gHAs.i. pi'cshytcrian courts. They did not intend, they said, a total separation from their hrethren ; they would hold occasional communion with the presby- terian churches in baptism and the Lord's supper ; their ministers should preach for each other ; and in cases of difficulty they would call in their assist- ance and advice ; they would even desire the presence and approbation of presbyterian ministers at the ordination of their own clergy, and they would submit to have but a few places of worship licensed for uneasy consciences. On these terms they prayed to share the privileges of the national church. The presbyterians answered, that the concession of their demands would introduce con- fusion into families ; would confer upon members of the independent churches privileges denied to the establishment ; would destroy the whole work on which the parliament had been so long and earnestly employed, and countenance a perpetual schism. In short, said they, if you can communi- cate with our church occasionally, we know no reason why you may not do so constantly, and then your separation will be needless. Separation is schism. If the church impose anything that is sinful, you need not, nor ought you, to comply; you may suffer, but you must not separate : and this, they said, was the practice of the puritans in the late times. And they closed the argument with reminding the independents that their own brethren in New England (the pilgrim fathers of Boston and New Plymouth) allowed no such tole- THE LATER PURITANS. 155 ration as that for which they now pleaded at home, chapter The assembly triumphed : the committee of accom- '. — modation broke up ; and the successors of the ^^^^lei. brownists found themselves cast out by the succes- sors of Cart Wright ; just as they themselves in time past had been ejected by the prelates. The circle of intolerance was complete.* Toleration was a word which roused those violent passions which are formidable or ludicrous as the subjects of them are invested with the power, or de- prived of the opportunity, of carrying their wishes into effect. To collect from some of the greatest writers of the age the sentences in which they de- nounced the doctrine of toleration, meaning thereby the liberty, not of imposing a schismatic creed on others but of observing it oneself, would be to pre- sent the reader with a set of phrases the bitterness of which has never been surpassed. " To let men serve God according to the persuasion of their own conscience," says one writer, " is to cast out one devil that seven worse may enter in." Prynne, who had lost his ears in Palace-yard and felt the ven- geance of the star-chamber, still thought that " the independents and all others were bound to submit to the will of parliament on the pain of obstinacy." Most of the sermons before the house of commons, at their monthly fasts, spoke the same language, and called upon the magistrate to draw the sword against the sectaries.! " If you do not labour," said Calamy, " according to your duty and power to suppress the errors and heresies which are spread in the kingdom, all those errors are your errors, and * Neal, vol, iii. chap. vi. t lb. vol. iii. p. 254. 156 THE IlISTOllY OF ciiAPTKK those heresies are your heresies ; they are your sins, '- — and God calls upon you for a parliamentary repent- ."^I!'?..!' ance this day."* Edwards, the minister of Christ- church, London, published a treatise, which was printed with the approbation of a large number of ministers from all parts of the nation. *' A tolera- tion," he exclaims, " is the grand design of the devil, the masterpiece and chief engine he works by at this time to upliold his tottering kingdom ; it is a most transcendent, catholic, and fundamental evil for this kingdom of any that can be imagined. Other evils are but against some one or few places of Scripture ; this is against all ; this is the Abaddon, the Apollyon, the destroyer of all religion, the abomination of de- solation and astonishment, the liberty of perdition (as Augustin calls it), and therefore the devil follows it night and day, working mightily in many, by writing books for it, and other ways ; all the devils in hell and their instruments being at work to pro- mote toleration. O let ministers," he cries, " oppose toleration, as that by which the devil would at once lay a foundation for his kingdom through all gene- rations."! Never had the worst measures of the bishops aroused a stronger indignation than the presbyterians now displayed against this fearful monster. The presbytcrian divines of London met from week to week at Sion college, to consult on the best methods to extend the influence of religion. One of their schemes was the suppression of all who differed from themselves. They wrote a letter to * Price, Hist. Non-con. vol. ii. p. 327. t Gangrena ; or a Catalo<;ue, &c. of tlie many errors, heresies, blasphe- mies; &c. of the sectaries in England; 164G; vol. i. i)p. 68 — 85. THE LATER PURITANS. 157 the parliament, imploring them to oppose with all chapter their might this idol, this great Diana, as they '- — termed it, of the independents, and not to suffer ^^y'^^^' their new estahlishment to he strangled in the hirth hy a lawless toleration. The preshyterians of Lan- cashire echoed the harsh tones of their London hretliren, Eighty-four of these reverend men set forth a document entitled, " The harmonious consent of all the ministers, &c. to the truth of Jesus Christ." The harmony they contemplated was that with which our British ancestor upbraided the legions of Agricola : they would have made a solitude and called it peace. " A toleration," they exclaim, " would be the putting of a sword into a madman's hands, a cup of poison into the hand of a child, a letting loose of madmen with firebrands in their hands, an appointing a city of refuge in men's consciences for the devil to fly to, a laying of a stumbling-block before the blind, a proclaiming liberty to the wolves to come into Christ's fold to prey upon the lambs, a toleration of soul murder (the greatest murder of all), and for the establishing whereof damned souls in hell would accuse men on earth."* Scotland took up the clamour and gave it a national expression. The Scotch parliament, through their president, addressed the two houses at "Westminster thus : — " It was expected that your honourable houses would add the civil sanction to what the pious and learned assembly have advised ; I am commanded by the parliament of this kingdom to demand it, and I do, in their names, demand it. The parliament of this kingdom is persuaded that * Price, Ilist. Non-con. vol. ii. p. 331. 158 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER the piety and wisdom of the honourable houses will '^" never admit toleration of any acts or schisms con- AD^ws ti'ary to our solemn league and covenant."* Even Baxter, who abhorred the violence of the presby- terians, felt it necessary to purge himself from the imputation of not favouring intolerance. " My judgment," he says, *' I have always freely made known. I abhor unlimited toleration, or toleration at all."t There were, of course, amongst the inde- pendents, and in the house of commons, some minds upon whom a clearer light had broken in ; men who reasoned for toleration, not merely because they dis- liked the presbyterians, but from hatred of oppres- sion and reverence for the truth. The illustrious Dr. John Owen was a presbyterian, but he saw the errors of his party. He published a short essay on church government, w^hich contains some thoughts far be- yond the wisdom of the men around him. lie de- clared that he knew no church government existing, of the truth and necessity of which he was, in all particulars, convinced. His sagacity led him to fore- see that all national disputes about church govern- ment would prove abortive, — mere " birthless tym- panies." His love of charity taught him to protest against such " big words" as those with which the presbyterians inflated their own pretensions and de- nounced their adversaries. Blasphemy, he main- tains, ought to be punished by the magistrate, but not heresy ; and he explains wisely the reasons of his opinion, and shews the difference between the two offences. The presbyterians would have put a * Neal, vol. iii. p. 243. t Scripture Proof of Infant Church-nicmbcrsliip, p. 24G. IV. CHAS. I. A.D. 1045. THE LATER PURITANS. 159 man to death for a denial of the Trinity. In fact, a ciiArxER sooinian very narrowly escaped the halter if not the stake this very year. Their argument was, that such errors are destructive to men's souls. "And so," replies Owen, " are many things, which yet are not punishable with death;" and he challenges his opponents, if sincere, to carry out the principle and gird themselves to an indiscriminate slaughter of pagans and mahometans. Ileresy, said the perse- cuting party, is a cancer, and must he extirpated. " It is a spiritual cancer," answers Owen, " let it he prevented by spiritual means ; cutting off men's heads is no proper remedy. If state physicians think otherwise, I say no more hut that I am not of the college."* Such sentiments were not consistent with a warm devotion to preshyterianism as it then existed, and Owen soon passed over to the inde- pendents. Thus for the present the independents were crushed, the preshyterians were triumphant, and toleration was denounced. But a change w^as coming. Preshyterianism in England had even now received its death-blow, and the parliament at Westminster was already provided with a master. While terms of peace were idly discussed at Us- bridge, the parliament at Westminster was more seriously employed upon the self-denying ordinance. This measure has been made the butt of ridicule since the day on which it passed, and its quaint title may provoke a smile. But it forms an epoch in the war. Like a mark upon the rocks from which we measure the ebbing of the tide, it shews to what * Orme's Life of Owen, p. 43. 160 THE HISTORY OF cuAPTER lieiglit the puritan cause ouce rose, in simplicity of ^^' heart and honesty of purpose, and withal how cHAs.i. credulous it was, and open to the intrigues of A.D. 1045. *■ ^ knavery. As an instance of infatuation in a deliberative body, the self-denying ordinance has in the history of senates but one parallel. The national assembly of France, in the revolution of 1789, in a similar way disrobed themselves, in a paroxysm of political frenzy, of their manorial rights and ancestral honours, and reduced themselves to insignificance. The English parliament was more deliberate, and therefore more infatuated. The army was com- manded by presbyterians ; by the lords Essex, Manchester, and Denbigh, of the upper house ; by sir William Waller, colonel Massey, and others, of the house of commons. These were men of moderate counsels. The earl of Essex was anxious to bring the kinss: to reason, and then to restore him to his throne ; not by any means to overthrow the mo- narchy. Manchester and Waller had the same in- tentions. The revolutionary storm had not hurried them before it. They occupied the same position on wdiich they stood in 16J<2 ; they sought reform and reasonable liberty ; they fought not against the crown, but against its slavish maxims and tyrannical practices ; and all Scotland as well as the presbyte- rians at home still adhered to them. But not so the house of commons. It was already much altered. Amongst those Avho had retired and joined the king were some who had once been its ornaments. Several of its greatest men were dead. The anxieties of the times, to say nothing of the calamities of war, had THE LATER PTJUTTANS. 161 swept away no inconsiderable number, and others ciiAPTnu were engaged upon the field. The mortality of the ^^'- last few years had been, from these causes, almost ^."as. i. without precedent. The vacancies were not yet filled up, but they were making way for men of Inferior parts and of a lower standing. At length, though not without a severe discussion, the house of commons resolved to recruit its numbers, and by its own authority to issue writs for the election of new members in the place of all those who were deceased, or who had retired to Oxford. Thus the name indeed remained, but little more was left, of that famous parliament which in 1610 had denounced oppression, and proclaimed the rights of England and of the reformation. In these five years the de- clension of the house of commons had been remark- able. Its eloquence had grown dim, and its statesmanlike capacity had shrivelled into small dimensions. The speeches delivered in 1641 and 1642 are as much above the usual level of parlia- mentary eloquence as those of 1645 are beneath it. The former are manly in thought and chaste in lan- guage ; the latter, with the exception of a few such men as Selden, Whitelocke, and St. John, whose thoughtful words must always command respect, are mean and vulgar, and overlaid with a certain religious jargon, as remote from the expression of simple piety as the language of adulation is from that of honest friendship. The transformation, it is true, was not yet couiplete. The elections for new mem- bers did not take place till August, when the self- denying ordinance had passed. But already members hitherto but little known began to take the lead ; M 1G2 THE niSTORY OF ciiArTER new intentions began to be avowed ; and a party ^^' was formed, of which Cromwell, Vane, and Martin ciiAs. I. ^y^YQ ^jiQ head. Eor some months there had been a A.D. 1G45. coldness between the generals and the parliament. The earl of Essex was ill in London, desponding and alone ; but he still retained the chief command. The second victory at Newbury had been won by his army, but under the command, in his absence, of the earl of Manchester. AVhen the news arrived in London, although a day of thanksgiving was ap- pointed, thanks were not voted to either of the generals, and Manchester was charged by Cromwell, in his place in parliament, with having intentionally permitted the king to escape, and with not having pursued his advantages to the utmost. He defended himself in the upper house, but Cromwell and his friends in the house of commons continued to repeat the accusation. A violent quarrel was at hand. Still the army was attached to its generals ; mutinies were reported from day to day ; even CromAvell's legion was disaffected ; and it was evident that if a collision should take place, the parliament was im- potent against thirty thousand men in arms. A painful consciousness was felt that the seat of govern- ment was about to be transferred from the senate to the camp. The self-denying ordinance brought on a crisis. Without seeming to strike a blow or to use an effort, Cromwell by this measure reduced the ge- nerals and the army into complete subserviency to himself; made the parliament first his instrument and then his victim ; seized at the instant the reins which fell out of its hands, and grasped them CIIA3. I. A.D. HUB. THE LATER PURITANS. 163 firmly for the remainder of his life. The way was chapter cautiously prepared. The nation, it was said, — — required rest ; the war which exhausted its energies ought to be closed, for it covered the land with blood ; meantime the tone of public principle was deteriorated and religion itself decayed ; and no wonder, since the two houses of parliament were everywhere charged with selfishness and ambition. They were brave and patriotic, it was admitted, but they were mistaken ; they neglected the business of the state to gather laurels on the field of battle; and the time had now arrived when they should give the nation a noble example of self-denial. Legislation was their proper business ; the pursuits of the soldier were unfit for them ; and they ought at once to resign their commissions. These hollow murmurings announced the approaching storm. Just at the time, a few reverses which had occurred in the west of England to sir AYilliam Waller served to give a still more solemn tone to these feigned or real apprehensions. God was displeased, and the people must abase themselves. A solemn fast was appointed, and the preachers were carefully chosen by Cromwell and the independent party. The pulpit now began to share the degeneracy of the parliament, and to echo the intentions of the ruling powers. The word fanatic this year enriched our language ;* it was coined to describe a set of men who transferred the impassioned fervours of devotion to politics, contaminating both at once. The text itself was often a gazette, and it frequently conveyed to the audience the first intimation of some ap- * So Claremlon says. M 2 164 TIIE HISTORT OF CHAPTER proacliing change. There was of course the greatest ^ — "unanimity among the preachers, and the people a.d!ig45. joined with unsuspicious fervour in services which continued eight or ten hours without interruption. The preachers deplored the continuance of the war, and expressed their fears that so long as the chief commands were held hy memhers of the legislature it was not likely to come to an end ; the nation, would grow poor while the parliament grew rich. They even ventured to affirm that the parliament was no less corrupt than tlie court itself. It had as much pride, as much ambition, as many private ends to serve, and as little true regard to the public welfare ; and they prayed that God w^ould take his own work in hand ; and, if the instruments employed were indeed unworthy to complete the glorious task, to make use of others, and fit them for the work. The next day sir Harry A^ane opened the debate, insisting chiefly upon the Avondcrful unanimity (if we may credit Clarendon's* minute and apparently accurate relation) which had appeared in the discourses and lamentations of all the godly ministers in so many churches, " which could therefore proceed," he said, " only from the immediate Spirit of God." He deplored the sins of the parliament, and admitted its selfishness. He, for one, Avas ready to accuse himself. He was joint-treasurer of the navy : he would resign his office ; and apply its emoluments to carry on the war. The ice thus broken, Cromwell followed. His eloquence was obscure and vulgar but still it was effective. It has been usual to regard the * Clarendon, viii. p. 5GG. CHAS. I. A.D. 1645. THE LATER PURITANS. 165 style and matter of his speeches as proofs of a chapter consummate hypocrisy : they were rather perhaps ^^" the utterance of a deep fanaticism. He now spoke like one in whom every feeling of personal ambition was subservient to the cause of God. lie com- mended the preachers for their faitlifulness ; ac- knowledged the sins of parliament and his own ; and enlarged on the vices and corruptions of the army, its profaneness and impiety, and the absence of all religion. Unless it were remodelled, and governed under a stricter discipline, success, he said, could not be expected. God had so blessed their army notwithstanding, that it contained ex- cellent officers, capable of higher command than they now possessed : nay, if the highest ofiices were vacant, they could be filled up at once. To believe that the success of the army depended on its present leaders, (whose valour he highly praised,) was to trust in an arm of flesh, — as if such a cause as this depended on one man ! He proposed, at length, an ordinance that no member of either house of parlia- ment should retain ofiice or command in the army, or any place or employment in the state ; and, in proof of his sincerity, he offered to lay down his own commission. The motion thus introduced was long debated. It was vehemently opposed by the Scotch commissioners then in London, and by the whole force of the presbyterians, including the house of lords. But the proposal was plausible witli the people, who are seldom indeed displeased when those in power renounce their honours. Zouch Tate led the way in the house of commons, and moved the adoption of the self-denying ordinance. 16G THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER in a spcccli '* w liicli he introduced with the simili- — tudo of a boil upon his thumb."* We see at once '^^!^tl'- how much the house of commons had declined, A.D. 164o. when a business of such importance was intrusted to a vulgar fanatic. A fast was ordered, and the self-denvini? ordinance was read. Whitclocke dis- played one of those feats of statesmanship which it is to be hoped may always be uncommon : he spoke admirably against the ordinance, and voted for it. It passed unanimously, and was sent up to the lords for their concurrence : the lords hesitated ; the commons urged them to proceed : the lords delivered to the commons their reasons against the bill ; the commons suspended all private business for eight days, and the whole house went up to the peers to importune them to pass the ordinance. They still hesitated; and the house of commons, resolving to w^ait no longer, proceeded at once to remodel the army. The destruction of the upper house must be dated from this quarrel, f The earls of Essex and Manchester, sir William Waller, and the rest of the commanders, immediately resigned. All the Scotch officers were dismissed; and the Scotch alliance was henceforward treated wdth indilTcrence. Sir Thomas Eairfax was chosen lord-general on Cromwell's recommendation. | He was in truth Cromwell's nominee : a man chosen for the openness of his character, as much as for his valour and abilities. He was religious, valiant, and resolute ; an unsuspecting soldier ; very fit for action ; neither too great nor too cunning to be governed by the * Whitclocke, p. li;<. Ludlow, p. SC. f Whitelockc, p. 118. t Clarendon, viii. p. 569. Baxter, i, p. 48. (HAS. I. A.D. 1W3. THE LATER PURITANS. 167 parliament. He was led into the house of commons, chapter where a chair was placed for him, but he modestly- refused to sit. " The speaker told him somewhat of Agamemnon and the old Romans, which," says Whitolocke, "I have forgotten." A curious in- stance of the altering character of that assembly ; the speaker no longer selected his models for the new chieftain from the old testament, nor from English annals, but from the republicans of classic history. Fairfax was invested with the command of the army, which he immediately joined at Wind- sor, his head- quarters. Cromwell too rejoined his own regiment, and their mutinous disposition was instantly allayed. The parliament soon received from Fairfax a request that Cromwell's presence at Westminster might be dispensed with, for he stood in need, he said, of his assistance and advice : the house of commons gave him leave of absence for forty days. In a few weeks the general petitioned that Cromwell might be allowed to serve during the remainder of that campaign : the house again consented. Cromwell turned the opportunity to the best account ; and in a few days he had beaten the royalists in the west of England in five engage- ments. In the name of Fairfax he now remodelled the army : he disbanded and cashiered at pleasure ; he drafted refractory presbyterians into regiments which possessed his confidence; he promoted his friends Ireton, Desborough, Harrison, Fleetwood, Whalley, and others, independents or republicans, to posts of importance ; he broke up his own famous squadrons and distributed them amongst six other regiments ; and thus, by their means, the whole A.D. 1645. 168 THE niSTOllY OF ciiAPTEu iirmy ^Yas reduced beneath his influence. For some ^^- time he liad been its idol ; he was now its master. cHAs.i. The parliament confirmed him in his military employments and made him its lieutenant-general. It was no longer a secret that the whole army, includin"- the ^generalissimo Fairfax and the brave and honest Shippon, commander of the cavalry, were obedient to his will. The self-denying ordi- nance had passed both houses (for the lords at length gave way) ; the presbyterians were van- quished ; the army was remodelled ; and Cromwell held the fate of three kingdoms in his hand. He was already in effect supreme. His eulogists in general hasten by the self-denying ordinance with a rapid step. They describe him as the victim of circumstances ; equally sincere in urging forward the self-denying ordinance and resigning his commission in the house of commons, and in again resuming his command at Windsor, a few days afterwards, in the face of all his solemn protestations. A marvellous conjuncture, they affirm, arrested his intentions and compelled him to do violence to him- self. The will of a nation, if not the providence of God, imposed a necessity from whicli he could not shrink. But such apologies have very little weight. Unfortunately these happy conjunctures return iq)on us too often ; and their recurrence renders them suspicious. Even an indifferent person may escape unsiuged from one dilemma ; but a repetition of equivocal circumstances is ruinous to the best. Cromwell's known character refutes his apologists. He was cast in an iron mould ; he was always an impracticable man. Had he really persuaded him- THE LATER PURITANS. 1G9 self that the self-denying ordinance was necessary, chai-ter neither the persuasions of Pairfax, nor the clamours — — — of the army, nor the commands of parliament, ^'^'^^;^ would have disturbed his purpose. It was well known that he and his party had ulterior views : the vision of a republic already floated mistily before them. Cromwell himself despised the parliament, and had begun about this time to whisper, in his confidential moments, how easy it would be to get rid of the masters whose weakness was apparent.* It will never be well with us, he hinted, until we turn these men out by the ears. With a tenth part of his sagacity, he must have foreseen that his services could not be dispensed with. Everything conspired to make his presence wanted in the camp. He knew his position in the army and was alive to its importance. The complaint was that the com- manders wanted resolution; they were afraid to push their advantages against the king. But into this error at least Cromwell had never fallen. His language to his troops from the first had been, " Should I chance to meet the king in battle, I would as soon shoot him as any private man ;" and he told his soldiers that if their consciences would not permit them to do so, they were not fit for him ; they had better join some other regiment, f The self-denying ordinance had no sooner passed than this stern resolution was avowed ; and the words >vhich implied that the commissions were issued " in the king's name," and that they were to be used on his behalf, were erased. Pairfax at first re- * Ludlow, p. 7- ; and Clarendon, viii. p. 562. t Clarendon, x. p. 110. CllAS. I. A.U. Ifrlo. 170 THE HISTORY Or ciiAPTEu monstratcd ; but liis scruples were overruled in par- liament, and the fiction ceased. Can it Lc supposed that Cromwell, the author of these counsels, was really of opinion that his own absence from the army would contribute to their success ? Again, the licentiousness and irreligion of the army was com- plained of; but Cromwell's legion was not included in the censure. Baxter, who was no sycophant of Cromwell, declares that his old regiment " had made itself famous for religion and valour."* Would the morals of the army then be improved by the retire- ment of the general who had trained this exemplary soldiery ? The evils complained of were those which, of all men, Cromwell was the most likely to remove ! If the ordinance was not intended simply to force him into power, still it must be confessed that no measure could have been devised which, sooner or later, would more certainly have led to that result. There are periods in the lives of public men when they pass for an instant through a flash of light. The self-denying ordinance was this ordeal : it revealed Cromwell's secret motives to the world ; and it left him scorched for ever with the brand of knavery and political chicane. His advocates have lately defended his conduct on the plea of necessity ; and some there are who, dazzled with his greatness, think all his conduct worthy of an indiscriminate admiration. This hero worship, this adulation even of real greatness, is unworthy of a christian nation. If it should become general, it would bespeak a de- generate and degraded people ; a dwarfish race, who admire what is above their reach with idle wonder. * Baxter, i. p. 49. CIIAS. I. A.D. 1&15. THE LATER PURITANS. 171 The incapacity of distinguishing between great chapter powers and the right use of them, marks a weak or a perverted mind ; it obliterates the distinctions of vice and virtue, and substitutes the pagan supersti- tion which burnt incense at the shrines of good and bad fortune. "When a nation once arrives at this point it is utterly debased. All pure morality is undermined ; the love of virtue for its own sake, and as that which is most acceptable to God and most like himself, vanishes away ; and men sink to the condition of the brutes, who crowd around the tall and stately deer, but chase it, wounded, from the flock and leave it to die in solitude."* Success be- comes the sole standard by which virtue itself is to be applauded or condemned. The power of the presbyterians was now at an end. The independents and sectaries had combined against them, and their victory was complete. But it was dearly purchased ; for the blow meant for the presbyterians felled the parliament. It retained indeed the power of naming its commanders, and seems to have calculated upon their dutiful submis- sion to its orders. It expected the army to be as docile as before. But the army was no sooner re- modelled than it began to assert its independence, and to act as if the great quarrel between the nation and the king had been submitted not merely to its * I have read witli the attention due to its author's name and character the " Vindication of Cromwell" lately published by Dr. Merle D'Aubigne, and need scarcely add that I am dissatisfied with it. He dismisses the subject of the self-denying ordinance in a few sentences, " Cromwell pre- pared to take leave of his general Fairfax : but circumstances which seemed to proceed from the hand of God prevented him. Hostilities broke out afresh, and Oliver did not think it right at such a moment to return his sword into the scabbard," This is not a vindication ! IV. ClIAS. I. A.D. 1615 172 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER valour in the field, but to its final arl)it ration. Every- thing portended change ; a new order of things was evidently at hand, though none could yet foresee what the future might bring forth. It was under these circumstances that presbyterianism was at length established. On the sixth of August the house of commons sent up to the lords the ordinance for settling the government of the church. Yet it refused, soon after, the petition of the assembly to be allowed to suspend profane and ignorant persons from the sacrament ; voted a petition, which prayed for the establishment of presbytery " as the discipline of Jesus Christ," to be scandalous;* and when the Scotch remonstrated with it upon its tardy zeal and imperfect reformation, had the petition burnt by the common hangman. The lords, after some delay, passed the ordinance, and presbyterianism became the established church by law ; but it was never so in practice ; and presbyterians say, with truth, that in England their system was not fairly tried. London was presbyterian already, in the judgment of its clergy and the temper of the citizens. Lancashire adopted the discipline. In no other part of England does it appear that any vigorous effort was made to carry it into operation. The cause was lost by the folly of its advocates. The parliament justly dreaded another ecclesiastical despotism. The nation re- membered but too well the spiritual courts of the prelates, and viewed with aversion the machinery of presbyterian judicatories, with which it was proposed to overspread the land. Provincial synods and classical assemblies had a new and suspicious sound : * Wliitelock..', p. 159. IV. CHAS. I. A.D. 1645. THE LATEU PURITANS. 173 they afforded endless mirth to the royalists, and met chapter with no encouragement from any party. Selden _ and the lawyers denounced them ; the people were anxious ; and the soldiers laughed in scorn. The scheme was utterly unpopular ; and, as the king rejected it by proclamation, presbyterianism could not be accepted even as a compromise between the two great parties. But, in truth, the institutions of a nation are like the habits of a man : they may be altered and improved by gradual change : but to root them up at once, and to supply their place with others, belongs to Him who only can regenerate either men or nations. The new-modelled army was spoken of with scorn by the royalists ; for its numbers had been reduced from thirty-six to twenty-one thousand men ; and its officers were in general plebeians. But it soon made its power felt: the decisive struggle came; and the last great battle was fought on the 14th of June, 1645, upon the field of Naseby, near Northampton. The king was on the field in person, and his nephew prince Eupert commanded the cavalry. Eairfax, Cromwell, Shippon, and Ireton led on the puritans ; and when the day was over, the royal cause was hopeless. The king was the last to quit the field, on w^hich he had displayed at least the heroic virtues of a cavalier. When the battle was all but lost, he placed himself at the head of his only regiment in reserve, to confront the dreadful Cromwell. The earl of Carnwarth, alarmed for his safety, or struck with a sudden panic, caught at Charles's bridle and turned his horse. Tlie con- tasjion seized the officers who surrounded him and 171 THE HISTORY OF cHAPTEu all llcd. The king waved his sword and cried, " One ^^" charge more and we recover the day :" but all was cHAs. I. J ^ jjg retreated with two thousand horse, the A.D. 1646. o- 1 wreck of his army, towards Leicester. Six thousand prisoners were taken; and amongst them, six colonels, eight lieutenant-colonels, eighteen majors, seventy captains, eighty lieutenants, eighty ensigns, two hundred inferior officers, about a hundred and forty standards, and the royal standard amongst the number, the king's footmen and servants, and the whole train of artillery and baggage.* The slaughter was not great ; for it soon became a panic rather than a fight. The prisoners and the stan- dards that were taken were carried in triumph through London to Westminster. The standards were hung in Westminster hall. The prisoners were secured in the artillery-ground, in Tothill-ficlds. Such as promised to take no further part in the war were dismissed. By far the greater number, still loyal to the king, refused the easy condition, and were shipped off to foreign parts. Within two days Leicester capitulated. Bristol, Winchester, Bath, and Bridgcwater followed ; the king was hopeless, and his army was no more. But the loss of his army was not the only cala- mity which befel the king at Naseby. His cabinet was amongst the spoils. It contained his secret diplomatic correspondence and copies of his private letters to the queen. The loss of the cabinet completed his ruin. The disaster at Naseby might have been retrieved. A generous and forgiving * Memoirs of Edinuiul Ludlow, p. 59. Ludlow, lieutenant-general of horse to the parliament, was present at the fij^ht. A.D. 1645. THE LATEll PURITANS. 175 nation micrlit have conceded to a kinpj subdued chapter what they had scorned to surrender to a king in '- — . arms. All but a few ambitious soldiers were weary of the war. A republic existed yet, only in the dreams of a few headlong zealots, and in the pene- tratinsr ambition of Cromwell. But the loss of character admits of no redress. A perfidious sove- reign can reign only by force amongst those who are conscious that they may one day be made the victims of his treachery ; and the publication of his private correspondence placed the treachery of Charles beyond all further doubt. The parliament was aware of the greatness of its prize. The cabinet was deposited at Guildhall, and its contents were read aloud before thousands of the citizens. A few dejected loyalists affected to believe, or endeavoured to persuade themselves, that the papers were a forgery. The apology, such as it was, added to their misfortune. The originals were ostentatiously displayed. The curious, the malicious, those who hated the royal cause, and those who trembled lest some exposure of their own villany should undo them, rushed in crowds to the Guildhall from day to day. The seal, the handwriting, the well-known signature could not be mistaken. The parliament printed the correspondence ; and doing so, they inflicted upon Charles a blow, compared with which the stroke was merciful that took away his life. All that can be alleged in the king's behalf has been said by Clarendon ; though he himself abhorred the king's duplicity, and often dared to protest against it ; for he was a man of pure integrity, in a court where integrity was rare. 176 THE HISTORY OF cn.vrTKu The publication of The Nascby papers" has ^^'- often been made the subject of grave accusation ciiAs.i. jigj^inst the puritans ; upon what grounds it is difli- cult to perceive. They are charged by Clarendon with a want of honesty in publishing garbled extracts; by Iluine, with want of delicacy in exposing to the vulgar eye letters designed only for the queen. But the cabinet was seized upon the field of battle, and it is absurd to say that confidence was either imposed or violated. Had its contents been made public merely to degrade the king, and to exhibit him to his subjects as a weak, uxorious man, the victim of his wife's caprice, the charge of malice might have been sustained ; and some of the leaders in the popular cause were generous enough to deplore, even at the time, the violation of that respect which is due to a matri- monial correspondence. But though addressed to his wife, the letters printed are in fact on affairs of state ; few of them are of a private nature ; and several were suppressed by those to whom the captors assigned the work of publishing the corres- pondence, out of compassion to the king, — a service for wliich they were rewarded at the restoration.* Charles had no reason to complain ; for the pub- lication of the Naseby papers was not a matter of * Ludlow, p. 60. The Nascby papers are printed at the end of Ludlow's memoir. There is one letter which delicacy ought to have supjjressed, in which Charles writes to the king of France with pitiful complaints of the queen's misbehaviour, and the insolence of her woman, Madame St. George. Yet even this was of importance, as it shewed the thraldom in which the king was held, soon after his marriage, not oidy to the queen, hut to the court of France. It is dated 12 July, 1(526. Except in the sui)iirossions alluded to above, there seems to he no jjretext whatever for Clarendon's charge of garbling the correspondence. C II A S.I. A D. 1C45. THE LATER PURITANS. 177 retaliation, but of self-defence. The puritan leaders chapter had entered on the war deeply convinced of the king's duplicity and heartlessness, but unable at the time to lay the proofs and evidences before the public. These papers supplied them with all that was required : they shewed that he was governed by the queen ; they revealed his hatred of the par- liament, and his resolution to be avenged upon it when the time should come ; they disclosed his project, a hundred times denied, of obtaining the assistance of the king of Prance, the duke of Lorraine, and all the sovereigns of the continent, against his own subjects; above all, they discovered his tenderness to the papists and his favour to the Irish rebels; the fact that he had solicited their assistance, and had already made with them a dishonourable peace. "All which," says Milton, "though suspected vehemently before, and from good grounds believed, yet by him and his adherents peremptorily denied, were, by the opening of that cabinet, visible to all men under his own hand."* The parliament, then, were justified : as upright men, it was their duty to clear themselves from the charge of aspersing the king unjustly; as leaders in the state it was no less their duty to inform the people of the real intentions of the sovereign, and " on what terms their duty stood, and the king- dom's peace."! Ireland had now been for several years in a state of insurrection. In 1641 a frightful massacre first announced the intention of the papists to extirpate * Eiconoclastes ; published by authority; l(i49 ; ch. xxi. p. 181. t Ibid. p. 182. N 178 THE HISTORY OF ciiAVTER the protcstants ; and with such ferocity was the ^^ design pursued, that not less than one hundred and ciiAs.i. fifty thousand victims fell a sacrifice to their mur- A.D. 1&15. '^ 111 T i 1 -i. derous rage. The number has been disputed; it has been reduced to fifty thousand on the one hand, and exaggerated to three hundred thousand on the other.* On one point both sides agree : a plot was formed, under the direction of the priests and native chieftains, for the total extirpation of the heretics in Ireland ; and comparatively few escaped. It was executed with a barbarity of which, except in the annals of the church of Eomc, Europe has had few examples ; and although an accurate census was then unknown, the protestant population of Ireland must have been capable of a computation sufficiently exact to furnish an approximation at least to the true number of the sufferers. The massacre sub- sided into an armed rebellion, organized by sir Phelim O'Neile, MacMahoun, the earl of Antrim, and others. The utmost ferocity still marked their progress, and nature recoils from a bare recital of the horrors which were inflicted and endured. * Hume says, that probably the sufferers must have been, by the most moderate account, near 40,000. On which Harris, a writer of extraordi- nary research (Life and Writinf^s of Charles I.), observes : " It were to be wished Mr. Hume had told us where this moderate account is to be found; for my own part, I have sought for it in vain." (p. 337.) Clarendon says, " Forty or fifty thousand were murdered before they suspected them- selves to he in any danger, or could provide for their defence." (Book iv. 29.) Milton gives 154,000 as the number of massacres " in Ulster only, by their own computation." (Eiconoclastes, ch. xi.) He adds, thought- lessly enough, that this sum, added to the other three provinces, makes up a total of slaughter four times as great. But Ulster was the only protestant part of Ireland, and the slaughter was of course nearly confined to it. May (Hist. Long Parliament, book ii. p. 4.) gives 200,000 "in the space of one month ;" and sir John Tcm])!e, master of the rolls in Dublin, 300,000 " within two years." Hist. Irish llebel. p. 12. THE LATEH PURITANS. 170 Thousands of tlio protcstants were murdered in cnAPXEu cold blood, without distinction of age or sex. — Thousands were stripped to their very shirts, and ^"'^^■^.' so turned out to perish of cold and misery. Great numbers were burnt alive, or drowned, or mutilated. In Antrim, nine hundred and fifty-four were mur- dered in one forenoon. In Armagh, Tyrone, and the neighbourhood, five thousand prisoners were slaughtered in three days.* "All the waters of the sea," says the earl of Castlehaven, himself a member of the church of Rome, " cannot wash out the guilt of that rebellion, which began most bloodily against the English in a time of settled peace without the least occasion."! The king had all along been suspected of con- niving at this rebellion. The rebels boasted of the queen's favour, and shewed a commission autho- rising their appearance in arms, signed by the king himself. Of the queen's misconduct there is no doubt whatever. The carl of Antrim fled, soon after the massacre broke out, to her court, where he not only found a shelter, but was treated with consideration, and sent back to Ulster with secret instructions and supplies of ammunition. He was an Irish papist, a leader in the rebellion from the first. He boasted publicly at the restoration that he had acted throughout under the king's authority; and his estates, which had been forfeited, were restored to him by Charles II. on the express ground that " whatever intelligence, correspondence, * Temple's Irish Rebellion, &c. All the writings of that age abound iu facts which refer to the Irish rebellion. t Harris's Charles I. p. 336. Bates, Troubles of England, p. 15. n2 CIIAS. I. A.D. 1G15 180 THE HISTORY OF ciiAi'TKK or actings the said marquis had with the confederate — Irish catholics was directed and allowed by let- ters, instructions, and directions, from our royal father and our royal mother.") The only possible answer to these charges is that which Hume ad- vances ; that Antrim, though concerned no doubt in the rebellion, was not implicated in the massacre, having joined the rebels two years later. A feeble apology if true ; but unhappily for the royal cause at variance with the facts. Ludlow commanded the parliamentary forces sent over to Ireland to quell the rebellion, and must be supposed to have known who were his opponents. Ilis words are these : " It is well known that the earl of Antrim had his head and hands deeply and early engaged in that bloody work."t The correspondence of lord Strafford, published at his death, proves that, before the massacre broke out, Antrim had applied to the king for permission to arm his followers ; that the minister had resisted, on the ground that Antrim was a papist, and a dangerous discontented man ; that Charles had, notwithstanding, insisted on his being allowed to raise and commission a body of troops ; and that the remonstrances of Strafford, then Mr. "VVentworth, were finally overborne by a flat command from the sovereign. Lastly, the lords and commons, in their declaration concerning the rise and progress of the Irish rebellion, dated July 25, 1G43, mention the earl of Antrim by name as " a notorious rebel," who had already been seized * A letter written by command of king Charles IT. concerning the marquis of Antrim, to the duke of Ormond, July 10, 1()G3. Ludlow, in n])pendix. t Memoirs, p. 'SSiK THE LATER PTJETTANS. 181 by the Scots in Ulster on suspicion of high treason, chapter had broken prison and fled to the queen at York, ^^" and was now a^ain in Ireland.* And all this had '-"-^'^ ^• o A.D. 1645. happened, and the declaration was published to the world, long before the expiration of those two years, at the close of which he is said, by Ilume and the king's apologists, for the first time to have joined the rebel army. It is in vain to argue, as they do, that the king and queen had no motive for such treachery. There is an end of history if authenticated facts are to be set aside on sucli uncertain grounds ; but it is suificient to make answer thus : The queen was a papist ; she had often sacrificed her husband's character to her church ; it is not impossible that, zealot as she was, she might even be willing to sacrifice his Irish crown : as to the means employed, she was never scrupulous ; as to the end in view, she would undoubtedly have chosen rather that Ireland should obey the pope and rebel against the king, than that Ireland should be a protestant nation under her husband's rule, disowning the pope's authority. Besides, without having recourse to these extreme suppositions, it was evident that a war in Ireland would divert attention from the quarrel betwixt the king and parliament; it might even put an end to the king's embarrassment, by furnishing the unruly spirit of the puritans with congenial em- ployment in fighting against popery so near home ; above all, if the papists should succeed, Charles might employ their victorious arms in his own cause, proclaim himself their leader, and for ever * Harris, p. 350. 182 THE HISTORY OF ciiArxER sweep the puritans and their cause from Lis three ^^- kingdoms. In fact, the rebels, in their pretended ciiAs. I. commission from the king, advanced this as a plausible reason for his conduct. Charles was made to say that he aroused the Roman catholics of Ireland to defend himself his crown and kingdom against the " vehemence of the puritan party." The document was universally believed in Ireland ; and it must be confessed, that without any great want cither of judgment or charity, it might readily be credited in England by those who had had ex- perience of the king. He was not a papist, but he loved a papist far better than he loved a puritan. The rebels boasted the queen's favour, we have no doubt with perfect truth ; but when they proceeded further to shew a commission, under the great seal of Charles himself, to justify the seizure of his castles and of all his protestant subjects and their property, we are bound to give the king the full benefit both of his own denial and of the obscurity which envelopes the whole transaction. In all likelihood the commission was a forgery. The seal upon it was cut off an old patent, it is affirmed, in Parnham abbey,* in the presence of several priests * After all, this is one of the vexed places of history. While a doubt remains, it is both humane and just to give the king the advantage of it. That Charles designed the massacre of his protestant subjects in Ireland, is a supjiosition so contrary to his nature, — which, though false, was never cruel, — that it may be dismissed at once, as utterly improbable, if not monstrous. But the question of the commission to the rebels is distinct from this, (though to encourage the rebellion was in effect to promote the massacre,) and it is involved in considerable uncertainty. Godwin has examined the evidence with great acuteness, though not, I think, with strict impartiality, and he decides in favour of the genuineness of the com- mission. (See his Hist, of the Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 225, and vol. ii. p, 102 — 122.) Many of his arguments seem, however, until further evidence CIIAS. I. A.D. le-is. THE LATER PURITANS. 183 and others, who afterwards confessed the fraud, chapter The character of Charles we may venture to believe ^^ was unsullied by this dark delinquency ; but at the same time we are bound in equal justice to admit that the puritans had but too much reason to draw the opposite conclusion, and to believe that the king himself had liounded on the Irish papists to their can be produced, to admit of no satisfactory answer, and, upon the whole, the memory of Charles cannot be said to be clear of the imputation of having caused the Irish rebellion. At least the clamour and the revilings which have stunned the puritans from the day of the restoration of Charles II. to the present generation, out of mere decency ought to be heard no more. Men can act and determine only on the evidence they possess, and the balance of evidence during Charles's life was decidedly against him. The strongest arguments in his favour (that is, in favour of the sujjposition that the proclamation was a forgery,) are : — 1. His own constant assertions. 2. The ignorance of his privy council. 3. The confessions said to have been made by the rebels. 4. And especially the dying testimony of the rebel chieftains, sir Phelira O'Neile and lord Macguire. On the other hand, it is replied: — 1. That the king's assertions, when not sustained by proofs, are worthless. On matters of state policy he thought intrigue, and even falsehood, allowable. The strongest denial is contained in the Eicon Basilike, a small volume of prayers and meditations, pubhshed the day after his death, in the king's name, but of which the real authorship is very questionable. 2. That the ignorance of the privy council is explained by Charles's intriguing disposition. It is very probable that he would not venture to ask their advice on so nefarious a transaction. Neither Ormond, the viceroy of Ireland, nor Digby, the king's minister at home, were allowed to be acquainted with the instructions given, for example, to Gla- morgan. 3. The confessions said to have been made by the rebels were not published till thirty years afterwards, when the morals of public men were utterly depraved, and historical falsehoods uttered every day, by writers of every rank, without a blush. 4. The question turns at last upon the testimony of O'Neile and others, which, if admitted, decides the con- troversy in favour of Charles. Ker, dean of Ardagh, in a pajier given under his band and seal, February 2Sth, 1681, declares that he was present at the trial of O'Neile, in 1G53, who confessed then, and afterwards on the scaffold, that the commission was forged, and that he had instructed one Michael Harrison to cut off the seal from a patent that he had found at Charlemont. Harrison, being then in court, acknowledges that this is true. But Perinchief, a contemporary biographer of Charles I., says expressly that the seal " was taken from au obsolete patent in Earnham abbey, by IV CIIAS. I. A.D. 1645 181 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER work of slaughter. He had long ago been guilty of an act of treachery which even this would not have surpassed. In the first year of his reign (the year too of his disastrous marriage) he had betrayed the protestants of llochelle to the vengeance of the Erench king. These huguenots were in alliance with England, and had a diplomatic agent at our court ; Charles* had encouraged them to defend their religion and their rights against the tyrant one Plunkett, in i)resence of many of their lords and priests, as was after- wards attested by the confession of many." It is evident that one or other of these statements must be untrue. It is ])0ssible that both are so ; for the commission was dated from Edinburgh, and bore the great seal, not of Enghiud, as Clarendon says, but of Scotland, as indeed it is asserted by Rushworth. How came the great seal of Scotland to be affixed to a patent in P'arnham abbey ; or, still more improbable, to a patent at Charlemont in Ireland ? Such are some of the painful perplexities which obscure the subject. They are quite sufficient (which is the purpose of this note) to shew that whether Charles were guilty of this atrocious act or not, the puritans had but too much reason to be suspicious. Until the execution of O'Neile and Macguire, the evidence indeed was entirely against the king. The following horrible account of ]Macguire's execution is from a con- temporary writer : " Nor is it to be omitted that the sheriff, having ad- jured Macguire, by the dreadful tribunal of God, before which he shortly was to appear, and the clearing and easing of his conscience, which was then or never to be done, that he would ingenuously confess whom he knew to be guilty of the same crime (the Irish rebellion) ; though the rope was about his neck, and he half up the ladder, yet by name he acquitted king Charles from being any ways privy to it; solemnly professing that he knew no Englishman but one, and he a papist, that had any hand in the matter. Nay, and being cast off the ladder, and when after he had tried what hanging was, he was a little reprieved, f>nd no small hopes given him of a pardon, he still |)ersisted in the same protestation. But in the pulpits, clubs, and public pamphlets, the crime was charged upon king Charles; nor did the rebels blush to asperse even the sacred and innocent majesty of the king with so heinous a guilt ; hoping that whilst they continued so boldly to vent their calumnies and slanders against him, some of them at least would stick" Bates, Troubles of England, p. 4 (5. * Welhvood's ^Memoirs, p. 82 ; where the reader may see two letters from Charles to the llochellers, assuring them of his assistance. He says, "Hold out to the last; I am resolved that my whole Ueet shall perish, rather than you be not relieved." " May W, IG20." THE LATER PURITANS. 185 who then governed Erance, witli whom he was at chapter war. They returned his kindness with the warmest — £?ratitude, and exhausted themselves to furnish pro- <^"'^si- Visions from their OAvn stores for an expedition of the English against the isle of Rhe. Our forces were repulsed, and Louis prepared to avenge himself upon E-ochelle. Meanwhile peace was made with Erance, and it was secretly determined to betray the huguenots. A fleet, consisting of one ship of war and seven armed merchant vessels, was sent under sir John Pennington to the Erench coast, where a suspicion arose amongst the officers and men that they were to fight against the protestants. The fleet was on the eve of a mutiny when Pennington returned with it to the Downs, declaring that he was ready to be hanged in England, rather than fight against his brother protestants in Erance.* Eresh orders were issued, the nature of which was a profound secret, and the fleet sailed once more for Erance, as the unhappy huguenots believed, to their relief; for they had no suspicion of treachery. The fleet, however, was immediately placed under the commands of Louis. Thesailors were justly enraged, and deserted in a body, both officers and privates, with the exception of only one man. The fleet was then manned with Erench sailors. One ship broke through and returned to England, and Pennington fired into it as it passed. The broadsides of the English fleet were then turned against the ships of the huguenots, and " mowed them down like grass." Hochelle was lost, and with it thirty-two strongholds of the protestants in Languedoc, Piedmont, and * Rushworth, vol. i. pp. 175 — 325. 