tween the established church and the Puritans. But when the hierarchy was suppressed, when Strafford and Laud were executed, when the king was a prisoner, and the parliament supreme, the warfare raged between the Presbyterians and those who sought still greater liberty. As the whole interest in the religious history of the times hangs on the contentions of these two parties, we will, for a moment, glance at the principles they defended.

The Presbyterian party, which embraced the Scottish nation, most of the nobility and gentry that adhered to the parliamentary side, the dissenting clergy of rank, and a large proportion of the citizens of London, was not behindhand with the Episcopacy, in hatred of sects, and even of a free press. The trammels which the Presbyterians, while in power, imposed on the press, drew out John Milton in his famous tract on the liberty of unlicensed printing. This party had its models of worship, and avowed the divine origin of its government. It looked upon schism as the parent of heresy and licentiousness, insisted on uniformity, and claimed the use of the secular sword, to punish schismatics and heretics. It stood in awe of the army, and preferred the royal authority, when restrained, to the government of Cromwell. But the model of its worship was Genevan, its creed orthodox, its morality severe, and its pi teyelevated.

The other party embraced all the other dissenting sects, and the head of which were the Independents. They wished not only the total abolition of prelacy, but of synods and presbyteries. They believed that every congregation was a distinct and independent church, and had the right to elect its own pastor. They preferred a multitude of churches, with diverse and even heretical sentiments, to the idea of exterminating error by penal laws. They were inflexibly bent on not submitting to those who sought to bind the conscience in secular chains. They rejected all spiritual courts, claimed the right of each congregation to govern itself, and maintained that the Scriptures were the only perfect rule of faith and practice. In politics they wished a total overthrow of monarchy, aristocracy, and episcopacy, and were averse to any peace which should not secure tol

eration.

It must be seen, that between the Presbyterians and Independents of that age there could be no lasting alliance. They indeed united to suppress the common foe, and then they turned

their arms against each other. The army, with Cromwell at its head, had no objection that Presbyterianism should become the national religion, but insisted on the free toleration of all their countless doctrines, and resolved not to lay down their arms until it was secure. To effect this, "they first treated with the king, and, when they suspected he was not dealing fairly with them, they made proposals to the parliament; but when they found the Presbyterians as averse to toleration as the Episcopalians, they were disappointed and irritated. Then they seized his majesty's person a second time, purged the House of Commons, blew up the constitution, and buried king, parliament, and Presbyterians in its ruins. This was not their original intention, nor the result of their principles, but the effect of violence, resulting from despair."

Such is the statement of Neal, who perhaps was too favorable to the Independent party. Still we acknowledge the good which the Presbyterians did for England, under whose auspices the famous assembly of divines was convened at Westminster, and the universities filled with learned and pious professors.

If toleration is one of the greatest blessings of the Reformation, then we cannot look upon it as complete until the Independents came into power. It was the glory of Oliver Cromwell to grant a greater degree of religious liberty than has ever been since enjoyed in England. He did not give perfect toleration. It was not extended to the Catholics nor the Quakers. And here he erred, and was not true to his own principles. But he regarded the essential principle of Romanism as persecuting and intolerant, and opposed the Catholics, as some do now, on the principle of self-defence. The Quakers he detested, and had some reason for his antipathy, since they disturbed his government, and interfered with the religious rights of others. The followers of George Fox afterwards defended the true idea of liberty, but, in the time of Cromwell, they were noisy and agrarian, fanatical, and even blasphemous. They went into public meetings, and disturbed them by calling the clergy dumb dogs and lying prophets. Of all the savage denunciators in ancient or modern times, Pagan, Jewish, or Roman, the impostor Muggleton had the most unceremonious way of sending people to perdition. In a letter to the Quakers of York, he says, "These words are sin against the Holy Ghost, and since God hath chosen me, on earth, judge of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, therefore, in obedience to my commis

sion from the true God, I do pronounce on all those twenty-six persons, whose names are above written, cursed and damned to all eternity." This was the inspiration of the "inner light," with a vengeance. Such blasphemy and impudence ought to have been punished with both pillory and imprisonment. Such people as the Ranters, and Familists, and Quakers of the time, who rejected all constraint whatsoever, and indulged in the wildest excesses of democratic fanaticism, would have tried the patience even of a milder man than the protector. And, after all, perhaps, the statute which he enacted was the best for the times that could have been made. Compared with the most indulgent acts of the kings of England, from William I. to William III., it was liberty itself. It runs thus: "All who profess faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and do acknowledge the Scriptures as the revealed will of God, though in other things they may differ from the public profession, shall not be compelled from their profession, and shall be protected in the exercise of their religion, provided they abuse not their liberty to the civil injury of others, or the disturbance of the public peace, and provided that this liberty do not extend to popery or prelacy, or to the countenance of horrid blasphemies. And those ministers who agree with the public profession of faith, though they may differ in matters of worship and discipline, shall not only have protection in their churches, but shall be deemed fit and capable of trust, promotion, and employment in the public service."