186 THE HISTORY OF cHAPTF.u Dauphin^ ; and the huguenots, abandoned by the IV. English court, suffered inliuman cruelties. Charles ciiAs. I. -^as accused as the author of their ruin ; all chris- A.D. 1645. tendom believed that ho was a traitor to their cause. It was not the French king, said the harassed and bleeding huguenots, for then we could have borne it ; but it was the kinc: of Ens:- land, a professed protestant, that betrayed us ! They published their grievances, and charged him with *' horrid perfidiousness and deep dissimula- tion." Subise, their agent at the English court, remonstrated. Charles muttered something about " the knavery of Pennington," and was silent. The puritans had no doubt of his guilt, but the proof of his wickedness was not yet patent to the world, and a whole consensus of historians has long numbered up their suspicions of the king in this affair as the basest instance of their disloyalty and prejudice. Amongst the king's papers which fell into the hands of the parliament, was a copy of Charles's warrant commanding Pennington to place his fleet at the disposal of Louis.* But the charge died away, and was in the course of time discredited. The treachery was so great that his apologists were willing to think it incredible ; and his enemies paid * King Charles's Case ; with an adthtion concerning Rochel, &c. &c. ; by John Cooke, barrister, 1649, The warrant is not printed in the Naseby pa])ers, in LiuUow. Cooke, solicitor-general at the king's trial, bad not seen it, as he infers the king's guilt, in this instance, from the duplicity of which the Naseby ])apers convicted him in other matters in which the j)a])ists were concerned. Ludlow must have seen it. " Sir John," he says, " received a letter from the king, signed Cliarles Rex, which was afterwards found by the |)arliaracnt amongst his papers, requiring bim to dis[)ose of those ships as be should be directed by the French king; and if any should refuse to obey those orders, to sink or fire them." (Mem. p. 2.) These are almost the very words of the warrant, as the reader will see below. ClIAS. I. A.D. 1645. THE LATER PURITANS. 187 but little attention to events which, when the dis- chapter IV. closure was made, belonged to a former generation. But the patient researches of antiquarians, have at length changed the aspect of the controversy. The original warrant has come to light, in which Charles commands the villany he was afraid to own.* He himself betrayed the huguenots, and handed over to the Erench king the fleet equipped for their protec- tion, to be the instrument of their slaughter. The providence of God is exercised not less in protecting his servants than in bringing to shame the craft of their oppressors ! The Naseby papers, and some other documents found in the popish archbishop of Tuam's carriage soon after, completed the loss of Charles's character. With regard, in particular, to the affairs of Ireland, it was now evident that the puritans had not been * The original was, in 1810, in the possession of George Duckett, esq., F.A.S., and was communicated by him to the Royal Antiquarian Society of London. It is printed in their Transactions, p. 110, and, beiug little known, is here transcribed. "Charles R. Pennington, — These are to charge and command you, imme- diately upon sight thereof, that, without all difficulty and delay, you put our former commandment into execution, for the consigning of the shippe under your charge, called the Vantguarde, into the hands of the marquis d'Effial, with all her equipage, artillery, and munition ; assuring the officers of the said shippe, whom it may concern, that we will provide for their indemnity. And we further charge and command you, that you also require the seaveu marchant shijjpes, in our name to put themselves into the service of our dear brother, the French kinge, according to the promise we have made unto him ; and in case of backwardness or refusal!, we command you to use all forceable means in your power to compell them thereunto, even to their sinking. And in these several charges, see you faile not, as you will answer the contrary at your uttermost perill, and this shall be your sufficient warrant. Given at our court at Richmond, this 28 of Juhe, 1625. ** To oiu* trusty and well beloved John Pennington, captaiue of our shippe called the Vantguarde." 188 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER anxious without a cause. Their suspicions were ^^' confirmed : the king felt but little sympathy for the ciiAs. I. ii-isii pvotestants ; liis indi£»'nation. his hatred, was A.D.1645. ^ ^ . reserved for the rebels at AVest minster. When the massacre broke out he could do no less than issue a proclamation against the Irish rebels. It was now discovered that he had strictly forbidden the printer to strike off more than forty copies, which were to be sent, with the signature blank, to the king himself.* It appeared tliat in another document, where the word rebels had been used, he, with his own hand, had erased it, and written Irish. He had impeded the military supplies which the parlia- ment, before the war began, had raised under the earl of Leicester to attack the rebels ; had detained the earl in England against his fruitless remon- strances, and at length had seized the horses which he had collected, for his own service. f Sir Kenelm Digby, it was discovered, was then at Home im- ploring a loan J from the pope; to which his holiness (supported keenly by the king of Erance, and by the queen, who was now at Paris,) replied by insisting upon these two conditions — peace with the Irish rebels, and a repeal of the penal laws against the Homan catholics in England. The king had already promised the one, and done the other ! There was nothing in Charles's nature, or in his conduct, to afford the least shadow to the plausible conjecture of modern writers, that his concessions to the * An order to the kiurcn>5^^*i^ers, drijvineSy and dissemhly men* The confusion was indescrib- able, and in spiritual things the insubordination was complete. Never did an army present so strange a sight. Between the soldier and the man there was no sameness. The soldier was moral, valiant, and perfectly obedient ; the man, a prompt disciple if not a teacher of discord, insolence, and anarchy ; and yet the soldier and the man were equally sincere ; the soldier had no more intention * Baxter, Life, part i. p. 6L ClIAS. I. A.D 1646—8 230 THE HISTORY or CHAPTER of disobeying orders than the man had of submitting — ^^— to authority. It was a singular spectacle and full of contradiction ; and to those who love the study of mankind, and can profit by it, its interest is pro- found. Some argued for a democracy in the state ; others, or rather the same men at another time, for a democracy in the church ; sometimes they argued against forms of prayer, and sometimes against inf[mt baptism ; sometimes against set times of prayer or the discharge of any religious duty except at the suggestion of the Holy Spirit ; sometimes in favour of free-will, and sometimes against it ; and so through all the points of antinomianism and arminianism. But, towering above all this, liberty of conscience was their frequent and most angry thesis. Here, they denied the right of the civil magistrate to interfere ; every man might not only hold and preach, but, in matters of religion, he might practise what he pleased — a doctrine the truth of which turns upon what is meant by matters of religion. It is capable of a safe and wise con- struction, or of being perverted so as to countenance the foulest morals or the most audacious tyranny. It seems to set the subject free from control whenever he may think fit to plead the rights of conscience. Before the proposition can be assented to, these rights of conscience must, then, be carefully defined. Baxter, who was at this time with the army, tells us that the men who reasoned thus were "fierce with pride and self-conceitedness." Their doctrine filled him with alarm: "it struck me to the very heart, and made me feel that England was lost by those whom it had taken for V. CIIAS. I. 1646—8. THE LATER PURITANS. 231 its cliicfcst friends."* In a paper of proposals chapter offered to the parliament in the name of fifteen regiments, the opinions of the army upon this point ^^J are expressed thus : " Matters of religion and God's worship are not at all entrusted to any human power, hecause therein we cannot admit or exceed a tittle of what our consciences dictate to he the mind of God without wilful sin. Nevertheless, the puhlic way of instructing the nation (so it he not compulsive) is referred to the parliament's discre- tion." This paper was presented in November, 1647. t Thus explained, the feelings of the army scarcely justify Baxter's extreme alarm. There was one sect more dangerous than all the rest, and the Jesuits it was supposed had set them on. Their rapid growth and sudden maturity, the extravagance of their opinions, the inconsistency of their doctrines with each other and with all govern- ment civil or religious, their union, their violence bordering on ferocity, all seemed to indicate the presence of Jesuitical intrigue. These were the levellers, so called a few years afterwards, who, though severely punished, tormented Cromwell through his life. They declaimed at first upon all those doctrines which are in dispute between the Jesuits and dominicans, the arminians and calvinists. Then they cried down the English translation of the scriptures and derided its authority. All orders of the ministry in England, and all its churches, epi- scopalian, presbyterian, and independent, were de- nounced. They vilified public worship, especially singing psalms, and family devotions. They were * Life,&c., part i. pp. 51—55. t Whitelocke, p. 27S. 232 THE HISTOrtT OF CHAPTER vehement against the king and against all forms of '■ — government except democracy. They denied the .V.^tt^'o rii'ht of ma^-istrates to intermeddle in religion, and A U. 1040 — B. O O •— ' yet they trusted more to intrigue and scorn and the power they possessed in consequence of Ci'om\yeirs favour than to argument. They disputed fiercely on the slightest opposition, and seemed ready to draw their swords on the instant upon their oppo- nents. They were ambitious of command, and always contrived to displace those with whose pro- motion they were dissatisfied, and to fill the vacancy with one of their own party.* These men were the drecrs of a revolution : turbulent and clamorous but comparatively few in number. In the army they were chiefly confined to one regiment, indeed to one troop of horse, of which Bethell was the captain. lie fell at the storming of Bristol, and but for the countenance of Cromwell the cause of the levellers might have perished with him: it spread to some extent and was eagerly embraced by the most igno- rant of the populace of London and a few great towns. But in England the management of the revolution never for an instant descended to the mob. The injury done by the levellers was confined to the disgrace tliey brought upon their cause, and the condign punishment they brought upon them- selves. Amongst the wildest and most wicked of the sects there were some who denied the existence of a God, and others who maintained with the Greek sophists that the deity pervaded everything, and that in fact they were gods themselves. There was a class * I5axti'r, Life, ])art i. p. 55. THE LATER PURITANS. 233 wliicli believed that every dream was an inspira- cnAPXER tion from above, and another which taught with ^' Mahomet that women had no souls.* chas.i. A.D. 1646—8. Besides these there was a host of other sectaries, whose number was not great and whose names have well-nigh perished. The old sects ripened on a sudden, and under new names displayed a new existence. The anabaptists, the brownists, and the family of love, revived. The socinians now first appeared as a body, and they spread rapidly. The seekers and behmenites and perfectionists headed that large class of mystics who generally infest the church in troublous times. The Westminster assembly issued a declaration touching heresies and errors, in which they condemn the following prevalent opinions amongst others : viz., the assertions that the scriptures are not of divine authority ; that the deity has a bodily shape ; that there is no trinity of persons ; that the moral law is not the rule of life ; that there is no church, or sacrament, or sabbath ; and that the soul of man is mortal, sleeping with the body till the day of judg- ment. But in the same paper they condemn the arminian doctrine of Dr. Hammond and John Goodwin, namely, that Christ died for the sins of all mankind, and also their doctrine of free will.f Besides these, there were the students of Overton's Martin Marpriest, and the disciples of John Lilburn. Overton seems to have taught that the office of the christian ministry was a priestcraft, and Lilburn that civil government was a tyranny. Por all these * Sewell's Hist, of the People called Quakers, p. 11, t Nealj vol. iii. p. 305. CIIAS. I. A.D. 1646—8 234 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER sects a generic term was wanted. It was readily supplied, and they wei'e called malignants against the ministry. Ilitherto malignant had been the name of reproach for a royalist ; it was now trans- ferred to the sectaries, because these were supposed to be infected with the same malignity in matters of religion as the royalists in matters of civil liberty. But after all, these men of every name, though tur- bulent, were comparatively few. Baxter, we have seen, viewed their progress with alarm, and he afterwards wrote against them with great severity in a tract which he entitles, " One Sheet for the Ministry against the Malignants of all sorts." We may therefore accept his statement of their numbers with some degree of confidence. He admits that one half of the army was untainted ; of the other half a moiety was sound though confused in judg- ment. A fourth part of the army, then, or a body of about five thousand men, remains — the " malig- nants of all sorts." Through the kingdom the pro- portion was probably much less. It was, we suspect, rather the suddenness of the evil than its extent that excited so much alarm. Eive thousand armed fanatics, it is true, has a formidable sound ; but these men were in the presence of fifteen thousand fellow-soldiers, and the whole were governed by the strong hand of Cromwell. When Baxter wrote against them, ten years later, it is evident that con- tempt, and not apprehension, was uppermost in his mind. " Blind wretches !" he exclaims, *' it is the devil's game they play, and his interest and kingdom they promote. AYretches ! you shall shortly see your master, and he will pay you your wages contrary TEE LATER PURITANS. 235 to your expectation."* He enumerates the quakers chapter amongst other malignants ; and the reader may — - siffh as he reflects that the saintly Baxter was so far ^^'^^-i- O *' , , A.D.l&lG— 8. beliind one class at least of his opponents, in charity and christian love. The rise of quakerism and the personal history of its founder George Eox belong to this period. The most original minds are moulded to some extent by the times in which they live ; and the institutions which astonish us most by their seeming novelty trace their parentage to the circumstances amongst which they first appeared. England had been stunned for twenty years with religious polemics. The forms of church government, — presbyterianism and prelacy, — the claims of the independents and the clamours of the sectaries, the respective rights of the pastors and the people, were discussed in every pulpit ; they distracted every parish and every house. The din was incessant, and it is surprising that true religion was not deafened by the clamour. But while piety, and a right sense of the importance of what is real in religion, continued to exist, those who were beneath its influence must have deplored the infatuation which diverted good men from whatever was most important; fixing their atten- tion upon the accidents and circumstances rather than upon the true work of the church of Christ ; upon the mode of its existence rather than the great ends for the sake of which its existence is decreed. Such were some of the anxieties of George Eox. In appearance he was a simple youth in humble cir- * " One Sheet against the Malignants of all sorts, by Richard Baxter. Kidderminster, 1657." 236 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER cumstances, remarkable from his youth for strict ^' veracity and a soh'tary life. At twenty his relations cHAs. I. ^vould have had him married ; hut he replied he was A O 1 R-iR ft hut a lad and must get wisdom. They urged him to join the parliamentary army ; but though the bravest man in England perhaps, if moral courage is bravery, he detested the business of a soldier. Far other thoughts possessed his mind. He had been religiously educated by puritan parents of the church of England, and he was now awakening to the consideration of his eternal state. A young man of one-and-twenty, aroused to the contempla- tion of his future being, and withdrawn, by the instant pressure of a world unseen, from the opening charms of life and its joyous prospects, presents a scene of moral grandeur with which the man who is unaffected must rank amongst the depraved or the brutish of his kind. With these reflections young Pox was totally absorbed ; he knew that he was a sinner, and he wanted the assurance of forgiveness ; he felt his ignorance, and he sought instruction. In the pursuit of his business, for he was a shoemaker, and hoping, too, to meet with some wise adviser, he travelled from town to town, still seeking rest and findini^ none. He went to London in this miserable state ; he found great professors there, but their understandings, he thought, were much darkened. He visited Coventry, which was full of the puritan clergy who had fled there for safety in the war, but they could give him no assistance. He returned to Drayton, his native place, and told his sorrows to "the priest;" for so in derision the minister was named by the new sect, and the church they called THE LATER PURITANS. 237 " a steeple-house." The puritan was struck with chapter his scriptural knowledge and with the justice of ^" his sentiments, the substance of which, he said, he '^^^^^- ^■ 1 1 • I • n 1 • 1 5> A.D.1646— 8. would embody in ins next sermon; "lor which, says his simple-minded biographer, " George did not like him." He removed to Mancetter in Warwick- shire, where he again consulted an aged priest, the minister of the place, to whom he discoursed upon the grounds of his despair and the nature of his temptations. " The priest bid him take tobacco and sing psalms ; but George signified he did not like tobacco, and as for psalms he was not in a state to sing."* Thus he roamed about, passing much of his time in the lonely mountains of Derbyshire : his troubles and temptations still continued ; he fasted much ; he walked abroad in solitary places with his bible for his companion ; he sat down in hollow trees and lonesome places till night came on ; and frequently in the night he walked mournfully about surrounded with many sorrows — the deepest of all sorrows, the sorrows of a wounded spirit. When he came to a town, he hired a chamber to himself, and tarried sometimes for a month, seldom longer ; for he was afraid of the conversation of the world. His dress was of leather, partly for its simplicity, and because such a clothing was strong and needed but little mending or repairing. He joined no church, and he reverenced no priest. Por a while he sought instruction from the sectaries, but he soon discovered that none of them could help him. Still he continued to read his bible in solitude with many prayers and tears. * Sewell's History of the People called Quakers, pp. 8 — 12. 238 THE HISTORY OF cHAPTEn At length, when he had ceased to look for assist- '. ance from man, a light from heaven broke in upon ciiAs.i. IjJ j jjj faithful disciple* thus relates the A.L). 1646— S. ^ change : " Wlien all his hopes in men were gone, then he heard, according to what he relates himself, a voice which said, there is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition. lie having heard this, his heart leapt for joy ; and it was shewed liini why there was none upon tlie earth that could speak to his condition, namely, that he might give the Lord alone all the glory, and that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence. He then, experi- mentally knowing that Christ enlightens man, and gives him grace, faith, and power, his desires after the Lord, and his zeal in the pure knowledge of God, grew stronger ; so that he wished to increase therein without the help of any man, book, or writing. Yet he was a diligent reader of the holy scriptures, that speak at large of God and Christ ; though he knew him not but by revelation ; as he who had the key did open." He now entered upon his mission, which, ac- cording to his own perception of it, was simple and sublime. It rested upon one idea, the greatest that can penetrate the mind of man : God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Pure religion in its essence is the contemplation and adoration of God. This is the religion of angels. Besides this everything is accidental, pertaining to the form and not to the substance of religion ; it will disappear ere long when the earth shall pass away ; the substance will * Sewell's History of the People called Quakers, p. 13. THE LATER PURITANS. 239 survive tlirougliout eternity. This is quakerism, chapter and these were the doctrines of George Eox. But he ~^^^XsT~ went still further. With him all forms were super- a.u.i646-8. stitions, even the sacraments of Christ. lie saw the best men of his times pursuing two separate objects, which appeared to them indeed to be the same, but betwixt which his penetrating intellect was at no loss to discover a mighty chasm. The one was the glory of God ; the other was the setting up of some idol of their own, some model of immaculate church government. It was neither the splendour nor the corruptions of prelacy that disgusted him, for they were not in existence. Quakerism opposed itself at first to priests and steeple-houses, when ministers wore a Genevan gown and preached extempore, and when the prayer-book was banished from the parish church. Its early quarrel was not with liturgies and organs, but with the somewhat bald simplicity of presbyterian worship. George Eox perceived in this something that he thought unworthy of the divine nature ; and yet good men were struggling for it as for life itself. To-day the minister in the pulpit set forth with heavenly w^armth the doctrines of salvation ; but to-morrow he declaimed w^ith equal fervour against some rival sect, or perhaps in favour of his own. The effect upon many minds was to make them question the preacher's sincerity in both instances alike. But Eox drew this conclu- sion ; that religion was hampered by the institutions of man, and that all religious institutions which then existed were purely human. They were carnal ordinances ; they were contrivances that debased religion; they detained the soul from its highest 240 THE HISTORY OF cHAi'TEu privilege, immediate fellowship with God ; they __J^1__ immured the heliever amongst the tomhs with cHAs.i. those possessed of devils and unclean spirits, when A.D. 1616-8. j^^ Q^^„i^^^ ^yith Moses and Elijah, to stand on the mount rejoicing in the presence of his Lord ; and though some of them might seem to be warranted by an express command and by the Saviour's prac- tice, still the real meaning of the scriptures, when rightly understood, was opposed to their conti- nuance. Origen silenced the voice of scripture in early times by forcing it to speak in allegories ; and Eox accomplished the same end, with regard to the sacraments and the institutions of a church, by spiritualizing its meaning. Spiritual worship was the one idea to which everything must bend. Pox began his ministry at Manchester, in 1648. He gained a few converts, who accepted him as their leader and followed him from town to town. He still continued to spend much of his time in solitude and prayer; he spoke mysteriously; and, if we accept Paley's definition of insanity, as an inca- pacity of distinguishing between impressions on the mind and impressions on the senses, he was not altogether free from this disease. He heard voices in his breast and he saw visions in the sky. He had revelations in his dreams by night, and secret inti- mations of the mind and purposes of heaven by day. Wherever he went he denounced sin with the autho- rity of a prophet, and he met with a prophet's reward. He was reviled, whipped, imprisoned. In return he declaimed against priests and steeple- houses, and courted persecution by interrupting public worship and contradicting the minister be- THE LATER PURITANS. 241 fore his congregation. lie entered Nottingham one cum tek Sunday morning, and as he looked down from the ^' neierhbourin«f hill upon the srrcat church, he felt, he *"^^'^-^- says, that it was required of him to cry against that idol temple and the worshippers therein. The preacher in his sermon taught the people that all doctrines, religions, and opinions were to be tested by the written word. Hearing this, Pox cried out, " Oh no, it is not tlie scripture, but it is the Holy Spirit by which the holy men of God gave forth the scriptures, whereby opinions, religions, and judg- ments are to be tried. This it was that led into all truth and the knowledge thereof." * This was a dangerous error, as well as an act of great inde- cency ; for if this doctrine were correct, our last appeal on doubtful questions would be, not to the bible, but to ourselves — not to the written word, authenticated as it is by miracles and prophecy, and bearing on every page the signature of God, but to those unauthenticated impressions on the mind which each private christian may consider to be divine. Eox was seized and immediately imprisoned in the common jail, and would have suffered from the fury of the people ; but fortunately colonel Hutchinson was at that time the governor of Not- tingham castle : he dispersed the crowd, who would have destroyed quakerism in the bud together with its founder, with a troop of soldiers.'!" ^^^ ^^'^s at length released and immediately renewed his un- couth ministry at Woodhouse, entering the church and declaring the truth, as he believed, to the priest and people. The congregation fell upon him, and * Scvvcll, p. 21. t Mrs. Ilutcliiusou, Mcmuiis, \^. 226, R 242 THE HISTORY OF ciiArTER beat liim with their hands, sticks, and bibles ; they ^- then dragged him to the stocks and assembled round cHAs.i. i^ini ^vith their horsewhips. But the magistrates ' interfered and released liim with many threatenings. The rude peoi)lc had their revenge, however, and stoned him out of the town. At Market-Bosworth he was stoned again. At Twycross an infuriate man rushed on him with a naked sword. " Alas ! poor creature," he exclaimed, " what wilt thou do with thy carnal w^eapon, which is no more to me than a straw ?" and the man dropped his sword at once. At Derby he was committed to prison for blasphemy ; and here he lay for a year and a half, issuing from his cell solemn warnings against op- pressors, and letters of advice and consolation to his friends. When he was released, quakerism had taken firm root in England, the dynasty of Cromwell was at hand, and under him religious persecution in a great measure ceased. Meanwhile the independents were gradually rising into power, and the presbyterians to the same ex- tent were losing it. The elections which took place at the close of the war gave the independents a large majority in the house of commons; and at the same time, in contempt of the self-denying ordinance, restored many of the officers of the army to scats in that assembly. All of these were op- posed to the presbyterians, whom the revolution had now left behind. Many of them were Cromwell's private friends. At this period we begin to take leave of the presbyterian party. They soon cease to be important, absorbed in other sects or driven from the lield. Yet we cannot see them retire without a THE LATER PURITANS. 213 strong feeling of respect. They failed, indeed, ciiArxEu because they were at once rash and timid. They !: created an appetite for change which they were ^'j^^^Yj^ afraid to gratify. By overthrowing episcopacy they alienated the moderate men ; by refusing to over- throw the regal institutions they disappointed the violent ; and there was no considerable party between these two on whom to rest ; for the friends of presbyterianism, those who would have thought it worth a revolution to establish a presbytery, were few indeed. Thus presbyterianism fell by aiming at once at too little and too much. A less scrupulous party might have been more successful, a less honest one might have been more secure. Yet we should be unjust to withhold the praise which is due to the men who once had the moulding of the religion of England in their hands. They were as free from personal ambition, at least in its baser forms, as any great party of laymen or ecclesiastics has ever been ; they were zealous for religion ; their clergy preached and laboured in their parishes with a warmth and an ability, and frequently with a success, that has not often been surpassed ; the parliament in the most anxious periods of the war had never forgotten the spiritual wants of the country. The house of commons in 1645 voted an enquiry into the state of religion and the best methods of promoting it : a committee was ordered, and it seems to have pursued its task with diligence. In the midst of the political storm which shook it to its centre, there were times when the presby- terian parliament exhibited a sublime repose. Its R 2 2d4 THE niSTOTlY OP ciiArTKR solemn fasts and its days of thanksgiving were ^- frequently and fervently observed; and all other ciiAs.i. cares were lost, as far as the penetration of man A.D. 1646-8.^^^^^^ see, in the discharge of those acts of piety which are due to God. Besides the stated fast, every enterprise was preceded by days of deep humiliation. Every victory was celebrated with thanksgivings. Not only the greater battles, but the sieges of castles and private houses, as one by one they fell into the hands of the parliamentary forces — Bristol, Belvoir castle, Lathom-house, and Basing-house — were devoutly acknowledged with national thanksgivings. The proceedings of the Westminster assembly were carefully reviewed from day to day ; and the most urgent public business was suspended to discuss a new version of the psalms in metre, to prevent the circulation of an incorrect translation of the l)ible, or to buy a manu- script. No pains were spared to fill vacant benefices with pious ministers. The difiiculty was great and many parishes were grievously neglected. To a great extent this was inevitable. If the parish minister was a puritan, he fled or was imprisoned when the royalists approached; if he was an epi- scopalian, the same thing happened when the par- liament's army made its appearance. Many pulpits were vacant, many parishes relapsed into barbarism and heathen ignorance. The parliament rigidly enforced the covenant, and this increased its diffi- culties. It obliged the new incumbents, as well as the new members of the house of commons, to embrace it ; tlms excluding many upright men from the service of the country both in church and state. THE LATER PURITANS. 245 Still, nc2:lcct of the interests of relisrion cannot be chaptek charged upon the prcsbyterians while they held the '■ — reins of power in England. They did not encourage ^^^"^^^^ an ignorant or an idle ministry ; they did not per- mit a scandalous life. The condition of the church of England was at this time deplorable. Throughout the war episcopa- lians had been regarded as the enemies of the popular cause and treated accordingly. War calculates roughly, and takes no account of lesser differences. The church of England was already divided into those two parties which, under the designation of hi£:h and low church, still continue. There were the Laudians on the one hand, and the church puritans on the other. In their reverence for epi- scopacy and their love for the institutions of the book of common prayer they had a common bond ; in their views of christian doctrine they had a mutual quarrel. The Laudians connected justifica- tion with the sacraments ; the church puritans with faith alone. The Laudians delighted in the pomp and glitter with which, in submission to the tastes and passions of queen Elizabeth, the reformers had consented to invest it ; the church puritans regarded these outward splendours with jealousy, as savouring of the church of Rome. The Laudians had long enjoyed the favour of the court, and devoted them- selves to the support of its prerogative. The church puritans had dwelt for nearly a century beneath its frown, and were little anxious to extend its power. In 1612, when the revolution opened, they filled the house of commons ; yet in 1618, when the war had come to an cud, they were to be found, so far CllAS. 1. A.l). 164G— S. 246 THE IIISTORT OF ciiAPTEK as tlicy were yet a party, upon the side of the king. ^"- And yet they had little coniidcnce in Charles, or he in them. They deplored his errors ; he hlamed their want of zeal in his service. The ground of their attachment to the king was quaintly, hut very well, expressed hy the old knight who charged his sons never to desert the crown, though the crown should hang upon a holly-hush. It was a hii;'h trihute to the integrity of the leaders of this party, that they received alternately from the king and parliament the homage hoth of ill usage and respect. They were the true reformers of the age, in religion and in politics. They saw the wants of the times and would have redressed them ; and had not the infatuation of the court and the frenzy of the people driven them from power, they would prohahly have settled the nation very nearly on the basis of the revolution of 1G88. The miseries of a civil war, the insolence of Cromwell, the viler profli- gacy of Charles II., and the cruelties of his still more despicable brother, might then have been spared to the blushing annals of Great Britain. But this was not the course which He who rules over the nations of the earth permitted. In the house of commons, church puritanism melted away. We have seen that a great number of its original members forsook their seats and joined the king at Oxford; those who remained renounced episcopacy ; they became presbyterians, then independents, or gradually re- tired from public life. It was so with the clergy : great numbers of tliosc who retained their livings as presbyterians, and even as independents, neither had, nor professed to have, any great devotion to THE LATER PURITANS. 24? cither of those systems. They acquiesced in that chapter which seemed to be the national will ; they asked - themselves not whether these forms of discipline ad"imc^8 were the best, but simply whether they were lawful. Should they resign their cures, or should they forego episcopacy ? It seemed expedient and lawful to remain, and good for the present necessity ; and upon this principle they acted. It was thus the great body of the doctrinal or church puritans dis- appeared, the clergy becoming moderate presbyte- rians, and their parishioners following their example. In the reformation in the previous century the first generation of the reforming clergy had been Homisli priests ; so now with scarcely an exception the pres- byterian and independent clergy had received epi- scopal orders. Most of them yielded to the pressure of the times, though some no doubt heartily approved of the change. There were others who, regarding episcopacy and the forms of the church of England with still higher reverence, adhered under peril and discouragement to that which they believed to be the only pure and apostolic church. They retained its forms as far as possible, and still made use of its liturgy in public. Many of the clergy exposed their lives, and several lost them, through a violence and ill usage, not less fatal than a public execution, in thus resisting the will of the majority, sanctioned as it was by an ordi- nance of the parliament. Various motives of course prevailed among the clergy who acted in this manner; in some a sentiment of loyalty, in others of devotion. The parson of Iladley was assailed by the populace in his church while reading the service : he drew a 248 THE iiisTOKY or CHAPTER stiletto and dared tlicm to the attack. In a difTerent - spirit Harrison, the rector of Sandwich, with a file cHAs. h q£ musketeers drawn up heforc the pulpit, calmly proceeded in his duty. In his prayer before the sermon, the officer commanded him to come down, but he went on apparently unconcerned. The officer gave the necessary words of command, to make ready, then to present, but perceiving him still unmoved he hesitated to give the last word, and bid the soldiers go and drag him from the pulpit, which was done at once. He narrowly escaped the fate of Thomas A'Beckct, was carried in triumph to the guard-house, and thence to pri- son.* Tlie curate of Saxton in Yorkshire was reading prayers when some parliamentary soldiers burst into the church : one of them held a pistol to his breast, assailed him with abuse, and swore that if he did not immediately desist he would shoot him dead upon the spot.f Such scenes were not uncommon. Driven at length from public places, the devout services of the prayer-book found a home in many a retired house and upper chamber. Bared of its splendour, episcopacy survived, more precious to churchmen because distressed. The storm gathered round the bishops with the greatest fury, for an archbishop had been Charles's adviser in liis worst measures, and the whole order suffered indiscrimi- nately for the vices of its head. The army was clamorous for its pay and the parliament was in want of money. The church lands were now sold, and the bishops' estates and residences. A large sum, upwards of eight hundred thousand pounds, * Walker's Sufferings, part ii. p. 2ij(j. t lb. p. 412. THE LATER PUHITANS. 219 was thus raised, and episcopacy seemed to have chapter perished with this last disaster. A fifth was re '■ — served, but seldom paid, for the support of the ^^,"j;^^''^;;^g ejected bishops. Most of them were royalists, and this was held sufficient to exclude them from the grant. Ilall of Norwich, a bishop of apostolic zeal, a saint of 'primitive piety, was used, the axe ex- cepted, as harshly as Laud himself; imprisoned, plundered, threatened, exposed for weeks to the yells and hootings of an unrestrained and lawless mob, and cast aside to die in poverty, if not in want. Archbishop Ussher was treated with more kindness. He took the negative oath, by which he bound him- self not to oppose the existing government, and was permitted to preach at Lincoln's inn. A gleam of generosity softened for a while the bitterness of the house of commons ; for a motion for a committee to examine what delinquent ministers preached, or read the book of common prayer, and silence them, " was much opposed by divers, as contrary to that liberty of consciences which they themselves pretended to insist upon as due to every christian." This was on the 20th of December, 164*7. An amusing cir- cumstance revived within a few days all the presby- terian bigotry. Notwithstanding an ordinance to the contrary, the citizens of London closed their shops, and made holiday on Christmas-day ; upon which the houses sat in alarm the same afternoon and empowered a committee to examine and punish the delinquent ministers.* Jeremy Taylor, for some time in attendance upon the king at Oxford, found a retreat amidst the * Whitelocke, ii. pp. 85, 86. 250 THE IIISTOHY OF ciiAPTEu mountains of South Wales, at the mansion of lord Carbery, whose hospitality he richly recompensed. It was here, amidst congenial scenes and remote from the scat of war, that his ardent spirit, stimu- lated and soothed by turns, hearing only of battles and seeing only the most glorious handiwork of God, discharged itself in the finest of his gorgeous writings. In many private houses of the royalists the chaplains were retained and the ancient services of the church; and for some time a number of eminent clergymen were in attendance on the royal armies ; but it was at Oxford only that the church of England still appeared in something of its former dignity. Charles himself was a religious man, espe- cially now that trouble had chastened him. Of his own court, he was probably the best example, as he was the highest. His habitual duplicity he learned in his cradle ; it was a part, and the most important part, of his father's kingcraft. He had been taught to consider it right. He practised it without hesi- tation, without remorse, and, it is to be feared, without repentance. On this one point his con- science was insensible to the last ; in other respects he was a virtuous man and his religion was sincere. He was fond of the society of the good and wise, and found more pleasure in strolling through the libraries of Oxford wdth his chaplains than in the noisy revels of his court ; and Sanderson and Ham- mond were companions with whom certainly no irrelii^ious man would have wished to live. But before the court finally broke up at Oxford the seeds of two great evils had been sown which ripened into miserable fruit. The first of these was THE LATER PURITANS. 251 a new form of vice, liitlierto unknown in Encrland. chapter .V Licentiousness now for the first time began to '■ — parade its triumphs, and lust under other names ^^ d"i&i6-8 was greeted with applause. The court of James had been coarse, and that of Elizabeth would now be thought indecorous if not indecent; but this new debauchery was unnatural, not practised in secret and with shame, but cultivated as a polite accomplishment. At Oxford was nursed, in defiance of the king's frown and the exhortations of his chaplains, that heartless profligacy which came to a monstrous manhood in the court of Charles II. Of all vices, those which were thus canonized arc the most degrading, and to national happiness the most fatal. Other crimes pollute the army or the senate, this defiles the sanctuary of home : the stream of pollution arises where, against other national crimes, the last barrier is erected. It is of the astonishing mercy of God, and of that alone, that England has recovered from this detested curse without being condemned to pass like other nations through a discipline of fire and blood. This airy, systematic, shameless licentiousness first shewed itself in the royal court at Oxford.* It was at Oxford too, during the civil war, that a new school of divines appeared, of whom Hammond was the most learned, and Jeremy Taylor the most popular. Between the Laudians and the doctrinal * " Divers remarkable passages of the ladies in parliament assembled in 1647." In the Somers Tracts. I am ashamed to call attention to this paper, which is ajeu d'espril from the pen of a royalist ; but it is necessary to give my authority for the statement I have made above. 252 THE niSTORT OF ciiAiTER cliurcli puritans, it occupied tlic intermediate space. '■ — It avoided some of the errors of botli parties, to ad"i&i&^ whom, however, it made ample satisfaction by new errors of its own. It did not push ritualism and the benefit of the sacraments to the extravagant lengths of the Laudians : it avoided two great mistakes, into which many of the church puritans had gradually fallen, namely, that of ultra-calvinism, and of a mode of preaching in which moral duties were rather implied than taught. In the new school which now appeared morality was everything ; while its views of christian doctrine were vague and indis- tinct. Its teachers were rather christian philo- sophers than christian ministers : they taught morality in connection with religion ; the great verities of christian doctrine they either did not fully appreciate, or fully understand. Jeremy Taylor alarmed his wiser friends by the wildness of his speculations on the corruption of human nature and the doctrine of original sin. Some remon- strated ; Sanderson deplored the errors of his friend wdth tears.* Trom this time however carelessness of doctrinal truth degenerated into indifference, and indifference into contempt. The church of England saw in another generation a resolute and in some respects a successful attempt (for the contagion spread far and wide and lasted for a century) to dissever christian practice from christian doctrine ; to teach the one and obliterate the other. Tillotson was perhaps the best specimen of these * Ilebur's Life of Jeremy Tuylor. CIIAS. I. A.D. KMG— 8. THE LATER PUEITANS. 253 divines. The clearness of liis intellect, his noble chapter simplicity, his courageous yet modest spirit, must always command respect. But who could gather the doctrines of the gospel from all that Tillotson has left behind him ? An admirable system of morals, keen and searching remarks on human nature and practical life, are to be met with ; much to instruct and much to edify ; but the one thing which his profession called for, and which he was set apart to teach, is carelessly passed over or studiously concealed. The doctrines of the refor- mation may be recognised, but they are not distinctly enunciated. The gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God may be admitted, but it is not boldly and clearly preached. Indeed "he was in great doubt," as his friend and scholar tells us, " whether the surest way to persuade the world to the belief of the sublime truths that are contained in the scrip- tures, concerning God the Eather, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and concerning the person of Christ, was to enter much into the discussion of those mysteries. He feared that an indiscreet dwelling and descanting upon those things, might do more hurt than good,"* With what effect the substitution of moral philosophy in the place of doctrinal teaching and spiritual piety, was attended, the profligacy of the nation after the restoration, and the profound and apathetic irreligion which followed, and which covered England with its gloomy mantle till the accession of George III., bear painful testimony. * A Sermon preached at the funeral of the late Archbishop, &c. By Gilbert [Buruct] Lord Bishop of Saruai. 1694. 254 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER The experiment was long tried and the result is now ^' inscribed in history. At length we have learned ciiAs.i. ^ij^g important lesson, that without true religion AD. 1616-8. '■ , ^ there is no true morality. THE LATER PURITANS. 255 CHAPTER VI. A.D. 16-17—1648. The war had scarcely closed wlien a military chapter despotism followed. For the long period of thirteen '- — years a puritan army gave its law to England. That ^o"'^g^7;^8 ultimate authority which exists in every state, from which there is no higher appeal, was transferred to the army, and there it lay until the ancient consti- tution, or at least its usages and forms, were revived at the restoration of Charles II. The army was the sovereign, and Cromwell was the favourite; like other favourites, alternately insulted and caressed, and at times supreme, but never in fact allowed to control his masters except by those arts to wliich a favourite descends. Erom this period the institu- tions of the country, the courts of law, the once formidable parliament, and the protector himself at the summit of his pride and greatness, were held in submission to the army. The real power was in the soldiery. The parliament, which had for some time felt a growing jealousy of the army, was naturally anxious to disband it. The Irish rebellion still continued and had lately broken out with new fury. This supplied a pretext. Twelve thousand troops were CIIAS. 1. A.U. 1617—8 256 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER ordered to sail for Ireland. Three regiments only ^^' were retained for service at home, together with the soldiers employed in the few garrisons which it was thought necessary to retain in a military posture. The rest of the army was ordered to be disbanded. At the same time the parliament betrayed its fears of Cromwell and the generals, by ordering that no officer above the rank of a colonel should go with the army to Ireland. Its suspicions were not un- founded. " These men," said Cromwell to Ludlow, who sat next to him during one of the debates, " these men will never leave their places till we turn them out by their ears." As a parliament he saw that they were useless ; and the ancient forms of the constitution were not so venerable to him as to induce him to respect them with any traditional superstitions. On receiving these orders the whole army as one man protested against the insult, and resolved neither to disband themselves nor to separate their regiments from each other. They were not hirelings, they said, but citizens ; they were not a band of janissaries ; they neither fought for pay nor plunder, but for the country, for God, and for themselves. The kingdom was still dis- tracted ; no form of government was settled ; the parliament was not supreme ; it derived its authority solely from the people ; they too, no less than the parliament, were the guardians of the people's rights. This was the substance of their message to the house of commons. They appointed two courts : the one a superior court, consisting of the officers of each regiment ; the other the court of agitators, elected from the private soldiers by themselves, THE LATER, PURITANS. 257 and by these representatives their solemn protesta- chapter tion was carried in due form to "Westminster. At ^^" first the parliament was disposed to treat tlie armv ^"'^^ ^• ■'■■'• " A.D.1647— 8. and its complaints with haughty contempt. It voted them to be mutinous and seditious ; and the citizens of London, still faithful to the presbyterian cause and to the house of commons, drew up in common council some insulting resolutions calling for the punishment of a seditious soldiery. Cromwell was often in his seat in parliament, and affected to deplore the disaffection of the army; but he was suspected of fomenting its disorders (the mild word now made use of, since mutinous became a hazardous expression), and the house of commons had resolved to seize and detain so dangerous a person. TJie quarrel had now continued for several months ; the army growing every day more resolute and the parliament less firm. Twelve months' pay was due ; the parliament offered an instalment for the last six "weeks. They now levied sixty thousand pounds a month, and they promised this and the spoil of the church lands, in further payment of arrears. The army declared itself dissatisfied. The parliament made a further concession, namely, that the com- mander-in-chief of the detachment for Ireland should be styled field-marshal, and that their favourite general Skippon should have the post, with colonel Massey for his lieutenant-general. When the parliamentary commissioners repeated this, however, to the army, a universal shout was raised, Fairfax and Cromwell ! and we all go. But Fairfax was not disposed to undertake an inglorious campaign in Ireland, and Cromwell was engaged s 258 THE IlISTORY OF CHAPTER in measures which required his presence at West- '- — minster. In June the army, some of the regiments a.d"i647-8 i^^i'ching without their colours and several troops in great disorder, moved from Triplow heath, near Camhridge, towards London. The impotence of the house of commons appeared at once. On the 3rd of June it passed a hurried vote often thousand pounds for the non-commissioned officers, with other concessions j wrote to acquaint the general with what the house had done in pursuance of the desires of the army ; implored him to preserve its discipline ; and, lastly, rased the declaration in which it had charged the army with a mutinous spirit from its journals. It even carried its obsequi- ousness so far as to send a message to the lords, entreating them to do the same. The next day a note was delivered from the army to the parliament, which overwhelmed it with consternation. The king was at Holmhy house, near Northampton, guarded by commissioners and soldiers of their own. Joyce, a cornet of dragoons, had presented himself with a troop of cavalry before the gates, and was imme- diately admitted. With a loaded pistol in each hand, he demanded an audience with the king. His majesty had retired for the night ; but, after much remonstrance from his servants, Joyce, thus armed, forced his way into his chamber and told his message. Charles received him with the calmness which never forsook him in moments of dan^-er and surprise, and promised in the morning to comply with his instructions. The king must go with him. " But where ? " said Charles. " To a place where your majesty will be in safety," he replied. "But THE LATER PURITANS. 259 where is your commission?" said the king. "There," chapter said Joyce, pointing to his troop which was drawn . up in the court-yard. The king at once submitted, ^^"i^y^g " Your commission, sir," he said, " has the fairest frontispiece of any that I ever saw : five hundred proper men on horseback." He was conducted the same day to Huntingdon, and was henceforth the army's prisoner. No settlement of the nation could be made, no form of government could be adopted, in which the disposal of the king, in one way or other, was not a consideration of the first import- ance. This Cromwell understood ; and he had, at one stroke, outwitted the parliament and super- seded Pairfax. It was from him and his junto that Joyce had received his instructions. Eairfax, the victor in a hundred fights,* had been quietly set aside by his own ofiicers, who had acted in his name but without his knowledi?e. Cromwell knew the importance of his prize : " Now," he said, unable to conceal his exultation, " I have the king in my hands and I have the house of commons in my pocket." The army had arrived at St. Alban's when the general received instructions from the parliament to deliver up the king's person and not to approach within forty miles of London. The parliament had now regained courage ; for the trainbands Avere arming in the city, the shops were closed and the apprentices in thousands came down to Westminster to defend the covenant and demand justice upon the seditious army. Eairfax answered in the name * Vicars, England's Worthies, \G47. He gives a list of one luuulreil and eleven battles, sieges, &c., in which Fairfax had been engaged. s 2 260 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEu of his officers and men, by sending an impeachment ^^' of hii^'li treason against eleven members of the house cHAs. I. Q^" commons, the leaders of the presbyterians. who A.D.1647— 8. ' ■ n 1 had been foremost to censure the proceedings of the army. These were Denzil Ilollis, sir Philip Staple- ton, sir William Lewis, sir John Clotworthy, sir William Waller, sir John Maynard, colonels Massey, Long, and Ilarley, Mr. Nicholls, and Glyn the recorder of London. The list embraces some of the chief actors up to this time in the revolution, and some of the ablest soldiers in the army which had subdued the king. Having made this demonstra- tion, the army marched to Berkhampstead and proceeded thence to Uxbridge, the king being de- tained at Hatfield. The parliament was alarmed; the impeached members fled to Calais; but the demands of the army continued to increase. They now insisted upon a reform of the house of com- mons, a fairer distribution of the elective franchise, and triennial parliaments, and that the right of petition might be cleared from those monstrous abuses, — the assemblage of mobs and their inso- lence, — Avith which it w^as now disgraced. They required that the powers given to the committees of the house (which were perfectly tyrannical,) should be regulated and controlled ; and that the- accounts of the nation, and especially of the vast sums received for confiscated property, should be audited and published ; and lastly, " that public justice being satisfied by some few examples of the worst of the excepted persons, a general act of oblivion should be passed, whereby the seeds of future war or the fear of it may be removed." THE LATER PURITANS. 261 Wliile these proposals were under discussion, the chapter VI army retired to Aylesbury. The city and the '■ — apprentices resumed their courage and became ^ ^, uin-s. more insolent. Pairfax at once returned to TJx- bridge, advanced to Ilounslow, and was evidently preparing to march on London. The helpless and distracted condition both of the city and the parlia- ment was again apparent. The earl of Manchester and Lenthall, tlie speakers of the two houses, accompanied by about sixty members, fled in the night from London, and presented themselves, Lenthall carrying his mace of ofl&ce, before the general and the camp at Hounslow. They were received with acclamations. The two houses at Westminster however elected new speakers, and the city prepared for a vigorous defence. The presbyterian clergy from their pulpits moved the people to take up arms, and a solemn fast was kept ; the fortifications were repaired, the walls bristled with pikes, the gates and the bridge looked formid- able with artillery. But there was no heart within ; for presbyterian London had now spent itself. The citizens passed the niglit in their guildhall, and received every hour by an express fresh tidings of the army. On the report that it halted, their courage revived, and they cried. One and all ! live and die ! Another scout informed them that it was advancing ; and they cried as loudly. Treat a?id capitulate ! At two o'clock in the morning, colonel E/ainsborough and his regiment appeared in South- wark at the foot of London bridge. It was strongly fortified and well guarded ; but the soldiers on each side no sooner confronted their old associates than. 262 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER all other considerations vanished. They shook VI. - hands as veterans in a common cause and let down *?fit!/c the drawbridn-e. Kot a ffun had been fired, but London was surrendered. Two days afterwards, on the 7th of August, the army, headed by Fairfax, Cromwell, Ilammond, Uich, and Tomlinson, entered London in military pomp. At Hyde-park corner the aldermen offered Pairfax a ewer and basin of gold valued at £1000 : he received them coldly and refused their present. At Charing cross the com- mon council were assembled and made obeisance to their invader. The army passed on through the city, but in the highest state of discipline : not a soldier uttered one angry word ; there was not an insulting look, not an action or gesture in the conquerors to give the least offence. Pairfax took up his residence in the Tower, of which he assumed the command. The city waited upon him to thank him for his care of London and to invite him to a public dinner. The clergy apologized for their misconduct. The houses of parliament rescinded all their votes and declared their proceedings void since the day on which the speakers had deserted them. After these proceedings the once dreaded parliament was to all parties an object of indiffe- rence, or of mere contempt. It was of no other use than to register the edicts of the army, and to ffive a sort of le^jral utterance to its will.* But while, since the beginning of tlie revolution, power had been transferred through many hands and lodged with various parties in succession, upon certain great and leading points one purpose had all * Clarendon, b. x pp. 50—00. Whitclockc, pp. 2-10— 2(i(5. Ludlow, p. 75. THE lateh puritans. 263 along prevailed. Substantially the puritans had chapter differed rather as to the means to be employed than — — the objects to be attained. In religion at least their ^'"^^^•^• aim was always the same ; it was to abolish prelacy and establish in its place a national church in accordance more or less with the churches on the continent. Between the presbyterians and the in- dependents the difference was not so much of religion as of politics. Presbyterians feared the democratic tendency of the independent theory ; the indepen- dents grudged the formidable powers, approaching to a new kind of spiritual star chamber, which the presbyterians claimed for their ecclesiastical courts. Both alike were anxious for a learned ministry. Both alike were anxious for a ministry whose doc- trines should be those of the reformation, as ex- pounded by Jewel and Whitgift, by Bulliuger and Calvin. It was only the lowest of the sectaries who affected to depreciate learning. The mass of the puritans carried their admiration, perhaps, even too far. The sermons of their greatest divines are en- cumbered with it, and they ministered, it is evident, to the prevailing taste. It is strange that contempt of literature should be gravely charged upon a party amongst whom Selden tallied and Milton flourished ; amongst whom Algernon Sidney and sir "William Waller were great names ; under whose shelter John Howe, little known as yet, already "mewed his mighty youth." The cares of sacred literature engaged the parliament during the most anxious periods of the war. To-day the tidings of a battle, to-morrow a discussion upon the price to be paid for an ancient manuscript of the new testament, or a 2Gii THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER grant of books, the richest spoil of Lambeth, to some — favourite di\^ine. Attempts were even made tofomid ad"iw7-8 ^^^^ ^^^^^^ universities. One was actually opened in London, though it soon perished ; the other was to have been fixed at Durham, and richly endowed from the property of that wealthy see ; but this too failed, and it was left to us of the present generation to revive effectually these noble projects of our puritan forefathers. The university of Cambridge was from the first in their hands. Cromwell represented the town in parliament, and such was his influence there that Charles's cause never obtained a footing in the university. A commission was issued early in the war to the earl of Manchester, assisted by commis- sioners, to investigate abuses in the university, to dispossess malignants, and in short to remodel Cambridge in accordance with the solemn league and covenant. A large body of parliamentary troops then lay in the town and lent their officious aid in the work of reformation. The Lady Margaret's professor in his robes, on his way to Great St. Mary's to preach a latin sermon, according to the statute, was surrounded by a crowd of soldiers crying, " A pope, a pope !" They followed him into the church, and insisted with threatenings and uproar that he should preach in English. The courts of St. John's college and Pembroke liall were converted into prisons for the royalists ; the soldiers were exer- cised in King's college chapel: monuments and sepulchral brasses, paintings and stained glass, it was their pastime to demolish. What plate re- mained was seized, upon the communion tables of THE LATER PURITANS. 265 the chapels, and some valuable collections of books, chaptkr coins, and medals, were destroyed. Still, however, '■ — the university, making due allowance for a state of ^^^^i^^^Jl^Jg. civil war, was by no means harshly used. The chief commissioner, the earl of Manchester, was a man of high breeding, courteous and benevolent. He was never known to insult even those whom he was obliged to oppress.* The rudeness of the soldiers was soon checked by an ordinance from parliament, and the noblest monuments of the university escaped untouched. The sculptures and statuary in King's college survived this frenzy, and still astonish and delight the visitor; and its painted windows, re- cording the whole history of the Saviour's life and passion, and many a scene from the old testament, depicted with a lustre which nearly four centuries have done nothing to impair, testify to this day the prompt obedience which the republican army ren- dered to its superiors. Many fellows of various colleges refused to appear before the commissioners ; of these sixty-five were immediately expelled. About two hundred graduates were dismissed ; and of six- teen heads of houses ten were ejected. Amongst the latter were Dr. Ward, master of Sidney college, and Dr. Brownrigg, bishop of Exeter and master of Catherine hall ; Dr. Ward, a church puritan in the days of Laud, but in earlier and better times, with bishop Hall of Norwich, one of the English repre- sentatives at the synod of Dort. Dr. Holds worth, master of Emmanuel, and from that circumstance alone probably a puritan so called, was turned out ; he attended the king in his last troubles in the Isle * Clarendon, book vi. p. 211. 266 THE IIISTOTIY OF CHAPTER of Wiglitj and died of grief. In short, with scarcely '- — an exception, as their opponents themselves ad- A^u 1W7-8 i^i^ted, the expelled masters were good, wise, and learned men ; but they refused the covenant, and would no doubt have employed all their influence against the parliament. The covenant, however, was not rigidly imposed : it was offered as a test to those who w^ere suspected, that is, to determined royalists ; but great numbers of respectable men who held no extreme opinions, were suffered to re- main without disturbance. Prom Trinity hall and Catherine hall neither fellow nor student was re- moved. In Queen's college, on the other hand, not one was left. The new masters, elected in the place of the ten ejected, were men of the highest character both for piety and learning. Dr. E^alph Cudvvorth, the new master of Clare hall, was the greatest teacher of metaphysical philosophy of his age ; if not in England the founder of the science. His " Intellectual System" is a work of vast learning and deeper thought : philosophical readers acknow- ledge its depth and its difficulty. He was long supposed to have founded his system upon the phi- losophy of Plato. A learned German professor has lately shewn, not only that his principles were new, but that they contain the germ of the doctrines of Kant, the father of modern metaphysics. Another of his works, a treatise on free will, has lately been published for the first time, from the manuscript in the British Museum : so little has time impaired his reputation. We owe it to the puritans that this great man enjoyed the learned repose thus nobly CIIAS. I. 1647—8. THE LATER PURITANS. 267 consecrated.* At tlic restoration lie resigned his chapter mastership, but conformed to the church of England. Witch cott, the new provost of King's college, was ^^^ more successful, says Tillotson, in forming the stu- dents to a sober sense of religion, than any man of that aG:e : he was an excellent tutor and instructor of youth. t Dr. Arrowsmith was appointed to St. John's. Spurstowe, and on his resignation Light- foot, to Catherine hall; Seaman to Peter-house. All these were eminent in their day. Not one of the new masters was an inefficient man.:|: The renovation of Oxford was etfected with more severity. During the war the discipline of the uni- versity had been relaxed, and sloth and vice were rampant. A provincial city, at once the residence of a court, the head-quarters of an army, and the seat of a university, must have been an unpromising field for the cultivation either of learning or of morals. We can believe that Oxford was dissolute and learning in decay, simply because any other representation would have been incredible. When it fell at length into the hands of the parliament, Fairfax and his soldiers took possession of the city by surrender, and marched into it, according to their custom, without reproach or insult. The next day the shops were opened, every alarm vanished ; and Oxford enjoyed a tranquillity and good order un- known for years. Victorious everywhere in arms, the puritans now provoked a conflict of another kind. The city of * Blake}^ Hist, of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 281. t Tillotson, Works, vol. i. p. 277. t Neal, vol. iii. p. 93. A.D.1647— 8. 268 THE niSTOHY OP CHAPTER Oxford was reduced, but tlic university appeared to _Z!_-be impregnable. Here the old loyalty prevailed, cHAs.i. i\^Q tlieolon^y of Laud was taught and the divine right of kings. Even had the parliament no regard for learning, still it could not leave the university to its opponents. If it were not wanted for the instruction of puritans it was not safe to abandon it to the royalists. The conduct of the parliament was marked at first with great forbearance. It was evidently its wish to conciliate the university, and to introduce a new system under the direction of its present rulers and occupants. First, a deputation of seven of its best divines was sent with authority to preach, both in the town and colleges, in order to soften the spirits of the people, and give them a better opinion of its cause. The towns-people crowded to their sermons — the collegians heard them with contempt and scorn. Heynolds, after- wards bishop of Norwich, was one of the seven, which suggests a doubt as to the justice of the clamour with which they were assailed. One of their proceedings was perhaps unwise. They opened a conference or weekly debate, to solve objections against the new confession of faith and discipline, and to discuss points in casuistry. The students m derision called it the scruple shop. Overwhelmed with ridicule, they returned to London and reported the failure of their mission. The parliament now determined upon a searching visitation, and passed an ordinance of both houses to that effect. The visitors appointed were lawyers and divines : they w^ere empowered to hear and determine all crimes, abuses, and disorders within the university; to THE LATER PURITANS. 260 inquire particularly upon oath concerning those chapter who had not subscribed to the solemn league and li covenant, or taken the necrative oath. Their powers ^'"^^^•^• ' . A.D. 1647— 8. extended still further : they were instructed to ex- amine and depose all those who might have opposed the new presbyterian discipline, or taken arms against the parliament, or assisted those who did so. The management of the university, its customs, oaths, and statutes, they were to investigate ; but if the university or any of its members were aggrieved by their sentence, an appeal was permitted to a committee of the lords and commons.* The uni- versity in convocation immediately drew up a solemn protest, chiefly the work of Sanderson, in which they submit their reasons against the covenant, the directory, the negative oath, and the assumed au- thority and proceedings of this new commission. It was drawn up with elaborate skill and argument, and was in every respect worthy of its authors and of the church of England, whose cause they repre- sented. They objected both to the manner and the matter of the covenant. A covenant, they said, implies a voluntary mutual consent of the contrac- tors ; whereas this was imposed by force ; and in contradiction to the petition of right, in which the parliament had itself declared such oaths unwarrant- able by the laws and statutes of the realm. But even if the covenant had not been imposed at all upon them, but submitted only to their choice and to their own free will, they could not have embraced it ; for the king by proclamation had denounced it ; and they by their oaths and allegiance were bound * Neal, vol. iii. p. 339. Walker, Sufferings, part i. p. 134. 270 THE niSTOEY OF ciiAPTEu to obey all such his majesty's commands as were '■ — not in their apprehensions repugnant to the will of A^u.'iw7-s. ^^^' 0^' ^^^^ positive laws of this kingdom. Then, addressing themselves to the various points of the covenant, they denied, if they did not indeed dis- prove, in succession the truth of every one of them. Some they maintained were exaggerated, some were false, some mischievous, and all alike unnecessary. The second article of the covenant required tliem " to endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness." Upon this they remark as follows : " Eirst," they say, " it cannot hut affect us with some grief and amazement to see that ancient form of church- government which we heartily (and, as we hope, worthily) honour, as under which our religion was at first so orderly, without violence or tumult, and so happily, reformed, and hath since so long flou- rished with truth and peace (to the honour and happiness of our own and the envy and admiration of other nations), not only endeavoured to be extir- pated without any reason offered to our under- standings for which it should be thought necessary, or but so much as expedient, so to do ; but also ranked with popery, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness ; which we unfcignedly profess our- selves to detest as much as any others whatsoever. And that with some intimation also, as if that government were some way or other so contrary to sound doctrine or the power of godliness, that who- soever should not endeavour the extirpation thereof must of necessity partake in other men's sins, which we cannot yet be persuaded to believe." CIIAS. I. A.D. 1617—8. THE LATER PURITANS. 271 " Secondly, as to episcopal government ; we are cnAPXER not satisfied how we can with a good conscience swear to endeavour the extirpation thereof. 1st. In respect of the thing itself, concerning which govern- ment we think we have reason to believe, that it is (if not jure divino in the strictest sense, that is to say, expressly commanded by God in his word, yet) of apostolical institution ; that is to say, was esta- blished in the churches by the apostles, according to the mind and after the example of their master Jesus Christ, and that by virtue of their ordinary power and authority derived from him, as deputed by him governors of his church. 2nd. Or at least, that episcopal aristocracy hath a fairer pretension and may lay a juster title and claim to a divine institution than any of the other forms of church- government can do, all which yet do pretend there- unto, viz., that of the papal monarchy, that of the presbyterian democracy, and that of the inde- pendents by particular congregation, or gathered churches. But we are assured by the undoubted testimony of ancient records and later histories that this form of government hath been continued with such a universal, uninterrupted, unquestioned suc- cession in all the churches of God, and in all king- doms that have been called christian, throughout the whole world, for fifteen hundred years together, that there never was in all that time any consider- able opposition made there against. 3rd. In respect of ourselves, we are not satisfied how it can stand with the principles of justice, ingenuousness, and humanity, to require the extirpation of episcopal government (unless it had been first clearly demon- 272 THE niSTOTlT OF ciiAPTEu stratcd to be unlawful) to bo sincerely and really '- — endeavoured by us : AYlio have all of us, who have A.D. 1647-8 t^^cn any degree by subscribing the xxxix Articles, testified our approbation of that government : one of those articles affirming the very book containing the form of their consecration to contain in it no- thing contrary to the word of God : Who have most of us (viz., as many as have entered into the ministry) received orders from their hands, whom we should very ill requite for laying their hands upon us, if we should now lay to our hands to root them up, and cannot tell for what : Who have sundry of us, since the beginning of this parlia- ment, subscribed our names to petitions exhibited, or intended to be exhibited, to that high court for the continuance of that government : which as we then did sincerely and really, so we should with like sincerity and reality still (not having met with any- thing since to shew us our error) be ready to do the same again, if we had the same hopes we then had of the reception of such petitions : Who hold some of us our livelihood, either in whole or part, by those titles of deans, deans and chapters, &c. mentioned in the articles, being members of some collegiate or cathedral churches. And our memories will not readily serve us with any example in this kind since the world began ; wliere in any state or profession men, though convicted (as we are not) of a crime that might deserve deprivation, were required to bind themselves by oath, sincerely and really to endeavour the rooting out of that (in itself not unlawful) together wherewith they must also root out themselves, their estates and livelihoods." THE LATER PURITANS. 273 " Lastly," tlioy add, " in respect of our obligations chapter to his majesty : having both in the oath of supre '—r- macy and by our subsequent protestation bound vu"uu7-8 ourselves to maintain the king's honour, estate, jurisdictions, and all manner of rights, it is clear to our understandings that we cannot, without dis- loyalty and injury to him and double perjury to ourselves, take upon us, without his consent, to make any alteration in the ecclesiastical laws or government, much less to endeavour the extirpation thereof; unless the imposers of this covenant had a power and meaning (which they have openly dis- claimed) to absolve us of that obedience, which under God we owe unto his majesty, whom they know to be entrusted with the ecclesiastical law."* The remaining points of the covenant are answered, seriatim, in a similar spirit. These reasons were printed in Latin and English and widely circulated. No attempt was made to answer them, and the university considered the silence of their enemies an admission of defeat. It would have been well perhaps for their real dignity had they now submitted to the parliament. Might was against them; they had reasoned and protested ; it was foolish to prolong the contest. Their historians however record with exultation many an inglorious scuffle for the possession of the halls, the butteries, the chambers, and even the chapels, of the colleges, as one by one they yielded to the visitors. The commissioners at last applied * Reasons of the present judgment of the university of Oxford con- cerning the solemn league and covenant, &c. Aj)i)roved by general consent in a full convocation, June 1, IG47 T 274 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER for and obtained the assistance of a troop of ^ — soldiers ; and even now, though the strife was A.u. 1647-^. liopeless, the defence was obstinate. They relate, to the honour of Mrs. Fell, the wife of the dean of Christchurch, that when the soldiers had gained possession of the dean's apartments she refused to quit her chamber. She defied their threats and the fumes of their tobacco, and was carried out in her chair and set down in the middle of the quadrangle. The forbearance of the parliament certainly deserves notice. The university had now been permitted to resist its authority and insult its visitors for a year and a half. At length, however, its patience was exhausted. The royalists were expelled ; and on the Gth of July, 1618, it was proclaimed by beat of drum before the gates of the several colleges, that if the expelled members remained in Oxford they should be forthwith imprisoned. But the university, so writes its eulogist, even stood this storm ; where- upon four days after it was further proclaimed by beat of drum, before every college, " that if any one who had been expelled did still presume to tarry in the town, or should be taken within five miles of it, he should be deemed a spy and punished with death."* No doubt the renovation of Oxford was necessary to the puritans; their circumstances required it. At the conclusion of a civil war they could not leave the stronghold of literature and prelacy at liberty to set them at defiance and .counterwork their own in- tended reformation. But now at least their embar- rassment began to shew itself in a way no longer to * Walker, Sufferings, part i. p 138. THE LATER PURITANS. 275 be overlooked. The fatal covenant hung as a mill- chapter stone round their necks. For the sake of consistency ^'' it compelled them to be severe where only lenient *^'"'^^-^- ■^ . «' A.D. 1647— 8. measures could prevail ; for the sake of uniformity (a uniformity which they now discovered to be impossible) it forced them to repeat, in the spirit of Laud himself, the very oppressions of the former prelatists. They had beaten the royalists and subdued the king ; but tliey had now a harder task, — to subdue the nation to the covenant. Until this were done they governed only by force. Presbyte- rians, independents, sectaries, might obey, but epi- scopalians must of course resist. Acting thus, the parliament would legislate only for tlieir party. They might settle a constitution, but it w^ould only suit the conquerors. This w^as no free government. They might treat the royalists as a conquered faction, they might deprive churchmen of their social position and even of their civil rights ; but to do so, was to proclaim not a free government, but simply another form of tyranny. Before the war, puritanism was oppressed ; at its close, the old church of England. And wdiile this state of things continued there could be no repose for the nation. It was tolerable, even to their own party, only while the war and the revolution lasted. Thus, when they took the covenant they w^ere guilty of two errors ; of which, if the first was pardonable, the second was preposterous. They undervalued their strength upon the field, and yet they overrated their power of dealing successfully with the consciences of the episcopalians and royalists. They submitted to the covenant to gain the Scotch alliance ; but T 2 276 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER they did not foresee how sure and deep the enibar- ^"^- rassment it must give them in the possible event of cHAs.i. -tiieij. success. The allair at Oxford brought out A. D. 1047-8. nil the crisis. Men were now violently expelled, whose characters they themselves revered, and without whose assistance no settlement of the nation could possibly be made. The public sympathy was already changing sides, and nothing could well have been devised more grateful to the prelatists (because more useful in recalling the affections of the people) than the sufferings to which they were now exposed. As the tumult of war and its evil passions subsided, men were everywhere shocked to see the dignitaries of the church wandering in country towns and cathedral cities poor and silenced, yet still faithful to their cause ; their places occupied by inferior men, sometimes of vulgar minds and manners, and their revenues dissipated without the least advan- tage to the common people, who missed their charities and learned too late bow much they had been deluded. The cathedrals were impoverished, but the cathedral cities grew lean upon the spoil ; and then it seemed a cruel tyranny to punish inoffensive ministers for their attachment to the prayer-book. vSo thought indeed the wisest of the puritans, and they would gladly have connived had the malicious industry of a few fanatics and infor- mers permitted them to do so. Sanderson in his parish of Bootbby PagncU, though dismissed from Oxford, still used the liturgy ; and even when in- formed against, a message was conveyed to him expressing the reluctance of those in power to abridge his liberty.* lie wisely bent before the * Life of Sanderson, by Izaak M'silton. THE LATER PURITANS. 277 storm, and framed a modified litur^^y for his own cuArxER . VI. use in his ministry. He was permitted to retain ■ his living, and probably to continue the practice, ^v.u^S-s. till the restoration ; and he was not obliged to take the covenant. This question of partial conformity was much debated among the episcopal clergy ; and Sanderson, as the greatest casuist of the times, was frequently consulted by his brethren. He wrote a treatise for their use, in which his decision, in accordance with his own example, was that expediency alone must determine their scruples. And it was more expedient, he thought, to retain their livings, and use, while force compelled them, a mutilated form of worship, than to desert their parishes.* In other respects the imposition of the covenant was equally disastrous. It was the fatal obstacle to a reconciliation with the king. While he was yet in the Scotch army overtures were made to him; and to prepare the way, Henderson, their great divine, was introduced to remove his scruples and persuade him to embrace the covenant. Had he consented, the Scotch would have espoused his cause, and the presbyterians at Westminster would probably have returned at once to their allegiance. If the papers published in his name were really his, Charles con- ducted the argument in a manner both wise and temperate. He shewed himself well acquainted with the controversy and well able to maintain it. Both his honour and his conscience, he said, were concerned to support episcopacy in England ; it was a divine institution which by his coronation oath he was bound to defend. Henderson failed to shake his * Bishop Sanderson's " Judgment concerning Usurpers." ClIAS. I. A.U. 1647— 8 278 THE HISTORY OF CIIAPTI.R convictions ; and as lie died soon after, the royalists ^^' took occasion to assert that Charles had convinced him of his errors, and that he expired of grief and a hrokcn heart.* The controversy was renewed two years afterwards, when the king was a prisoner in the Isle of Wight. It formed an article in the treaty of Newport, and was the only point, indeed, upon which Charles at last refused to surrender his judgment and his conscience to the parliament. Whatever his claim may be to the title of a royal martyr, his defence of the church of England, at the almost certain hazard of his life, must always command respect from men of every party. The treaty consisted of three articles. By the first, the king was required to revoke all his declarations against the parliament, and to admit " that the two houses had been necessitated to enter into a war in their just and lawful defence," and that the kingdom of England had entered into a solemn league and covenant to prosecute the same. The king was naturally reluctant to admit the truth of these propositions; nor ought they to have been submitted. He willingly offered an oblivion for the past, and this should have been sufficient. This, indeed, was the only basis on which the wounds of the nation could be healed. To make tlie king assert, in effect, that he himself had been a tyrant, was an insult and a humiliation from which no sovereign could recover. Nor could he with truth admit that the covenant was a national act. He had himself for- bidden it ; a majority of his subjects had never taken it ; its imposers themselves differed about its To insist on these propositions was an * Clarendon, hook x. p. 31. Ncal, vol. lii. p. 2()4. THE LATER PURITANS. 279 act of needless cruelty, a triumph over a prostrate chapter king, of which men less religious than the puritans '. — might have heen ashamed. Charles, however, by ^^^^^^!^ the advice of his friends, at length gave way. He well foresaw, he said, the aspersions it would expose him to ; hut he hoped his subjects would confess that it was but a part of the price he had paid for their benefit and the peace of his dominions.* The second proposition concerned religion and the church. Lord Clarendon, not without reason, calls it a pregnant proposition containing many mon- strous particulars. It contemplated the utter abo- lition of episcopacy and the alienation of cathedral lands for the use of the state ; the imposition of the covenant upon tlie king himself, and then, by his authority, on all his sul)jects ; the abolition of the common prayer and public liturgy of the church; and, lastly, " the reformation of religion according to the covenant, in such manner as both houses had or should asrree after consultation with divines." *' This," exclaimed the king, alluding to the last article, " exceeds the implicit faith which the church of Home demands : she obliges her proselytes to what she does hold, not to what she shall." Four presbyterian divines were in attendance to renew the controversy in which Henderson had failed — Vines, Caryl, Seaman, and Marshall; and the king had the assistance of his ablest chaplains and divines, who were permitted however to be present only as silent spectators. The whole argument in favour of episcopacy on the one hand, and presby- terianism on the other, was fully discussed. The * Clarendon, book ii. p. 21-1. CIIAS. I. A.D.1&17-8 280 THE IIISTOUY OF ciiAi'TKu king's acquaintance with tlic subject, tliougli it was no doubt tlic great religious controversy of his age, ^g is surprising. At their own w^eapons he proved himself no unequal match for the four champions of the puritan cause. The utmost that could be ex- torted from him was a reluctant consent to suspend episcopacy for three years ; and at the close of that period, upon consultation with a body of divines, of whom twenty were to be chosen by himself, to de- termine upon a lasting form of church government for the nation. lie would allow those who pleased, to take the covenant and to make use of the directory ; he would not impose the one or insist npon the other, lie would even consent to the abolition of prelacy ; that is, he would dissociate the episcopal office from its rank and splendour; for these were conventional, the office itself was of divine authority. These concessions ought to have been cheerfully embraced. They satisfied the commissioners who waited on the king from parliament ; and, in the judgment of Baxter and the wisest of the puritans, they ought to have satisfied their party. For they had not determined entirely to their own satis- faction what was that true and primitive form of church government to whicli the jiii^e divino rights and sovereignties pertained. The question was primary and fundamental, but it was not yet answered. There were more divines in favour of presbyterianism, but there wTrc more soldiers in favour of the independent scheme ; and had there been no third party, it was even now uncertain whe- ther the controversy would be determined for Eng- cnArTi::R VI. THE LATER PURITANS. 281 land by the sword or by the pen. The very puritan divines who had attended on the king were not of one mind. The solemn league and covenant was, /^J'^^g^^ig in short, a mere phantom to scare away episco- palians — it was a violent negation of bishops, deans and chapters. It had yet to be interpreted, and until interpreted it could not be enforced. England midit lie waste amidst the ruins of her ancient church ; violence and war had brought her to this condition ; but the covenant supplied no principles and no materials wherewith to reconstruct her ; and then, if episcopacy were indeed so dangerous, and the directory so safe, it might reasonably be hoped that within the three years of probation the nation would learn to acquiesce in a change for which at present it was unprepared. The precipitancy of the puritans was as impolitic as their narrow conditions were unwise. Even had they been right in argu- ment, their conduct gave little hope that the great Head and Master of the church was making use of them to amend the workmanship of Cranmer and the martyrs. Thirdly, the parliament required that the militia, that is, the army, should be entirely at their own disposal; and they claimed the right of levying taxes in order to support it. To this with much reluctance the king gave his consent. At the termination of a prosperous war the parliament demanded on this head no more than was reason- able. To give up the army was to throw away every advantage they had won, and to place the victors at the mercy of the vanquished. The peace which Ormond had made with the Irish rebels was ClIAS. I. A.L>. 1647—8 282 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEij annulled. The kini? urn-cd that he had not been a party to it ; still he was reluctant to concede the point, probably out of a generous regard for the marquis of Ormond's safety.* Upon the whole the terms of the treaty were such as conquerors impose. No attempt was made at conciliation; no indulgence was olfered to the weaker party. The royalists and episcopalians were even in point of numbers by no means contemptible. True it was that while the presbyterians, the inde- pendents, and the sectarists could agree, they were crushed and outnumbered : but the elements of discord were fermenting : their party had been cemented by a common danger ; and now that it had passed, their quarrels plainly foreshadowed the speedy dissolution of the compact. The endeavour to crush a body still so powerful as the royalists was impolitic and ungenerous ; and as statesmen, or as professors of a purer religion, it was equally dis- honourable to the puritans. Liberty of conscience, the right of worshipping God unharmed, was their own justification of the war ; and now they denied this privilege to their opponents — to one-third at least of their fellow-countrymen. AYhoever might be allowed to plead for liberty of conscience, it was to be denied to the king himself and to his chaplains. The scruples of a sovereign with regard to his coro- nation oath were of no importance. Hammond, Sanderson, Pridcaux, and Ussher, Avere not of suffi- cient account to be listened to in behalf of the book of common prayer ! In the opinion of the great patriots of 1642, who still remained upon the scene, * Clarendon, book xi. p. 15. THE LATER PTJUITANS. 283 the cause was lost — lost by the vanity, the imbe- chaptku cility, and the bigotry of their successors. They '- — ■ had fought for liberty, but a dominant presbyte- ^v.u.'iwt-s. rianism, Avhicli brooked no rival, was as inconsistent with it as Laud and the star chamber. They had fought to retrieve the institutions of England from those who made them instruments of oppression ; but the institutions themselves had vanished, the oppressions were renewed. To compel the king and all his subjects to embrace the covenant, this then was the fruit of so many battles and of six years of sorrow such as England had never known ! The revolution had failed. The cause of the parliament and of constitutional liberty was lost, and its few remaining members had become contemptible. Charles himself is perhaps the only person whose reputation does not suffer in the Newport treaty ; for even his advisers, and sometimes his chaplains, from considerations of his personal safety, advised concessions which their conscience disapproved. No doubt his firmness was owing in some measure to the impression he entertained that without him nothing could be done : such language was often on his tongue : " They cannot do without me. I must turn the scale at last. The parliament cannot settle the nation without my assistance." Still however in the purest minds the best motives have their alloy, and the praise of Charles I. is, that he stood alone to defend the church of England at the certain hazard of his crown and the very probable forfeit of his life. Conceding every other demand he firmly resisted this. Such was his veneration for episcopacy that it rose superior in his mind to that 284 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEK duplicity which long habit had interwoven with his _I!l^ nature. During the NoAvport treaty he even sent ciiAs.i. pj.jyjj^e instructions to Ormond to assure him that A.D. 1647-8. 1 1 . 1 • 1 i. his concessions went for nothing, and might one day be annulled. Yet his conscience did not allow him to trifle with episcopacy and the church : these were sacred things ; this was a province into which diplomacy was not allowed to enter. Strange and incongruous perhaps it may appear, but such was Charles's character. The treaty, vvhich was opened in September, was brought to a close on the 27th of November, 1GJ8 ; the parliament debating each point in London, while the king and the commissioners were dis- cussing it in the Isle of AYight. But it now became evident that a party had risen up whom no conces- sions would satisfy. They Avere republicans ; and in the house of commons were represented by the younger sir Henry Vane. He made an angry speech and bitterly denounced the king as a tyrant, the author of all the evils under which the kingdom laboured. The debate upon the treaty lasted for six days. It was interrupted by the news that the army had repeated their old manoeuvre. They had seized the king at Carisbrook castle and carried him by force to Hurst castle on the Hampshire coast. These evil tidings were accompanied with a " large remonstrance," so-called, which six officers on behalf of the whole army presented to the house of commons. In this, after denouncing the treaty, they demanding that public justice might be done on the chief actors in the late troubles, and calling for a new parliament, petitioned that THE LATER PURITANS. 285 no king might hereafter he admitted hut upon elec- cuArxER tion of the people. The house of commons how- — ever behaved, on this the last occasion on which chas.i. ' ^ ... A.U.1647— 8. freedom of debate remained, with becoming dignity. It resolved that the removal of the king was con- trary to its instructions, and that he should be immediately placed as before under the care of colonel Hammond, the governor of Carisbrook. The army replied with the demand of their arrears and the threat of marching up to London, and sent up a "new declaration" in pursuance of their late re- monstrance. This the house refused to take into consideration : it was moved that they should be declared traitors, and that an impeachment of high treason should be issued against the officers, if the army should approach. The answer was emphati- cally given in the appearance of the whole army in London a few days afterwards. The house of com- mons immediately borrowed forty thousand pounds from the city for the payment of arrears, and again proceeded to discuss the Newport treaty. After a debate which continued from the forenoon till five o'clock the next morning, it was decided by a majo- rity of one hundred and forty against one hundred and four, "that the king's answer was a ground for the settlement of the peace of the kingdom." Vane and the republicans were defeated, but they hastened their revenge. Wlien the house met again it found a guard of musketeers drawn up at the door under the command of colonel Pride, the officers holding in their hands a list of the members, of whom they seized nearly a hundred and confined them in the neighbourhood. In the absence of 286 THE IIISTOIIY OF CHAPTER these mcnihers the house met ; the former vote was '- — rescinded ; and it was resolved " that the king's Aj>"i^7-8. aiiswer was not satisfactory." The house thus purged, and consisting now of a few republicans together with a numher of mere sycophants, the tools of the army, expelled the absent members, un- less they would subscribe to the recent vote against the king. After this audacious measure the English parliament, already humbled and degraded, had no more than a nominal existence : it was not now a legislative assembly ; it dwindled into a junto of mere functionaries ; its only business was hence- forward to throw military edicts into legal forms. It was now at all times the obsequious instrument of Cromwell and the army ; more hated of the people, if possible, than it had been once adored. And if ever a public body deserved the opprobrium and contempt it met with, it was the rump parlia- ment of 1648. THE LATER PURITANS. 287 CHAPTEE VII. A.D. 1648—1649. It was now determined to bring the king to trial, chapter The way was prepared by a vote of that fragment of '■ — the house of commons which remained, " that by , ^"^f ■ ^" the fundamental laws of the land, it is treason for the king of England to levy war against the parlia- ment and kingdom." Twelve or fifteen peers still sat in the house of lords, and they rejected the bill. "There is no parliament without the king," said the earl of Manchester ; " therefore the king cannot commit treason against the parliament." The com- mons immediately resolved to proceed without their concurrence ; and on the third of January lGi8-9 passed three memorable votes, which like a chain- shot swept away the king, the lords, the laws and liberties, the fundamental government and property of this nation at one blow. So wrote an historian of the times, himself a presbyterian.* The votes were these : — 1. That the people are, under God, the original of all just power. 2. That the commons of England in parliament * Clement Walker, Hist. ludependency, part ii. p. 06. 288 THE HISTORY OF cHAPTKu assembled, being chosen by and representing the '. people, have the supreme power of the nation. ciiAs.i. ^ That whatsoever is enacted or declared for law A.D.1W8— 9. by the house of commons assembled in parliament hath the force of law. These resolutions were passed unanimously : they were followed up by an ordinance of the house of commons for the trial of Charles Stuart, king of England, for high treason. A court of one hundred and fifty commissioners, of whom twenty were com- petent to act, was formed : it contained six peers, three great judges, the leaders of the army and of the house of commons, six aldermen of London, and a few others. The lords refused to have any share in these violent proceedings. And even amongst the republicans there was one illustrious man, Algernon Sydney, the son of lord Leicester, who sternly opposed the measure. "With a purity of mind and a penetration surpassing other men's, he perceived the greatness of the crime and foresaw its disastrous consequences. His acquaintance with mankind assured him of the certain reaction in Charles's favour that must follow the outrage. " No one will stir," said Cromwell, in answer to his re- monstrances. " I tell you we will cut his head off with the crown upon it." " I cannot prevent you," answered Sidney; "but I certainly will have nothing to do with this affair." He left the council and never returned.* Prynne, forgetting his own foul treatment in the days of Laud, now boldly rebuked his former party for their betrayal of the cause of * Lord Leicester's jouit'.iil, &c., in Godwin, Hist, of the Coniuion wealth, part ii. p. ()6I>. CIIAS I. 1&18— 9. THE LATEH PURITANS. 289 justice, which he held to be at all times that of real chapter liberty. Even Pairfax attended only once ; and — — — when the court assembled on the 20th of January ^^" in judgment on the king, only sixty-nine members were present. The court sat in Westminster hall ; and there John Eradshaw, Milton's cousin, a lawyer grave, resolute, and strongly imbued with the fa- naticism of his party, arraigned his sovereign on a charge of high treason in the name of the higher majesty of the people of England. The king refused to acknowledge the authority of the tribunal. Cook, the attorney-general, had no opportunity of deliver- ing a long invective, in which the king's errors since he mounted the throne were carefully emblazoned ; but it was published by authority, that the world might know how the trial would have been con- ducted had Charles condescended to plead before it for his life. On the 27th of January the court passed sen- tence : it condemned Charles to be put to death by the severing of his head from his body, in the open street before Whitehall, upon the 80th of January. These, however, are passages in history with which every reader is acquainted. Connected with the trial and execution of the king, one subject of deepest interest to religious men has long slumbered in profound repose. The puritans, the regenerators of mankind, the reformers of the church of England, — to what extent were they involved, and with what amount of guilt, in the death of Charles I. ? To thoughtful minds, to those, however few their number, who bear supreme reverence to truth, and truth alone, in history, the TJ 290 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEu subject is of deep concern. And, strange as it may VII. sound, it is still graced with the charms of novelty ; ciiAs. I. it is a new discussion. Much has been written on A.D. 1648— 9. both sides, but nothing (which has been so fortunate as to gain attention) in the calm spirit of an earnest enquiry after truth. Pirst of all w^e encounter those who assume, and not unfrcquently assert, that all those who opposed the tyranny of Charles and Laud, and took arms in 1G42, are guilty of the excesses of 1649, and of the king's death. With equal reason it might be main- tained that the states general, which opened the French revolution in 1789, were guilty of the death of the duke d'Enghien, and the horrors of the Russian campaign of 1812. Granting that the appeal to arms was rash, yet their grievances were real ; and real grievances in England had often justified an appeal to arms. If this were not the theory of the constitution, at least it was its history. The Magna Charta owed its existence to such a step. To implicate the patriots of 1642 in the military despotism of 1649 and the death of Charles, it must first be shewn that the latter events were the legitimate ofl!'spring of the former ; that the man who resists oppression by the sword is neces- sarily prepared to go to the lengths of treason and of regicide. Again, the puritans, as a body, are indiscrimi- nately charged with the death of Charles. The truth of the accusation depends, as usual, upon the definition of the terms. If the men whom Laud persecuted, ejected from their livings, insulted in their homes, or degraded from their social position, THE LATER PURITANS. 291 be intended, the charge is incorrect. On the other chapter hand, they were puritans, no doubt, who heartily VII. approved of the kinijj's death, and to the utmost of ^'"'^^■^• i I ^ . . ^■^- 1618-9. their power promoted it. How these dilTerences arose amongst the puritans, and by wliat arguments the views of the several parties were sustained, is an inquiry which yields to none in history either for interest or importance. Before the war broke out, the sectaries, it will be remembered, already formed a numerous body ; as sincerely disliked (though by no means so bitterly harassed,) by the puritans as by Laud himself. Between the sectaries and the puritans there was in fact but this point of union, that they were both oppressed. In 1645 the covenant was imposed, one disastrous effect of which was instantly to break up the old puritan party into two sections, those who retained, and those who forsook, episcopacy. The church puritans, or rather their leaders, adhered to episcopacy and gradually melted away. Ussher, as we have seen, attempted a compromise and failed ; the remainder of the old party became pres- byterians. Erom their ranks, however, there was in process of time a constant desertion, chiefly of the younger and more ambitious men, to the inde- pendents. And as the independents continued to increase in power and in favour with the army, the presbyterians lost ground. The independents were not strictly puritans. Whatever were the merits or faults of their system, it was at least original. It bore no necessary relation to prelacy ; it might have arisen, and in fact it has arisen and matured itself, where prelacy is unknown — as in Scotland u 2 ^ 292 THE UISTORT OF CHAPTER for example. To the presbyterians, the legitimate — — suceessors of the elder puritans, the trial of the cHAs. I. j^-j^g j^j^j |j-g subsequent execution were as repug- nant as to the royalists themselves. In them Charles found at length his best, his only friends. AYhen the tidings of his last calamities and of his intended trial paralyzed the nation, the episcopa- lians could render no assistance. At the hazard of their lives a few of them remonstrated. Dr. Gauden published a protestation ; Dr. Hammond sent an humble address to the general and his council ; the rest were silent in dismay. They were the van- quished party, whose objections were of no account. The presbyterians received the tidings with feelings of horror. The Scotch protested in a tone of the deepest indignation. They had given up the king when he sought refuge in their camp, two years ago, on the express condition "that his majesty should be treated, with respect to the safety and preservation of his person, according to the cove- nant ;"* by the third article of which they were " bound to preserve and defend his person and authority." And they now addressed a protestation to their brethren, the presbyterians of the province of London, exhorting them to courage and to a determined resistance to the nefarious measures of the house of commons. History has dealt hardly with the Scotch army for giving up the king to his English subjects. But in truth they had no alternative. Unconvinced by the arguments of Henderson, Charles had refused the covenant, and the Scotch at home refused to receive him as their * Cliirciiclon, book x. p. 37. THE LATER PURITANS. 293 king upon any other terms. Had the Scotch army chapter carried him back to Edinburgh, he must have been ^"' a guest or a prisoner. As a guest they could only ^ ^'^^^^g protect him by force of arms ; as a prisoner they had no right to detain him in opposition to his own wishes and those of the English parliament. It was unfortunate that the surrender of the king was connected with the payment of their arrears ; but the arrears were justly due, and, paid or not, it is difficult to perceive upon what grounds they could have claimed the exclusive right of disposing of his person. But even granting that the Scotch were mercenary in this affair, they had already nobly retrieved their national character. When to his more cautious friends in England his cause seemed lost, they had poured an army of twenty-six thousand men into tlie northern counties and penetrated the very heart of Lancashire. Cromwell himself had met and beaten them at Warrington, for they were ill-supported, and the whole adventure was roman- tic. Yet it shews the depth and earnestness of the presbytcrian loyalty of Scotland. Their generous enthusiasm on behalf of one who had few claims upon their affection, threw into the shade the measured caution of the English royalists. Charles was no sooner dead than they proclaimed and crowned his son; and, though already jaded and distressed, plunged into a second war. It is by no means creditable to English writers that their sur- render of the king at Newcastle should be so much censured, and their subsequent devotion to his cause so little praised. The English presbyterians were not less decided. 294 THE HISTORY OP CHAPTER Tliey regarded the proposed trial and execution — — — of the king with abhorrence and distress. Not a ad"i648-9 pi'Gsbyterian layman could be prevailed upon to sit in the high court of justice before which the king was to appear ; not a presbyterian minister could be induced to give the slightest countenance to its designs. The house of commons, or rather the army acting through its means, was not a little anxious to obtain the consent, or at least the neu- trality, of the London clergy. It is a proof how difficult it was to find a clergyman of any shade of doctrine or of politics to undertake the cause, that the mad Hugh Peters was chosen to discuss the subject with the "Westminster assembly. He failed in his mission ; they declared unanimously for the king's release. He was then deputed to invite several of the London ministers, Marshall, Calamy, "VYhitaker, Sedgewick, Aslie, and others, who had all along justified the war, and who had taken the covenant, to a conference with the leaders of the army. The clergy refused ; and drew up instead " A serious and faithful representation of the judg- ment of the ministers of the gospel within the pro- vince of London ; contained in a letter to the general and his council of war." It bears date January the 18th, 1G48— 9. In this address, after giving reasons for declining to confer with officers of the army upon matters of religion, they complain of the outrages of the army, compared with which those of the king himself in former years were trifling. " We remember," they say, "that when the king with a multitude of armed men demanded but a small number of the THE LATER PURITANS. 295 members of parliament, it was deemed an unpa- chapter VII. ralleled breach of the privilege of parliament ; that this very army should so far exceed that act, which ^d'i649. was then esteemed without parallel, is what we could not believe had not our eyes been witnesses of it. Both houses saw reason to take up arms in their own defence, and in defence of the protestant religion and the fundamental laws of their country ; yet this cannot be pleaded in justification of your usurping an authority over king and parliament, you who are but so many private persons and no part of the legislature. Moreover, though the par- liament took up arms in defence of the laws, it was never their intention to do violence to the person of the king or divest him of his authority, much less to overthrow the whole constitution," They go on to remind the general and his council, of the obli- gation under which they had placed themselves by the league and covenant ; and they address them in conclusion with an admonition, of which the discri- minating wisdom, and from men in their position, the dauntless courage, are equally to be admired : — " Instead, therefore, of consulting with you, we earnestly entreat you, as the ambassadors of Christ, that you would consider of the evil of your present ways, and turn from them. You cannot but know that the word of God commands obedience to ma- gistrates ; and, consonant to scripture, this hath been the judgment of protestant divines, at home and abroad, with whom we concur ; disclaiming, de- testing, and abhorring the practices of Jesuits, con- cerning the opposing of lawful magistrates by any private persons, and the murthering of kings by any, VII. CHAS. I. A.D. 1649 296 THE niSTORT OF CHAPTER though under the most specious and colourable pre- tences. Examine your consciences, if any number of persons of different principles from yourselves had invaded the rig-hts of parliament, imprisoned the king, and carried liim about from place to place, and attempted the dissolution of the whole govern- ment, whether you would not have charged them with the highest crimes ? " We desire you not to infer the justice of your proceedings from the success, but to distinguish be- tween God's permission and approbation, and that God's suffering men to prosper in their evil courses is one of the severest judgments : the providence of God, therefore, w4iich is so often pleaded in justifi- cation of your actions, is no safe rule to walk by in such actions which the word of God condemns. " Nor is it safe to be guided by the impulses of the spirit, when they are contrary to the written word of God ; we are to try the spirits, and to have recourse to the law and the testimony ; if they speak not according to them, there is no light in them. " If you plead necessity for doing tliat which yourselves confess to be irregular, we answer, no necessity can oblige men to sin ; besides, 'tis appa- rent you were under no necessity ; the parliament (till forced by you) being full and free : besides, you have engaged by oath to preserve his majesty's person and the privileges of parliament, and no ne- cessity can justify perjury, or dispense with lawful oaths. " We therefore beseech you to recede from this your evil way, and learn John Baptist's lesson to soldiers, do violence to no man, neither accuse any VII. CIIAS. I. A.D. 1649, THE LATER PURITANS. 