This was the charter of liberty which Cromwell granted, and which was more liberal than England has since enjoyed. It was an error in the protector, that it was not granted to all, and the refusal to extend it to the Papists and Quakers, was a violation of the great principles of Protestantism, and it was an assumption of the very principles of Catholicism itself. It was Satan casting out Satan. In the conflict of principles, there are no worldly weapons to be used-no penal laws-no persecution. And any resort to carnal warfare, will certainly ensure defeat, inasmuch as it is running races with the devil on his own ground.

The Restoration was a victory over both the Independents and the general swarm of sectaries which unparalleled religious excitement had encouraged. Charles did not immediately kindle the old fires, because undisguised retaliation would not have been decent. But it was impossible to forget the past. At

first, there was an effort to unite all parties,-an attempt which was to be expected from a Gallio in religion, and a Gallienus in the knowledge of human nature. So soon as that attempt had proved a failure, the old policy of the kings of England was resorted to. Another act of uniformity was passed. Charles could think of no better method of settling the religious affairs of his kingdom, even in view of the melancholy experiments of his father. The old hierarchy was restored, and the old penal laws enforced. And, inasmuch as the morals and habits of the people in this reign were too strict, the number of holydays was increased. The Common Prayer Book became the standard of faith and worship. Persecution recommenced her reign. During the government of Charles II., four thousand Nonconformists perished in prison, and sixty thousand families were ruined. So great was the severity of the times, and the arbitrary proceedings of justice, that many were afraid to pray in their families, or even to ask a blessing at table, if four or five of their neighbors were present. Even women were persecuted for attending social religious meetings.

Nor was there seen the spirit of resistance. The people quietly acquiesced in these arbitrary proceedings, and tamely submitted to indignities which once would have roused the whole nation to frenzy. The truth is, that a great torpor had succeeded this great awakening. All classes sought repose"to be soothed"-and all yielded to the vices of the times. The wars of Cromwell were followed by the natural consequences of all wars-drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, prodigality, levity, and infidelity. The deep earnestness of a religious age was succeeded by apathy and indifference; and impassioned monitors of the past, and the seven interpreters of the ancient revelation, and the keen controversialists of a period rich, bebeyond comparison, in theological inquiry, gave place to consecrated buffoons, who had no sympathy with freedom, nor learning, nor religion. It is true, there were exceptions among the sleek divines of the re-established church. Those who had passed through seven experiences, and were trained under a Puritan regime, still adorned the establishment. Leighton, whose pious father had been whipped at the pillory for nonconformity, and Burnet, the historian of the Reformation, and Tillotson, and Stillingfleet, and some others, were lights amid the darkness, and sincerely deplored the disgraces of the times. Jeremy Taylor wrote a treatise in defence of toleration, and, like another Irish

bishop of our day, who has distinguished himself by opposition to the dark ages in the form of Puseyism, was an illustrious ornament of a degenerate church;-a man of heavenly mind and loving heart, of liberal feeling and soaring eloquence, learned without pedantry, and holy without asceticism.

Charles II. was not murdered, nor driven from his kingdom; but his last days were melancholy, and his last hours heathenish. He finished his profligate life by recommending to his brother his mistress, and illegitimate children, without the least penitence for his crimes and follies, and without saying a word about his queen, his country, his friends, his debts, or his future hopes. As the Romans said of Leo X., whom they could not forgive for leaving behind so many debts, and dying without the sacraments, so might the English have said of their libertine and infidel king, "he glided in like a fox, he ruled like a lion, and he died like a dog." Dissimulation and buffoonery were his greatest talents. He was equally false to friends and enemies, and consistent in nothing but levity and libertinism.

James II., who succeeded him, was not quite so profligate, but was more odious to the nation,—a man as insincere as Charles, as bigoted as Mary, and as cruel as Henry VIII. He completes the catalogue of the Stuart princes. Every one knows how deceitful were his promises, how severe were his enactments, and how disastrous was his policy. He was a Romanist at heart, and the nation found it out. They bore the inhuman butcheries of Jeffries, but resented the arrest of the ten protesting bishops. James, from all the instructive lessons of the past, seemed to have learned no wisdom, and to have derived no advantage. His plans were as unsuccessful as his reign was inglorious, and both will ever be spoken of with a contempt only equalled by detestation. Of all his blunders and cruelties, his patronage of Jeffries and Kirk, "two tigers who delighted in blood," was the most odious and revolting. It is said that the judge, who generally was drunk, and always insolent, hanged, in all, six hundred persons. His cruelty to Baxter was the most unpardonable and unreasonable,-one of the brightest ornaments of the sacred literature of his country; a man who had refused a bishopric, and had retired to Kidderminster, that he might discharge his humble duties in peace, and enjoy, unmolested, the consolations of his religion. And yet this eminent and inoffensive saint and scholar, in the very fulness of his fame and usefulness, was ejected from his humble parish, imprisoned in the foulest jails, and condemned to seek a precarious