297 man falsely, and be content with your wages. But chapter if you persist in this way, be sure your sin will find you out. If our exhortation prevail not, we have discharged our duty, and, we hope, delivered our souls. If it be our portion to suffer, as we are told, we trust we shall suffer as christians ; but we hope better things of you, and subscribe ourselves your servants in the Lord."* This bold and yet becoming remonstrance bore the signatures of forty-seven of the London min- isters. It was followed in a few days by a second paper, addressed to the people, in which they vindi- cate their own conduct and denounce the proceedings at Westminster against the king. It concluded in these words : " We earnestly beseech all who belong to our respective charges, or to whom we have ad- ministered the said covenant, to abide by their vow, * * * to mourn for the sins of the parliament and city, and for the miscarriages of the king himself in his government; which have cast him down from his excellency into a horrid pit of misery almost beyond example ; and to pray that God would give him effectual repentance, and sanctify the bitter cup of divine displeasure which divine providence has put into his hands ; and that God would restrain the violence of men, that they may not dare to draw upon themselves and the kingdom the blood of their sovereign."! To this declaration fifty-seven signatures were af- fixed ; and the two documents included, with scarcely an exception, all that was of worth or weight amongst the puritan clergy of London and the neighbourhood. * Ncal, vol. iii. p. 419. t Neal, vol. iii. p. 421 . CIIAS. I. A.I). 1G49. 298 THE niSTORY OF cHAPTEu The presbyterians, whether Scotch or English, are free from the guilt of Charles's death. They de- nounced it as a grievous crime. They did all that religious men could do in the presence of a victo- rious army. They reasoned, they protested, they denounced, they prayed. In the eyes of Europe their vindication was complete. In process of time it is true the slander appeared and the sting infixed itself; the presbyterians, it was said, had handed the king over to the independents, and the inde- pendents to the scaffold. But the writers of their own times (excepting always the mere scribes of fac- tion, a numerous class in every party), with more justice absolve them from the charge. Upon the con- tinent, where the question was viewed more calmly than at home, there were two points upon which all the protestant churches agreed, namely, that the king's death was a great crime, and that the presbyterians had no share in it. The learned Bochart, a disin- terested witness, writing in 1650 to Bishop Morley, from Caen in Normandy, expresses his perfect satis- faction with the justification of the presbyterians, put forth in their several protests, both Scotch and English. He was intimately acquainted with the Scotch ambassadors in Erance, and he had never heard them breathe a word except of love and duty to the king. *' As to ourselves," he adds, " when the news arrived we were overwhelmed with horror. Then our tears burst forth, and we abandoned our- selves even in public to all the bitterness of grief. We deplored the unhappy lot of the king himself, who deserved so well of us, and who had made so many concessions to his people, cut off in the prime THE LATER PURITANS. 299 of life by his own subjects ; and we were afraid lest chapter the atrocious act committed by those who are gene- '. — rally supposed to be of our own religious opinions ^^jj^jg^g' should bring a blot upon our (foreign presbyterian) churches which time will never wash out ; and lest men should thoughtlessly impute the crimes of in- dividuals to the doctrines they profess to hold."* The independents seem to have made no distinct protest of their own. Pew of them were incumbents in London, and those few held their livings upon sufferance. They were not members of the pro- vincial assembly in which the presbyterians met, nor were they admitted to those weekly discussions at Sion college where public affairs were discussed and their measures taken. John Goodwin of Christ church in Newgate street, and the more renowned Dr. John Owen, were the only two exceptions. Eat Goodwin represented no party, and beyond his pri- vate circle and the members of his congregation had little weight. His arminianism was in that day an insuperable barrier betwixt the puritans of every class and himself. Owen alone, of all the puritan clergy, had the daring to applaud the proceedings of the army. On the 31st of December he preached two sermons before the house of commons, expressed his admiration of the conduct of the army, and cen- sured those members of the house who (after Pride's purge) voluntarily absented themselves. One of the wisest and most thoughtful of his hearers relates the * Verebamur etiam ne facti atrocitas, ab ils admissi quos vulgus eandem profiterinobiscum religionem, labem ecclesiis nostris aspergat quara nulla deleret setas ; et ne doctrince imputarentur vit'ui personarum. A prophetic apprehension ! pp. 6S, 69, Samuelis Bocharti epistolae, qua responduotur tres quaestiones, viz, &c. 300 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER circumstance, and adds this pregnant comment : ^'"' " All men were at a-gaze what would be the issue of ciiAs. 1. s^|(3ij proceedinGTs. Some thousrht it best for them A.D.1G49. i O O to be reserved as to their opinions, finding every- where too many talkers and few with much judg- ment." * The example of Owen was lost upon his party, few of whom shared in his views ; some of the independents denounced the intended trial from the pulpit, and others from the press. As a religious body they were without any great leaders ; and it is possible that Owen's conduct embarrassed though it did not distract them. But upon the whole the silence of the independents is no more to be con- strued to their disadvantage than that of the episco- palians. Both parties, it is true, were silent ; but tbeir silence is easily explained. The tragedy was over before they were prepared to act. The presbyterians and independents, too eager to exculpate themselves, permitted the blame to rest upon the sectaries. Their want of generosity recoiled upon their own party. When the day of retribution came, the royalists despised the sectaries and attacked the larger prey ; and the very anxiety of these two great parties to exonerate themselves afforded a ground of plausible suspicion. But there was no party in the kingdom which participated with the array and the parliament, even by conni- vance, in this fatal measure. Neither seekers, nor quakers, nor behmenites, nor anabaptists ; nor of other sects, however absurd their tenets or their conduct, was there one which could be brought in its corporate capacity to sanction the king's death. * Whitelocke, p. 360. ClIAS. I. A.D. 1649. THE LATER PURITANS. 301 From Norfolk, indeed, a petition was presented chapter praying for "justice against delinquents without respect of persons ;" the army sent another to the same effect ; heyond this the parliament received no support whatever. The nation was taken by surprise. On the 23rd of December the subject was first mentioned in the house of commons.* The king was then for the first time spoken of as "the great delinquent," and there were mutterings for justice ; but nothing fur- ther was avowed. Charles himself believed that he should be assassinated, and the fears of his adhe- rents were all in that direction. On the 2nd of January the ordinance for the trial of the king was carried up to the house of lords ; on the 6th it was passed without their concurrence. On the 9th pro- clamation was made, with drums and trumpet, in Cheapside, at the Exchange, and in front of West- minster hall, that a high court of justice was about to sit in judgment on its sovereign lord attainted of high treason. On the 30th the dreadful sentence was carried into effect. Within six weeks, and in the depth of winter, the whole terrible design was announced and executed. Nothing can picture the dismay, the astonishment, the dread and the indig- nation, which suddenly possessed men's minds. The audacity of the proceeding confounded the nation j the calmness of the actors, their openness and the forms of law under which they acted, filled * And now was set on foot and begun their great design of taking away the king, whom divers in the debate did not stick to name for the greatest dehnquent and to be proceeded against in justice. December 23. Whitelocke, p. 358. 302 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER it with amazement. Still multitudes were incredu- ^"' lous ; for credulity itself could not rise to the belief cHAs. I. Q^ ^i^j^i- ^]^i(.]^ seemed so monstrous and so unna- A.D. 1649. tural. Till the last moment of his life thousands refused to believe that Charles would really die upon the scalTold. There was to be the pageantry of an execution but nothing more : * it was meant to insult and to degrade the king but not to kill him. Baxter relates how Cromwell engaged Pair- fax in prayer, under the pretence of seeking divine direction, until the fatal blow was given. The story is not true ; but it proves distinctly what uncer- tainty prevailed. It was a common opinion that, to the last moment, Fairfax was undecided, and that after all Charles perished while even the lead- ers of the army were divided on his fate. When, at the restoration, the service for king Charles's martyrdom was added to the prayer-book, Calamy and Baxter protested against it on these grounds. The king's death, they said, was not a national act ; the sin was very great, but it rested not upon the nation. Writers, however, of every shade have thought it necessary to assume the con- sent of the nation, because it has been supposed that without its concurrence such an outrage could not have been perpetrated. Recent events have taught us the weakness of this reasoning. We have seen governments uprooted, against the sense of millions, by a morning's uproar and the outrage of a mob. The actors in the king's death have left us a clear exhibition of the motives by which they were * Burnet, Own Times, vol. i. p. 64. THE LATER PURITANS. 303 guided. Their conduct was deliberate : they acted, chapter VII. as they believed, at the bidding of conscience, not - the wild impulse of revenoje. They lived to acknow- ?"'\^' I' ■•- a J A.u. 1649. ledge their mistake, but, with a few exceptions, never to confess that they had been guilty of a crime. They are still on judgment before posterity, and their cause is undecided ; for, with a not un- righteous retribution, it has happened that the men who refused a hearing to their king have been denied the same privilege at the bar of posterity themselves. Cromwell is generally regarded as the chief pro- moter of the king's death. This he himself denied ; but it was part of his character to put forward other men to announce his own measures in the first instance, leaving him at liberty either to fall behind and disengage himself, or to spread all sail and take the lead, as the breeze of public opinion might be favourable or adverse. It will not readily be supposed that the house of commons undertook so daring an exploit without instructions from its masters, the army, or that the army embarked in it without their generals, or their generals without Cromwell. Once begun, none urged the matter forward more eagerly, no man was more impatient to bring it to a fatal close. His motives were various : up to this period of his life Cromwell had been a religious man : his conduct had been consis- tent : his private life was pure, his affections were warm, his devotions fervent ; but he was a man of vast ambition ; by nature cunning and sagacious, but scarcely wise. His mind too was distempered with enthusiasm ; a fault of which at this period CIIAS. I. A.D. 1649. 304 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER the army generally partook :* he believed in parti- cular impressions. lie fell into the too common error of supposing that the comfort he enjoyed in prayer was the proof of its acceptance ; and he often rose from his knees expressing an assurance that his petitions had been answered. It has been said, and sometimes in Cromwell's vindication, that it was on one of these occasions, and after earnest prayer, that the conviction was revealed to him that Charles must die. Cromwell's good sense might have taught him, as we suspect it would have done had the revelation been unwelcome, that superna- tural impressions are only to be trusted when they are authenticated by supernatural and miraculous powers. No doubt the divine direction was im- plored, not only by Cromwell but by many of his party. Solemn fasts were held ; fervent prayers were uttered ; but amongst the delusions to which the heart of man is liable, one is to substitute the acts of devotion for the spirit of obedience. Prayer may be fervent and yet not sincere. It may be nothing more than the endeavour of the worshipper to overlay and stifle conscience, to crush misgivings, to persuade himself that the tumult of enthusiasm within him is the voice of God ; and the man who kneels down in prayer to clamour for an answer which shall agree with his own wishes, oiTcrs so profound an insult to the majesty on high, that it is reasonable to suppose he will be left, if no heavier * "A woman out of Hertfordshire came to the council of the army sitting at Whitehall, and acquainted thcra that she had something from God to speak to them, and being admitted she did much encourage them in their present j^roceedivgs !" Dec. 29, 1(548. Whitelocke, p. o()0. THE LATER PURITANS. 305 punishment befall him, to be the dupe of his own chapter delusions.* The officers, with Cromwell at their ^"- head, were impatient for Charles's death. Brave tHAs.i. as they were, fear — a fear which they avowed — urged them forward. How could a king forgive the men who had chastised him, and chased him from his throne — men whom he had so often de- nounced as rebels ? He who draws his sword upon his king must throw away the scabbard, was now on many tongues. There could be no safety for the army, much less for its generals, but in the destruc- tion of their prisoner. The king's insincerity had not yet forsaken him. During the treaty at New- port he had again been playing a double game, and carrying on a secret correspondence, at variance with his professed intentions, both with Ormond and the Scotch. Once restored to power, though by themselves, they were sure to be the first vic- tims of his revenge, t * Hear the just cloom^ the judgment of the skies ! He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies ; And he that will be cheated, — to the last Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast. — Cowper. t A story is related by Hume, and copied by almost all subsequent his- torians, which, if true, places the duplicity of Charles, even when the war was over, in a strong light. It is generally brought forward by the apologists of Cromwell to explain his severity to the king. Charles was at Hampton Court, apparently engaged in friendly negociations with the parliamentary leaders, and the Scotch : they were informed, however, by one of their own spies of the king's bedchamber, that their doom was sealed ; and that they might learn all the particulars from a letter which the king had written to the queen, in which he informed her of his resolution. This letter was sewn up in the skirt of a saddle, which was to be carried about ten o'clock that night to the Blue Boar in Holborn, by a man who was not in the secret : there he was to take horse and carry it on to Dover. Cromwell and Ireton, disguising themselves as common troopers, and taking one trusty soldier with them, went instantly to the Blue Boar, where they sat drinking beer till the man arrived with the saddle on his head. Thc-y CHAPTER VII. 306 THE IIISTORT OF These arguments, however, are easily refuted. If . we regard the party who urged on the king's death ClIAS. I. A.D.1649. seized him, ripjied ()i)en one of the skirts of the saddle, and found the letter, while the messenger was detained outside the inn by their attendant. Having done tliis, they delivered the man his saddle, and told him he was an honest fellow, and might go about his business; whieh he did, and jjursued his journey without more ado, not knowing what had occurred. In the letter, the king had written thus: — " My time is come at last. I am now the man whose favour they court. I incline to treat with the Scotch rather than the English army. Be quite easy as to the concessions I may grant. When the time comes, I shall know very well how to treat these rogues, and instead of a silken garter, [the decoration of the garter had been offered to Cromwell,] I will fit them with a halter." From this time Cromwell is made to say, " Finding wc were not likely to have good terms from the king, we vowed his destruction." The story first appeared in Carte's life of Ormond, published after the restoration ; and, notwithstanding the air of truth whieh it derives from a narration circumstantial and picturesque, rests, it must be confessed, upon a very slender foundation. First, it is related by Carte himself on the autho- rity of one Morris, who repeated it on the authority of the earl of Orrery, to whom Cromwell is said to have related it. But it seems incredible that Ireton and Cromwell should have kept the matter a secret, with no con- ceivable reason for reserve, and with every possible reason indeed for parading the letter, as they had done the Naseby papers. But the letter was never shewn ; nor would its existence, it seems, have been heard of, had not Cromwell, some years afterwards, mentioned it in a garrulous mood, while riding on horseback in Ireland with lord Orrery, an acquaint- ance. Besides, the king generally wrote to the queen on such matters in cipher. The Naseby papers were thus written ; and they were translated, though in some parts still imperfectly, by Zoucli Tate, who had discovered the key- The queen, however, had since resided with the king at Oxford for some months, and nothing would have been easier than to form another cipher. Lastly, the coarse antithesis of the silk garter and the hempen halter, is not in Charles's vein. In the whole of the Naseby letters there is nothing like it ; if we except jjcrhaps the single expression " a mongrel parliament," applied to his own frienils at Oxford. It resembles the occa- sional bursts of low buffoonery in which Cromwell indulged, rather than the severe dignity which Charles was scarcely ever known to lay aside. The moral of the tale, however, lies in two sentences. It shews first, that when the deed was done, Cromwell (on the supposition that he really told the story to lord Orrery) felt that some further apology was needed than lie and his ])arty had yet given for the king's death. Secondly, that the treachery of Charles was so notorious, that no exaggeration would scera improbable. In forming a judgment on the character of Charles, the story of the letter opened at the Blue Boar ought certainly to have no weight. CIIAS. I. A.D. 1649. THE LATER PURITANS. 307 as cliristians, and still more as cliristian statesmen, chapter it is enough to answer with the London divines in '- — their protest, that no necessity can compel men to sin; we may not do evil that good may come. Their own safety was at least in no immediate peril. The hazards they foresaw were hoth contingent and remote ; they might never happen ; they could not possibly occur until the balance of power was re- adjusted, and a successful and united army was at the mercy of those whose cause it had destroyed. Other securities were within their reach : constitu- tional safeguards might have been devised : there was exile or imprisonment ; or even the deposition of Charles in favour of his son, a measure which he himself, in his present unhappy state, was supposed to contemplate. Violent measures are always short- sighted ; yet it is astonishing that the men w^ho promoted this fatal project did not perceive at least its impolicy. It could not relieve them from a single difficulty ; it might create embarrassments from which escape would be impossible. The throne would not be vacant because Charles was dead. The king never dies. His eldest son was abroad, beyond their reach, and cle jure would instantly become the sovereign : and Charles had several other children ; so that the direct succession was not likely to be lost. More than once it was debated in the council of officers to assassinate the whole of the royal chil- dren. It is Clarendon who relates the story, and he pays to Cromwell the generous tribute of acknow- ledging that he abhorred the infamous proposal. To stop short, however, of some sweeping desolation, — of a massacre of the seed royal such as we read of in 9 ir 308 THE niSTORY OF CHAPTER Jewish and Assyrian warfare in the old testament, — — was to do nothing. While a Stuart lived, the blood cHAs. I. of Charles would cry for veno-eance, and the clamour would certainly be heard. The leaders of the army had in fact determined on a commonwealth. In their impatience they could not even wait for the kincj's trial. On the same day on wiiich tlie proclamation was made of the sitting of the high court of justice, it was voted in the house of commons that the king's name should be omitted, for the time to come, in all public documents : the great seal was broken, and a new one made, stamped on one side with the house of commons sitting, on the other with the arms of England and Ireland, and bearing the in- scription, incapable of being misunderstood, " In the first year of freedom by God's blessing restored." And the army sent in a petition, or more correctly, the draft of a new constitutiou, entitled " An agree- ment of the people of England." To this they de- sired, and the house promised, a serious and speedy consideration. In short they demanded a republic. These were the views of the republicans, amongst whom, however, were men of pure integrity and real piety. Ludlow and Hutchinson were such. They were men of birth and family ; they had the noble qualities of English gentlemen ; they were pious, but they were not fanatical ; they had waded through the war and witnessed all its horrors ; they believed that the blood that had been shed had placed the land beneath the curse of God ; that the king had endeavoured to enslave the nation ; that their resistance had been righteous, and that God THE LATEH PURITANS. 309 himself had blessed them with success ; and there- chapter fore they concluded that the author, as they es- ~ teemed him, of all these miseries ousrht to suffer ^"^^^•^■ ' ° A.D. 1G49. condign punishment. " The question," — so Ludlow wrote when age and banishment and deep vexation may be supposed to have tamed his spirit — " the question in dispute between the king's party and ourselves, I apprehend, was this : whether the king should govern as a god by his will and the nation be governed by force like beasts ; or whether the people should be governed by laws made by them- selves, and live under a government derived from their own consent." He was fully persuaded that an accommodation with the king was unsafe for the people, and in its very nature unjust and wicked : unsafe, as the king himself had proved by the dupli- city of his conduct ; unjust and wicked, " because," he says, " I was convinced by express words of God's law that blood defileth the land : and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it (Numb. XXXV. 33.) ; and therefore I could not consent to the counsels of those who were contented to leave the guilt of so much blood upon the nation, and thereby to draw down the just vengeance of God upon us all ; when it was most evident that the war had been occasioned by the invasion of our rights and the open breach of our laws and constitution on the king's part."* Colonel Hutchinson addressed himself to God in prayer : he implored that if through any human frailty or prejudice he were in error, he might not be sulTered to proceed ; that if * Ludlow, p, 103. 310 THE niSTOBT OF CHAPTER he were right, God would confirm his spirit in the ^"' truth and lead him by an enlightened conscience ; ciiAs.i. YiQ debated the matter frequently and seriously in AD.1G49. ^ "^ • 1 1 1 i. public and in private, in conference with the best men he knew, and upon his knees before God. At length he signed the fatal warrant without any mis- giving. Both he and otliers of his friends thought even then " that it might one day come again to be disputed among men ;" yet they believed that they must either sacrifice the people or the king ; " and therefore," adds his devoted historian, *' he cast himself upon God's protection, acting according to the dictates of a conscience which lie had sought the Lord to guide."* The motives of other members of the court which condemned the king — Axtel, Cooke, Carew, Harrison, Scott, Jones, and Scroop — we have on their own relation, under circum- stances when they had no reason to dissemble. At the restoration the scaffold was again erected, and the regicides were in their turn its victims. It was with the utmost difficulty they could be persuaded or compelled to plead in the usual form, guilty or not guilty. They admitted their share in the king's death, but they admitted no guilt and they felt no shame. It is not the use of history to pronounce with dogmatism, but rather to lay bare with an equal hand tlie faults and virtues wdiether of parties or of men ; and to teach the lessons of wisdom by suggesting the exercise of discriminating justice, and of wise and patient thought. The trial and execution of Charles is still viewed through the same mists of prejudice which overshadowed the * Mrs. Iliitcliiuson, Memoirs, &c. p. 336. CHAS. I. x\.D.lC49. THE LATER PURITANS. 311 actors in that dreadful tragedy. It is an hereditary chapter party question. We decide upon it more by our political and religious sympathies than by abstract justice or a pure sense of right and wrong; and so perhaps it will be, while an Englishman survives to read the history of his country. Urged by these various considerations, the court resolved to execute the sentence without delay. Charles must have now felt the bitterness of confi- dence misplaced. The court of Prance, to which he had been obsequious, was all but indiiferent to his fate. The ambassadors of Erance and Spain offered a heartless protest, and looked on in silence. It was even thought that the king's death was by no means disagreeable to the papists, whether in Eng- land or abroad. Strange stories were related of Jesuits who could not hide their joy, and of the queen's confessor exulting in the deed of blood. The queen herself was at Paris ; and she now at least behaved in a manner worthy of her sex and of her race : she wrote submissively to the parlia- ment, imploring permission to visit her husband and console him in his last agony : but no answer was returned.* The protestant states of Holland, * Besides the malicious satisfaction of these states in the distractions of England, which Charles's death was so likely to prolong, his continued profession of protestantism gave them constant vexation. It was firmly believed by Roman Catholics abroad that he would avow himself a papist, Peter Berthius, a convert to popery, a man well known in the Arminian controversy, wrote thus soon after Charles's accession : — " Multum tamen sibi de pr?eclara regis Caroli indole polhcentur omnes boni. Sperant enim voventque et matris et avice summarum heroinarum, et uxoris divinis virtu- tibus, fideique singularis exemplo, ipsum quoque regem ab iufami errore, per Christi gratiam, in viam veritatis et vitaj revocandum esse, cum sumraa sua gloria, egregio regni sui firraamento, et gaudio totius ecclesia;." — Bre- viarum totius orbis terraruiu. VII. CHAS. I. A.U. 1049. 312 THE niSTORY OF CHAPTER of all foreign nations, were alone in earnest to save the king of England from the scaffold. They sent two special ambassadors with instructions to use every exertion with Fairfax and the parliament. Willi difficulty they obtained an audience of Fairfax, Cromwell, and the officers, with the speakers of both houses, and at length with the parliament itself. In the upper house they found very few peers; in the lower, about eighty members. The lords listened to their remonstrances, and resolved immediately that a conference should be held with the commons, and a last effort made to save the king. But the vote was impotent. The day before the execution, as they passed by White- hall, they observed the dreadful preparations. Taking counsel with the Scotch commissioners, they hurried back and obtained another audience with Fairfax. The general was touched with their entreaties : he declared that he would go to West- minster directly, and recommend the parliament to grant at least a reprieve ; and that he would take a few officers of note with him to forward this pur- pose. At the moment Fairfax was probably sin- cere ; but there is nothing to shew that this last attempt was made.* On the fatal morning of the 30tli of January, 1649, all the streets, passages, and squares of London were occupied with troops, and the environs of the city were surrounded with cavalry. No crowd was suffered in the streets, no citizen was permitted to go into the country, no * Unpublished documents and letters relative to tlie intervention of the States in favour of Charles I. Despatch No. UL iu app. to Guizot, Hist, of Eng. revolution. ciiAs. r. A.U. 1649. THE LATER PURITANS. 313 stranojer to enter London.* The military were chapter O IT II stern and silent : amongst the citizens every face wore anxiety, suspense and consternation. Mean- while the king was brought, at an early hour, under an escort of soldiers from St. James's palace to Whitehall. Eive puritan divines — Calamy, Vines, Caryl, Dell, and Goodwin — waited on him ; but the king declined their assistance. " They have often prayed against me," he said, " I will not trouble them to pray with me now, but I will thank them to pray for me." Juxon, bishop of London, ad- ministered the sacrament, and attended his master on the scaffold. His piety was not supposed to possess the fervour which contributes by its pre- sence to console and cheer the dying. t But the king was devout and calm, and the occasion gave sublimity to the parting words both of Juxon and his royal master. " Your majesty has but another stage : it is short and troublesome ; but it will carry you a great way — it will carry you from earth to heaven." "I go," replied the king, "from a corruptible crown to an incorruptible, where no dis- turbances can have place ;" and kneeling down he submitted himself to an executioner masked with crape, who at one stroke severed his head from his body. An assistant, disguised in the same manner, held it streaming before the front of the scaffold, and cried, " This is the head of Charles Stuart the traitor." Then arose a cry of distress and horror from the assembled thousands who filled the open * Unpublished documents of the Dutch ambassadors, &c., Despatch, No. III. t Biunet, Ovvu Times, vol. i. p. 69. Ludlow, p. 109. 314 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER street such as Englislimen have seldom uttered ; a ■ ^"' deep unearthly hurst of angaish, a dismal universal cHAs. I. (jroan * wrun"" at the same instant from ten thousand A.D. 1&19. o ' o hearts, and uttered hy ten thousand voices. Num- bers fell insensible. A crowd rushed wildly to the scaffold, or crept beneath it, to moisten their hand- kerchiefs with blood. Opposite to Whitehall, where now stands the Horse- guards, was a mansion on the leads of which was archbishop Ussher. The vene- rable old man was observed by the few whose atten- tion was for a moment diverted from the scaffold, lifting up his hands, his wrinkled face streaming with tears, interceding with God for his dying sovereign. When the hollow sound of the fatal axe reached him, he too swooned and fell, in appearance as lifeless as if he himself had received the stroke. Amongst the crowd below was Philip Henry, a leader of the nonconformists, the excellent father of a more distinguished son. He used to speak in his old age of the dismal tragedy, and of the passionate burst of anguish wrung from the spectators, with a devout ejaculation, that he might never listen again to a sound so dreadful. And to his tenacious memory in his green old age we owe another cir- cumstance which the writers of the day had over- looked. A guard of cavah^ was drawn across the road at Charing cross, and another at the top of Kins' street. At the instant of the execution each of these troops moved forward in the direction of the other, and so forced the crowd, hemmed in between them, to disperse. Thus at the moment * The words of Philip Henry, Life hy his son, the cxeellcnt Matthew Henry. th:e later puritans. 315 of their triumph the regicides betrayed their fears, chapter Public opinion was against them, and discussion ^ was not safe. Charles II. might even have been chas.i. proclaimed upon the spot, and in the sight of his fatlier's bleeding corpse. The nation was outraged, and it was governed only by the sword. Grief and horror and dismay are the only terms by which contemporary writers attempt to transmit some faint idea of the universal anguish of the nation to posterity. England had lost at one stroke both lieart and hope. It cowered and wept like a be- reaved and broken-hearted child. It spoke only to bewail itself and to utter its distress. The next Sunday every congregation was bathed in tears, and every pulpit rang with denunciations of blood guilti- ness upon the murderers of a king. It is Clarendon himself Avho writes, that never had the puritans from their pulpits more loudly or more bitterly de- nounced the conduct, than they now bewailed the death, of their unhappy sovereign. The protestant divines upon the continent caught up the strain and repeated the same denunciations ; fearing most of all lest the protestant cause should seem to be asso- ciated with an outrage so audacious and so unscrip- tural.* On the day after the king's death Owen preached before the parliament. He publislied his sermon, with the title " Eighteous zeal encouraged by divine protection." Whatever he may have thought upon the subject, his language was guarded, and he care- * Pastores toto Gallise regno celeberrimi tarn ]n-ivatim qiuim e suggestu hoc facimis iino ore tletestati sunt, ut verbi Diviui regulis e diainetro oppo- situm. Bocharti epistolse, p. (iiK 316 THE HISTORY OF. CHAPTER fully abstained from expressing approbation of the '- — deed which covered the land with mourning. The Au^i649 strongest passage is that in which he says, " when kings command unrighteous things, and the people suit them with willing compliance, none doubts but the destruction of them both is just and righteous." This is very discreditable to Owen's character. It is timid and time-serving. Had he avowed his ap- probation of the measure, we should at least have respected his integrity. Had he condemned it, we should have reverenced his courageous spirit. If it were a deadly sin it was base to heal the wound slightly, and to daub the wall with untempered mortar. If it were a righteous act his audience was entitled, at that critical hour, to all the en- couragement a minister of God could offer. It is a dark blot on the fame of a man in many respects both good and great ; and when it shall cease to be thus regarded, the moral tone of English feeling will have been already degraded and debased. Milton, with incomparable powers and entire good will, hastened to the regicides' defence. In a few months his Eiconoclastes was before the world. Two years later he returned to the charge and published his Defence of the people of England.* The one was in English, the other in Latin. The former was perhaps, when it first appeared, the richest specimen of English prose writing in exist- ence ; severely simple, full, nervous, and majestic. Scholars have awarded equal praise to his Latinity, though on this field no honours so distinguished could * Eikonoclastes, &c , the author I M. Pubhshcil by authority, 1649. loannis Miltoni Angh pro populo Anghcano Defeiisio, &c. 1651. THE LATER PURITANS. 317 bo won ; for Latin liad lone; been the vernacular chapter VII. CIIAS. I. tongrue of learned Eno-lishmen. It had never been written before with equal force, but often with ^.d!\649. equal grace. Here his superiority lay in his vast mind more than his deep scholarship. But the two volumes will now for ever stand amongst those models to which the learned and the wise incessantly repair to refresh their taste and to invigorate their powers. And yet all that Milton wrote has in nowise impaired the reputation of his king ! No upright historian has recourse to him. In all his might of intellect he is nothing more than a party scribe. He assails the dead with bitterness. Without evidence, and often in open violation of truth, in contemptuous disregard of facts with which he was, or might have been acquainted, he heaps upon the king's memory charges the most unjust — cruelty, prodigality, licentiousness, and lust. In short it is ^| no feeble triumph to the memory of Charles I. that \ it was assailed by Milton — and assailed in vain. Once embarked in crime, the regicidal party afforded no exception to the universal law. One sin provoked another. Once stained with blood, their hands with less reluctance were defiled with it again. On the 9th of March the scaffold was once more erected in Palace Yard, and three of the greatest of the royalists were beheaded — the duke of Hamilton, the earl of Holland, and lord Capel ; and the scaffold never witnessed nobler specimens of christian heroism. The duke of Hamilton was addressing the people when his chaplain requested him. to turn another way, the sun shining brightly in his face. " No, sir," he replied, " I hope I shall 318 THE UISTORY OF ciiAPTEK see a brighter sun tlian this very speedily :" and, — proceeding in his address, he added, " I know that WEALTH, there is a God in heaven that is exceeding mercifnl. A.D.ie49. I tnow that my E/cdccmer sits at his right hand, and am confident (laying his hand upon his breast) is mediating for me at this instant. I am hopeful, through his free grace and all-sufiicient merits, to be pardoned of my sins and to be received into his mercy. Upon that I rely, trusting to nothing but the free grace of God through Jesus Christ." The earl of Ilolland followed. There was something in his fate which, even in such illustrious company, excited peculiar sympathy. He had been a very great friend to the old puritans, and when in power had often exerted it on their behalf.* He was con- demned by the casting vote of Lenthall, the worth- less speaker of the contemptible house of commons ; and on the same day, by the same casting vote,!' lord Goring, who had been some time a prisoner and was now brought to trial, was reprieved ; the one probably the best, the other beyond all doubt the worst, of the royalists. Holland had always stood up for the rights of the people ; he was full of generosity and courtesy ; he was the friend of the oppressed. Goring was selfish, licentious, and degraded ; he had one merit and only one, he was a gallant soldier. He never professed the least regard for liberty either civil or religious ; but he exceeded the earl as much in liis crimes as he fell short of him in his popularity. For several days before his * Whitelocke, p. 7'^. t Clarendon says the majority was four or five against lord Capel. But Whitelocke was a member of the house and must be taken as the better authority. THE LATEK PURITANS. 319 death the earl of Holland had been in great distress chapter and agony — distress and agony the deepest dying '. — men can know. He said he had no assurance of wSmi, pardon and of the love of God to him ; he was not ^01649. prepared to die ; Christ would be of no advantage to him. He was attended by two puritan divines, Bolton and Hodges, who directed him to the great sacrifice for sin. They prayed with him, and he " witli wonderful expression " frequently offered up prayer for himself. The day before his death peace broke in upon his soul. He had now prevailed, he told them, through the strength of Christ, over Satan and all his spiritual enemies and temptations. " The Lord has given me an assurance of his love in Christ. I am now both ready and willing to die." He sat down to supper with his chaplains with no more disturbance of mind or manner than if in the soundest health, and slept with so perfect a repose that he was roused with difficulty. On the scaffold he spoke long and calmly to the people ; expressing his entire satisfaction with the cause for which he died, and his humble trust in Christ. "I look upon myself entirely in him ; and hope to find mercy through him. I expect it ; and througli that fountain which is open for sin and for unclean- ness my soul must receive it ; for did I rest in anything else I have nothing but sin and corruption in me." Lord Capel died last, with something, as the by-standers observed, of the lofty bearing of an ancient Roman. As he walked to the scaffold he courteously raised his hat and bowed repeatedly. Arrived at the fatal block, reeking with the blood of his companions, the officer in command inquired. 320 THE IIISTOUT OF CHAPTER Is your chaplain here ? " No," said he, " I have — taken my leave of him." Ilis attendants bursting WEALTH ^^'^^^ tears, he at once reproved them : " Gentlemen, A.D. 1649. refrain yourselves, refrain yourselves." Then turning to the officer, he asked how the lords spoke ; with their hats off or no ? He was answered in the affirmative; he then walked to the front of the scaffold, leaned gracefully upon the rail, raised his hat as if giving a slight salutation, and addressed the vast crowd before him. In his cause he gloried. '* I die," said he, "for keeping the fifth command- ment given by God himself and written with his own finger. It commands obedience to parents ; and all divines, differ as they will on other points, agree in this,* and acknowledge that it includes the magistrate." Like the king, and using the king's own words upon the scaffold, he confessed his guilt in consenting to the earl of Strafford's death ; " but that," he added, " I doubt not but God Almighty hath washed away with a more precious blood, the blood of his own Son, and my dear Saviour, Jesus Christ. It was done through cowardice, for malice against him I had none." And having expressed his perfect charity for all men, he concluded thus : " And so the Lord of heaven bless you all ; God Almighty be infinite in goodness and mercy to you, and direct you in those ways of obedience to his commands, and to his majesty, that this kingdom * Milton thought otherwise ; " Pater et rex diversissima sunt. Pater nos genuit ; at non rex nos, sed nos regem ereavimus. Patrem natura dedit populo, regem ipse popuhis dedit sibi ; non ergo propter regem popuhis sed propter popuhira rex est." Defensio, p. 3. This fiction of an elective monarchy runs through the treatise, and renders it, as an argument, of no value. THE LATER PURITANS. 321 may be a liappy and glorious nation again, and that chapter your king may be a liappy king in so good and so '- — obedient a people. God Almighty keep you all. *^y'^^,^!i!^j" God Almighty preserve this kingdom. God Al- a.u.ig^o. mighty preserve you all." Then turning to the executioner, wlio in the usual manner kueeled down and asked forgiveness, " I forgive thee from my soul, and not only forgive thee, but I shall pray to God to give thee all grace fcr a better life." Nobler spirits than those of the three royalist lords have not often been enshrined in human forms !* The execution of Charles has had many apolo- gists ; the slaughter of these noblemen has had few or none. The ablest modern advocate of the heroes of the commonwealth admits that the proceedings in this business were rigorous and revolting, f Only one excuse is offered, and that amounts to an aggravation of the crime it professes to extenuate. The new government stood at present on founda- tions narrow and precarious. It was requisite to shew that the builders were in earnest, and that their measures were not to be broken in upon with impunity. It was this consideration, it is said, that impelled men so generous, so benevolent and hu- mane, as the founders of the commonwealth, to consent to these executions. A defence which may be more simply stated thus : The regicidal part}- had seized the helm by violence and were resolved to maintain it by force ; to be in fact the tyrants of the nation, and to impose a government which it * Excellent contemplations, divine and moral, written by the magnani- mons and truly loyal Arthur lord Capel ; together with some account of his hie, &c. 16S3. t Godwin, Ilist. of the Commonwealth, vol. lii. p. 43. Y 322 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER abhorred. The nation could not be convinced, it '. — must be terrified. It could not be persuaded, it COMMON- ijiust be silenced. And these executions were an WEALTH, A.D.1619. earnest of what the discontented might expect. That some of the leaders of the faction had been religious men, and that they again assumed that character, when death approached them, with seem- ing sincerity, presents fewer difficulties than we suppose. There are depths of unknown infatuation even in honest minds, a dark abyss which no plum- met has ever fathomed. The men had tampered with their consciences, and these were some of the inevitable fruits. The political history of the commonwealth does not properly belong to us. The condition of public affairs after the king's death may be comprised in a brief summary. The first attempt of the dominant faction was to bind the people to that form of government, yet un- decided, which they might think proper to impose. An oath, called the Engagement, was framed, and, as far as possible, enforced. All those at least who retained offices of public trust were compelled to swear " fidelity to the commons, without a king or a house of lords ;" for within a few days of Charles's execution the house of lords was formally abolished. Sixteen hundred and forty-nine was a year of silence and suspense. The royalists were broken up ; the moderate men, the patriots of the revolution, were stunned. It was the reign of uproar. The only man who could control the storm was not yet in full possession of his power. Cromwell's Irish campaign, famous in all history, THE LATER PURITANS. 323 occurred in this eventful year. He sailed for Dulilin cuArxER VII in March, and in November he returned, having '■ — won, said the newspapers of the day, more laurels ^vkalth in nine months than many a conqueror during a life a.d.i649, of hard service. His iron arm had avenged the '&' massacre of the protestants ; the rebellion was finally crushed ; and he had laid the foundation of tranquillity and good government. Ireland, it is still affirmed by those who are acquainted with her internal history, was never so happy as during the ten years of Cromwell's rule. The boon was great, and might have been lasting if succeeding govern- ments had followed Cromwell's policy. Substantial kindness was mingled with stern justice ; and, in religious matters, protestantism was resolutely upheld, not merely by enforcing its rights but by insisting on its duties. Under Cromwell the pro- testant church of Ireland would have become a vast missionary establishment for the evangelizing of the Irish papists, and before it popery would long since have disappeared. His discipline at first was terrible, and his severity has been loudly censured. He had scarcely landed before Wexford and Drogheda were stormed. By fire and sword the slaughter was appalling : none of the garrison escaped, and many of the helpless and unofi'ending suflPered. But seve- rity, it must be remembered, is sometimes mercy. The fortresses and towns held by the rebels were now terrified into immediate submission, and there was little farther bloodshed. Cromwell and his army regarded themselves as instruments in God's hands to avenge the protestant blood which had been shed like water on every side. The atrocities Y 2 VII. COMMON. WE.VLTII 32tli THE niSTORT OF cii.vpTER of the popish massacre and of the ten years' rehcllion, cried aloud for vengeance. They coukl not expect a blessing on their arms until they had purged the A.U.1649. land from hlood ; and it was hotter in every respect, more just, nay more humane, to entrust the work of retribution to the army than to the tedious and uncertain forms of legal justice and to the public executioner. If these reflections are just, Cromwell's Irish campaign reflects no shade upon his character. War is always terrible ; but it is the scourge of God ; and in such cases we must inquire, not whether the course taken were severe, but whether it w^ere just. Ludlow succeeded Cromwell as lieutenant-general of the cavalry in Ireland, and Ludlow was humane ; yet he mentions without remorse an act of cruelty which shocks us more than the sack of Droo-heda or Wexford. A party of the rebels having taken refuge in a cave, he kindled an immense fire at its moutli ; but the smoke and flames escaped through fissures in the rock, and the wretched prisoners within con- tinued their resistance for some days. Ludlow had the apertures carefully closed, till the groans from within, heard above the roaring of his furnace, soon explained the horrible effect of his unmerciful de- vice. The few who came out alive were instantly put to the sword.* Such proceedings, which exas- perate one party and brutalize both, which are not judicial in their nature nor salutary in their effects, are condemned by the laws of war and by sound reason not less than by humanity and religion. The Prench army in Algiers lately perpetrated the same outrage upon some Arab forces who had * Lmllow, p. \GA. THE LATER PURITANS. 325 sought sLelter in a cave ; and all England rang with chaptek just and righteous indignation. But it may serve '- — to abate our national pride and to humble our self- w^e^lth sufficiency, if we bear in mind that the horrible a.d.i649. lesson was first taught them by our own fore- fathers. 326 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER VIII. A.D. 1649—1653. CHAPTER During the commonwealth and the protectorate of "^"^^ Cromwell puritanism enjoyed its triumph. For the COMMON- ^j.g^ ^jj^g jj-^ j[|-g chanGjeful history it was left without WEALTH A.U.1W9. an adversary. If it was at times uneasy and dis- turbed, its dissensions were internal. Its divisions proceeded from itself. The church of England scarcely lifted up her head from the dust, and popery was banished from England with utter scorn. The ruling powers, shifting and uncertain in everything besides, were consistent in maintaining the principles and doing honour to the men who, with considerable diversities both in doctrine and practice, still formed one great party, and still bore the name of puritans. With the nation in their favour, and its preferments in their hands, they now looked forward to a long career of usefulness and honour. There were prizes for the ambitious, fields of vast extent in which the zealous might labour, and quiet resting-places where the weary might repose. But beneath the surface some evil portents lay concealed. To religion the dangers of prosperity are always great. To a discerning eye the church of Christ has never long been glorious in seasons of THE LATER PURITANS. 327 prosperity. The jewels with which she loves to be chapter adorned fade before the noon-day sun, and regain '■ — their lustre beneath a clouded sky. It was to be ^kalth seen whether puritanism would withstand the temp- A.u.iew. tations of prosperity, and bask in the broad daylight, as she had hitherto lived in dungeons and in poverty, without injury and loss of health. To this trial she was now to be exposed ; a furnace through which no religious party has ever yet been known to pass but the smell of the fire was left upon their raiment. And there were other dangers likewise, peculiar in their nature and in appearance new, which could scarcely fail to exercise a pernicious influence upon the religious character of the puritans. The religious puritans were involved with the ruling powers, and implicated in their measures, to a great extent. The connection was unfortunate and at length disastrous. Setting aside those poli- tical considerations of necessity or utility by which it is sometimes excused, the government, after Charles's death, was a mere usurpation. The house of commons appointed a council of state, consisting of forty members, with whose assistance it resolved to undertake the supreme control. The council, as indeed the parliament itself, was under the dictation of the army. How carefully the expression of public opinion was suppressed we may learn from the fact, that not only were those members excluded from the house who disapproved of the king's death, but even those who subscribed a declaration that they approved of the proceedings against the king, and engaged to be true to the commonwealth, underwent a rigorous sifting, and many of them 328 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTKR were excluded. Ludlow, who was a member of tlie VIII. COMMON- WEALTH, council of state, and, upon the whole, a man of rare integrity, is not ashamed to write " that while all AD.1C49. possible satisfaction was given in words, the former deportment of every particular member who pre- sented himself was nicely weighed," and his pro- bable conduct for the future ascertained, before he was admitted.* The house of peers having been abolished, three of its members were returned as re- presentatives, and obtained admission to the house of commons ; these were Philip earl of Pembroke, lord Edward Howard, and the carl of Salisbury. They took tlic same engagement as the rest — to be true and faithful to the commonwealth, as it was now established, without a king or a house of lords. But in fact no commonwealth existed. A common- wealth, or, to use its modern synonyme, a republic, implies something more than the absence of a king and of a senatorial aristocracy. The essence of a republic is government by the people : in classic ages this was effected by their choice of their own rulers ; in later times, by their election of their own representatives. The commonwealth now pre- tended in England had no title whatever to its name : it was a military despotism, or an irrespon- sible oligarchy, having the faults and possibly the advantages of both. No appeal, however, was made to the people in whose name this go^ ernment was carried on. A free election, an independent house of commons, would have scattered it to the winds, and, probably enough, have dragged its leaders to the gallows. Of this they were fully aware. They ^ grounded their justification, in fact, upon this plea. * Ludlow, p. 113. THE LATER PURITANS. 329 They had undertaken the nation's interests against ciiai-tek the nation's will : it was a froward child ; and they '■ — governed it with parental wisdom ; and, it may be ^^^/J^^' ^h^ added, with something more than parental discipline, a.d.iwd. But in all this there was a practical dishonesty most injurious to religion. If we allow the justice of their defence we make a mournful concession to the world. We avow that truth and politics are incompatible ; and that the man who serves his country must abandon the service of his God. We admit the maxim that nations cannot be governed upon christian principles. It is true, no doubt, that if the puritans had boldly made this avowal they would merely have placed themselves upon the common level ; they would not have fallen beneath it. The assertion has been echoed in our own times from within the walls of parliament, and it has been loudly cheered. Men in power have enun- ciated it as a political axiom, and their political opponents have heard in silence and assented. Had the men of the commonwealth maintained this dogma, they would have fallen below the Cecils and Walsinghams of an earlier period, but they would have stood upon a level with the statesmen of a later age, and, as men of the world, their character would have been unstained. But the leaders in this great movement aspired after a higher fame. They were emphatically religious men, and they gloried in it. They spoke in the language of holy writ ; the phrases of the English bible were their modes of speech ; the precepts and doctrines of scripture were always on their lips ; their aim was to establish a commonwealth based upon the bible. 330 THE niSTOHY OF CHAPTER For the old English constitution they had no great ^"^' respect. For the complicated machinery and con- coMMON- flicting principles of English law they had a profound A.D.1C49. ^^^ unreasonable contempt. Cromwell even pro- posed to sweep away at one stroke the whole fabric of existing jurisprudence ; to regard the statute- book, and the decisions of common law, as a sheet of white paper — to adopt his own expression — and to write anew upon it a pure code derived from the principles of natural justice and from the law of God. The experiment was to have been tried in Ireland ; and, if successful, to have been extended to Great Britain. Had Cromwell lived, the attempt would probably have been made, and tlie protector might have been known to posterity as one of those heroes whose laws have outlived their conquests. These and other changes, of which some were merely contemplated and others carried out, might possibly have been beneficial ; but they were arbitrary. They were enforced under false pretences. It w^ould have been manly at least to have claimed the government by the right of conquest, even though it mio'ht not have been honest to retain it. A usurper may impart those blessings which a legiti- mate government has not conferred. But nothing can excuse duplicity ; and the high standard of moral and religious bearing assumed by the leaders of the commonwealth made their inconsistencies the more conspicuous. By what right, except the right of the sword, were they attempting to impose their impracticable commonwealth upon a reluctant people ? With what sincerity could they profess to be acting on the nation's behalf when its voice was THE lateh puritans. 331 sternly repressed by frequent executions and swarms chapter of soldiery ? The misconduct of the prelates had '. — taught the common people the desperate lesson of ^!^*i,^"ltii an exoteric and an esoteric faith, a professional A.v.um. religion and a personal one, and that there was no necessary connection between the two. In Romish countries the populace, having once explored this mystery, sink into licentiousness. In England they fell away into puritanism. And now the political leaders of the puritans were repeating the very same dishonesty. Sharp-sighted men perceived that they had one standard for themselves and another for their subjects. They had set up their golden image, and its shrine was to be adorned with costly offerings. Their visionary commonwealth must be upheld, if oaths were broken and innocent men oppressed. And for all this they had no other excuse to offer than the hackneyed apology of present necessity, and the possibility of some future good. At first this insincerity affected the rulers only, but it soon descended to the common people. The engagement, the oath of allegiance to the common- wealth, was vigorously enforced ; but those who took it must have felt that it was inconsistent with the covenant, to which they had already sworn. There was prevarication, if not perjury. By the covenant they were bound " to defend the king's person and authority;" by the engagement they were sworn to be obedient to *' a government with- out a king and without a house of lords." It may be said that the power which imposed the covenant had the authority to withdraw it and to annul its obligations. It may be said that Charles being 332 THE HISTORY OF cTiATTEK dead, the covenant was no Ioniser bindinsr. These VIII. . ~ ^ were indeed the defences which the government set WEALTH ^Pj ^^^ which they urged with all the weapons at A.D.1600. their command — force and argument and pulpit declamation. The majority of the clergy, including all the presbyterians, of course, opposed these mea- sures ; and their pulpits were not silent. It was, in consequence, ordered by the house of commons on the 28th of March, 1G19, " that no ministers shall teach in their pulpits anything relating to state affairs, but only to preach Christ in sincerity, and that an act be brought in for penalties for those who should do otherwise." But there is an end of public virtue when a nation trifles with the obligations of an oath. Thousands of sincerely loyal subjects had embraced the covenant ; for though it remodelled the constitution, it involved no transfer of allegiance. If the nation was presbyterian, Charles was not less a king. They were now to swear allegiance to his murderers. Honest minds revolted. The impres- sion grew deep that the nation was betrayed and that the puritan leaders were false; and the im- pression was deepest in the lower classes, for they saw all the inconsistency, while they comprehended none of the difficulties, of their political leaders. Events soon followed which completed the aliena- tion of pious men, and converted their admiration of the puritan chieftains into suspicion and disgust. The Scotch, faithful to the covenant and to Charles II., proclaimed him king, and reassembled their army to support his throne. Various attempts were made in England to revive the royal cause. At Durham a manifesto was issued on his behalf. In the THE LATER PURITANS. 333 north the preshyterians, "pretending conscience," chaptek refused the ensjaorement. From York a minister ^'"^- wrote to inform the parliament of a secret plot for common a massacre of the well-affected in the nation. At a.u.igso.' Shrewshury the cavaliers openly wore ribbons with the motto " God prosper," and the clergy preached against the government. At Newcastle, one Hender- son took upon himself to proclaim king Charles II. at the market-cross. In the west many preshyterians from their pulpits prayed very zealously for the restoration of the king. At Chester the clergy bitterly exclaimed against the engagement, " con- demning all that took it to the pit of hell." At Exeter it was scorned; and a fast-day being ap- pointed by the parliament, the clergy left the town and locked up the churches. In London the govern- ment, though dreaded, was insulted with impunity. A private soldier, detected in a treasonable con- spiracy, was shot by a court martial. His funeral afforded the opportunity for a political demonstra- tion. The dead body was carried through the city with ostentatious pomp ; the mourners, amounting to several thousands, carried in their hands bunches of rosemary steeped in blood, emblems of their un- dying sorrow or revenge. The procession passed by the doors of parliament, but the government had not the courage to interfere.* Their situation was already critical, if not dangerous. They had gained no hold upon the nation at large : their tenure of power was precarious, and they heard on all sides of risings projected or actually taking place. These rumours were not altogether unacceptable to * Whitelocke, pp. 429, 439. 334 THE IIISTOHY OF ciiAPTEu the parliament. They swelled the cry of danger, and ^^"^- gave a colour to the meditated attack on Scotland. COMMON- Fairfax still continued to hold the chief command ; YaliS^' but he was weary of his post, and Cromwell was anxious to supplant him. Lady Fairfax was a preshyterian, and the general himself was now attached to that party. He declared to his col- leagues that he could not march against their own hrcthren in the cause, the presbyterians of Scotland. If the Scotch invaded England, he was ready to draw his sword and shed his last drop of blood in defence of the commonwealth ; but to invade Scotland, and inflict the calamities of war upon a people whose crime was that they reverenced an oath, was that which his conscience would not con- sent to. Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, St. John, and Whitelocke were sent by the council of state to confer with him. " I think it doubtful," said the lord-general, "whether we have a just cause to make an invasion upon Scotland, with whom we are joined in the national league and covenant ; and now for us, contrary thereunto, and without suffi- cient cause given us by them, to enter into their country with an army, and to make war upon them, is that which I cannot sec the justice of; nor how we shall be able to justify the lawfulness of it before God and man." Cromwell answered that the Scotch, by invading England under the duke of Hamilton, in 16i<8, had broken the covenant, and it was only just to requite their hostility first begun upon us. Whitelocke argued, quite in consistence with his character, that it would be a prudent measure to pre- vent their coming into England by first attacking THE LATER PURITANS. 335 them in their own country. Harrison urged the pro- chapter bability of an invasion upon their part ; and St. John '. — repeated the argument of Cromwell, that the cove- ^yp^^^j^H nant was first broken by themselves, and so dissolved a.d.ig.w. as to us. " I suppose," said Cromwell in conclusion, "your excellency will be convinced of this clear truth, that we are no more obliged by the league and covenant, which themselves did first break." The force of this argument was lost on Eairfax. The covenant was not a compact with the Scotch, but a national vow and promise recorded in the sight of God in St. Margaret's church at West- minster, as well as in the presbyterian churches of the north. Its agreements were not conditional ; no breach of faith on the part of others could release the English covenanters ; and with regard to the duke of Hamilton's invasion in 1648, it was under- taken not, as Cromwell and Harrison maintained, to subvert the covenant, but to carry out its literal meaning, and to establish the house of Stuart upon a presbyterian throne. To the argument arising from the probability of another invasion Pairfax re- plied, that human probabilities were not a sufficient ground for making war upon a neighbour, especially, said he, upon our brethren in Scotland, to whom we are engaged in a solemn league and covenant. " What," he exclaimed, " would you have me to do? My conscience is not satisfied : under the same cir- cumstances none of you would engage in the service : that is my condition, and I must desire to be ex- cused."* The conference was conducted with prayer, which Cromwell opened ; most of the deputation * Whitelocke, p. 445. 336 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER prayed afterwards by turns. They felt the great- ^"^' ness of the occasion. The question before them was COMMON- jjQ jggg than the utter disruption of the puritan WEALTH, , / ^ ^ - A.D.1650. P^i'tyj ^^^ the turning of its arms upon itself. Another war with all its miseries lay distinctly before them. Beyond this there was another, and to us of the nineteenth century, and to all posterity, a far graver question, the dishonour they might do to God, and the contempt which they were likely to bring down upon that which puritanism through all its fortunes had professedly upheld, true and spiritual religion. Fairfax resigned his commission ; and the next day Cromwell, without an adverse vote, and greatly it was thought to his own satis- faction, although he feigned a decent reluctance, w^as constituted captain- general-in-chief of the forces wdthin the commonwealth of England. Without delay he entered on the war in Scotland. Napoleon justified his crimes by the doctrines of fatalism; Cromwell sheltered his ambition beneath the veil of impulses supposed to be divine. The contrivances are similar. They start from the same point, and they arrive at one goal together. Their origin and their effect is the same. They arc the shallow arti- fices of intense self-will w^hen it becomes desperate ; and they take their individual shape and character from the habits and education of their victim. Be- fore he set out, Cromwell spent a full hour with Ludlow in expounding the hundred-and-tenth psalm, believing, or affecting to believe, that he himself was the hero of its triumphs. Ilis campaign in Scotland was to be the fulfilment of prophecy, and the enemies of the Lord were to be subdued before A.D. 1650. THE LATER PURITANS. 337 him. The battle of Dunbar followed soon after ; it chapteii was fought on the 3rd of September, 1G50. The ^''"- Scotch were beaten, and Cromwell was a^ain vie- ^^^^!Zl' torious. Fanaticism had never yet appeared upon so wide a stage, or played her part in a scene so dreadful. On the field of Dunbar puritan fought with puritan; the independent plunged his steel into the presby- terian ; men by thousands threw away their lives and slaughtered one another, to prove that the solemn league was superseded by the engagement or that the engagement was a violation of the cove- nant. It was a question much argued by the lo- gicians of the times ;* but impatient soldiers, seeing that the argument must drift either towards the restoration of monarchy or the establishment of a republic, had now determined to adjust the question with the sword. So, with solemn words upon their lips, and rising from the attitude of prayer, they fell upon the work of slaughter. Cromwell, having spent a long time in prayer, presented himself with joy upon his face to his chief captains. The Lord, he said, had answered his petitions : in God's name he promised them victory. He gave, as the word for the English army, their favourite signal, The * " And because the presbyterians still urged the covenant against killing the king and pulling down tiie parliament, and setting up a commonwealth, and taking the engagement, some of the independent brethren maintained, that its obligation ceased because it was a league, and the occasion of it ceased: and some of the Rump said it was like an almanack out of date; and some of the soldiers said they never took it; and otliers of them radod at it as a Scottish snare, so that when their interest would not suft'er thera to keep so solemn a vow, their wills would not suffer their judgments to confess it to be obligatory, at least, as to the part which they must violate." — Baxter, part i. p. 64. Z 338 THE HISTOrvY OF CHAPTER Lord of Hosts. It was welcomed through the camp ^"^- with a dreadful enthusiasm. The general had re- coMMON- ceived a message from the God of hattles. The ark WEALTH A D 1650 ^^^s in the camp, and it was the cause of the Most Hiirh. Of success there was not a doubt, and those who fell would receive the crown of glory in the realms above. Every regiment, every company, perhaps every individual, in the English army, felt at the moment the inspiration of these sentiments. On the other side, the Scotch were equally inflamed, and with the same fanaticism. Their battle-cry was. The Covenant — the symbol at once of their faith and of their loyalty. Scores of prcsbyterian ministers were observed by the English, as they descended the hill to begin the battle, praying and vociferating ; some cursing the English, as the enemies of God ; some, with prophetic mien, de- nouncing them for immediate slaughter ; but all alike sure of victory, and sure too of the approbation of the Most High. The battle was short and bloody, for the Scotch were no equal match for Cromwell and his veterans : they chased them, to use their own simile, like turkeys from the field ; and in the battle and the flight they hewed them down by thousands. Their clergy were regarded as false prophets ; and the English, on their return, related with satisfaction how they smote them to the dust in the very act of prayer, or shot them down with blasphemous predictions on their lips. Here was a further proof of the justice of the cause; for the hand of God had been stretched forth against the prcsbyterian clergy, as of old against the priests of IBaal. It was tlie perversity and the judicial blind- THE LATER PURITANS. 339 ness of tlie Scotch alono, wliicli had hindered them chapteu from seeing that the Lord was fighting against ^"^' them. Cromwell himself made use of this argument, ^''-^'-^'o^- ^ ' WKALTII, a few days after the hattle, in his letter to the citi- a.d. mo. zens of Edinburgh. The victory no doubt was great, but greater still was the disaster. Puritanism received at the battle of Dunbar a wound that never healed. After this its professions of religion were no longer believed. The cavaliers exulted as they saw the internal dis- cord which rent the stronghold of their antagonists and shewed all their weakness. High churchmen of the school of Laud confirmed themselves with fresh arguments in the conclusion that puritan religion was grimace and folly, a plausible exterior covering a bad heart. The men who had overthrown • the church and beheaded the king were equally ready, it appeared, to devour each other. Among sober men who had hitherto adhered to the puritan cause doubts arose, unfavourable not only to puri- tanism, but to all religion. The Scotch clergy were men of unblemished lives and of high renown for piety. Their learning was respectable, their scrip- tural knowledge was allowed to be great. Yet they had shown themselves profoundly ignorant of the ways of God in a matter in which a kingdom was at stake and the lives of thousands of their flocks. They had prayed fervently ; but so too had Cromwell and his officers. Each were certain that their prayers were heard, when it was now clear that one party, if not both, lay under a vile delusion — a delusion to which thousands of innocent men were sacrificed. How deep in many a simple mind the z 2 A.U. KxJO. 340 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER stirrings of heart ! — Low. distressing the perplexity ! ' Was there, then, no certainty and no benefit in COMMON- prayer ? Was tliere no overruling Providence ? Was WEALTH ■*• '' '-' ' there perhaps, after all, no God ? It is certain that unbelief, and even atheism, soon afterwards appeared amongst the puritans ; and it is impossible to avoid the reflection that these noxious weeds grew more rankly after the mad enthusiasm and the prodigal slaughter of Dunbar. As passion cooled, the enor- mity of the crime occurred to all men more forcibly. Cromwell himself seems to have relented of the bloodshed, and a few days afterwards he wrote to the parliament in bland accents : " Since we came into Scotland it hath been our desire and longing to have avoided blood in this business, by reason that God hath a people here fearing his name, though deceived."* It was against God's people, then, that he had drawn the sword. It was their blood that had been shed. The next year an event occurred which increased the exasperation of the presbyterians and indepen- dents against each other. This was the trial and execution of Love, the presbyterian minister. He was the same person whose violent sermon at tlie treaty of Uxbridge gave so much offence. He appears to have been a zealous and an upright man, but of no discretion ; in many respects a type of the presbyterians of his day. He was charged with a criminal correspondence with the young king, and condemned to death upon the scaffold as a traitor. Love had been a sufferer for conscience sake through * Burnet, Hist. Own Time, vol. i. p. 74. Carlyle, letters and papers, vol. ii. p. 200. THE LATER PURITANS. 341 liis whole life. When a scholar at Oxford he was chapter expelled as being the first who had publicly refused to subscribe the canons imposed by Laud. He wkalth, came to London, and there for three years he was a.d.igsi. excluded from the ministry. He w^ent to Newcastle and was imprisoned for preaching against the prayer-book ; from thence he was removed to West- minster by habeas corpus and acquitted. In the beginning of the war he was accused for preaching treason and rebellion, "merely," he says, with some simplicity, " because I maintained in a sermon at Tenterden the lawfulness of defensive war." His sermon at Uxbridge brought him into fresh trouble ; and though not punished, he fell into disgrace with his own party. Since the change of government he had been repeatedly imprisoned. "And now," he exclaims, in his defence upon the trial, " I am ar- raigned for my life, and am likely to suffer from the hands of those for whom I have done and suffered so much, and who have lift up their hands with me in the same covenant." He was attended upon the scaffold on Tower-hill by Manton, Calamy, and other eminent presbyterians ; and he exulted in the cause for which his life was to be sacrificed. He declared in a calm and manly speech his dislike of the commonwealth and his detestation of the en- gagement. " I am for a regulated mixed monarchy, which I judge to be one of the best governments in the world. I opposed the late king and his forces, because I am against screwing up monarchy into tyranny, as much as against those who would pull it down into anarchy. I was never for putting the king to death, whose person I did promise in my covenant 342 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER to preserve ; and I judge it an ill way to cure the — ^^^ — body politic by cutting off the political head." wTt'^^' With regard to himself, he added : " I bless God I A.U.1651. have not the least trouble on my spirit ; but I die with as much quietness of mind as if I was going to lie down on my bed to rest. I see men thirst after my blood, which will but hasten my happiness and their ruin ; for though I am but of mean pa- rentage, yet my blood is the blood of a christian, of a minister, of an innocent man, and, I speak it without vanity, of a martyr. I conclude with the speech of the apostle : I am now ready to be offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand ; but I have finished my course, I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." He expressed his confidence of salvation through Jesus Christ, and gave his bless- ing? to the multitude. He then kneeled down and prayed aloud, and rising up embraced the ministers and friends around him, and calmly laid his head upon the block. He died before he was forty years of age ; and the example of his courage and his piety produced a deep impression. Dr. Manton announced his intention of preaching a funeral ser- mon : the soldiers threatened to be present and to shoot him through the head in his pulpit. Nothing daunted, perhaps even courting martyrdom, Manton persisted ; and, not satisfied with preaching to an audience intensely moved, he printed the sermon, with the title of The saint's triumph over death. The soldiers were present ; they clashed their arms, and scowled, and muttered, but did not proceed to further violence. Thus in the very heart of London THE LATER PURITANS. 343 was Love's memory avenged in the most solemn chapter VIII. manner, and the commonwealth as openly defied/ The despised remonstrance of the prcsbyterian ^^^^^^fj^ clergy, before the king's trial, must now at least a.d.igsi. have fallen with a heavy sound upon the recollec- tions of the puritan statesmen. Their sin had found them out. One crime had produced another ; and at every step they were more deeply entangled in the consequences of their great transgression. They were an isolated band of men with whom the nation had nothing in common ; and their power was but a shadow, for they were still the creatures of the army. Hitherto the religious puritans had clung to them in spite of all their faults. Pickle as human nature is, the friendships of a life are not readily dissolved, nor long years of disinterested services forgotten. But the king's death, the war against the Scotch, and the execution of Love, were the three successive crimes which snapped the con- nection with a violent wrench, and turned reverence and admiration into scorn. The political leaders of the puritans found themselves all at once deserted. A universal hatred, mingled with a contempt still more fatal, smote them in their pride, and they no longer had either respect or confidence. In some respects the death of Love was even more injurious than the execution of the king. Belonging to the middle class, the people regarded him as one of themselves, and the stroke which killed him rever- berated through the hearts of myriads. In striking one of their own rank the fatal blow appeared to * Brooke's Lives, art. Love. Baxter's Life, part i. p. ()7- Neal, vol. vi. p. 406. 344 THE niSTORT OF ciiAi'iKi: have been aimed ag-ainst a thousand others ; and ^"^- now none were safe. Nor could the common people AVEALTH A.D. 1G5 COMMON- understand the casuistry which lustified the death J ' of Love under the plea of state necessity. His only crime, in their judgment, was his stern integrity. He was a just man and feared an oath ; he was a martyr to the covenant, which his executioners themselves had taken and imposed on others. And, to complete the wickedness, he was a minister of Christ, faithful, eloquent, and popular. He had been a puritan in evil days, and had borne its re- proach with joy ; and now he was cruelly beheaded with unknown forms of law, (for the tribunal by which he was condemned was, like that which tried the king, a special one, erected for the purpose,) and by the same men who had aroused the nation to arms on the pretext of resistance to arbitrary power and in defence of puritanism. The presby- terians regarded the ministerial office with profound respect. Amongst the points of difference between the independents and themselves this was one. The presbyterians viewed with concern the facility with which men, in their opinion, uncommissioned and unqualified, were admitted by the independents to teach and to preach. They saw with alarm the sacred office invaded by the laity ; and it must be confessed that the presumptuous levity, the impudence and ignorance, displayed too often by the lay preachers of the commonwealth, were more than enough to excite their uneasiness. But now it seemed as if an audacious outrage was intended against the ministry itself. Since the days of Saul, the repro- bate king of Israel, it was a crime unparalleled. COMMON- WEALTH, A.D.1651. THE LATER PUHITANS. 345 lie had imbrued his hands in the blood of Ahimelcc cnArTER the priest, and tliese men were defiled in the inno- cent blood of Love. The offence imputed to the sufferers was the same : the one had succoured David, the other had corresponded with the young king. They had both assisted the Lord's anointed in his distresses, and they had both died by the violent hands of cruel and bloodthirsty men. The blow sank deeper, we are told by those who lived at the time, than future ages will easily believe ; and from this period, with the exception of the sectaries, the puritans abhorred the commonwealth.* As the public discontent increased, the personal reputation of the leaders of the commonwealth suf- fered in proportion. They were everywhere charged with selfishness and rapacity, and the murmurs of the nation were fomented by a tax of ninety thou- sand pounds a month, which had been imposed by a vote of the house of commons in April 1649 for the maintenance of the forces. Prynne declared the imposition illegal ; and publicly assigned his reasons why he could neither in law, conscience, or prudence submit to it.f The vast estates of the royalists had been confiscated. The patrimony of the church had been seized ; even tithes were threatened, but happily saved in deference to the selfishness of the lay-impropriators : yet the public debts were not paid, and no satisfactory accounts were published. The taxation was enormous. At no period of the war had the king's army cost more than half the sum now levied ; and that of the parliament had * Baxter, i. 6/. t Prynne's legal vindication of the liberties of England, 1649. VIII. COMMOX- "WEALTII, 346 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER not exceeded two-thirds of it. Why, then, should the taxes be now increased to ninety thousand pounds a month ? " This is a mystery of iniquity," ^j, ^g.j exclaims a pungent writer of the time, " which fills the saints' pockets with money, and the world with wonder. Within eight years the parliament have raised by taxes more than all the kings of England since the conquest. These are they that, like Ilananiah, break the wooden yoke from our necks, and put on one of iron ; they free us from a little ship-money, paid thrice in an age, and impose as much at once for a monthly tax ; they quit us of the monopoly of tobacco, and set up an excise upon bread and beer ; they ease the wanton and rich man, and grind the needy and the poor. Yet these are thy gods, O London !"* Estates and pensions were lavished on those who had no claim even upon their own party but an unscrupulous defence of all its measures. Scot, who had been, it is said, a brewer's clerk, was presented with the archbishop's house at Lambeth. Sir Arthur Haselrigge, besides a large present in money, and a lucrative appointment as governor at Newcastle, received the magnificent donation of the bishop's house, manor, and park of Auckland. Captain Westron, a man unknown and insignificant, had the bishop of Worcester's manor of Uartlcbury ; colonel Brercton, the archbishop's house and lands at Croydon, where he turned the chapel into a kitchen ; *' a goodly reformation," (writes his presbyterian censor) "and fits with his stomach as well as his religion." He had besides the beautiful retreat of Cashiobury and other lands * Clem. Walker, hist. Independents, part i. p. 173, and partii.p. 822. THE LA.TEE, PURITANS. 347 of lord Capel, worth two thousand a year. Lent- chapter hall the speaker, the greatest renegade of his age, ^— was loaded with preferment, and his son was placed ^yt^^^^Tir, in an office worth two thousand pounds a year. He a.d.i652. was soon after charged by the parliament with embezzlement and other misdemeanors, and made his peace, it was alleged, with a fine to Cromwell's army of fifteen thousand pounds. But that which gave most offence of all was a weekly payment of four pounds, by their own order, to each of the five hundred and sixteen members of the house of com- mons ; a sum which, if all of them received their wages, would exceed a hundred thousand pounds a year. A republic, if such it w^ere, was certainly no cheap government in England. The government was selfish and incapable, and it was evident that it could not last. Meantime the young king, having been first crowned in Scotland, made a rash attempt to invade England and recover his southern throne. Cromwell defeated him at Worcester on the 3rd of September, 1652. The contest was severe, and the carnage dreadful. The king, after many romantic adventures, escaped to Erance in a fishing-boat. His fugitive army ex- perienced a worse fate. A state of civil war had now accustomed the nation to ferocity and blood, and the retreating Scotch, defenceless and afraid, were used with a barbarity of which cannibals might have been ashamed. The country people, in mere wantonness, knocked them on the head like bullocks. A party of a thousand of them, pallid and trembling with fright and hunger, rushed into the small town of Sandbach in Cheshire. It happened to be the annual fair; the booths and stalls were instantly COMMON'- WEA 348 THE niSTOUT OF CHAPTER torn lip, and great numbers of the fugitives were literally beaten to death with the sticks and trun- EALTH, eheons the materials supplied.* Of two thousand A.D.1652. cavalry that ilcd from Worcester few or none es- caped. Cromwell returned in triumph to London. The speaker, the lord mayor, the sheriffs and alder- men, with thousands of citizens of every rank, went out to welcome him. He conducted himself with apparent humility ; spoke little of himself ; ascribed the victory to the gallantry of his soldiers, and the glory to God alone. An act was passed for making the 3rd of September a thanksgiving day for ever, and a fast was ordered in these terms : '* to seek God for improvement of his great mercies, and for doing things most to his glory and the good of the commonwealth." Then the work of vengeance was immediately renewed, and the very next day the most illustrious of the prisoners were ordered to be tried on the charge of high treason. The earl of Derby was beheaded within a month at Bolton, a town of his own, and the scene of his former triumph. He was a great man, but he had lived so little amongst his equals that he knew not how to treat his inferiors, and his haughty bearing gave a keener edge to the vengeance of some of his enemies, t The scaffold was erected in the market- place. " Let me die," he said, " lying so that I may look towards tlic church, for I hope to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." On the same day a captain Benbow was executed at Shrewsbury ; several others were condemned whose lives were * Wlutelocke, p. 484. t Clarendon, bookxiii. p. 412. TUE LATER PURITANS. 349 spared. Cromwcirs fortune was now in the ascen- chapteu VIII. dant, and having no further employment in the field he directed all his attention to the affairs of the ^'^'^'^^[^^'J^' state. A residence in London soon convinced him A.o.iesa. tliat his time was come ; he went down to the house of commons attended only hy a file of musketeers, and turned the members out of doors with every expression of contempt. In tlie afternoon he dis- solved the council of state with as little ceremony. "Gentlemen," said he, "if you have met here as private persons you shall not be disturbed ; but if as a council of state this is no place for you." On the 20tli of April, 1653, the skeleton of a parliament and the ghost of a commonwealth passed away together. The nation was delighted. The event was hailed with shouts and bonfires j for an in- capable government is resented more than a bad one. To the people it seems an insult, and they can pardon an injury when they will not forgive an impertinence. The abortive republic died out of its own accord ; it expired of inanition and popular contempt. Had there been no Cromwell its fate must have been the same. It would have fallen to pieces under the assault of the first rude hand that was raised against it, and that hand could not have been long wanting. Upon the whole, and to view their conduct in the most favourable light, the leaders of the common- wealth were rather weak than bad. As senators they were feeble, but they had good intentions. As purifiers of religion their merits are more question- able, though even here they have some claim on our respect. They discussed, and, were it not that 350 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER the act would liavc been a suicide, they would have VIII. eifected, a reform in the representative system, ^^°.^?,"iw" which would have placed the house of commons on A.D.1653. a, sound and Avholcsome footing, and rendered need- less, in after times, the agitation of a subject which has brought us more than once to the verge of revolution. They would have made population the basis of representation, and yet taken care that the interests of no special class or order of electors should prevail unfairly. They would have reformed the law, and they actually laid the foundations upon which the most important legal reforms were effected in happier times. They improved the gene- ral condition of English society and the tone of manners. They repressed drunkenness and debau- chery, to a degree unknown amongst the common people. If they did not always reward virtue they invariably punished vice. The morals of the nation were their incessant care. Once a week excluding political affairs, however pressing, from their deli- berations, they took into consideration the state of religion and the best means of amending it. The zeal with which they demolished maypoles, de- nounced bull-baitings, and sought out bear-gardens, afforded no doubt infinite mirth to the readers of Hudibras twenty years afterwards ; but an Euglish village in tlie commonwealth was as much superior to an Euglish village in the reign of Charles II. as civilized to savage life, or the habits of Great Britain now to those of South America. The swearer, the petty thief, the habitual liar, Avas dragged to the stocks, or soundly whipped, or held up to detesta- tion. Grosser sins met with a more terrible retri- TUE LATER PURITANS. 351 bution : fornication was felony, and adultery was chapter punishable with death. But the nation was not "l^ enervated. The license and folly which pleads for ^^^^'^^th exemption on the ground that the national spirit a.d.igss. must at all costs be sustained, received its abun- dant, and if history had been but faithful to her trust, its final answer. England is the nation of brave men, but the renown of England was never carried to a higher pitch than by the heroes of the commonwealth — by Cromwell on the land and Blake upon the sea. Bishop Burnet relates that he saw three of Crom- well's regiments at Aberdeen about the time of the battle of Dunbar.* Their demeanour excited, even in that presbyterian land, respect and admiration. There was a dignity and composure in their looks, a self-restraint, a gravity and piety in their conduct such as had never hitherto been seen in soldiers. They prayed fervently in public, and they often preached ; and these men were the bravest of the brave. The soldier, it is true, broke out in them sometimes and wrestled with the saint, and the j consistency of the latter was in peril. On one oc- casion the presbyterian clergy attacked them from the pulpit, and denounced their invasion of the mi- nisterial office by their irregular prayers and preach- ings as scarcely less than blasphemy. Eor armed listeners the offence was too great to be endured. They interrupted the preacher with expressions of contempt, and their swords leaped by an instinct from their scabbards. No injury was done ; but Cromwell severely censured their misconduct, and * Own Times, vol. i. p. 79. 352 THE HISTORY OF •iiAPTER cashiered the commander for liavinsr overlooked the vm. outrage. The army was probably more religious w.^?.'!iw' and, apart from the fanaticism which infected some A.D.1653. regiments, better and wiser than the nation ; this indeed was the secret of its power ; but the leaders of the commonwealth laboured everywhere to effect the same improvement, and to exalt in England the popular standard of virtue and pure religion. Yet it cannot be said that their efforts were suc- cessful. The men were at this time boys who, in the reign of Charles II., flooded England with depravity. The shameless harlots of the most pro- fligate court that any protcstant state in Europe had ever witnessed were now receiving the lessons of their girlhood. The people, now demure and serious, and constant at the parish church, were to throw off the cloak of religion and of decency ; and, upon the signal of the king's return, to assume the follies of a harlequin. The infatuation was to last for a quarter of a century ; until at length, when Charles II. died, not only religion, but virtue, patriotism, and morals should be in general and profound contempt ; and the most religious nation in the world should be the most degraded and debauched. The maxim is true of nations as of individuals, that none become supremely wicked on a sudden. If the explosion is terrible, the train has been laid with care and forethought. Enormous guilt may break out unexpectedly, but its way has been silently prepared ; and secret depravity has existed in the mind long before its taint is visible in the conduct. Appearances were hollow and deceitful. The shew of national piety which every- THE LATER PTJKITANS. 353 where prevailed was not sincere. When temptation chapter came it offered no resistance ; it embraced the sc- — li^i — ducer and courted infamy. Into the causes of this ^^jJ^^lth great apostacy it behoves us to inquire. a.d.icos. 1. When the leaders of the commonwealth under- took the management of the state, religion amongst the puritans, exposed to the evil influences of civil war and frequent change, had already declined. It could not have been otherwise. It is impossible to conceive that men who had been for five years engaged in acts of deadly warfare with their own former friends and neighbours, should retain the same tenderness of conscience and that clear percep- tion of right with which they entered on the war. Many an outrage had been committed, many a fellow-man destroyed, for which conscience, in her calmer moods, would have no milder term than revenge and wantonness. The uneasy victor would strive to forget the past and to silence the still voice within him. His mind would become hard and imrelenting; and he would probably take refuge in one of these two delusions, either that the end sanctifies the means, or that his whole conduct had been the subject of some absolute decree. Each of these subterfuges carries deadly poison to the soul. At the same time the political changes had oblite- rated something of his reverence for truth, and for the obligations of an oath. The covenant had scarcely been imposed before he was taught to evade it ; and when the engagement followed, he had scarcely lifted his right hand to heaven and sworn to observe it, than its provisions were treated with the very same contempt. In man the want of revc- A A A.D. 1653. 354 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER rence for truth resembles in its cfTects the loss of ^"^" chastity in woman. In that one virtue all the COMMON- others are included ; and the mind havint? lost its WEALTH, _ T - . n -J 1 1 L' tone, and now deeply conscious oi its degradation, ceases to strive with sin ; for what is left is not worth a struggle. Again, society had been to a great extent disorganized. During the war many churches were closed, and if the inefTicient ministry of the Laudian school was silenced it had been too often succeeded by rant and ignorance. The pulpit during the commonwealth began to fall into con- tempt. The parliament found it necessary to re- iterate the injunctions which king James, and Charles, and Laud himself had vainly striven to enforce. They forbad all ministers to interfere with politics, and commanded them to adhere strictly to their texts and to the preaching of the gospel. But the admonition was in vain ; politics were too exciting, and the preachers too vain- glorious. An ignorant visionary could always pro- vide himself with a text, and often with a prophecy, which bore directly upon the last week's proceedings in the house of commons, or the result of the next campaign. With what desolation of heart many an humble christian returned home from such dis- courses, uncheered, untaught, we can never know. How infidelity grew apace, and an utter disdain of the ministrations of the pulpit, we can more readily imagine. 2. As the puritan leaders fell into contempt their characters were severely handled. For some time they had been freely charged with rapacity and pride, they were now accused of grosser vices. THE LATER PURITANS. 355 When Cromwell dissolved the parliament, he threw chapter the foulest charges in the very face of his former ' associates. Henry Martyn and sir Peter Went- common- . . WEALTH, worth, he said, were known adulterers ; pointing to ^p^g-g another he exclaimed, there sits a drunkard. Others he charged with fraud and perjury ; and one and all of them with a life and conduct scandalous to the gospel. Whether this outhurst of abuse were premeditated is not worth consideration. The same accusations were openly preferred at the time by other men of the puritan party. The writings of their opponents abound with them ; and Cromwell, cunning even in the vortex of his passion, alleged no doubt the crimes which every one suspected. And it is to be noted further, that the friends of the accused shewed but little warmth in defending them. Ludlow, for instance, declaims against Cromwell for having acted a treacherous and impious part,* but says nothing of slander or of falsehood. Clement "Walker, a member of the parliament, repeats some of the accusations with a grossness of language which decorum forbids us to transcribe.! Yet these men affected the greatest sanctity. They had re- cently enacted a law which declared adultery a felony and inflicted the penalty of death. Women of loose character and their abettors were to be whipped, branded in the face, pilloried, and impri- soned three years for the first offence, and hanged for the second.^ If the framers of such a law were men * Ludlow, p. 174. t e.g. Henry Miirtyn's gains by the revolution arc stated thus ; " Col. of a regiment of horse, et ugmen scortorum." I veil his coarse English under decent Latin. Ilist. Indep. i. 171. X An act for suppressing detestable sins. ^lay, 1G50. A A 2 35G THE HISTORY OF ciiAi'TLR of impure lives tlieivliypocrisy was indeed detestable. VIII And while the morals of some were impeached, the !,*.!i*'.y !.!!!" claim of others to he considered in any sense re- Ai».i(i53. lig'ious men was utterly denied. Cromwell familiarly called them " the gentiles." Sir Henry Vane ob- scured what notions of religion he possessed beneath a cloud of mysticism. Sir James Harrington, the author of the Oceana, was an infidel and theorist in religion as in politics. Some were charged, perhaps unjustly, with atlieism ; but upon the whole few practised the ancient religion of the puritans. They liad begun to make use of it, as statesmen have so often done, as a contrivance for amusing or governing the people. The nation discovered the imposition, and as the commonwealth fell into contempt re- ligion shared in the disaster. 3. During the commonwealth it was that man- nerism and a tedious formality arose to its height amongst the puritans. Their religious services were often of a wearisome length. Eishop Burnet mentions six sermons preached upon a fast day without intermission. " I was there myself," says the devout author of the Pastoral Care, " and not a little weary of so tedious a service."* The wisest men fell into these absurdities. Howe, Cromwell's domestic chaplain, is said to have conducted the service upon fast days, which were frequent in those times, in this manner : He began at nine o'clock with a prayer of a quarter of an hour, read and ex- pounded scripture for about three quarters, prayed an hour, preached another, then prayed lialf an hour, the people then sung about a quarter of an * Own Times, p. 73. THE LATER PURITANS. 357 hour, during which he retired and took a little cnAiTKrw refreshment : he then came into the pulpit again, . prayed an hour more, preached another hour, and ^ommon- then with a prayer of half an hour concluded the a.d.iom. service.* The violent emotions of a civil war gave an unnatural interest, and with it an extraordinary- power of attention, to the hearers ; but when the war and its alarms ceased, their jaded spirits flagged, and, instead of fervour, coldness and a monotonous formality prevailed. There are seasons of unusual depth and power, times of refreshing from the pre- sence of the Lordjt Avlien it would seem almost an act of violence to interrupt the devotions of a con- gregation at the usual hour. And there is no reason why a sermon more than an oration upon law, or literature, or politics, should not sometimes be of extraordinary length. But in general, good sense and the comfort of the hearers must apply the rule. Religious services of intolerable length mark, in short, the decay of manly and healthy piety. When the mind is full, language is at controul and superfluous words are few. Long prayers and sermons, with rare exceptions, prove the want of preparation, that is, the want of earnestness and sincerity, in the minister rather than the exuberance of his holy zeal. From the days of Chrysostom to those of Latimer, and, later still, of Wesley and AVhitfield, the most effective have been short : the burning torrent rushed by, but its traces were in- delible. The puritans however were not alone to blame. Nicholas Perrar of Little Gidding, a church- man of the Laudian school in the days of Charles, * Ciilamv's Lives, &c., vol. i. j). SI. t Acts iu. II'. VIII. COMMON- WEALTH, A.D. 1(J63. 358 THE IIISTOllY OF CHAPTER attached a chapel to his house in which the worship incessantly went on. The family was divided, like the priests in the temple, into courses, succeeding each other at intervals of three hours, day and night, without intermission. The song of praise was never silent ; at least the organ never ceased ; for he must know little of the gospel of Jesus Christ who can mistake these acts of superstition for the offering of a free heart which rises acceptable to God. The perfection of this system is indeed to be found in the church of Rome ; in monasteries where the service of the lips is incessant and the heart averse or profoundly unconcerned. 4. It was no advantage to religion that every state paper and ordinance of the parliament spoke in the language of the pulpit or of a religious tract. Religion suffered greatly in consequence ; and puritanism, if possible, still more. A devout re- cognition of the hand of God, and an humble ac- knowledgment of his goodness, are the duty of a christian nation ; but the obtrusion of a religious phraseology is out of place in state papers, and the incessant recurrence of scripture language is pro- fane. At the close of the Scotch campaign, and again after the battle of Worcester, national thanks- givings were commanded by the parliament through public " ordinances." The first of these recites, in the following words, " the grounds and reasons" for the act. '* If any nation in the world hath at this day upon them mighty and strong obligations unto the Lord for his peculiar manifestations of mercy and goodness unto them, it is the parliament and people of England ; in the midst of whom the Lord THE LATER PURITANS. 359 lias walked most eminently for these ten years past, chapter It is the duty of all people in this commonwealth, ^'"' especially those who fear the Lord, to observe these common- his marvellous and gracious dispensations, and be ^ j^ ^^.3 ' taught by them not only to submit unto and close with the actings and appearances of the Lord who workcth all things according to the counsel of his own will, but to be enlarged in rejoicings and thankful acknowledging, and to trust him in like straits for the time to come. It is to be considered," they say, " that this is given as a seal and confir- mation from heaven of the justice of our cause, and of the sincerity of his servants that are his unworthy instruments in the carrying of it on." The pre- amble concludes with calling upon the nation to observe *'how suddenly the Lord turned himself against their enemies, and rose as a giant refreshed with wine."* The ordinance for a day of thanks- giving after the battle of Worcesterf opens in these words : " The works of providence, by which the Lord hath pleaded the cause of this parliament and commonwealth in the sight of the nations round about, are glorious, and will be sought out by all those that have pleasure in them; and therefore must not pass under the common title of events and chances of war : the Lord having so done this marvellous work, for time and place, with a concur- rence of all other remarkable circumstances, that it ought to be had in everlasting remembrance, both by ourselves and by the generations which shall be * An net for setting apart a day of thanksgiving, &c., Sept. 17, 1650. t An act for setting apart, &c., 2r)th Sept. 1(351, The parliament had now returned to the ancient usage, and style their ordinances acts. WKALTJI A.U. 1G53. 3 GO THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER born ; as will eminently and convincingly appear ^"' by this brief ensuing narrative." After an official COMMON- narrative of the battle, they add these words : W'l.- » I 'PII ■» «/ " Thus was our gracious God pleased to appear as the Lord of hosts (which was our word in this and the battle of Dunbar) with and for his people in destroying this desperate and insolent enemy, and working a glorious salvation for us." The ministers of every parisli in England were required to publish the act, and the narrative which prefaced it, in their churches. IIow many of them, though puritans, ^vould much rather have read the book of sports itself ! The impressions upon the hearers would of course be various. The simple-minded, awed by the solemnity of the language, would acquiesce. A few political fanatics might exult. But what would be the feelings of the great body of the nation, of the cavaliers and presbyterians, and more especially of their children now rising into manhood ? Were the rulers of the day then, indeed, the chosen vessels of God ? Were the victories won so clearly just and righteous, and were the vanquished, all of them, so vile? Or was the Almighty the patron of a faction, not a Being whose tender mercies were over all his works ? And were the ministers of religion, as one man, throughout England abetting this vast iniquity — this treason against the attributes of the Most Iligli — and offering hypocritical thanks- givings for the slaughter of presbyterians at Dunbar, and of church of England royalists at Worcester ? And if so, what was religion but a state machine, to be worked for the advantage of those in power ? Wise and experienced men might grieve, but they, it THE LATER PURITANS. 361 is true, would feel none of these embarrassments ; ciiai-tkh VUI. they were m no clanger of chargmg the follies of the government upon the bible. But the young are ^^!J^^J',j!j^' not experienced ; nor can they be, in this sense, wise, a.d.igss. Can we be surprised if, thus trained, they lived to ridicule seriousness, to deny a providence, to regard religion as a fable, and to question the very being of a God ? An age of great religious profession was succeeded by an age of great impiety. The fact cannot be denied : it is never likely to be forgotten. Eor the men who detest religion as the barrier to their vices, or the exponent of their shame, ring it in our ears incessantly. Whether this shameful declension were, however, the consequence of pure and spi- ritual religion, or of the want of it, the reader is now in a condition to decide. 362 THE IIISTOUY OF CHAPTER IX. A.D. 1653—1658. CHAPTER Historians have written the life of Cromwell IX. rather than the history of his protectorate. His TORATE, personal character has been more interesting than A.D. 1653. the record of his actions; although his actions were in a peculiar sense his own. Assistance embarrassed him ; his counsellors lent him neither weight nor wisdom. The less he was incumbered the more steady was his course and the loftier his flight. The only assistance which he valued was that of his council of officers ; and he valued them only so long as they submitted to his dictation. E-esistance was always punished, under one pretext or another, with his high displeasure ; and long before the protector's death most of his early friends had been disgraced. Harrison had been arrested; Ludlow was banished to his house in the couutry. Colonel Lilburn had been a prisoner in Newgate for several years. Hcsborough, who had married his sister, and Fleetwood, his son-in-law, were treated with sus- picion, and compelled to stand aloof. Ireton, another son-in-law, was dead, but he too had outlived the protector's confidence. As the civilians fell beneath his dislike they were treated with contemptuous THE LATER PURITANS. 363 nefflcct. The mind that conceived, executed. He chapter IX would not submit to that intermediate process by '- — means of which our own thoughts return to us I^^^^IH] amended and improved by the toil of other men. a.d.igss. If he listened to advice, it was to shew his con- descension ; if he seemed to solicit the opinions of his friends, it was that he might arrive at their secrets and know how far to calculate on their assistance. There is only one instance in his life in which he is known to have been diverted from his purpose in deference to the judgment of his advisers. He reluctantly declined the crown when his generals were displeased ; submitting however, even then, rather to force than argument ; for he clearly perceived that in this instance the whole army would have sided against their general, and drawn their swords again for liberty and a new republic. His first act after the dissolution of the rump receives its explanation from this view of his cha- racter. In his own name and by his sole authority, on the 6th of June 1653, he convoked, or rather impressed, a parliament. It contained a few gentle- men of fortune and education; but the majority were vulgar, ignorant, and utterly incompetent. Of these, one hundred and twenty obeyed the sum- mons; the famous Barebones, a prating fanatic whose celebrity is owing entirely to his impudence, amongst the rest. Cromwell addressed them in Whitehall ; he told them that they had a clear call to undertake the government ; " he encouraged them with divers scriptures," not perhaps so much from an affectation of piety as because the scrip- 36i THE niSTORY OF CHAPTER turcs were in fact almost his only literature ; and ^^' he delivered to them an instrument of government PKOTEc- confidinsr the nation to their care, and limitinf^ their A.D.1G53. existence to the month of Novemhcr in the follow- ing year, when they were to nominate their suc- cessors and abdicate their functions. That such an assembly should succeed was impossible ;th at Cromwell wished it to succeed is most unlikely. It is more probable that he hoped by this manoeuvre at once to indulge the fanatics, and, as a political party, to destroy them ; a cunning device and perfectly successful, though unworthy of a states- man or a man of virtue. On the 5th of July they met and fasted ; on the 11th they chose a speaker, and set apart a clay for prayer ; and on the 13tli they passed a declaration " calling upon the godly to seek God for a blessing upon the nation." But they who expect that prayer and fasting will fit them to discharge the obligations which folly has imposed, are grievously deceived. When they proceeded to business they were a laughing-stock ; and happily their incapacity was soon apparent even to them- selves. In a few weeks they hurried back to AVhitehall and resigned their powers to Cromwell without even naming their successors. The name of a parliament was now odious, and government itself contemptible. Disgusted alike with every change, the nation acquiesced in the power of one strong hand. Thus the disgrace of his convention was a substantial addition to Cromwell's power. Their impotence contrasted with his vigour, and their failure with his own wonderful success. While every suljject to which they applied themselves THE lateh pueitans. 365 seemed too great for them, tlic executive govern- chapter ment beneath bis vigorous management rose every ^Jt day in public estimation. Wbile the parliament i'I'otec could devise, for example, no other remedy for the ^^,,1653. evils and delays of the law than the ridiculous measure of suppressing the court of chancery itself, the lord general was diffusing everywhere the bless- ings of cheap justice by choosing able judges and upright magistrates. The return to order, after a long period of distraction, went on rapidly. The army was successful in Ireland, and against the Scotch who still remained in arms ; and, above all, the vanity of England was inflamed by a series of brilliant victories at sea over the Spaniards and the Dutch. No successes were ever more opportune. The fears of the people had been thoroughly aroused. The Dutch fleet had thrown their cannon balls into the streets of Dover ; and the roaring of their guns, in an engagement at the Nore, had actually been heard in London. Within a few weeks their fleet was dispersed or taken, and their brave admiral Van Tromp was slain. The city was in a transport of delight ; and the impression was deepened by the circumstance of the death of Dean, the English admiral who fell in the action. His body was carried from Greenwich to Westminster by tlie Thames with funeral honours not at all inferior to those which were paid to Nelson by our fathers ; and he was buried in Westminster abbey with the utmost splendour, Cromwell himself attending as chief mourner. War was still the passion of the age, and the nation began to admire Cromwell as a deliverer and almost as a patriot, now that he A.D.1653. 366 THE niSTORY OF CHAPTER taught them once more that triumphs might be ^^- had abroad, and without the misery of civil war at PROTEC- home. One act of this short parliament deserves notice ; it is that which empowered the civil magistrate to perform the rights of marriage, and enacted further that no marriage otherwise performed should be legal. This latter clause, however, was soon after- wards repealed; but marriages continued to be celebrated before the civil powers till the restora- tion, when an act was passed legalizing all those which had been thus contracted, but prohibiting them for the future. Taken in connection with the terrible severity with which licentious crimes were punislied, this piece of legislation, at any time un- wise, seems utterly preposterous. It is the legis- lation of lunatics to remove the sanctions of a law and yet to visit the violation of it with aggravated penalties ! No sufficient reason for this strange act has been handed down to us. Paley suggests that it was meant to degrade the clergy ; but this does not appear. Probably some dim suspicion that religious marriage rites were superstitious troubled the understandings of Cromwell's senators. Since marriage was a sacrament at E/ome, in Eng- land it must be a civil contract. Thus imbecility reasons, childishly supposing that truth always lies exactly at the antipodes of error. Yet the notion that marriage is no more than a civil contract seems to liave awakened some misgivings in the parliament ; for though no religious services were required, or indeed permitted, the contracting parties were obliged to make a solemn vow " as in THE LATER PURITANS. 367 the name and presence of Almighty God ;" and chapter civil contracts require no such confirmation. Mar- ^^' riao-e is no doubt a civil contract so far that it may J'ii<^TEc- be contracted by heathens and by irreligious persons, a u. 1053. whose impiety detracts nothing from its obligations. Por the sake of such it may possibly be right to permit, though never to encourage, marriages purely secular. But the parliament of 1653 pro- fessed to legislate as christian statesmen for a christian community. They punished irreligion as an offence against the state. The respect they shewed for uneasy consciences they shewed only at the pillory and the whipping-post. Whatever were their motives, religious liberty, in connection with this subject, never crossed their minds. They knew that the relations of social life are sanctified by the word of God and by prayer. They knew that God had consecrated the state of matrimony to such an excellent mystery that in it is signified and repre- sented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his church. They knew that the viola- tion of its law incurred the divine displeasure, and even deserved at the hands of man, as they main- tained, an ignominious death. Yet they divorced marriage from religion ; and they even forbad the contracting parties to connect it with the tribute of thanksgiving or the devout utterance of prayer. In December the parliament resigned. In the same month the council of officers proclaimed their general lord-protector of a commonwealth consist- ing of three kingdoms. A constitution was pre- pared and published — the first in modern history of a series of experiments equally magnificent and 368 THE nisTorvY or CHAPTER abortive ; rich in promise, futile in practice. It - consisted of forty-two articles ; and the protector ri?T!'?l' heini? firmly seated, and havim? little to apprehend TOKA IE, ~ »' ' ^ ... A.D.1653. from any future parliament, one of its provisions was, that a house of commons should be chosen by free election of the ancient burgesses. It was an imperial parliament of four hundred members, in- cluding thirty Scotch and thirty Irish representa- tives. The franchise was now extended to some boroughs which the genius of trade had already touched with her magic wand. Manchester sent one member. Papists were excluded from the fran- chise, and of course from the parliament. Those who had taken part with the king during the late wars could neither sit nor vote at the next four elections, a period of twelve years ; for it was de- creed that parliaments should be triennial. On the whole, and taking into account the dominant posi- tion of Cromwell and his military friends, their parchment constitution (for such it proved) breathed a generous spirit, and bore some traces of a sincere regard for real liberty. But there are three articles w^hich concern reli- gion, and they are honourable to the party which framed them. The first of these (article xxxv.) provides for the maintenance of the national faith. In reference to tithes, which Avere then and long afterwards a source of irritation and uneasiness, it contemplates the substitution of a " provision less subject to scruple and contention, and more certain than the present ;" still enacting " that, until such provision be made, the present maintenance shall not be taken away or impeached." Thus a national THE LATER PURITANS. 369 church was under all circumstances to be steadfastly chapter maintained. Of the next article it is scarcely too — — — much to affirm that it laid the first foundations of ZHH' toleration and religious liberty in England, if not a.d. lesa. in Christendom. It briefly declares, that '* to the public profession held forth none sliall be compelled by penalties or otherwise ; but that endeavours be used to win them by sound doctrine and the example of a good conversation." Wise men, musing in their closets, had for some time questioned the wisdom, if not the justice, of compelling the dis- satisfied to embrace the religion of the greater number, and making their dissent a crime. But Cromwell was the first who dared not merely to give expression to the doubt, but to enrol the prin- ciple itself with the fundamental laws of England. The precious seed was never lost. E-eceived with hesitation at the time ; denounced by presbyterians as little short of blasphemy ; spurned by the parlia- ments of Charles II. with the same indiscriminate contempt with which all Cromwell's legislation was trampled under their feet, it still survived. The plant grew, for it was watered by the rains of heaven, and tens of thousands have reposed beneath its quiet shade. The next article more fully ex- plains the extent of the proposed toleration. All who professed faith in God through Jesus Christ, though difi'ering in judgment from the doctrine, discipline, or worship publicly held forth, were assured of protection in the profession of their faith and the exercise of their religion ; " provided, how- ever, this liberty be not extended to popery or pre- lacy, nor to such as, under the profession of Christ, B B A.D.1654. 370 THE niSTORT OP CHAPTER liold forth and practise licentiousness." Ever since ^^- the reformation popery had been prohibited as a PROTKC- treasonable offence. The subjects of the pope, it was held, must be disloyal to a protestant. If such severity were ever justifiable, it was so now, when the papists in Ireland were still in arms. But why should prelacy be placed beneath an interdict ? Except that it was loyal to the king, the only pretext was, that prelatists were engaged in those frequent plots which every month produced for assassinating the protector. Some reckless men of the church party were drawn into them, it is true, from time to time. Bat assassination was not less to the taste of the cavaliers than long prayers and presbyterian sermons. Their character was that upon which too many of the English gentry have always prided themselves. They placed their re- ligion in a few decent ceremonies, in high courage and a nice sense of honour, but chiefly in the last. Except in open battle, Cromwell had little to fear from their daggers. His alarms were reasonable, but his dangers lay in another quarter. He was in constant dread by night and day ; for he knew that he might fall by the hand of some religious fanatic ; one of those whom he himself perhaps, in former days, had trained ; and who nowj cast aside, was maddened with disappointment and revenge. Upon the whole, Cromwell was tolerant — more tolerant than the age approved, or than a sliort- sighted view of his own interests might have allowed. But the prelatists, with a few exceptions, still felt the weight of his hard hand. Though Pearson, Brownrigge, and Ussher Avere suffered to preach in THE LATER PURITANS. 371 London, there was no general toleration of episco- chai'teu pacy, nor even a licence for the prayer-book. The protector, in a letter of instruction addressed to the ^^o'^''^*^- T . . . . . TOKATE, judges of assize, gave directions, about this time, a.d.i654. that the magistrates should be required to be par- ticularly careful, amongst other nuisances, to sup- press ale-houses and the book of common prayer.* On Cromwell's sole authority, and that of his mili- tary cabinet, an ordinance was issued in April, 1654, the effect of which was to expose the few episcopa- lian clergy to intolerable hardships. The committee for scandalous ministers, chiefly composed of pres- byterians, had already thrust in the sickle with an unsparing hand ; a new commission was now issued to certain triers, who were sent in to glean the field. The triers were chiefly independents. Hugli Peters was one of them ; House, the speaker of the con- vention just dissolved, another ; from which the reader will probably infer that lenient measures were not intended. The powers of this commission were absolute. They sat in London at Whitehall, and sent out their sub-commissioners through England and Wales to investigate the character, lives, and doctrine of the clergy, and " to examine, judge, and approve all such persons as should be called to preach the gospel." Compared with this commission the star chamber itself was constitu- tional. The triers were despotic ; their determination was final and absolute ; yet they were amenable to no law, and they were bound by no precedents. Their own judgment was their sole guide. Their will was law. The good or evil which they did was regu- * Walker, Sufferings, part i. p. 179. B B 2 372 THE niSTOUY OF CHAPTER latcd by the wisdom and integrity they possessed or wanted. One of tlieir duties was the rejection of IX. I'KOTKC- r^r....'rx- scandalous and unfit ministers ; hut of that scandal 1 OKA 1 r>, A.D. 1G54. or unfitness they were the sole judges. They were a spiritual court martial, without a military code to guide them. They summoned witnesses from the parishioners of the accused, and upon their deposi- tions, often prejudiced with malice or tinged with violent party spirit, the minister was forthwith suspended or deprived ; and he had no redress. The clergy who were presented with vacant benefices (and their proceedings, it may be supposed, created not a few vacancies,) had to pass the fiery ordeal of the triers, whose commission ran in these general terms : They were to satisfy themselves that every person so nominated " was a person, for the grace of God in him, his holy and unblameable conversa- tion, and also for his knoAvledge and utterance, able and fit to preach the gospel." The requirements themselves are moderate we allow ; the demands are reasonable and the standard scriptural ; but it was justly objected to the ordinance, that it specified no one particular save that of a holy conversation, leaving all the rest couched in the general terms of grace, knowledge, and utterance. But what measure of grace, knowledge, and utterance was to form the standard? and how was the existence of these virtues to be proved? The first is essential, the second useful, the third important. But may not the abundance of the one compensate in some measure for the want of the other two ? And if we grant that the triers were competent, as they probably were, to determinate in many instances tliat grace was wanting, yet how were they to ascertain its THE LATER PURITANS. 373 presence, unless the discerning of spirits had been chapter imparted — a spiritual gift to fit them for their office? ^f^ — This latitude left the accused, in short, at the mercy JiJ^jJ^^^" of the triers. They might condemn without assign- a.d.i654. ing any cause but general unfitness, or, in their own fatal words, " not approved." Their arbitrary pro- ceedings, their partiality and delay, are said to have exceeded the worst oppressions of the prelates. In their examinations no inquiries, it is said, were made with reference to useful learning. The great points of christian doctrine, the trinity, the incarnation and satisfaction of our blessed Lord, were wholly over- looked : no heresies or errors but what they called arminianism were considered; but a few jejune and useless questions were asked, relating chiefly to the then discriminating points of election and reproba- tion. In short, the indictment against them is concluded thus by the formidable historian of their delinquencies : " The best and most useful divine would, generally speaking, have been rejected, if, instead of believing in Jesus Christ, he did not testify faith towards John Calvin, and repentance or obe- dience to the lord-protector Oliver Cromwell."* But the whole proceeding was conducted in revo- lutionary times, and when the spiritual affairs of the nation were yet unsettled. Perhaps this considera- tion affords some apology. The ecclesiastical courts had been destroyed ; they had sunk in the fathom- less deep of public hatred. This was an attempt to erect a new spiritaul tribunal ; and candour will investigate the intentions of its founders, rather than the success of their first experiment. Was Crom- * Walker, part i. p. 178. TOHATK, A D. ICM 374 THE IIISTOHY OF CHAPTER well anxious to purify the ministry, or, under that ^-^- pretext, to detect and punish the royalists? Probably rKOTKc- tiie answer would be, that while he sincerely aimed at the former of these objects, he was by no means IndiiTerent to the latter. His puritan education had not lost its influence. lie knew that the scriptures were the only source of truth in religion ; he knew tliat the religion which did not produce a holy life was an imposture ; and though his moral sense was now perverted, and his conscience somewhat callous, he had not cast aside the restraints of religion : he ackno\^iedged its importance if he did not feel its power ; and he probably quieted some of his own misgivings by these efforts to place the blessings of the gospel within the reach of other men. In his methods he was never scrupulous : the work was to be done, and the rudest instrument was the best. Ilugh Peters — hard, desperate, fanatical, the mortal enemy of all Laudian superstitions — would naturally appear to him the fittest because the most expedi- tious agent. Cromwell, too, was deeply impressed with a very simple truth which other politicians have overlooked. Ueligion should interest the mul- titude. It should controul their passions and at the same time occupy their hearts. AYithout it govern- ment is always difficult, and freedom impossible ; for man is restless, impatient, and dissatisfied. Ue- ligion diverts him from his sorrows, and offers him repose. The shows and impostures of popery may for a time suffice, but England had outlived them. The Laudian compromise with popery was a heart- less uninteresting affair. There remained the bible, fathomless in the interest it yields, as in the in- THE LATEH PURITANS. 375 struction it imparts. The exposition of the scrip- chaptek tures in every parish by men profoundly jealous for its authority, and in general fairly representing something at least of its spirit in their lives, would supply what Cromwell wanted — a constant occupa- tion for restless and dissatisfied men, solace for the disappointed, and hope for all. Ilad Cromwell been an atheist he might have reasoned thus, and so far he would have reasoned well. A merely secular policy would have made him sincere in his endea- vours to purify the church. The examinations were sometimes conducted in a disgraceful manner : the questions were difficult, captious, and even ridiculous. Several of the re- jected clergy preserved minutes of their examina- tions. Mr. Sadler was examined by Nye, Tombes, and Peters, who were not ashamed, amongst a multitude of similar questions, to demand whether regeneration were a substance or an accident, and in what predicament ? Whether motions to sin before consent are sinful ? Whether dreams of killing, or other wickedness, are sinful ? What is the breath of the soul ? The heat of the soul ? The action of the soul ? And whether God was willing or un- willing that Adam should fall? to which Sadler makes answer thus: "It is a dark question. I conceive, with submission to your judgment, that there was a willing unwillingness." Nye himself was confounded with a distinction which had the merit of equalling the absurdity of his own queries, and of being just as unintelligible. Where, said he, do you find that in scripture ? " The question," rei^lied Sadler, " is at least as dark as the answer." It 370 THE niSTORY OF ( iiAPTEu was always a test of puritan orthodoxy to deny that the church of Rome was a true church. What say TORATE, y^^^j asked the commissioner, of the church of A.D.1654. Rome. Is it a true church or no? Bishop Hall says it is : so do the priests and Jesuits ; and so did he that was executed the other day (meaning Laud no douht). AVhat say you ? " It is no true church ;" answered Sadler, " she was pure, but she is defiled." Sadler was rejected, but rather be- cause his patron was a peeress than he an unsound divine.* Yet the testimony of Baxter is on the whole in favour of the triers. He was a competent judge, and certainly no friend to Cromwell. lie did not admit their right or own the validity of their power, and he refused to sit on the commission. Their authority, he says, was null ; some of the indepen- dents among them were over busy and too severe ; too particular in enquiring after evidences of sanc- tification in those whom they examined, and some- what too lax in their admission of unlearned men, of antinomians and anabaptists ; yet, he adds, to give them their due, they did abundance of good to the church. They saved many a congregation from ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers ; from that sort of ministers that either preached against a holy life or preached as men who never were acquainted with it; from those who used the ministry as a common trade, and were never likely to convert a soul. They were somewhat partial, he admits, to the independents, separatists, fifth monarchy men, and anabaptists, and against prelatists and armi- * Walker, Sufferings, part i. p. 175. THE LATEU PURITANS. 377 nians ; yet they did more good than harm ; so that chapter many thousands of souls blessed God for the faithful ^^' ministers they brought in, and grieved when the ^i'<^tec- prelatists ejected them.* — Such is the history of ^^ 1/1654' Cromwell's ecclesiastical commission. Its methods were uncertain, its principles on many points un- fixed, its hatred of prelacy a morbid disease, its pro- ceedings violent. It had to contend against enor- mous evils — evils for which a remedy was wanted; but the judges were partial ; their proceedings bore the appearance of injustice; and it will be seen hereafter that the voice of the nation refused to sanction their awards. It is one of those amusing calumnies which, assuming gravity, seat themselves in the chair of history and impose upon the world, that the puritans of the commonwealth were ignorant men who hated learning. When it suited Cromwell's purpose to flatter the fanatics, no doubt he raised a Barebones to importance or thrust Hugh Peters into an eccle- siastical commission. But the condition of the uni- versities gives abundant proof both of his own respect for learning and of the number and attainments of his learned men. When the engagement was imposed, several of the presby terians who were heads of houses resigned, and the more complying independents were appointed. Owen became vice-chancellor of Oxford, and Cromwell, with a graceful avowal of his unfit- ness for the place, accepted the ofiice of chancellor. He was anxious to promote in others that learning of which he felt the want. Cambridge throughout the commonwealth was under the guidance of learned o * Baxter, book i. p. /-• 378 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEii men, unless Cud worth, More, Wliiclicotc, Mcdc, and ^^' Wortliington should be thought unworthy of the iKdTEc- name. In these puritan schools, and durinc? the AD. 1654. protectorate, were educated the divines, the jurists, and the philosophers of the next age. Poole, Stillingfleet, and Tillotson, now Cambridge under- graduates, ahvays spoke with respect of their instructors. If Tillotson qualified his approbation of their learning, it was only to compliment their piety. If the royalists, he said, were the better scholars, the puritans were the better men. Oxford, under Cromwell, nourished the genius and directed the studies of not a few great men Avhose fame will never die. Locke and South were students at Christ-church ; — Locke, the great founder of the English school of metaphysics ; South, a divine of unbounded popularity ; who, however, first con- trived the unnatural union between consummate wisdom and the wit which stoops to coarse buf- foonery ; a style that Swift brought to its perfec- tion, and that expired in our own day with Sydney Smith. South was a pulpit Iludibras. His hatred of the puritans and his love of tormenting them was the passion of his life. Yet his invectives carried their antidote along with them ; for though his weapons were, it is true, the gift of nature, his skill in using them he had learned in a puritan university under Dr. John Owen the independent. Wilkins, the warden of Wadham, with Boyle and Oldenburg for his younger associates, was laying the foundation for a new philosophy — the philosophy of experiment, which resulted in the royal society and in a new epoch in the world of science. The THE LATEE PURITANS. 379 love of deep learning was now for the first time chapter widely diffused. In 1653 Walton issued proposals — for publishing his noble polyglot bible in the oriental '''"^"^l^^'- languages. It was published in 1657, at a great a.d.i654. expense, and its value was well understood, for it is said to have been the first book in England that was published by subscription.* About this time the fifth monarchy men appeared upon the stage. It is difficult to speak with any degree of confidence as to their real character. In their tenets, which were pronounced impious and abominable, we see little to object against. They held, in common we presume with every sincere christian, the future reign of Christ. The prophet Daniel has marked out four great monarchies, all of them the monarchies of antichrist. To these a fifth succeeds, the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth ; and the establishment of this kingdom is the hope and prayer and expectation of the church. So far the fifth monarchy men held no other opinions than those which, with certain modifications of time and manner, every student of prophecy entertains. The error into which they fell was of another kind. Not content to wait for the fulfilment of God's promises, they would force them onwards. They must throw down every obstacle, and so prepare the way by violence for tlie setting up of the Messiah's throne ; of which, it may be, they entertained, as did the early christians under circumstances not very dis- similar, carnal and unworthy notions. They had seen that shaking of nations which they believed ta be the prelude of the Lord's coming ; but instead of * Life of Dr. Worthiugton, Chetham Soc. p. 50. IX. PROTEC- TORATE, A.D. lCi4 3S0 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEK girding' up the loins of tlieir mind tlicy girded on the sword. They resolved to destroy every existing government in order to make room for this. It is probahle, notwithstanding the unmeasured censure with which writers of every class have overwhelmed them, that there were good men amongst them ; for there was nothing in their creed inconsistent with true piety. Every party had its fanatics, w^hosc distempered minds were wrought into a state of frenzy. And the fifth monarchy men were certainly, in proportion to their numbers, amongst the greatest delinquents in this respect. But their party was extinguished soon after the restoration, and suc- ceeding writers have not ventured to defend their blemished reputation. Yet if we had been com- pelled to judge of the quakers, the anabaptists, or even the prelatists of the commonwealth by the descriptions of tlieir opponents, we should probably have regarded them by this time with equal scorn. To defame any society it is only necessary to dwell exclusively upon its follies and its crimes. To return to political affairs. The protector was in no haste to assemble his new parliament. At length it met in September, lG5i. It was a free parliament, the first now seen in England for many years, and it immediately divulged its character and with it the feelings of the nation. The new constitution of the previous December had enacted that the supreme government should be placed in the hands of one man, and that Oliver himself should be the protector. The parliament was to assume this as a settled point, and to conduct itself submissively. But the free spirit of a body of THE LATER PUUITANS. 381 English gentlemen who felt that they represented chapter three nations was not so easily subdued. Cromwell " wished them to enter upon the affairs of the country ; ^|'//^^^^' they made it their first business to inquire upon a.l».i654. what authority they had been convened. Who was Cromwell — who his military council ; and what submission was due to them ? The protector fore- saw the storm and endeavoured to avert it. He repeated the experiment of administering a decla- ration compelling the house to profess allegiance to his protectorate. A considerable number refused and were excluded by his soldiers ; but the rest were after all unmanageable. His constitution had provided that the parliament should sit at least five months before it could be dissolved. But Cromwell was impatient. He amended the constitution by the calendar, and at the expiration of five lunar months summoned them to meet him in the painted chamber ; harangued them for several hours in a long and tedious speech ; upbraided them with every political transgression ; flung out accusations of parricide and high treason ; and concluded thus : *' I think it my duty to tell you that it is not for the profit of these nations nor for the common and public good for you to continue here any longer, and therefore I do declare unto you that I dissolve this parliament."* It is creditable to English his- torians that this audacious act waited two hundred years for its panegyrist. The records of despotism afford neither interest * Whitelocke, p. 599. This sjieech, which, from its rambling and desul- tory character, seems to have been taken down verbatim, occupies thirteen folio columns. 382 TnE HISTORY OF ciiAPTLrv nor variety. Cromwell and his officers were abso- ^^' lute, more absolute than any of the Tudors, and I'ROTEc- ^^i^QyQ followed four years of silence. Puritanism A.i).ic»t. on the whole was buoyant, but it was not without its discontents. Cromwell, but for his consummate selfishness, would have been a friend to liberty, at least in religion. But the presbyterians were in- dignant because he took no pains to promote their interests ; the independents thought him almost an atheist because he befriended the jews and sanc- tioned the translation of the koran. The sectaries and levellers abhorred him as a tyrant. Of all persuasions the quakers seem to have liked him best. lie loathed oppression except when he him- self was the oppressor, and they found in him almost their only friend. Yet had Cromwell's life been prolonged ten years, England might have fallen into a state of spiritual anarchy not less disastrous to the interests of religion than the vile profligacy which succeeded at the restoration. Por he ex- tended as far as possible to men of all opinions, provided they were both earnest and sincere, not merely toleration but preferment. Hence the stan- dard of truth became in popular estimation, even in essential points, uncertain. A national church would soon have been impossible, and a national endowment would not have long survived. The farmer who pays tithes in two neighbouring parishes where the clergy contradict each other soon arrives at the conclusion that in one or other his money is misspent ; and, unless deeply imbued with religious principle, he conducts his argument through a second stage, and concludes that religion being so THE LATER PTJIIITANS. 883 uncertain lio may withhold the support of its mi- chapter nisters. Yet Baxter, insensible to these conclusions, '. — . being consulted by the protector, was anxious to ^^JJjj^^^ establish a national church upon the simple basis a.d.ig54. of the Lord's prayer, the two ancient creeds, and the ten commandments. "Why," exclaimed his friends, " this will admit socinians and papists !" "So much the better," he replied; "that is an argument in favour of the scheme. If they teach false doctrine it is the business of the executive government to punish them. But devise what tests you will, some heretics will always subscribe to them." It is well for England that his associates in this affair had more good sense than Baxter. The line he would have drawn between the legisla- tive and executive government was childish and impracticable. The office of the executive was, according to his theory, to interpret and expound the principles, few and meagre as they were, of the legislative department. This could only have been done either by confirming the titles of all those who subscribed, which was simply to do nothing, or by adding tests and explanations which imme- diately became a substantial addition to the articles imposed. So that in the course of time one of two alternatives must have occurred ; papists and so- cinians must have possessed the benefices of the church undisturbed, or an ecclesiastical chancery with its complicated judgments and cumbrous pre- cedents, all having the force of law, must have been called into existence. On this supposition Baxter's ideal cliurch would have become within twenty years more impregnable to a tender conscience than 3S4! THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER any church in Christendom. It may be worth ^^' while to mention the names of the committee to pROTEc- ^yri^om Cromwell had committed the task of deter- TORATE, AD. i6ai-8. mining the fundamentals of the future church of England. Ussher was the first, but he declined, as Baxter somewhat peevishly remarks, because of his age and his unwillingness to wrangle with such men as were to join with him. The rest were, Marshall, Rayner, Cheynell, Goodwin, Owen, Nye, Simpson, Vines, Manton, Jacombe, and Baxter. Nothing further appears to have been done in this matter.* The independents were now at the zenith of their power. They enjoyed Cromwell's favour and more of the national regard than their rivals the prcsby- terians. The triers had made room for many of them in the vacant benefices. Their conduct shews that the turbulence they had witnessed, and in no small degree assisted in producing, had at length chastised their spirit and taught them forbearance and the love of peace. They obtained from Crom- well permission to hold an independent synod in the Savoy, in October 1658. Their session was not long ; for, as they took the Westminster assembly for their guide in all questions of doctrine, a few omissions and amendments, chiefly referring to the points at issue between the rival churches, was all that was required. To the Westminster confession a chapter was added " of the gospel and the grace thereof," and an appendix " on the constitution of a christian church," in which the independent scheme is of course maintained. But the reader who is * Baxter, i. p. VJ8. THE LATER PURITANS. 385 anxious to know what profound learning, with equal chapter powers of reasoning, can advance in behalf of this '- — form of government will read Owen's enquiry into ^^^'|?vpe the origin and order of evangelical churches ; a a.d. 1054-8. treatise which scarcely shrinks from a comparison with Hooker, and ought indeed to be read along with it.* The preface to the declaration of their faith and order issued by the Savoy divines breathes a noble spirit of charity and moderation ; though a churchman may feel himself aggrieved that the hierarchy and common prayer-book are still spoken of as " grievous to God's people." Of the differences between the presbyterians and themselves they say, that " these are differences between fellow- servants, neither of them having authority from God or man to impose their opinions one more than another." f There is some exaggeration in the statement of a great historian that the independents were always the steadfast friends of liberty, but certainly they were always in advance of other parties. But Cromwell's life was drawing to a close. In 1656 he called together another parliament and his foruier difficulties at once confronted him. Again he had recourse to his stale expedient. He excluded all whom he disliked, and the list included every member who had the least claim to be considered a man of honour or a patriot. The excluded members published an impassioned protest. This man, they said,hath assumed an absolute, arbitrary, sovereignty as if he came down from the throne of God : by * An enquiry into the original nature, &c, of Evangelical churclies. By John Owen, D.D., 1681. t A declaration of the faith and order, &c. of the congregational churches in England, agreed upon, &c.. 1G58. C C 386 THE HISTORY OF cHAPTEu force of arms lie lias invaded the fundamental rip^ht IX. . . 1^ — and liberty of England ; his armed men have pre- TORATE vented the free meeting and sitting of the intended A.D.1656. parliament, and he has forcibly shut out such mem- bers as he and his council could neither frighten nor flatter to betray their country and their religion, and become subservient to his lawless ambition. This act doth change the state of the people from free- dom to mere slavery, and whosoever hath advised or assisted the lord protector is a capital enemy to the commonwealth and guilty of high treason ; and they made their appeal, in conclusion, to God and all the good people of England for assistance and pro- tection.* But the protector could not recede, nor would his position allow him to remain inactive. Not to take a further step was to lose all that he had gained. With the exception of his cabal of offi- cers he had scarcely one political friend ; but if he could create an aristocracy and place himself at its head, he might possibly revive some enthusiasm amongst the higher classes, and at the same time he might gratify the multitude, whose passionate love for the ancient monarchy was, he now discovered, at least equal to their hatred of its occasional excesses. A compliant parliament, such as he had now pro- cured, was of course his facile instrument. In April they completed a scheme, " which they had been long about," f for the settlement of the nation ; in which they implored his highness to accept the title of king. The protector affected to be coy, took a fortnight to consider, and on the twentieth of April reluctantly refused. Ee had reason : his offi- * Whitelocke, p. 640. f Whitelocke, p. 646. THE LATER PURITx\NS. 387 cers were enraged ; and on the ninth a plot had been chapter discovered which was to have been headed by major — general Harrison in person, with the most unrelent- i^QpATE ing of the fanatics ; and Cromwell's life, or certainly a.d. igoz. his protectorship, was in the utmost jeopardy. He had summoned the house for the next day, design- ing, as all supposed, to declare his acceptance of the crown ; but, the evening before, he met his brother- in-law colonel Desborough in the park, and told him of his intention. " Then," said Desborough, *'Igive up Cromwell's cause and family for lost." Des- borough went to colonel Pride and related what had passed. "I tell you," said Desborough, "he will be a king." " And I," said the rough soldier, " tell you that he shan't." A petition or remonstrance was immediately prepared, and handed to the pro- tector. It was signed by thirty-three of his chief officers then in London ; it was expressed in few words ; but it concluded with a significant intima- tion, that " for the preservation of the old cause they were most ready to lay down their lives." * Cromwell and his parliament were equally astonished; and with much ostentation of self-denial he now at once refused the title. He feared a general mutiny. In December, still evidently longing for a crown, he created a peerage and an upper house of parliament, and summoned sixty members to it. Amongst them, although several were invited, only one of the ancient peerage condescended to take his seat. Sir Arthur Haselrigge, whose name heads the remonstrance of the rejected members, was flattered with the offer of a place among the new lords ; but his republican * Ludlow, p. 225. cc 2 388 TUE HISTORY OF CHAPTER spirit cliafcd, and lie refused to sit with them, or sat IX. only to protest against their right to legislate at rf°Tf^' all.* The commons would not reco2:nise the exist- TORATE, O A.D.1657. ence of this new house and returned no answer to its messages. Everything was hastening to confu- sion, when once more the protector took his reso- lution suddenly and dissolved the parliament, — it w^as the last that he convoked. The nation had hegun to view these struggles between Cromwell and his parliament with great indifference. It is only now and then that English- men abandon themselves to politics. They expect the affairs of the state to proceed smoothly without constant interference. And if they had no respect for Cromwell, they had learned to put no trust in parliaments. There had been a political debauch, there was now a political prostration. Political enthusiasm had had its day, and it was succeeded by political apathy. The old landmarks were gone ; and few had any further interest in stemming the inun- dation of the rising waters. The most restless some- times want repose, and the nation was exhausted, sleepy, and unconcerned. It saw Cromwell's inso- lent dismissal of the last parliament with far more indifference than sixteen years before it had seen * Whitelocke, p. GJ'S. Ilaselrigge it is certain sat in this parliament. " The second narrative of the hite parhament, printed in the fifth year of England's slavery, 1()58," speaks of him as " a knight of the old stani]) — cut out by the protector for a lord of the other house : but he missed his way, and instead of going into the other house, he went into the parlia- ment house among his fellow-Englishmen, and there spoke freely, bearing a good witness in behalf of the good old cause, the rights and liberties of the peo])le of England ; at which the court were vexed and sore dis- pleased." Cromwell must have felt that his power was very precarious "hen he permitted Haselrigge thus to set him at defiance in his own packed house of commons, from which he had been excluded ! THE LATER PURITANS. 389 Prynnc in the pillory, or the sawing off of Dr. Bast- chapter wick's ears. Besides, the protector's government, to overlook the flaw in his title, was not unpopular, torate^ Justice had never heen so well administered ; trade a.d.igss. and commerce flourished anew ; and industry was encouraged. The old nobility were ruined, and the royalists were sometimes oppressed ; and from Lon- don there came the news, at times, of the execution of virtuous men, — of Powell and Dr. Hewet and sir Henry Slingsby, for treason against the common- wealth. But these occurrences did not affect public opinion at a distance, especially in the large towns and seaports whose influence now began to prepon- derate. Still he had many causes for anxiety. His dynasty was not taking root. No warm affections on the part of the nation entwined themselves around his person or gave promise to embrace his son. His death would probably be the signal for universal anarchy or the restoration of the king. Por he had settled nothing ; his constitution was obsolete already ; it perished when he broke up his parliament and his house of lords ; and he still governed by the sword. The hopes of the royalists were every day more sanguine, and he had spies in every company who informed him of their plans. Thus several conspiracies were detected. He was not cruel by nature and he spared some of the ring- leaders, but they were no sooner set at liberty than with a desperate courage they plunged into fresh treasons. Those whom he executed died with exul- tation ; and the crowds returned home from Tower- hill and Tyburn certainly with no deeper sense of the duty of allegiance to a usurper. The political 390 THE HISTOUY OF CHAPTER fanatics thirsted for his life, and scarcely concealed — — their intentions ; many of them would have suffered TORATE death with pleasure could they but have assassinated A.D.1658. the man whom they regarded as a traitor and a tyrant. Colonel Titus, under the name of William Allen, published his famous pamphlet " Killing no Murder." A plot against the protector's life by one Sindercombe had been brought to light ; the par- liament congratulated his highness and ordered a day of thanksgiving. " My design," says the author, " is to examine whether, if there hath been such a plot, and that it was contrived by Mr. Sindercombe against my lord protector, (and not by my lord protector against Mr. Sindercombe, which is doubtful,) whether it deserves those epi- thets which Mr. Speaker is pleased to give it, of bloody, wicked, and proceeding from the prince of darkness. I know very well how incapable the vulgar are of considering what is extraordinary and singular in every case ; and that they judge of things by their exterior appearances without pene- tratins: at all into their causes or natures. And, without doubt, when they hear the protector was to be killed they straight conclude that a man was to be murdered, not a malefactor punished ; for they think the formalities do always make the things themselves, and that it is the judge and the crier that makes the justice, and the jail the criminal. Now," he proceeds, '* that I may be as plain as I can, I shall first make it a question, which indeed is none, whether my lord protector be a tyrant or not. Secondly, if he be, whether it is lawful to do justice upon him. Thirdly, if it be lawful, whether THE LATER PURITANS. 391 it is likely to be profitable or noxious to the common- chaptek wealth." Each of these points is argued with an — ^^ — amazing display of learning and, notwithstanding the ^JJ^^^^' wit and satire which flash in every sentence, with a a.d.i659. dreadful earnestness. Amongst those who, stung to madness, have turned upon their oppressors with a terrible yet calm revenge, and in justification of their cod duct have laboured to make the worse appear the better reason, colonel Titus is the chief. " The civil law," he says, " makes tyrants of two sorts. The one is called a tyrant because he has no right to govern, the other because he governs tyrannically. We will very briefly discourse of them both and see whether the Protector may not with great justice put in his claim to both titles." This preliminary question settled, he advances to the second, and the last. All history sacred and profane pays in its contributions; Aristotle and Plutarch, Hooker and Milton, Grotius and Machiavel, the Old testament and the New,are pressed into the nefarious service; and seem to countenance the doctrine that assassination is a lawful means of ridding the earth of tyrants. The work is dedicated to Cromwell in the fol- lowing strain : " How I have spent some hours of the leisure your highness hath been pleased to give me, this following paper will give your highness an account. How you will please to interpret it I cannot tell ; but I can with confidence say my intention in it is to procure your highness that justice nobody yet does you. To your highness justly belongs the honour of dying for the people ; and it cannot choose but be unspeakable consolation to you in the last moments of your life to consider 392 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER IX. with how mucli benefit to the world you arc like to leave it. It is then only, my lord, that the titles PROTEC- >J ' J » TORATE, you now usurp will be truly yours ; you will then A.D.165S. indeed be the deliverer of your country, and free it from a bondage little inferior to that from which Moses delivered his." Cromwell must have read the conclusion, as every man must read it, with a shudder : " Let every one to whom God hath given the spirit of wisdom and courage be persuaded by his honor, his safety, his own good, and his country's, and the duty he owes to his generation and to man- kind, to endeavour by all rational means to free the world of this pest There are those even in his own muster-rolls that are ambitious of the name of the deliverers of their country ; and they know what the action is that will purchase it. His bed, his table, is not secure ; and he stands in need of other guards to defend him against his own. Death and destruction pursue him wherever he goes. They follow him everywhere like his fellow travellers, and at last they will come upon him like armed men. Darkness is hid in his secret places. lie shall flee from the iron weapon, and a bow of steel shall strike him through... We may be confident, and so may he, that ere long all this will be accomplished: for the triumphing of the wicked is but short, and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment."* It has been said, with how much truth we cannot tell, that Cromwell read the treatise and never smiled again. It is related too that he wore armour * Killing no ^lurdcr, briefly discoursed in three questions fit for public view, to deter and prevent tyrants from usur|)ing sui)reiue power. Dedir tated to Oliver Cromwell bv William Allen. I'KOTEC- TOllATE, A.D. 1658, THE LATER PURITANS. 393 beneath his clothes ; hut this could have been chapteu IX. known only to his friends, and they would not have U disclosed it. But an accident occurred which plainly shewed tliat he was aware of danger. Driving one day in the park his horses became restive and threw him from the carriage : a loaded pistol exploded in his pocket, and betrayed the apprehensions he would gladly have concealed. The number of his guards at Whitehall, and the difficulty with which he had been approached of late, were probably owing to these misgivings, though at the time they were generally supposed to be mere indications of his taste for royalty. His court during the last few years of his life equalled, if it did not surpass, the regal state of the magnificent Elizabeth. But his own conscience was probably his chief tormentor. He was a religious man ; from childhood familiar with the bible, and with the strict and honest in- terpretation of it. In his youth he had felt deep impressions of the most solemn kind ; he seemed to be converted ; and for a while his manner of life was worthy of hi^ new principles. He had now stifled his conscience for many years, but his whole conduct shews that he had not silenced it. But he had no taste for those boisterous pleasures, or that elegant dissipation, in which thought is drowned and the mind weakened ; the elaborate frivolity of a court was nauseous to him. In business only could he find relief, and business reminded him of much that he would gladly have forgotten. His share in the war, in the king's death, in the execution of so many of the royalists and in the subversion of real liberty, must have been often in 394 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER his thoughts. Necessity was the only plea, yet ^I: — where was the necessity ? His own judgment PROTEc- fQj,ggf| i^ijj^ Iq correct the decisions of tlio council chamber by the word of God. How could he justify his subversion of the repubhc which he had sworn to guard ? Was he conscious of no guilty ambition in his attempt to wear the crown ? He had been the hero and the leader of a great cause ; he had drawn his sword for justice, for religion, and for God. Had he not betrayed his country? Had he not disgraced the cause of religion ? Had lie not forsaken God ? His health was already broken, his spirits had failed, when in August his beloved daughter Glaypole died. He had lost a son in battle, and keenly felt all the anguish of a father. But death was more appalling now, in the silence of the sick chamber, to one who felt that its sen- tence had gone forth against himself. He retired to Hampton court, worn down and stricken in heart. Sick and restless he returned to Whitehall, and in a few days it was evident tliat he had not long to live. He nominated his son liichard his successor, and, as a dying man, addressed himself to his spiritual concerns. It is said that he now sent for Goodwin, one of his chaplains, (not John Goodwin the arminian leader,) and inquired whether it were possible to fall from grace. Being answered in the negative, he spoke with assurance of his sal- vation ; " for," said he, " I am sure that I was once in grace." But the truth of the story is question- able, nor can it be regarded as of much consequence. The diseased curiosity which pries into the sick chamber and notes down the incoherent sayings of THE LATER PURITANS. 395 dying men, is of no importance when we would chapter estimate a life. The new testament does not afford '. — a single instance of that graphic death-bed scenery borate which forms so large a part of modern religious a.d.i658. biography ; nor does the old, if we except the last sweet notes of inspiration breathed by patriarchs and prophets when they stood upon the threshold of eternity ; we owe in fact this morbid fancy to the puritans. Cromwell's last words were collected with even more than usual care, and published to the world by one of his attendants.* His sayings do not appear to contain anything remarkable. They are such as thousands have uttered under similar circumstances, and the value of the expres- sions is to be tried by the holiness of the previous life. "It is a fearful thing," he exclaimed re- peatedly, " to fall into the hands of the living God." Then, after a while, meditating on the promises of God made to sinners through Christ, he said, " The Lord hath filled me with as much assurance of his pardon and his love as my soul can hold. I am a conqueror, and more than conqueror, through Christ who strengtheneth me." Deeper penitence and less rapture would have been more in season at the close of such a life as his. He offered up a fervent prayer for the nation ; of which it has been said, and not without some justice, that it is the invocation of a mediator rather than the meek petition of a sinner. On the whole Cromwell's death-bed does not greatly exalt his reputation as a religious man. It is anti- nomianism under a thin disguise. The tone of his * A collection of several passages concerning Oliver Cromwell's sickness, by a groom of his bedchamber, 1659. 396 THE HISTORY OF ciiArxEu mind and the current of his thoughts led him to '-^ — gather comfort, not so much from an humble assur- TORATE ^^^® °^ ^^^® Saviour's love and of the Spirit's presence, A.D.165S. as of the safety of those for whose salvation God had covenanted. Yet his prayer ends well ; and the last words of Cromwell touch us with pity if they cannot warm us into respect. " Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are thy people too. And pardon the folly of this short prayer. And give me rest for Jesus Christ's • sake ; to w^hom with thee and thy Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory, now and for ever. Amen." On the 3rd of September, 1658, the spirit of Cromwell passed away into the presence of his Judge. The character of this extraordinary man, buried beneath the slanders of two centuries, is now once more disinterred. The eagerness with which it is discussed, and the extreme variety of the conclusions w^hicli our living writers draw from it, will probably aiford hereafter a curious subject in the light of which posterity will study the condition of England, and of English feeling political and religious, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Yet the cha- racter of the protector was made up of few and simple materials, and the dissection of it is by no means difficult. To those indeed who regard puri- tanism with scorn, and who under that name in- clude the spiritual religion wliich in its worst days puritanism always represented, it must be unintelli- gible, and their descriptions of it will often be absurd. They can neither appreciate his merits nor his faults, for they arc ignorant of the sources from THE LATER PURITANS. 397 which they rose. On the whole, however, it is cnArxEit evident that Cromwell's reputation will gain by the ^ll — discussion, though not by any means to the extent ^!^'^J^^^ desired by his modern eulogists. Excessive censure a.d.i65s. has been less injurious to Cromwell than extra- vagant applause to his unhappy sovereign. This is but natural; for the one indeed rudely embalms the reputation ; the other, with its superfluous care, corrodes and at length destroys it : and when the cerements perish we find only dust and bones un- derneath. The injustice with which Cromwell has been treated has at length recoiled, and the violence of hatred is followed, and almost equalled, by that of a senseless and indiscriminate applause. He was scarcely laid in his grave when the sycophants who had composed his court began to fawn upon Charles II. and to offer to the new divinity the grateful incense of their calumny. The most preposterous and dis- gusting falsehoods were everywhere circulated and everywhere believed. Cromwell was not only an upstart and an usurper, but every crime defaced his character; he was a profligate, a tyrant, unnatural, a liar, above all a hypocrite. The last was the favourite charge, which, by the popular method of computation, included all the rest. As the age became profane Cromwell was made the prototype of seriousness in religion ; and for a hundred years it was enough to discountenance all that was real in piety to term it puritanical and to hint that Cromwell was a puritan. Even a well-iD formed reader, unless his studies have been accidentally directed to the pamphlet literature of the period of Charles II., has no conception of the audacious yet 39S THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER amusino: calumnies which were then uttered witli- IX. out a blush. Cromwell, a monster of vice, was in TORATE actual league and compact with the devil. The AD. 1658. bargain was concluded on the plain of Worcester the day before the battle : the prince of darkness had appeared in person on the field, and there and then the usurper entered into a solemn treaty with him, the tempter securing him the victory and he sur- rendering to the fiend his soul and body in return. It happened that an awful tempest raged when Cromwell died, (or, according to a more accurate statement, two days before,) and the coincidence was too important to be lost. The chroniclers of a lying age turned it to the best account. The great enemy of God and man, they said, had come rushing upon the hurricane, and it was he that howled in the tempest in frantic anticipations and fiendish joy, as he watched the agonies of his victim and waited for his last breath ! The story is gravely related by several writers, and slily alluded to by others, who seem ashamed expressly to repeat what they were still anxious to circulate, and to impress on the credulity of England. Of Cromwell's religious character the reader will by this time have formed a judgment of his own. As a statesman his abilities were not of the highest order. He entered the house of commons a plain English gentleman of the second class, somewhat deficient in bearing and more in education. He afi'ected a slovenly demeanour, strangely at variance with that love of pomp which he afterwards dis- played when lord-protector : it was probably assumed from vanity, and to shew an independent spirit. THE LATER PURITANS. 399 His eloquence was sometimes so obscure as to be chapter almost unintelligible. Sentences are left unfinished, ^^ — as if the thread of his thoughts had suddenly failed ^q^^'^^e, him ; one parenthesis involves another, and the a.d.i658. style becomes embarrassed and at length incoherent. Hume assigns the want of ideas as the cause of this obscurity. The imaginative faculty he scarcely possessed ; and his mind, as an intellectual organ, moved slowly. Still, when he clearly apprehended his subject, and was in earnest to impress his hearers with his own convictions, apt words came at his bidding. When he replied to the parliament's offer of the crown he seems confused and scarcely rational ; but he probably meant to be ambiguous, and this, we suspect, was an assumed disguise. "When, with real or well- affected anger, he more than once dissolved his parliaments, he wished his power to be felt and his intentions to be understood ; and his meaning was then clearly expressed in lan- guage which, however unbecoming, certainly wanted neither perspicuity nor point. His only effective weapons in managing others were cajolery and force : and therefore it seems improbable that in quiet times he would have risen to distinction ; for these are implements which can be used with effect only in periods of disturbance, when men have much to hope or much to fear. He had no rhetorical skill, nor the art of presenting his own views attractively. When he had a point to gain he did not persuade, he cajoled. Low mirth, buffoonery, even tears, were his constant resort, and these were supported with protestations, prayers, whining, and the whole artillery of grimace. He had nothing of that con- 400 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER summatc genius which instinctively discovers great- ^^' ness and attaches it to the service of its patron PROTEC- 'vvhile it feels honoured by the servitude. Cromwell TORATE, "^ •jii- If • A.D 1658. headed no great party ; he associated hnnseli m politics with no great names. Long before his death every man in England whose name posterity will respect, was alienated from him. Dr. Owen, it is true, and Milton, ckuig to his fortunes to the last; but they were not political associates, not even advisers ; the one was his chaplain and vice- chancellor, and the other his Latin secretary : it would be difficult to mention another deserving of respect ; except of course the ministers of the executive, wlio still continued to serve their country in church or state beneath a usurpation, because they felt that the claims of public duty overbalanced the demerits of the government. Cromwell could never rule his parliaments ; his council of officers at length obeyed him from pure selfishness, and because his continuance in power was necessary to their own ambition, perhaps to their safety. AVhen he died the reins of power were already slipping from his hands. The nation w^as slowly recovering from the wasting miseries of the war ; it would not have long submitted to be governed without a par- liament, and a parliament was incompatible with Cromwell's power. He wished, no doubt, that Eng- land should be free and happy, but he wished too to be its greatest man if not its sovereign. He had nothing of the magnanimity of Washington. To the last he was a slave to the vulgar lust of power ; and to this he sacrificed both his integrity and his country, his conscience and his peace. THE LATEK PURITANS. 401 Still he had an upright disposition, and, till it chaptkr was dehauched hy his ambition, an honest mind. ^^' His fame rests upon his foreign policy, which was ^''"" "^-c- always successful, for it was always right. Yet it a.d.igos. required, and this perhaps is its highest praise, neither deep sagacity nor diplomatic skill. It was founded upon one principle ; namely, to defend the protestant cause, whenever and by whomsoever assailed. Cromwell knew (what no Stuart would ever comprehend) that protestantism was not only the religion but the pride of England. In opposi- tion to the Eomisli congregation for the propagation of the faith he formed the great design of endowdng a council for the protestant religion. Its operations w^ere to embrace a great part of the world, and it is generally set down as the first missionary project of which there is any record in this country. It seems however to have been designed rather to protect protestantism against the machinations of the pro- paganda, than to provide for the preaching of the gospel anywhere to the heathen. Still the design de- serves to be noticed as exhibiting something clearly akin to a missionary spirit. It w^as a recognition of the principle that it is the duty of a christian state not to confine its exertions to its own subjects but to maintain and defend the gospel in every part of the world. The project was not executed, but this may be well accounted for by the troubled character of the times, without any imputation on the protector's sincerity. This indeed w^as sufficiently shewn by his interposition on behalf of the persecuted Vaudois. His mediation was thoroughly in earnest, and he carried with him the enthusiasm of all England. DD A.U. 1G58. 402 THE HISTORY OT No mediator was ever more successful. He volun- teered his assistance to the Swiss and Savoyards against the reigning- duke, the neighbouring princes of Italy, and tlie pope himself, who had combined to extirpate these heretics. Porgetting its internal discords the whole nation espoused the cause, and emptied its purse in one generous contribution. The universities shared in the enthusiasm and gave their alms to the Alpine sufferers for the faith, while Milton contributed still more in his immortal son- net.* At home we see the protector embarrassed by his ambition and his crimes. Abroad he appears before us unshackled ; and we perceive what Crom- well might have been had he refused to listen to the suffijestions of a base ambition. " I will make an Englishman," he said, "as much respected as an ancient Roman over all Europe." " If the pope Insults us I will send a frigate to Civita Vecchia, and he shall hear the sound of my cannon at Rome." England exulted in his prowess, and foreign courts confessed themselves outwitted by a potentate whose straightforward policy defeated all the stratagems of their diplomatists ; who said what he meant, and seldom failed to accomplish the intentions he avowed. Such simplicity was new amongst the wily statesmen of continental Europe; they found themselves in the presence of an antagonist from whose sling and stone they had no protection. The powers which had insulted Charles were abject in soliciting his friendship. Clarendonf allows that his greatness at * " Avenge, O Lord, tliy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Al])ine mountains cohl," &c. t Hist. RchclHon, book xv. p. G;3L IX. I'ROTEC- TORATE, A.D.1058. THE LATER PURITANS. 403 home was but a shadow of the glory Avhich he had chapter abroad ; that it was hard to discover which feared him most, Erance, Spain, or the Low Countries ; that they valued his friendship at his own price ; that they would have complied with any demand he could have made ; and that such was their terror of his name that cardinal Mazarine, the Erench minister, turned pale whenever it was mentioned. He remon- strated with the Prench king, and the protestants at Nismes were relieved from a horrible persecution ; he threatened the duke of Savoy, and the tyrant at once disgorged his plunder, and restored his afflicted protestant subjects to their political rights. " None can wonder," exclaims the noble waiter, " that his memory still remains in those parts and with those people in great veneration." The veneration still continues ; and amongst the mountains of Switzerland the name of Cromwell is pronounced as that of one of the benefactors of their race. But in England it is otherwise. Cromwell de- stroyed the liberties of his country and aggrandized himself. Inestimable benefits no doubt resulted from his life, perhaps even from his crimes. In this we devoutly recognise the hand of Him who educes good from everything, even from the vices of mankind. But there is little merit in successful selfishness, however beneficent its course may seem. Cromwell was a patriot until his ambition inter- fered ; he was virtuous as long as he had no strong temptation; and he sinned with reluctance to the last. Of all usurpers Cromwell was perhaps the best — the best of a race which merits the indignation of mankind. DD 2 404 THE IIISTOKY OF CHAPTER X. A.D. 1059—1(502. CHAPTER UiciiARD Cromwell was a virtuous man of mo- ^ derate ability. Per government he had no capacity, PROTF.C- TORATE R. CROM WELL, and, happily for himself, for power he had no ambi- OF tion. Historians have dealt hardly with his cha- racter. Infected with tlie vulgar prejudice which A.D.1659. regards the love of power as the sign of true nobility of mind, even religious writers speak of him con- temptuously as mean-spirited and weak. If it were so, his weakness appeared in his acceptance of the office of chief magistrate rather than in the facility with which he relinquished it. The most ordinary sagacity must have suggested to him the impossi- bility of retaining for any length of time the reins of government, and he resigned them gracefully without losing our respect. With the advice of the officers he called together a parliament in January, 1659. It was freely chosen, and his father's house of peers assembled with it. But once more the attempt failed ; no representative body could be formed in England who would submit to an usurpa- tion, or to the insolent dictation of the army. The officers spoke high and threatened ; Ilaselrigge and his party resolved to overthrow the government and insisted on a free commonwealth. Desborough and THE LATER PURITANS. 405 Fleetwood, his own relations, with sir Henry Vane, chapter colonel Bury, and others who controlled the army, '. — determined on his overthrow. They advised him to !^'"^'^'^^g dissolve the parliament : this he did ; and fell with of it on the twenty-second of April, 1659. Everything \^^^^^^' was again in confusion : a proclamation was issued a.d.i659. on the twenty-fourth, ordering all papists and ca- valiers to remove twenty miles from London; and within a few days, Fleetwood, in the name of the council of officers, summoned the remains of that long parliament which Cromwell had so contemp- tuously dismissed in 1653. They met accordingly and resolved upon a commonwealth, " and that without a single person, kingship, or house of peers ;" and the next day Dr. Owen (it must be mentioned with regret) preached before them. But this last effort to set up a republic was utterly abortive. The army in Scotland sent up an address, or more properly a letter of instructions, signed by Monk and twenty-four officers, dictating the line of conduct they should pursue ; and from this time the parliament was contemptible ; and the officers very soon determined upon a dissolution after Cromwell's manner. On the thirteenth of October, Lambert took down a troop of soldiers, placed them in King-street and near the abbey, and " when the speaker came by in his coach," says Whitelocke, " they stopped him and caused him to turn back, and so the house did not sit." Haselrigge and the republicans, expecting violence, had filled West- minster hall with soldiers to protect the house of commons. But the speaker not arriving, their plan was frustrated, and the parliament was at an 406 THE HISTORY OF cuArxEit end without a blow struck, or a speecli made ^ in its defence. The officers invested themselves PROTEc- g^j^^ g^ ^Q^y civilians, their creatures, with sove- OF reign authority under the revolutionary title of a \?ll' committee of safety, and the government was now A.i).i659. a military despotism under no disguise. Thus the summer was spent ; the nation chafing the bit and every day more resolved to escape from its dis- graceful bondage. The royalists were in constant communication with the king, and tlie day was fixed for a general rising. They were betrayed, or Charles Avould probably have been restored in the summer of 1659 at the point of the sword. Several of the old puritan leaders who had taken arms against the father were now fighting for the son. Sir George 13ooth of Cheshire and lord Willoughby of Parham, both presbyterians, were embarked in the design. Booth surprised Chester, and Willoughby had un- dertaken to secure Lynn. The discovery of such treasons filled the council with embarrassment. The officers themselves quarrelled ; while Ilaslerigge seized Portsmouth and declared for the parliament and a republic. Monk, with the Scotch army, began his march into England, and declared for the parliament likewise ; and the committee of safety began to tremble for themselves. Desborough was sent to oppose Monk's progress ; but his troops revolted. Monk sloAvly continued his advance, arrived in London on the third of Pebruary, and in a few days invited the parliament to resume its sittings. The secluded members (those whom colonel Pride had dismissed) now again took their seats. It was evident that a great change was at CHAS. II. A.D.1660. THE LATEU PTJIIITANS. 407 hand. Sir George Booth, who had been taken chapter prisoner in a skirmish under the walls of Chester, ^' was released, and he and his party were restored to their estates and liberty. A few votes were passed for the immediate payment of the army and other urgent matters ; and the parliament dissolved itself on the sixteenth of March, having given orders for the immediate election of a new parliament. It met on the twenty-sixth of April. On the first of May a message from the the king at Breda was announced and read amidst a tumult of the loudest acclamations. Without a division, without a debate, and without one dissentient voice, his proposals were accepted. The old peers hastened to their house ; the ancient monarchy was restored ; and on the eighth of May Charles II. was proclaimed king in London with an enthusiasm that bordered upon madness. Men, it is said, dropped down dead with joy. All contemporary writers agree in describing the exultation of the nation as a delirium which no language can express. The revolution had run its course : the turmoil of twenty years was over ; and after all, except experience, little or nothing had been gained. During the last year the puritan cause had been panic-struck. The records of popular fickleness relate very few such changes in the whole history of mankind ; perhaps not one so complete and sudden. All at once puritanism found itself de- serted, and discovered with dismay that it had lost its hold upon the people. In the tumult of a new enthusiasm its very existence was for a time for- gotten. The popular frenzy was not now for liberty 408 THE HISTORY OF CHAFTKR and religion, but simply for a king. Whenever ^ there is a great reaction the late favourites are in cHAs.ii. ^j^g irrcate&t dan2rer ; those who have led the move- ment are first forsaken ; when the tide begins to turn, the crest of the highest wave leaves its foam to the sand and pebbles on the beach, and mingles with its native element no more. The sectaries fell at once into oblivion. The independents lost every shadow of the political influence which seemed on the point of becoming supremo. The prcsbyterians retained just enough of political vitality to form a small minority in the new house of commons. In- deed for some months before the restoration the puritans were intently seeking, not the triumph of their cause, but the safety of their persons. It was clear that the king would return, and their most sanguine hope now was to make terms with him ; to obtain conditions and to secure, if possible, a safe retreat. It would have been well for England had their voice been heard, piteous and timid as it was. But the infatuation of the nation knew no bounds. It w^as resolved to invite the king to take possession of his vacant throne, w itliout demanding a single secu- rity beyond that coronation oath wdiich, in his father's case, had proved to be so feeble a restraint. To speak of securities, it was said, was an insult to the king. AVhcn he was once amongst his people every difficulty would be adjusted. Charles was believed to be magnanimous and wise ; and the fondness of the nation invested him with every human virtue and with some that were divine. No Persian mo- narch ever wallowed in more disgusting adulation. Yet the infatuation of our ancestors has some ex- THE LATEll PURITANS. 409 cuse ; for in England Charles was known only by chai-ter liis courage and his misfortunes ; he had sworn to ^ observe the covenant in Scotland, and there he had ^^^^^- "• ' A.D. 1660. spared no pains to have it believed that he was devout. When his puritan chaplains were in hearing he prayed vociferously in his chamber ; when they were in sight he looked demure and talked reli- giously. Men of fasliion may have emulated his other vices ; but for the honour of onr nature we cling to the belief that few young men, and none of royal blood, have been such consummate hypocrites. Abroad he not only duped the protestants, he even persuaded them to become his obsequious tools and decoy the English puritans into his power. The princess of Turenne, a protestant lady of note, was induced to write to her cousin, Madame Castel- nau, in London, assuring her of the young king's conversion ; and the letter of course soon found its way into print. " I heard him speak," says this noble protestant lady, " with such testimonies of piety that I was extremely edified. There can nothing be desired in addition to the regularity which this prince observes in assisting daily in those exercises of piety which are practised morning and evening in his family. In a word, I bless God because the marks of election are seen in him." Monsieur Daille, one of the leaders of the Erench protestant church, wrote to a friend in London in the same strain. " I well know," he says, " there are dispersed evil rumours concerning the religion of this prince. There are some who endeavour to persuade the world that he has forsaken our com- munion to embrace that of Rome. But it is more 410 THE niSTORY OF ciiAi'TEu clear than the day to us, that this is a mere calumny ^ to vilify him in the judgment of his subjects and ciiAs. II. ^Q alienate their affections from him." Raimond A. D. 1660. . ,, , n 1 Gaches writes " to the most famous man and upright pastor Richard Baxter " to win him to the royal cause. " Go on, reverend sir ; prevent the calamities of imminent war ; do you and the brethren like you (meaning the puritan clergy) em- brace peaceable counsels and give the like to your countrymen. Divine providence will favour and bless your endeavours, and use you as sacred instru- ments for restoring happiness to your country." Drelincourt, who subscribes himself "minister of the church at Paris," writes to a friend in London to assure him that he had heard the young king's piety highly commended. Englishmen had un- advisedly done him great w^rong. "If, without tlie intervention of any foreign power, your presby- terians recall this prince and seat him on the throne, they acquire to themselves and to their posterity immortal glory."* If the authenticity of these letters were not beyond a doubt, we should at once conclude that they were the weak impostures of some over zealous royalist. The writers display too much anxiety, not only that Charles should be restored, but that he should be restored without conditions ; and that the presbyterians should have all the credit to themselves — that is, should under- take the restoration. It is evident that Gaelics and Drelincourt were in designing hands. Charles's courtiers had no doubt flattered and cajoled them. * Tliesc IcttiTs are printed in the Pliccnix, a collection of scarce painplilets, &c. 17^*7. THE LATER PURITANS. 411 The correspondence however may be useful if it chapter should impress this lesson upon ministers of religion ^' — that it is never wise, and seldom safe, for them ^"^^- "• to lend their mnuence to a political party for any project however plausible, the reasons and the full scope of which they are not permitted to understand. Baxter expresses his surprise at Gaelics' simplicity, and yet allows that he was swayed by his argu- ments. He clearly perceived that to admit the king without conditions was to restore prelacy and to crush the puritans. *' When I read this reverend man's excessive praises, and his concluding prayer for the success of my labours, I thought with my- self, how little doth tlie good man understand how ill the beginning and end of his words accord ! He prayeth for my congregation and the blessing of my labours, when he has persuaded me to put an end to my labours, by setting up those prelates who will silence me and many a hundred more.'"* Yet his loyalty prevailed ; and Baxter, with melancholy forebodings, felt it his duty to promote the restora- tion of the king. At the same time, Charles's "resplendent virtues" were set forth by more in- terested men, in pamphlets scattered through the kingdom. " He abhors vice," says one of these despicable writers, " because God abhors it. His piety is not less than his justice. His nature in- clines him to virtue : as he cannot admit its contrary in himself, so he cannot admit it in another. His constant service of God excites others to live by his example. His private devotions prove him void of hypocrisy. He would have others holy as well as * Baxter, part i. p. 216. 412 THE UISTORY OF cuAi'TER liims(;lf : in short, he is the perfect pattern of piety, ^ but more of patience."* Beguiled by such artifices, ciiAs. n. the nation accepted Charles upon his own terms. AD. 1660. rjpj^g Presbyterians went over to Breda rather to capitulate than to treat with their new sovereign. Reynolds, Spurstowe, Calauiy, Manton, and one or two others, formed a deputation from the London clergy. Holies and a few of the |)uritan gentry crossed over too, but without authority from their party, and as it soon appeared only to save or to ingratiate themselves. On the 14th of April, 1()60, the king issued his famous declaration, in which he promised a full pardon to all his subjects, those only excepted whom the parliament should hereafter name, and declaring liberty to tender consciences. " No man shall be disquieted or called in question for difference of opinion in matters of religion, which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom," The boon appeared to be great ; and it was not seen at first that a sting lay in the proviso, which might at any time render it null and void. The presbyterians were not aware how entirely their power was gone : they still hoped to manage the parliament ; and the declaration contained the fol- lowing clause, which gave them satisfaction : " We shall be ready to consent to such an act of parlia- ment as upon mature deliberation shall be offered to us for the full granting that indulgence." From this treacherous paper new troubles arose, which ended in the extinction of puritanism within the * " Tlio three royal cedars (to wit, Charles, tlie iliike of York, jukI the •liike of (iloiKHster^ ; or (Jreat IJrilain's royal (luinioiids, KifiO." In the Somers' tracts. A.D. 1660. THE LATER PURITANS. 413 church of England, and the formation of the non- chaptf.r conformist party. ^ If sincerity be consistent with the most perfect ciias. n. unconcern, CJiarles was probably sincere. lie had no aversion to the puritans as such, provided they coukl assist him to regain his throne. He cared nothing for the prelatists except as their services were wanted to assert his divine right. His temper was easy and forgiving ; though a debauched life at lenerth seared his conscience and lie then became hard-hearted if not cruel. Notwithstanding all his solemn disavowals, and those of his indignant cour- tiers, he was in heart a papist ; though too careless, too contemptuous of all religion, to submit at present even to its accommodating discipline, and too politic to avow its outward forms. He had two objects in life, pleasure and a crown ; and he seems to have valued the latter chiefly for the former's sake. It was a matter of utter indifference to him whether he cajoled the puritans by swearing to the covenant, the bishops by protesting his fervent at- tachment to the church of England and his hatred to dissent, or both at once by inveighing in dignified and kingly terms against the papists. He had seen much of all parties in politics and in religion, and unhappily he had seen the worst men of every party — the sordid, the intriguing, and the ambitious ; and by these he formed his judgment of the rest. But he was not soured ; for he was young and full of hope ; and with all his vices his nature seemed incapable of bitterness. On the day of his triumphal entry into London, the clergy, chiefly presbyteriaus, attended him ; they swelled the escort in the exu- 414 THE IIISTOKY OF cHAPTEu berance of their joy, and tlie acclamations too. By ^- tlip hands of a venerable member of their body tboy cHAs. II. presented him with a richly adorned bible, wliich A.D.ie60. ^ , .,.,1111 1 • 1 i 1 he graciously received; it should be, he said, the rule of his actions. He was greatly indebted to the presbyterian clergy, at the head of whom was Dr. Calamy. It was he who, with Bates, Manton, Eeynolds, and Ashe, (an aged man of eminent holi- ness and simplicity, honoured and beloved by all,*) had roused the city in the king's favour, corres- ponded with the earl of Manchester, and influenced, more perhaps than any other man, the wavering decisions of Monk. The presbyterians had never faltered ; they had always detested popery and the Laudian system ; they had justified the war against the king ; but they had been loyal to the throne ; they had tolerated Cromwell only as an usurper, and he well knew how thoroughly they hated and des- pised him. They were men of christian virtues and of pure simplicity. Conscious of no guile, they sus- pected no deceit ; and now they forgot that Charles was a Stuart, and remembered only that he was their king. For a few days all went well. Ten or twelve of the chief presbyterians were named chaplains in ordinary : Calamy and Beynolds first received the appointment ; Ashe and Newcomen declined it ; Spurstowe, AVallace, Bates, Manton, Case, and others were then admitted ; and lastly, on the 25th of June, Baxter became one of the royal chaplains, at the desire of the king himself. A few days afterwards the chaplains asked permission to wait * Baxter, part i. p. 229. A.D. 1660. THE LATER PURITANS. 415 upon liim. They spoke with the boldness which chapter became their office and their years, and yet with ^' dutiful respect. I presumed to tell him, says Baxter, c^^^*^- "• that we spoke on behalf of a people who if they lost the faithful preaching of the gospel would be broken- hearted, whatever else they should enjoy. I told him that the late usurpers so well understood their own interest, that to produce it they resorted to doing good as the most effectual means ; and that, with this view, they had placed and encouraged many thousand faithful ministers in the church, ayen such as detested their usurpation. The chap- lains then implored the king to remove those occa- sions of scruple which pressed hardly upon the conscience of multitudes of religious people, and which gave occasion to designing men to represent them, however loyal and peaceable their conduct, as factious and rebellious. Charles heard them with attention, and returned a gracious answer, professing his earnest wish to bring the prelatists and them- selves to an agreement by concessions to be kindly made on both sides. "If this is not accomplished the fault shall be on your part," he said, " and not on mine." He was resolved to see it accomplished ; he would attempt the healing work himself. His chaplains were delighted, " insomuch that old Mr. Ashe burst out into tears of joy."* The king shewed a candour above his friends of t lie church party, and always gratefully acknowledged the services of the presbyterians in his restoration. Several of those who had once led the puritans were now sworn of his privy council; these were the earl of Man- * Baxter. CHAS. n. A.D. 1660. 416 THE HISTORY OF cuAiTKK Chester, Denzil IToUis, now lord Hollis, Annesley ^' lord Anglesea, and sir Ashley Cooper lord Shaftes- hury ; and the presbyterian chaplains were requested to prepare for the king-'s satisfaction a statement of their grievances ; and of the terms on which a com- prehensive union might be formed to embrace the episcopalians and themselves. In return, they re- presented to his majesty their own want of autho- rity ; they could decide nothing for the puritans at large; they could but express their own private sentiments, and those of their friends in London with whom they might confer. The king said he wished for nothing more. They then added a re- quest that, when their own concessions had been offered, "the brethren on the other side" might bring in theirs; stating fairly how much for the sake of concord they would abate and yield up ; and the king promised on behalf of the bishops that they should do so.* Calamy and his party con- sulted with the presbyterian clergy at Sion college in the city, and within a few weeks presented their proposals in writing. These proposals, though advanced without the authority of the great body of the English puritans, or indeed their cognizance, clearly expressed their sentiments. Except the anabaptists, the quakers, and a few sectaries, all would have been satisfied. The presbyterian chap- lains understood the wants and the disposition of their brethren; for though all termed presby- terians, they were in fact the representatives of various parties. The term puritan was passing out of date, and that of presbyterian now succeeded it, * Baxter, part i. p. 232. A.D.1660. THE LATER PUIIITANS. 417 as a designation, comprehending all, whatever their chapter notions of church-government, who disliked prelacy : ^' thus Baxter was an independent, Manchester and ^"^^s. n. Hollis were moderate episcopalians. Tlicy agreed upon archhishop Ussher's reduced episcopacy as their basis, without the alteration of a word. They did so in order that the world might see that they did not reject episcopacy as in itself unlawful, and that the archbishop's reputation might shelter them from misrepresentations. On points of doc- trine they still desired no change. The prayer-book, even as it stood, they charged with no false doc- trines ; it contained some obscure expressions, and perhaps it insisted with a needless preciseness on some controverted points. But it ought to be well observed that puritanism had now exhausted itself, it had arrived at the last crisis of its fate, and still it had no quarrel with the dogmatic teaching of the book of common prayer. " The king required us to draw up and offer him such proposals that we thought meet in order to agreement about church- government ; for that was the main difference. If that were agreed there would be little danger of differing in the rest. In all our treaty we had never meddled with the doctrine of the church, because thougli the most part of the l)ishops were taken to be arminians, as they are called, yet the articles of religion we took to be sound and moderate, however men do variously interpret them."* These are the words of Baxter. So moderate were the presbyterians that it was with difficulty that Baxter could induce them to premise four particulars on * Baxter, part iv. p. 65. E E 418 THE HISTOEY OF ciiAPTKu subjects of practical religion ; viz., tliosc for coun- '. — tenancing godliness ; for estal)lislung in every parisli cHAs. II. ^^ orthodox, learned, and godly pastor ; for insisting on a credible faith and obedience in communicants ; and lastly, for the sanctilication of the Lord's-day ; which was urged no longer on Jewish precedents, but on other grounds, viz. — " it being certain and on long experience found that the observation tliereof is a special means of preserving and pro- moting the power of godliness, and obviating pro- faneness."* " These, however," said the associated chaplains, " are not the points in controversy." They repeated the complaint of the ancient puritans, that the book of common prayer contained many things that are justly offensive and need amend- ment. They went further, and implored the king that a new form of prayer might be devised by some learned, godly, and moderate divines of both per- suasions, indilferently chosen ; that it might be ex- pressed as much as possible in scripture words ; or at least that the old book might be effectually revised and reformed. They expressed their entire satisfaction with a liturgy; provided always that the minister might also "make use of those gifts for prayer and edification which Christ has given him for the service and edification of the churcli." It was with the ceremonies that puritauism strug- gled at its latest gasp as in its infancy ; — with the cross in baptism, kneeling at the Lord's table, wearing the surplice, and bowing not only at the * All the ])apcrs on both sides, in this and the subsequent conference of the Savoy in Hifil, may be seen in "The history of non-conformity, as it was argued and stated by commissioners on both sides. IJOi." THE LATER PURITANS. -119 name of Jesus, but now of late years towards the ciiai'tku so-called altars. " It is not enough," they say, ClIA.-^. 11. quotins;^ the words of km"; James, " that public 1 1 1 P i? A.D. 1000. worship is free from blame — it ought to be free irom suspicion." With greater force they remind the king that these ceremonies are, in the judgment of the imposers themselves, indifferent and mutable ; in the judgment of others, a rock of offence ; in the judgment of all, not to be valued with the peace of the church. The paper is remarkable for its extreme moderation. It seemed as if the puritan sore would heal at last. After a hundred years of bitter con- flict, all the aggravations with which Cartwright and his more intemperate followers had inflamed the quarrel were renounced, and Calamy and Baxter stood on the same ground which bishop Hooper and dean Sampson had once occupied. They " scrupled the habits," and they " misliked the ceremonies." The liberty which they sought for the ofUciating minister with respect to extempore prayer and ir- regular worship, was that liberty of prophesying for which archbishop Grindal had contended, at the cost of his mitre, with Elizabeth. Ussher's scheme of reduced episcopacy, however distasteful to an ambitious prelate, gave ample powers and sufficient honour to a good one. The ten surviving bishops had resumed their functions as soon as Charles re- turned ; but the vacant sees were not filled, nor had the bishops resumed their places in the house of lords ; so that the archbishop's scheme was not in- troduced to deprive the bishops of their rights, or to limit their just power; it was a proposal for a re- adjustment. Indeed episcopacy was in this dilemma : E E 2 420 THE HISTORY OF ciiArTEu if it claimed to be restored upon its former footing, ^- as in the reign of Charles I., it abandoned the ciiAs. II. peerage and the house of lords. Por Charles I. had A.D.iGGi. sigi^cd the bill which excluded the bishops and abolished prelacy, before the war began. The acts and ordinances of the successive parliaments of the commonwealth, none of which had received the royal signature, were declared null and void; but this was not amongst the number. And it was by no means certain that the bishops' seats and dig- nities would be restored ; for that must depend upon the decision of a parliament not yet in being ; and so with regard to the size of their dioceses, the amount of their incomes, and the limits of their spiritual power ; all these points were yet unsettled. The presbyterian chaplains, humbled and subdued, ofiPered reasonable terms ; nor were these even to be considered iinal ; the king had told them that he expected each party to make concessions ; they had stated the utmost of their demands. It was now to be seen what the bishops would concede on the part of the church of England. Adversity teaches little to old men ; the discipline of youth and manhood fails in its office as life decays. The sorrows and vexations which schooled us once, irritate without improving us at last. The bishops had shared the exile of the young king and his joyous courtiers, and they returned home, not as they did, to forget the past, but peevish and un- yielding. Their paper in answer to the presbyterian chaplains shewed a disposition to concede but little, and to make their few concessions with an ill grace. Tlie first sentence was ominous of all the rest. " Wg A. U. 1661. THE LATEll PURITANS. 421 must first observe," tlicy say, "that they take it for chapter granted tliat there is a firm agreement between them — '- and us in the doctrinal truths of the reformed *^*" ^'^^ ^^' religion, and in the substantial parts of divine worship ; and that the differences are only in. some various conceptions about the ancient forms of church-government, and some particulars about liturgy and ceremonies, which makes all that fol- lows the less considerable, and less reasonable to be stood upon to the hazard of the disturbance and peace of the church." This provoked their oppo- nents. "We looked," say the chaplains in return, " for their concessions ; we desired to see how much they would abate of their former impositions for the attaining of unity and peace ; we receive nothing but this contradiction." As if (they might have added) the less we ask the more we must be refused ; as if a wound were never to be healed until it mortifies ; as if the less men really differ, the more obstinately they should refuse to bend ! Some few points the bishops would concede : " if the necessity could be shewn they were not against revising of the liturgy ; if anything therein should be made to appear justly offensive to sober persons." Ussher's scheme they pass over with a slight notice ; intimating that it was written long before his death, and that it did not express his maturer judgment. On the other hand they discourage tlie hope that any concession would avail ; and their concluding sentences are evidently meant to impress the king with the impro- priety of yielding anything to a party now dejected and subdued. " We are so far from believing tliat his majesty condescending to these demands will A.U. 1G61. 422 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER take away not only difFercnccs but tlie roots and ^- causes of them, that we are confident that it will ciiAs. II. prove the seminary of new differences ; both by giving dissatisfaction to them that are well pleased with what is already esta1)lished, who are much the greater part of his majesty's subjects, and by encouraging unquiet spirits, when these shall be granted, to make further demands ; there being no assurance by them given what will content all dis- senters, than which nothing is more necessary for the settling of a firm peace in the church." The breach then was hopeless unless the king should prove more conciliating than his advisers. The presbyterians justly regarded these expressions as insulting and totally wanting in candour and in charity. On behalf of the presbyterians Baxter re- plied with some asperity. He vindicates the repu- tation of archbishop Ussher from the charge of inconsistency ; " nor was he such a hypocrite," he adds, " as to play fast and loose in the things of God :" and as to any retractation, he was himself ready to witness that the archbishop owned it not long before his death, telling him that he had proposed it to the kimr at the Isle of Wis-ht. The insinuation that no concessions would satisfy the puritans he treats with indignation. *' You know our secret thoughts better than we do ourselves. We tell you that we shall be satisfied ; you say that you will not believe us. This, he exclaims, is your way of conciliation." The bishops had asserted that " for security against arbitrary government and innovations, the laws are and will from time to time be sufTicient provision." " Out of your own mouths, then," he answers, " is TEE LATER PURITANS. 423 your government condemned. What act of parlia- chaptkr ment ratified your canons ? What law imposed ^" altars, rails, and the forcing of ministers to read the ^" ^^- "• book for dancing on the Lord's-days ? Or what law did ratify many articles of your visitation books ? And did the laws sufficiently provide for all those poor ministers that were silenced or suspended for not reading the dancing-book or any such things ? What the better were all those for the laws that were silenced or driven into foreign lands ? But perhaps the laws," he adds, with a sarcasm, " will provide for us indeed as you desire /" The answer proceeds point by point with great force, refuting many of the statements, but with a severity which was at least impolitic. The king had not yet given his decision on the merits of the quarrel; and railing words might have been well spared, even had the puritans had less to advance in substantial argument. The privy council were all against the presby- terians. Clarendon was now in power : originally of the popular party, he seceded before the war, and became a staunch and even a furious royalist. His intellectual powers were of the highest kind. He was a great lawyer, an accomplished speaker, a sagacious and eloquent writer ; his penetration was keen, his sagacity unequalled. But the qualities of his heart were those of inferior men. He was bitter against his early associates, suspicious and unjust in his opinions, and puritanism in every form was with him an unpardonable crime. He now swayed the privy council, who indeed required no persua- sion to induce them to be severe. They gave their whole inlluence to the bishops ; and Clarendon, X. ClIAS. II. A.D. 1G61. 424 THE HISTOllY OF ciiAi'TKu blinded by the meanest prejudice, went with them heart and soul. The day of retribution soon came : he lost his influence with the king, was impeached, fled to the continent, and died an exile. His dis- grace was unmerited ; but we may trace in it the hand of a righteous retribution. He was now un- just to others, he \^ as to fall himself the victim of injustice. When impeached, he defended himself on the ground that in the privy council olhcrs had shared with him in advising the measures for which he was then arraigned ; and he lets fall the inci- dental remark, that for two years after the king's return there had been no differences in the privy council. On every question their vote had been unanimous.* Thus, it appears, Charles's lay advisers saw none of the danger, and felt nothing of the in- justice, of a severe policy towards the presbyterians. The king indeed is throughout this business almost the only party whose conduct is free from blame. He is an instance of the method in which the great ruler of the universe compels vice itself to promote his purposes and do unconscious homage to his will. Charles was a profligate, and scoffed at piety of every kind : he was a papist, for, even now, he had been reconciled to the church of llome,t and he was not displeased that the puritans and the church of England should hold each other in check; aud he poised the balance between them with an even hand. Besides, if not grateful, he was, as we * " To the Rij^ht Honorable the Lords s])irituiil and temporal, &c., the humble petition of Edward earl of Clarendon." State tracts privately printed iu the reign of Charles II., p. .'577- t Burnet, Hist. Own Times, vol. i. p. 101. THE LATER PUllITANS. 425 have said, good-natured; and lie did not forget chapter the share which the presbyterians had had in his — - — restoration. On the 4th of September he sent for the t"As. u. presbyterian divines, and placed in their hands the '^-^-^^^ ■ draught of " a declaration concerning ecclesiastical affairs," and he permitted them to suggest amend- ments. It was published on the 25tli of October, and gave general satisfaction : had it been observed it would have been the Magna Charta of the puri- tans. The king refers to his protestation from Breda, and declares his intention of abiding by its principles. He mentions the presbyterians who visited him there in high terms : " to our great satisfaction and comfort we found them persons full of affection to us ; of zeal for the peace of the church .<♦ and state ; and neither enemies, as they have been given out to be, of episcopacy or liturgy ; but modestly to desire such alterations in either as without shaking foundations might best allay pre- sent distempers." Resolved to adhere to episcopacy, he promised every reasonable reformation : the dio- ceses should be subdivided, the presbyters should be called in to assist the bishops in council, the prayer-book should be revised, and the bishops should impose nothing on the clergy or people but accordins: to the known laws of the land. " Until these reformations could be legally effected, we do heartily wish and desire," he says, "that the min- isters in their several churches, because they dis- like some clauses and expressions, should not totally lay aside the book of common prayer, but read those parts against which there can be no exception." With regard to ceremonies, the king expresses his 42G TUE HISTORY OF CHAPTER determination " that no man shall be compelled to ''^" use the eross in baptism, or suffer for not doing it ; ciiAs. II. ^^^ ^i^^i- j^Q ^^^^^ ^^^^Y\ be compelled to bow at the name of Jesus :" as to the surplice, he was content that " men should be left to their liberty to do as they should think fit, without suffering in the least degree for wearing or not wearing it." And he suspended the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the subscription required by the canon from the clergy at their admission into benefices, till it should be otherwise determined by a synod called and confirmed by his authority. The puritan clergy drew up a grateful acknowledgment to his majesty for his gracious concessions. It was presented on the 16th of November, and the ministers returned home from the royal presence with light hearts and boundless gratitude. Baxter had some misgivings; but he was always querulous : and upon the whole the prospects of the puritans were bright, and there seemed at length to be a hope that the breaches of the church would be restored. Just at the same time it was generally known that several of the vacant bishoprics, and other high preferments, had been offered to the presbyterian chaplains and their friends : the bishopric of Here- ford to Baxter, Norwich to Reynolds, Lichfield and Coventry to Calamy ; the deanery of Bochcster to Manton, that of Coventry to Bates, and that of York to Edward Bowles, a name less known. Except Reynolds, all declined their honours. The king, we suspect, was really in earnest in pressing them to accept the benefices, whatever were the views of others. They gave various reasons for THE LATER PURITANS. 427 their behaviour; but their explanations arc not chapter sufficient. They acted with integrity, but they were ^- not wise. Their motives were of different kinds : ^"^^'' " Calamy's wish was that they should all decline or all accept together ; making a common cause, and stating their reasons to the world. But there seems to have been now, as there always was at every period of their history, a want of concert and of practical good sense amongst the puritan leaders, lleynolds accepted his bishopric at once; Baxter declined with equal precipitation ; Calamy hesitated till it was supposed he would accept the mitre, but he too refused it, and then the others followed his example. The defection of Reynolds and the hesi- tation of Calamy were of serious consequence ; the presbyterians were weakened by division, and the addition of one puritan to the bench of bishops had no sensible effect in their favour. The presbyterian clergy acted in this affair with pure intentions ; l3ut they were too much afraid of incurring censure from their friends. Some of them had taken the cove- nant ; Calamy had held and expressed strong opinions against the hierarchy ; Baxter waited to see the king's declaration acknowledged by the parlia- ment and stamped with legal authority. But there are times when good men are imperiously called on to accept preferment at the expense of reputation. Vulgar minds will find it impossible to respect or even to understand their motives. The race of ambition is a passion so universal that the few who pursue it from disinterested motives are never ap- preciated. Yet christian heroism calls, though rarely it must be allowed, for this species of self- 428 THE niSTOllY OF ciiAi'TEii immolation ; and men, for their heavenly Master's sake, must even be content sometimes to have greatness thrust upon them. To accept the prefer- ments was at least to gain more influence with the court ; to reject them was to abandon the little they possessed. They ought to have renounced the covenant ; they ought to have unsaid the former extravagances of themselves or of their party : this indeed they did in private; and they should not have shrunk from doing it publicly and before the people. Nor had they in truth much cause for shame. Which of their opponents had not some- thins: to retract ? Which of them, for instance, now ventured to maintain (whatever they might secretly wish) the canons of 1G40 and the practices of Laud ? Besides there were amongst the surviv- ing bishops several whose judgment upon all the weightier points in dispute scarcely differed from their own. How slight, for example, the line which separates the mature opinions of Baxter on church government from those of bishop Sanderson. Had they accepted preferment it seems impossible that the calamities should have occurred which now immediately ensued. Could the act of uniformity have passed with Richard Baxter in the house of lords ? Would the most violent high churchman have ventured to recommend the king to put his hand to a bill which must instantly create a new secession and place at its head a band of noncon- forming bishops ? The presbyterian clergy admit that they had no scruples of conscience ; they merely thought it inexpedient : but they were too sensitive to public opinion ; and they did not perceive the THE LATER PURITANS. 429 importance of the crisis, and that this was their last chapter opportunity. Their motives were pure hut their ^ — decision was unfortunate. cuas. ii. But the king had promised that the liturgy should he reviewed and some effectual method taken for the relief of tender consciences. On the 25th of March, 1G61, he issued a commission appointing an equal numher of learned divines of hoth persuasions to review the prayer hook. Twelve presbyterian com- missioners, with nine assistants, were summoned to meet as many bishops and their assistants. The meeting was appointed at the Savoy, the bishop of London's lodgings. It was long and tedious : the proceedings fill many pages which few cotemporaries ever read, and which in later times are scarcely known except to the idle reader of curious books. It was merely a sham fight, without hope on one side or heart on either. Of the episcopal commis- sioners several were never present, others only once or twice. Even of the presbyterians two never appeared, and two others, one of whom was Dr. Lightfoot, very seldom. And Baxter complains that after a time the attendance dwindled upon his own side to that of three or four besides himself. Gun- ning, bishop of Chichester, was his chief opponent : he was a divine of the Laudian school, who cla- moured for a return to the usages of the primitive church ; particularly he insisted on praying for the dead, anointing the sick with oil, and various cere- monies of the same kind : others took part some- times. Loungers crowded into the room for mere amusement ; and men of parts to witness an intel- lectual combat ; but no real importance was attached X. ClIAS. II. A. D. 1661. 430 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEu to their discussions.* A new parliament had now assemhled, its memhers were intent only to aggran- dize themselves, and for that purpose they olFered the most obsequious homage to the king. The people were move violent and more ahject than the parliament. Burnet expresses his firm belief that had Charles been so disposed he might have restored the star chamber, the court of high commission, and, in short, all the extravagances which brought his father to the scaffold, amidst the applauses of a besotted kingdom. Under such circumstances the question of a revised liturgy and a couiprehension of dissenters had no interest ; and the presbyterians had no support from that public opinion which ten years before had invested them with sovereign power. The management of the controversy on the puritan side was again unfortunate. They do not seem to have understood each other ; they wanted concert ; their demands, if not unreasonable, were vague ; and their objections extended over too wide a sur- face ; and they fought with the carelessness of despair. The royal proclamation had invited them, as they understood it, to a friendly conference : they were " to advise and consult ;" but when they met, the bishops refused to proceed until the puritans had stated all their objections. To this, with the sole exception of Baxter, they were exceedingly averse. Of a metaphysical turn of mind, and con- fident in his dialectic skill, Baxter was always too ready for the fray. The good sense of his associates, and perhaps their greater modesty, told them that in the present state of public feeling this categorical * Burnet, Hist. Own Times, vol. i. p. 254. A.U. IGOl. THE LATER PURITANS. 431 rehearsal of their discontents would be unwise ; and chaptku so it proved ; for the clamour was immediately ^' raised that nothing would satisfy the presbytcrians : ^"'^"- "• and yet in truth they only repeated their old de- mands for a moderate episcopacy, a revised liturgy, a purer discipline, and more liberty in private wor- ship and occasional extempore prayer. I3ut that which in the general estimation was the most in- jurious to them was an entirely new liturgy, drawn up by Baxter within a fortnight, on an emergency which was not, though it should have been, foreseen. In answer to their objections to the prayer book, their opponents not unreasonably called on them to propose another ; and Baxter undertook the task. He had, he tells us, but few books, no assistance, and little prospect of success ; his liturgy, therefore, must be regarded with forbearance. It amends some errors and supplies some deficiencies, a tone of exalted piety pervades it, and disputed points are kept as much as possible in the back ground ; but as a national liturgy it is utterly defective in depth, in dignity, in force, and in variety. Baxter admits its imperfection. He drew up and presented this, he says, only because it was necessary that some- thing must be done. But the levity with which the ancient formularies were treated in this attempt to supersede them by a fortnight's w^ork and by the labour of a single hand, was more injurious to the presbytcrians than all the arguments of their opponents. It was at the Savoy conference that doctrinal objections to the prayer book were for the first time advanced. The baptismal service was the field on 432 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEii wliicli a battle was begun which still rages with __lL__ unabated heat. The presbyterians thought it a ciiAs. 11. doubtful question whether it was lawful to baptize the children of ungodly parents ; and they desired that they might not be compelled to baptize the children until the parents had made " due profession of their repentance ;" and they requested that it might be left to the parents to decide whether sponsors should appear or not. Upon the inter- rogatories addressed to the sponsors they make this comment : " We know not by what right the sureties do promise and answer in the name of the infant : it seemeth to us also to countenance the anabaptistical opinion of the necessity of an actual profession of faith and repentance in order to bap- tism. That such a profession may be required of parents in their own name, and now solemnly re- newed when they present their children to baptism, we willingly grant ; but the asking of one for another is a practice whose warrant we doubt of." The petition in the collect, that the child may re- ceive remission of sins by spiritual regeneration, "seeming inconvenient ; we desire," they say, "it may be changed into this : may be regenerated and receive remission of sins." And upon the thanks- giving, " that it has pleased thee to regenerate this infant by thy Holy Spirit," they comment thus : " AVe cannot in faith say that every child that is baptized is regenerated by God's holy Spirit ; at least it is a disputable point, and therefore we desire that it may be otherwise expressed." Their comments upon the catechism explain more fully the nature of tlieir objections to the baptismal service, and X. ClIAS. II. A.lJ. lUUl. THE LATER PURITANS. 433 shew their whole extent. "We conceive," they chaptrpv say, " that the answer, ' in my baptism, I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kiiig'doni of heaven,' mii^ht be more safely expressed thus : ' wherein I was visibly admitted into the number of the members of Christ, the children of God, and the heirs (rather than inhe- ritors) of the kingdom of heaven.' " And more generally tliey express their wish " that the en- tering of infants into God's covenant may be more warily expressed, and that the words may not seem to found their baptism upon a real actual faith and repentance of their own ; and that a promise may not be taken for a performance of such faith and re- pentance : and especially that it be not asserted that they perform these by tlie promise of their sureties, it beins: to the seed of believers that the covenant of God is made, and not (that we can find) to all that have such believing sureties who are neither parents or proparents of the child." They offer, in conclusion, two questions to be considered, for which every intelligent churchman and every pious parent owes them at least the gratitude which is due to those who attempted to confer advantages Avhich have never been received. They suggest, ^' first, whether there should not be a more distinct and full explication of the creed, the command- ments, and the Lord's prayer ; secondly, whether it were not convenient to add (what seems to be wanting) somewhat particularly concerning the nature of iaith, of repentance, the two covenants, of justification, sanctitication, adortion, and regene.- ration." r F X. CHAS. II. A.l).166L 434 THE HISTORY OF iiiAiTKK The reader will ask in what light they viewed the absolution in the office of the visitation for the sick. Their requests were thus expressed : " first, that the absolution may only be recommended to the minister to be used or omitted as he shall see occasion; second, that the form of absolution be declarative and conditional, as, ' I pronounce thee absolved,' (instead of, 'I absolve thee,') if thou dost truly repent and believe."* A great number of verbal amendments were proposed in the various offices ; but these were the most important. The time fixed for the expiration of the conference arrived and nothing had been done. The presbyte- rians presented to the king a list of their objections, but no answer was returned. The episcopal party did not even make a report of their proceedings. They managed this most important affair carelessly and with gross injustice. Let no man who reveres episcopacy burden his cause with a justification of their conduct ! Their memory must lie for ever beneath the charge of aggravating a mighty schism, of poisoning the churches' wounds, and, instead of seeking the things which make for peace, of in- dulging personal animosities. The Savoy conference blidits the church of En^iand still. Since then scarcely an effort has been made on either side to- wards a reconciliation. Moderate men have deplored our differences and striven much to heal them, but the church of England has made no concessions, and the children of the presbyterians have long ceased to ask for reconciliation as an act of grace. AVlien they were abject once, they were treated with dis- * Baxter, jiart ii. p. 331. CHAS. II. A.D.166I. THE LATER PURITANS. 435 dain ; and the Savoy conference rankles yet in the chapter heart of nonconformity. Men have arrived at the lowest pitch of baseness when they delight in insulting the oppressed, and England had no\y descended even to this depth of degradation. She saw the sufferings of the puritans with ecstacies of brutal joy. The most trivial occur- rences were turned to their disadvantage ; the most absurd rumours were credited and spread far and w4de to expose them to contempt. Yenner's noted conspiracy occurred most opportunely for this pur- pose : he was an insignificant fanatic, a wine-cooper in the city of London, the head of a small section of fifth-monarchy men, who met in a room in Coleman- street. Ilis enthusiasm and that of his followers was akin to madness. With two or three and twenty followers he rushed into the street, pro- claimed the K-edeemer of mankind king of England, and killed several of the crowd. The whole party were secured, and received the punishment which, if they were not insane, they well deserved ; Venner, and ten of his dupes, were hanged. Excej^t as an exhibition of human nature under a strange asj)ect, the affair deserves no more notice than any other street riot ; but in the present temper of the times it was charged upon the puritans. The presbyte- rians, the independents, and the anabaptists of the city timidly approached the throne with protesta- tions of their loyalty. Their abhorrence of the fiftli- monarchy men was notorious when they were in power ; and these addresses, which ought to have been unnecessary, prove only their humiliation and their fears. But a cry was raised against the pres- FT 2 436 THE HISTORY of iCHAi-rEK bytcriiins ; frosli plots woro spolcon of; there was a —^ — design upon the king's life ; there was a project to ciiAs. n A.D.1661 overturn the government ; and Baxter himself was a party to it. A new persecution broke out. The magistrates in the west of England indicted at one quarter sessions upwards of forty nonconformist clergy who did not use the prayer book. All those whom the triers had presented were of course dis- missed from their livings. Preaching in private liouses was again denounced, and those who neg- lected their parish churches and strayed after other preachers were threatened with such disci- pline as Laud had once enforced.* The threat was not an empty one. In every county obsequious magistrates were ready to enforce it ; and, as at the close of all unsuccessful revolutions, some of those who had been forward in rebellion concealed their shame or atoned for their delinquency by turning upon their old associates : the bitterest persecutors were the recreant puritans. But to this year of vengeance Ave are indebted for our acquaintance with a man of rare gifts and stedfast courage ; and for a book of singular pre- tensions, resplendent with the rays of genius. John Bunyan, a tinker and a tinker's son, pursued his humble craft at Eistowe near Bedford. In appear- ance he was a formidable man ; tall and swarthy, with limbs well knit together, an expressive counte- nance, shrewd and stern, a piercing eye and a spacious forehead; and to complete tlie picture he Avore the hair upon his upper lip, after the manner of the ancient Britons, as an admirer tells us. lie had * Ncal, vol. iv. clir.j). G. A.U. lOGl THE LATER PUUITANS. 437 been one of Cromwell's soldiers; and, what was rare chai-ti.i in that army, he was godless and audaciously pro- , fane. The perils of a soldier's life gave him no disturbance, but some of its hair-breadth escapes deeply touclied him. One night he should have stood sentry at the siege of Leicester, when a com- panion of his volunteered to take his place and was shot. Banyan trembled as he thought how near he had been to death, and how unlit he was to die ; and the impression never left him. Soon afterwards he met with a spiritual guide in one whose character was in many respects not unlike liis own. Gifford, the baptist minister of Bedford, had been a mnjor in the king's army : for an attempt to revive the royal cause after the war had closed, he, with several others, was sentenced to the gallows. He escaped his fate, the night before he was to have suffered, as others have done, through the courage and saga- city of a sister who contrived to make the keepers drunk. He fled to Bedford and practised physic, leading a most wicked life. Happening to look into one of Bolton's works his conscience was awakened, and a change took place within him the reality of which we have no right to question. He became the pastor of some ten or twelve families ; Bunyan was amongst the first fruits of his ministry, and upon bis death, in 1056, succeeded to his office. Bunyan, of course, v/as an early victim to the perse- cution of 16G1. It v;as not to be endured that the travelling tinker who had fought under Cromwell should preach at Bedford. He was had up before the justices, and if his sermons were like his answers to the court, the number of his enemies and their 438 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTKR bitterness is explained. For he liad a ready tongue '- — and a biting sarcasm, and to both he gave full play. A D u;gV ^^ hated the prayer book, which at this time he could scarcely read, and in all probability had never attempted to read, with a perfect hatred. " I never cared," he somewhere says, "to meddle with things that were controverted and in dispute among the saints." But the prayer book was not among these things indifferent. 33cing indicted before the quarter sessions, he was charged, in the first place, with ab- senting himself from church. "So far from that," said Bunyan, " I am a common frequenter of the church of God, and also by grace a member with the people over whom Christ is the head." " But," said justice Keeling, " you do not come to the parish church." " No," said Bunyan, " I cannot find it commanded in the word of God." Keeling reminded him that we were commanded to pray. " Yes," answered Bunyan, " but not by the common prayer book : the apostle said, I will pray with the spirit and the understanding." The judge reminded him that he might pray with the spirit and the under- standing, and yet with the prayer book also ; " to which," writes Bunyan, " I made answer thus. I said that the prayers in the common prayer book were made by men and not by the motion of the Holy Ghost within our hearts ; and the apostle says he will pray with the spirit and the understanding, not with the spirit and the common prayer book." A long discussion followed ; for the magistrates heard liim on the whole with patience ; but at length he was committed to prison. Three months afterwards his wife applied to the judges at the next en AS. II. A.U.lOGl. THE LATER PURITANS. 439 assize to claim her husband's release. Hale sat cuapteu upon the bench. " My lord,"' said she, " my hus- band is kept unlawfully in prison. They clapped him up before there were any proclamations against the meetings : the indictment also is false ; besides they never asked him whether he was guilty or not ; nor did he confess to the indictment." Baxter's friend was disposed to treat the woman kindly, but there were two other judges on the bench, Chester and Twisdon. " My lord," said Chester, addressing Hale, " he is a pestilent fellow ; there is not such another fellow in the country." " Will your husl3and leave preaching?" said Twisdon. "My lord,'" said Banyan's wife, " he dare not leave preaching as long as he can speak." Hale asked her many questions as to her means of livelihood and the number of her children, and exclaimed Avhen he had heard her story, " Alas poor woman !" But judge Twisdon told her that she made poverty a cloak. " What is his calling ?" enquired Hale ; then said some of the com- pany that stood by, "a tinker, my lord." "Yes," said Bunyan's wife, " and because he is a tinker and a poor man, therefore he is despised and cannot have justice." " I am sorry I can do thee no good," said Hale ; and we have no doubt of his sincerity : his soul must have sunk within him when he added this mockery of help, — " Thou must do one of these three things, namely, either apply thyself to the king personally, or sue for his pardon, or get a writ of error ; but a writ of error will be cheapest." It was clear that no redress was to be had. Banyan's wife left the court despairing of the help which cometh from man ; and her husband lav, with one ClIAS. II. A.D. 1661. 410 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTEu short interval, twelve years in the gaol at Eed- — ^— ford. Here it was that, as he tells us, he slept and dreamed. Visions of God seemed to descend upon his soul while he drew the mystic allegory of a christian pilgrim on his way from the city of de- struction to the new Jerusalem. Re had always been a dreamer ; and he relates how, more than once, his course in life, and his spiritual concerns, had been determined for him in revelations on his bed. A mind of vast power and a brilliant fancy strove totf.u iion upon mo or any otlier person from tlic ontli IJ comnionlv called the solemn leasrue and covenant, *^" ^^' "' to endeavour any change or alteration of govern- ment either in church or state ; and that the same was in itself an unlawful oath." This clause, liow- ever, was to be enforced only for twenty years ; hut, during that time, it was to be subscribed botli l)y tlie l)eneficed clergy, and by schoolmasters and ])rivate tutors, though laymen, under a penalty of three months' imprisonment for the first offence, and fine and imprisonment for the second. Pourthly ; the act declares that no person what- soever shall henceforth be capalile of any ecclesias- tical office until he shall have been made priest hy episcopal ordination according to the form and manner prescribed in the book of common prayer. Eifthly ; it enacts that all preachers and lecturers shall conform in every point to these conditions. And lastly ; that all the acts from Elizabeth downwards, (here styled " good laws and statutes of this realm for enforcing uniformity ") shall stand in full force and strength, and shall be applied, prac- tised, and put in force. The penalty for refusing compliance with the terms prescribed by the act was, in the case of the clergy, that they were utterly disabled ijjso facto, and deprived of their benefice, lectureship, et cetera, as though naturally dead. The effect, then, of the act of uniformity was in the first place to put an end to the controversy with respect to the surplice and the ceremonies. Tlie puritan divines must henceforth al)andon tlieir scruples or their benefices ; tliey must give up one G G 450 THE HISTORY OF cHAPTEii and all of those points for which they and their ^ — fathers had contended so long and fruitlessly ; they (•MAS. II. A.D. 100-2. nust accept the prayer-hook as it stood, and rigo- rously conform to it. They must wear the surplice, and use the cross in haptism, and kneel at the supper of the Lord ; they must forego extempore prayer, and adhere to the prescribed ritual and to the directions of the rubric. To men in their circumstances the terms were hard ; for even the episcopalians had now been long accustomed to use a certain discretion on all the points in question, and the king had promised from Breda that this 1 liberty should remain. They complained with truth that they were more severely dealt with than their fathers in the days of Cartwright or at the con- ference of Hampton court. The bishops in their review of the prayer-book had not removed one of their difficulties, or made one important concession : they had introduced several changes, and some im- provements, but they had abated nothing. In their preface, recently set forth, they professed indeed, with some ostentation, their desire for peace and unity, and they boasted of their own moderation. But it was difficult to reconcile their professions with their conduct. With no other purpose, it would seem, than to insult the presbyterians, they had even introduced fresli apocryphal lessons into the calendar. They would now compel the puritans, on their vows of canonical obedience, to read in church the ridiculous story of Bel and the Dragon.* * Wliifli A\iis now nddi'd to tlir npncrviilial Ics.'^niis. The pmitiins of tliat (lay say tliat liy tlic act of uiiifonuity thev would have hcon coinpcdled to read the ajjocn plial lessons even on the Loid'^ day. We fear this is CIIAS. II. A.D. 1602. THE LATEJl PURITANS. 451 The early puritans in former times had escaped chapter some of the difficulties of subscription by holding 1__ lectureships and merely preaching to the people, neither wearing the surplice nor using the cere- monies. The privilege was now withdrawn ; rigid conformity was enforced not only on lecturers, but as far as possible on schoolmasters and private tutors, though not in orders. All must rigidly conform or ruin stared them in the face; for the austere acts of Elizabeth and James were again revived ; those " good laws and statutes for enforcing uniformity" vrere no longer to be allowed to rust ; and the puritan who hesitated to subscribe was forewarned that he should feel their keenest ed2:e. But the most severe of all the conditions now imposed was that by which presbyterian orders were renounced. No minister could henceforth hold office in the church of England unless episcopally ordained. On this point the reformers had felt no difficulty : they admitted, and as it seems without hesitation, the presbyterian ministers of foreign churches and those of Scotland, if they subscribed to the articles, promised canonical obedience, and true. There are those who would still restore the apocryphal lessons on the Lord's day. In Cleaver's Companion for Churchmen for 1S52, a calendar professing to contain " the lessons, as they are appointed to he read or observed h} the church of England," &c., the lessons for three Simdavs, and for a fourth Sunday that in the afternoon, are taken from the apocryi)hal books. Wheatley however, who is generally consulted by the clergy as a good authority, says that " there is not any one Sunday in the whole year that has any of its lessons taken out of the apocrypha ; foi-, as the greatest assemblies of christians are upon those days, it is wisely ordered that they should be instructed out of the undisputed word of God." We must add, if there be any doubt on this question, it is high time it were set at rest by authont}'. GG2 452 TUE IIISTOUY OF ciiAi'TEK took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.* This — ili^ — forbearance was now at an end ; and the presby- ciiAs. II. terian clergy who would retain their livings or their lectureships must submit to a second ordination. In Ireland this harsh clause was so far mitigated that the re-ordination was hypothetical, and the form ran thus : " If thou art not already ordained receive the ofTice of a priest." But in England the second ordination was absolute. Hall, the new bishop of Chester, son of the venerable bishop of Norwich, though not the heir of his catholic prin- ciples and of his love of peace, exacted from those who applied to him for second ordination a humilia- ting declaration that their presby terian orders were a mere pretence. f The elder puritan clergy had received episcopal orders and were not directly affected by this clause; but they now resolved to stand or fall together, and to make the cause of their younger brethren their own. Of the latter, great numbers had received presbyterian orders, not as the best, nay as irregular, and as deficient in that kind of authority which immemorial usage confers, but still as valid, and, under the circumstances of the times, convenient. If it was reasonable to enact, in an episcopal church, that episcopal orders should for the future be in- sisted on, yet at the close of an intestine war, during which a generation had grown to manhood, it was surely decent that some forbearance should * See Hist, of Early Puritans, p. 231. 1st Edit. f- The bishop's form of abjuration ran thus ; — " Ego A. B. pretensas meas ordinationis literas, a (piibusdain prcsbyteris olim obtcutas, jam l)fnitusrcuuncio et diuiitto pro vauis." Wdliams's Life of Pliihi) Henry, p. 58. THE LATEU puhitans. 453 be exercised ; to prefer episcopacy no doubt was chapter right, but to cast mud upon presbyterian churches ^' was a needless insult. It was an unhappy step ; it chas. n. has alienated the church of Eiii^land from all the ^■^■'^^''^'^- reformed churches on the continent and from the sister church of Scotland. The reformation had left the question of presbyterian orders open: and, with the exception of Sanderson, none of king Charles's prelates had the slightest pretensions to be named with the reformers, for theological learning, for piety, and for deep acquaintance with the scriptures. But rashness and presumption now sat in the seat of the reformers ; and rashness and presumption see no difficulties. AVith coarse hands they were allowed to renovate the ancient structure, and to the utmost of their power they defaced its ancient character. It had stood hitherto on terms of perfect amity with foreign churches : they insisted in effect tliat the intercourse should cease; they consigned, as far as in them lay, the church of England to a moody solitude, which they mistook for dignity. The hardships which it inflicted on the puritans are the smallest part of the sins of the act of uniformity. It flung the imputation of schismatic worship like firebrands over the whole of protestant Christendom. Nor can the renunciation of the solemn league and covenant, in the terms of the act, be justified. Of the presbyterians, now so called, some, of whom Baxter was one, had never taken it ; others had taken it with reluctance ; but all who had embraced it were un- doubtedly placed by it under a new obligation. San- derson himself had Avrittcn liis "Judgment concern- ing Usurpers," to justify a lax interpretation, to caU 454 TUE HISTORY OF ciiATTKu it nothing more, of the vows of canonical obedience. - It was better, he argued, to conform to the times cuAs. II. ^Q some extent than to be silenced. Thousands of A.U. 1662. , tlie puritan clergy thought so too : they had merely acted upon Sanderson's principles, only they had carried their compliance a little further. They sub- mitted to the times. They took the covenant, the engagement, or both successively, as they were im- posed by what seemed to be the sovereign power then existino: in the state. The restoration of the king as a national act annulled these obligations ; and now it would have been right, and might have been expedient, to demand an explicit declaration of his loyalty from every clergyman ; but for this the oath of allegiance was sufficient. It was, to say the least, a needless insult to force each minister to renounce the covenant. To virtuous minds it was a still greater hardship to be compelled to declare that the covenant was in itself an unlawful oath. When repealed it became no doubt unlawful ; but in itself considered, it stood precisely on the same footim? with all those other ordinances of the two houses which had become laws without the king's signature. Was every Englishman a rebel who had obeyed the revolutionary parliaments ? And even if so, where was the act of oblivion, and the promises on the faith of which the king had been restored ? 13rokcn and dispirited as they now were, the pres- byterians thought little of the insult, but they could not force their consciences to give solemn protes- tation to a falsehood. If the state rescinded the covenant they were well satisfied ; they would con- tinue in the church and submit to episcopal govern- THE LATER PURITANS. 455 ment ; but they were too lioncst to confess a crime cuArTER because they had obeyed the only legislative power — - — - which had in fact any real existence. <^"'^^ " '' ^ . . A.D.1G62. The defence of this calamitous measure rests upon the following grounds : either that, in the first place, the terms of conformity which it imposed were just; or that, in the second, they were demanded by an imperious necessity ; or that, in the third, they were justified by a wise precaution. Upon the first point it is needless to linger. Two questions are involved in it : the right of a christian church to insist upon its own terms of communion, and the wisdom of making those terms severe. Admitting the right, the question then arises, whether these terms ought to consist in things which the imposers acknowledge to be indifferent, and the party upon whom they are enjoined look upon as sinful. The reader may not be displeased if we assist him in the solution of this question with the opinion of bishop Warburton. " It Avould be hard," he affirms, "to say who are most to blame ; those who oppose established autho- rity for things indifferent, or that authority which rigidly insists upon them, and will abate nothing for the sake of tender misinformed consciences : I say it would be hard to solve this, had not the apostle done it for us, where he says ; We that are stronsc ou2:ht to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. I myself, says he, do so, and all for the gospel's sake. This is the man who tells us he had fought a good fight and over- come. And we may believe him ; for in this con- tention he is always tlie conqueror who submits." The plea of necessity is not so easily dismissed. A.ii. looi 456 THE IlISTOllY OF ciiAiiKu It rests, however, cliielly on the justice of those __j^: chari^cs of disloyalty and turbulence from which it (HAS. II. l\^^.^^ derived its main support. It will probably bo admitted that the conduct of the puritans at the early periods of the war had not been blameless : they had been too much given to change, they had been restless under existing evils, and too indifferent to the calamities of others. Amongst their lists the men had often been found who fomented discoi'd. As a party they had not always upheld the sovereign even in his just rights. When resistance surged over into rebellion they had not boldly condemned the madness of the people. They had not dealt equal justice to the khig on the one hand, and to the par- liament and army on the other. They construed tlie faults of the sovereign severely, those of his opponents with the utmost indulgence. Several times a crisis had occurred in which the religious puritans, if united and resolved, might have saved their country, perhaps tlieir king; but they had neglected them. If something of that jealousy with which they watched Charles and his court had been extended at first to the proceedings of Crom- well and the army, they might now have sustained a higher character. In addition to this, the bishops and the episcopal clei-gy had their own grounds of hostility. There were twenty years ol insult to be avenged, of disgrace to be wiped out, of alarm to be retaliated. AVhite's committees were not yet for- gotten, and the triers had not ceased two years ago to sit in judgment on the clergy from town to town. Those who justify the conduct of those revolutionary tribunals have certainly no reason to complain of THE LATER PURITANS. 457 tlic act of uniformity. The ii,cnti'y, the bishops, cuvptek and the clergy, had been plundered and cast out. ^' 'Ihey were now again in power, and they dealt the <^'"'^^- •'• same hard measure to the puritans. Upon this ground indeed they justified tlieir severities ; and so far their defence had weight. They who resort to violence must expect insult and violence in re- turn. The puritan historians have represented the act of uniformity as an unprovoked aggression; but it was rather the reaction of violence and faction upon itself. " Let Mr. Baxter," exclaims bishop Bramhall, " sum up into one catalogue all the non- conformists throughout the kingdom of England ever since the reformation who have been cast aside or driven away ; I dare abate him all the rest of the kingdom, and only exhibit a list of those who in these late intestine wars have been haled away to prison or chased away into banishment by his party in three places alone, in London and the two universities, or left to the merciless world to beg- their bread, for no other crime than loyalty, and be- cause they stood affected to tiie ancient rites and ceremonies of the church of England, and they shall double them for number."* It is upon such prin- ciples that the merits of the case have been too often discussed by historians on botli sides. The writers of each party have taxed their ingenuity and research to prove that the oppressions of their adversaries sui'passed their own. To this wretched squabble we shall not stoop. All that has been said amounts in short to this, that each party when in power for- * Braiiihiill ii^aiiist 15;.xUt, y\). Ujii, l( 7. Tlas \\a6 v.iluca after tlic ijcctiuu of tlio I'UOO uoiicuufoiwJtsU- 458 THE HisTOTiT or ciiAi'TKR got the precepts of the gospel and acted from self- ^' ishness or mere revenge. Each party had received cHArf. 11. jgpp r^^^^[ y.f,ryi iniiu'ies, and each retaliated after the fashion of this world, — " after the traditions of men, and uot after Christ." It is still however to be considered whether the act is capable of justification as a measm-e of precaution. If the puritans were seditious, if their liberty were inconsistent with the well-being of the state, the stern rigour of the act of uniformity was no doubt required. The court party attempted to prove the existence of this necessity, and failed. They endeavoured in the first place to throw the odium of the war, and all its consequences, upon the puritans, and thence to infer that, once convicted of rebellion, thoy ought for the future to be deprived of the power of further mischief. By calumny and falsehood they so far disturbed the reason of the nation as to secure a momentary triumph. But it is evident they felt the insecurity of their ground ; for they endeavoured to make it good by forging imaginary plots and secret insurrections ; they accused the presbyterians even now of perfidy and treason. The plots and conspiracies, however, which they professed to have detected were heard of no more after the bill was passed ; and the panic they created shews only the despicable methods to which tlicy were compelled to have recourse. In the in- flamed state of mind now^ prevailing amongst all classes, facts and suspicions were easily confounded, and prejudice and passion did the work of reason and refiection. But in fact the presbyterian leaders had all along been men of peace. When Laud was THE LATER PTJRITANS. 459 yet in prison, and Charles I. professed his willingness cuapter to treat, the lawful ends of the war were already, '■ — they maintained, fulfilled. And even the parlia- ^"i^^igg"' ment wliich had now restored the young* king, avowed that the war in its origin was just. Lent- liall, the son of the late speaker, having said, in the course of the present year, that every man who drew his sword against the king was guilty of putting him to death, he was called before the speaker and severely reprimanded on his knees. As to their intentions for the future, the character of the presbytcrian leaders was enough to refute the aspersions now heaped upon them. Who could believe that Ashe and Calamy and Manton, or even Baxter, ardent as he was, were fomenting a sedition ; or that' such men would encourage their parishioners in a mad crusade against the church and king ? They might be admitted, it was evident, into the bosom of the national church with perfect safety, if not with great advantage. The only danger that could arise would result from their exclusion. To this, liowever, the government appeared insensible. The calm voice of history must not be suppressed : the motives which carried the act of uniformity were retaliation and revenge, rather than any alarms however needless. A party long oppressed was suddenly restored to power, and these were its re- prisals. " 'Tis a pity," said Dr. Allen to Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, "the door is so strait." "'Tis no pity at all," he answered; "if we had thouglit so many of them would have conformed, we would have made it straiter."* * Ncal, vol. iv. p. 302 ; and Baxter, Life. X. ClIAS. II. A.U. 1G02. 460 THE HISTORY OF ciiAiTiui Tlic act of uniformity passed in May: it was to come into force on St. Eartholomew's day, the 24th of August. Baxter thought it inexpedient to wait so long, and preached his farewell sermon the week after it received the royal assent. Even the appear- ance of conformity might, he feared, be construed to his disadvantage, and he was moreover anxious to shew his brethren an example of decision. Others waited for the revised prayer-book before deciding on a step so full of hazard to themselves, and so im- portant as it regarded others. The anxious interval of three months was spent by the presbyterians in conference, in deliberations, and in prayer. Every earthly consideration was in favour of their com- pliance : the most visionary amongst them could not expect, in the present temper of the nation, that puritanism, once expelled, would ever l)e restored to the bosom of the church : if tliey left their homes and parish churches they were closed against them for ever ; and voluntary aid was uncertain and utterly inadequate. Conformity was before them with ease and competence ; and nonconformity with penury, disgrace, and, that which was more painful than either, a useless existence. But the revised prayer-book was not forthcoming : no pains were taken to place it in the hands of the clergy. Burnet says that not one in forty of the clergy had read it, even of those who conformed. " If," says a contem- porary writer, "you compute the time of the passing of this act with the time allowed for the clergy to subscribe the book of common prayer thereby esta- blished, you shall plainly find it could not be printed and distributed so as one luan in forty could have seen TIIK LATER rURITAXS. 401 and read the book they did so perfectly assent and con- c:ii.\iTi.n sent to."* It \Ya5 a shameful injustice to the clergy ^' that their unfci<]^nod assent was required to a book *^'"-^^' ^'• , ^ ^ A.U. 1G62. which m fact they had never seen. And it was a grievous trial (as it was a cruel wrong) that their decision must be taken on or before St. Bartho- lomew's day, just a few weeks before the annual payment of their tithes could legally be enforced. If they resigned their livings, ruin stared them in the face, and they were turned penniless adrift, de- prived of their last year's income. Those who per- severed in their nonconformity must have been men of conscience and of pure integrity, or of an obstinacy "unparalleled in the history of our race. The fatal day arrived, and two thousand of her ministers forsook the church of Ensrland. Thev were not accused of heresy. TJie}^ were not immoral or incompetent. They were not seditious. They were not averse to a liturgical service. They would have submitted gladly to an episcopal regimen. Their decision was not made in a moment of passion ; it was deliberately taken. They proceeded resolutely, though after many misgivings ; for they felt that the step could never be retraced. Their own private sorrows are at an end ; death has long since closed their wounds, and stilled their lamentations. But the consequences of her violence have been to the church herself more lasting and even more deplorable. "St. Bartholomew's day," says Mr. Locke, "was '^^au-a^ fatal to the church of England." — On the seven- teenth of August, 1GG2, the Sunday before Saint * " A letter from a person of quality to his friend in tlic country." In State Tracts, privately printed in tlic reign of Charles II. p. 42. 462 THE HISTORY OF ciiAPTKR Bartholomew's clay, tlioy preached their farewell ^' sermons. It was a day of the deepest sorrow, and it ciiAs. II. ^y^g known for several £renerations hy a familiar term A.D. 1662. o "^ as the black Sunday. Those who are acquainted with the depth and tenderness of the union which binds the evangelical pastor and his flock, require no description of a scene which others will scarcely understand. Two thousand ministersof Christ took their last leave of two thousand congregations. The preacher's voice was often stifled beneath his own emotion, or drowned in the sobs and tears of his flock. In some churches there was an awful silence ; the only expression of the sorrow that refuses to be comforted, and of the grief that intrenches itself in the inmost soul, while the voice is still and the countenance fixed as in death itself. In the great towns, and in London, the multitudes that filled the churches, clung to the open windows, or listened at the doors, were but a small proportion of the vast crowd which overflowed the streets or lingered in the churchyards. Many of the sermons are in print : those of the clergy in London were taken down by shorthand-writers, and immediately pu1)lislied fi'oin their notes. They do honour to the preachers, and to the cause for which they suffered. The clergy, sublimed by afiiiction, and sustained by tlie presence of One in whose service they were that day to make the sacrifice of all that was dear on earth, spoke with dignity and feeling, but witliout weakness in their sorrow, or unbecoming warmth in their com- plaints. Their tone was solemn and afl'ectionate : the very text, in most instances, anticipated the sermon, and thrilled every heart. Their exhorta- X. CIIAS. II. A.u. \m-i. THE LATER PURITANS. 463 tions were very practical; and their doctrines pure, ciiaithu simple, and evangelical. It is marvellous to notice how a deep earnestness now chased away the follies which had so often fluttered around tlie puritan pulpit. There were few Hehrew criticisms or scraps of Greek ; little of Aristotle, and less of pagan history; no pedantry of jingling* words; hut a style, for the most part, cliaste, manly, and devout. Ahovc all, there was that which will always embalm the puritan cause, whatever were its faults, in the hearts of evangelical christians, a full and fervent exhibi- tion of the gospel. Of themselves, and even of their motives, the preachers said but little. " Yes, my beloved," exclaims Mr. Lye, at Allhallows, Lombard street, " we are so to love our people as to venture anything for them but our own damnation. I come not here to throw firebrands. I bless God that I have a most tender affection for all my brethren in the ministry ; and, though I am not satisfied myself, I condemn no man. I believe there be many do as conscientiously subscribe as deny to subscribe. I protest, in the fear of God, I cannot subscribe : per- haps it is because I have not that light that others have. Brethren, I could do much for the love I bear you ; but I dare not sin. I know they Avill tell you this is pride and peevishness : the Lord be witness between them and us ! I prefer my wife and children before a blast of air of people's talk ; and I am very sensible what it is to be reduced to a morsel of bread. I would do any tiling to keep my- self in the work of God but sin against my God. I dare not do it." This was not the first time that Lye had preached a farewell sermon in Lombaid (•HAS. II. A.U. 1(JG2. 464 THE niSTORT OF ciiAi'TKR street. lie reminds liis congregation that, just — — — eleven years before, lie bad been under sentence of banisbment, and bad taken bis leave of tbem, be- cause be bad refused tlie engagement, or as be says, " because I would not swear against my king. Then," be adds, " I could not forswear myself : Ibe God of beaven keep me tbat I never may!"* Tbat eburcb ougbt to bave been ricb in men of in- tegrity wbicb could afford to part witb sucb an one as Lye. ''I censure none tbat differ from me," said Pr. Jacomb, at tbe eburcb on Ludgate bill, *' as though they displease God : but as to myself, I should violate the peace of my own conscience Aviiicb I cannot do ; no, not to secure my ministry ; though tbat is, or ought to l)e, dearer to me than my very life : and bow dear it is God only knoweth." But in general tbe preachers, to spare the feelings of the people, and their own, or unwilling to pro- voke offence, passed over their nonconformity witb few remarks. They thought it sufTicicnt to allude to tbe various sources from which danger was to be apprehended ; ond tliose they said were chiefly these three : lowering persecution, tbe growth of popery, and the decay of spiritual love. But most of all they seem anxious to guide their broken-hearted folds to the still waters which flow from beneath tbe throne of God. " Your ministers may be banished," says Cradecot, at St. Stephen's, Southwark, in the close of bis last sermon, " your ministers may be imprisoned, but there is a Comforter tbat abides for ever. If Christ can comfort bis people in the absence * "An exact collection of fiirewell sermons preached In (lie late London ministers. Printed in the vear 1()G2."' THE LATER PURITANS. 465 of himself, he can surely comfort them in the ah- chapter sence of all other comforts. When He denies the ^' means He can comfort us without : where He dries chas. n. up the stream He can make us drink at the foun- ^°^^^^- tain. They may keep your ministers out of the pulpit ; they shall not take the Comforter out of your hearts. So that when I shall not preach any more to you, I shall pray the Father that he shall send another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, that he may ahide with you for ever." The minis- ters throughout the kingdom spoke in the same strain. With such doctrines on their lips the ministry of the presbyterians closed. The puritan cause was at an end. Within the church of England it has never since existed as a party ; the seceders took henceforth the name of nonconformists. The history of their suiferings, their patience, their decreasing influence, and their spiritual decline, we leave untold. The nation saw them cast out with great indifference. No provision was made for the support of the ejected ministers, who were left to their own resources and the kind- ness of their friends. Their sufferings were often dreadful. One of them relates how Providence assisted him when he had but threepence left ; another tells of the joy with which he found two silver pieces in a ditch by the road side, where he had sat down faint with hunger and distress ; a third records the unchanging goodness of the God of Elijah, who, when his children wept for bread, H u 466 THE HISTOEY OF CHAPTER and his wife to witness their agonies and her hus- '. — hand's shameful lot, sent an unknown messenger to his door with a sack of flour ; a fourth offers up his praises for the gift of seven golden coins from a stranger, when all his wealth amounted to three halfpence : hut in short the reader who chooses to turn over the leaves of Baxter's life, or Calamy's history of the ejected ministers, may read the pa- thetic story, and yet too true, of want endured by many an outcast vicar and his delicate family, far more touching than Goldsmith's imaginary tale, gilded with the lustre of an unfailing faith, and a serene dependence upon God. There was now no toleration whatever for dissent ; and those who still ventured to preach assembled, like the primitive Christians, by stealth, in some upper room. If they ventured to sing psalms, it was in the shelter of a solitary barn, or in the fields at night, or on the mountain side. If they met sometimes in private houses to kneel in praj^er with some once honoured minister travelling that way, and to listen again to his thrilling exhortations, scouts were placed around to announce the dreaded spy, or magistrate, or parish constable. The preacher, if detected, was insulted and carried off to prison, and his congre- gation fined, and perhaps imprisoned. All this the nation bore without the least resentment. Pro- foundly torpid, it made no attempt to vindicate its own liberties in the persons of the nonconformists. Indeed from time to time fresh oppressions were heaped upon them. In June, IG63, the conventicle act made it penal for more than five persons besides the family to THE LATER PURITANS. 467 assemble in private houses " for any exercises of chapter religion in any other manner than is the practice : — of the church of England;" and the penalty might be inflicted by the justice of the peace, without a jury. Por the first offence the punishment was three months' imprisonment in the common jail and a fine of five pounds ; for the second, six months' imprisonment and a fine of ten pounds ; and for the third (now, however, after conviction by a jury), banishment for life to some of the American plan- tations, excepting always, as too congenial an abode, the puritan colonies of New England. The five- mile act followed in 1665 : it enacted that all those nonconformist ministers who refused to swear "that it was not lawful on any pretence whatever to take up arms against the king," and " not to endeavour any alteration of government whatever, at any time, either in church or state," were incapable of teach- ing schools or receiving pupils ; and they were forbidden to come within five miles of any corporate town, or of any parish in which they had been accustomed to ofiiciate. There have been times when the spiritual church has multiplied and thriven beneath even hotter fires : but nonconfor- mity dwindled ; and when at length happier days arrived, its force was spent. After the revolution of 1688, when these infamous acts were repealed, and liberty of conscience became a fundamental law, though no considerable number of the ejected ministers had yet conformed, the zeal of their fol- lowers was not sufficient to reinstate them in the ministry. Of the antient leaders, Manton, Calamy, Owen, Caryl, Spurstowe, and Jacomb were no H H 2 X. 468 THE HISTORY OF (jiiAPTEK more ; but Bates, Elavel, Jollie, Cradock, Ilowe, and Baxter were still in full vigour ; and Philip Henry, Silvester, the younger Calamy, Annesley, and many more, all well tried men, were ready to fill up the foremost ranks, as death should thin them. Three, or possibly four, hundred meeting-houses were built, and some of the great divines of former days might again be heard in the pulpit ; but this w^as all. Many of these chapels still remain in country towns and parishes, modest and retired, surrounded by the green chapel-yard in which the ashes of the elder presbyterians have long slept ; and we may gather from them some information as to the state of nonconformity after its long affliction of eight-and-twenty years. The meeting-house is invariably small : it can seldom accommodate more than two hundred persons ; the spacious chapels of our large towns are of a much later date. It seems as if puritanism, after a stormy life, had been satis- fied at last to retire into obscurity and die in peace. The return of liberty did not revive its strength. With free indulgence to plant itself in every parish and convert England to its principles, presbyterian- isni then accomplished nothing. It dwindled away, and became, first cold and formal, then arian, and at length socinian. It now exists in England chiefly by virtue of a few endowments to which it clings, and which still impart to it some signs of life. The vigorous dissent of modern times is a new creation : it sprung up from the days of Doddridge and Whit- field, in the middle of the last century ; it has in- corporated the old presbyterian churches in many instances, and accepted their faith and discipline in THE LATER PURITANS. 469 many more. But as an historical fact, the dissent chapter of the present century does not trace its origin to — - — the pm'itan nonconformists : it is a new secession. To the church of England the exclusion of the nonconformists proved a melancholy triumph. If it be presumptuous to fix upon particular occur- rences as proofs of God's displeasure ; yet none will deny that a long, unbroken, course of disasters, indi- cates but too surely, whether to a nation or a cliurch, that his favour is withdrawn. Within five years of the ejection of the two thousand nonconformists London was twice laid waste, first by pestilence and then by fire. The puritans saw the hand of God in these appalling visitations and adored his righteous vengeance. But other calamities ensued, more last- ing and far more terrible. E/cligion in the church of England was almost extinguished, and in many of her parishes the lamp of God went out. The places of the ejected clergy were supplied with little regard even to the decencies of the sacred ofiice : the voluptuous, the indolent, the ignorant, and even the profane, received episcopal orders, and like a swarm of locusts overspread the church. A few good men amongst the bishops and the conforming clergy deplored in vain this fearful devastation. Charles himself expressed his indignation : he was disgusted with the misconduct of the clergy;* for profligate men are not unfrequently amongst the first to perceive the shame of others. It was the opinion of those who lived in these evil days, that had it not been for a small body of respectable clergymen, who had been educated among the puri- * Burnet, Hist. Own Times, vol. i. book ii. X. 470 THE HISTORY OF CHAPTER tans, and of whom Wilkins, Patrick, and Tillotson were the leaders, every trace of godliness would have been clean put out, and the land reduced to universal and avowed atheism.* Indeed, the writings and sermons of the church of England divines of this period confirm these statements. They are evidently addressed to hearers before whom it was necessary to prove not merely the providence, but the very being, of a God ; not only the soul's im- mortality, but the soul's existence. Their pains are chiefly spent, not in defending any particular creed or system of doctrine ; for they appear to have thought all points of doctrine beyond the attain- ment of the age. They take up the people of Eng- land where heathenism might have left them a thousand years before ; they teach the first elements of natural religion ; and descant upon tlie nature of virtue, its present recompence, and the arguments in favour of a state of retribution, after the manner of Socrates and Plato. It is seldom that they rise beyond moral and didactic instructions. Theology languished and spiritual religion became nearly unknown ; and a few great and good men handed down to one another the practice and the traditions of a piety which was almost extinct. The restoration of civil liberty brought with it no return of spiritual life within the church of England. The nation became less immoral without becoming more religious. Politics and party ate out the very vitals of what little piety remained :t at length one of the most cautious of English writers, as Avell as * Burnet, Hist. Own Times, vol. i. book ii. t Burnet, Pastoral Care, written about HiiH. THE LATER PURITANS. 471 the most profound of English divines, seventy years chapter after the ejection of the nonconformists, pourtrays '■ — the character of the age in those memorable words, in which he tells us, that it had come, he knew not how, to he taken for granted hy too many, that Christianity was not so much as a subject of enquiry; that it was now at length discovered to be ficti- tious ! * How widely these opinions had infected the nation and its educated classes, we may infer from the circumstance that he devoted his life to that wonderful book in which he proves, by the argument from analogy, that religion deserves at least a candid hearing. Bishop Newton, a few years afterwards, wrote his treatise on the fulfilment of prophecy with the same intentions : while Dod- dridge, amongst dissenters, deplored the prevalence of a fatal apathy and the decay of real piety. In the course of ninety years the nation had descended to a state of irreligion, which we now contemplate with feelings of wonder and dismay. When the gospel was once more proclaimed, by Doddridge and Venn, by Whitfield and the Wesleys, the depth of spiritual degradation cannot be more for- cibly expressed than by the fact, that everywhere the tidings were received with all the surprise of novelty. Venerable forms remained, but they con- veyed no adequate meaning ; scriptural doctrines were retained,' but, with rare exceptions, they were neither explained nor understood. A powerful machinery had been long in being, but the very knowledge of its uses had become to a great extent a mere tradition. There had all along been bright * Bishoj) Butler, in pref. to the Analogy, 173(). 472 THE HISTORY OP CHAPTER exceptions, both among the laity and the clergy ; " hut England, taken as a whole, had forgotten God. When the puritans were expelled, they carried with] them the spiritual light of the churcli of England ; and yet even amongst themselves the light had become dim and the glory had departed. On the whole, it is a painful history. It shews the folly of petulance and a morbid preciseness, however sincere, on the one side, and of unyielding severity and an equally absurd tenacity of forms upon the other. Our approbation seldom at any period goes entirely with either party ; and we judge most favourably of each by turns, as we see it in distress, and when our judgment is silenced by our sympathies. But one lesson recurs at every period, and gathers strength from the incidents of every page. A national church must stand upon a gene- rous basis : it must admit good men of every shade of orthodox piety ; its terms of communion must be few J it must hold the essentials of salvation (without which it were indeed no church) ; and it must endeavour to comprehend those, whatever their weaknesses, who subscribe to the apostolic canon in their lives, and give sufficient evidence that they *' love the Lord Jesus in sincerity." Other methods have been tried in vain. We know thej price at which a rigid adherence to rubrical observ- ances must be purchased. We have seen the con- sequences of a rigid uniformity ; and we have seen] the emptiness of a ritual zeal. — Shall we for ever| tread in the erring footsteps of our forefathers ? or does there remain a hope that the Christianity of England may yet collect its disjointed and too often X. THE LATER PURITANS. 473 conflicting forces into one, and present to the nations chapter of the earth the benign spectacle of the greatest of all people, on the most important of all subjects, at unity within itself ; — like that city in which, of old, the tabernacle of the Most High was pitched, and in the midst of which God himself vouchsafed to dwell ? Printed by C.F. Hodgson, 1 Gough Square, Fleet Street, London. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. . ..... J LD-URL "i ! ^R 1 6 1990 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY m .JSi:: ■A'jA-iV.-L'.k'. ■ ,.,^^//|^,■ V^ '''■it '%i. .t^svii^ii^ri