BOOK IIL neither in prayer nor preaching, the common business; he CHAP. II read much out of his paper book. All his sermon was on the common head of a spiritual life—wherein he ran out, above our understandings, upon a knowledge of God as God, without the Scripture, without grace, without Christ. They say he amended it somewhat the next Sabbath.* Nye was one of ten or eleven independent men in the Synod, many of them very able men, to whom others were extremely opposite, and somewhat bitterly, on the office of teachers in the church. On the question of the metrical version of the Psalms, Mr. Nye did speak much against a tie to any psalter, and something (probably in favour) "of the singing of paraphrases as of preaching of homilies. We, underhand, will mightily oppose it; for the psalter is a great part of our uniformity, which we cannot lift up, till our church be well advised with it."+

"When our chief question, that many particular congregations were under the government of one presbytery," when Nye saw the Assembly full of the prince, nobles, and chief members of both houses, he did fall on that argument again, and very boldly offered to demonstrate that our way of drawing a whole kingdom under one national assembly as formidable, yea, pernicious; and thrice over pernicious, to civil states and kingdoms. All had him down, and some would have had him expelled the Assembly as seditious. Mr. Henderson shew(ed) he spoke against the government of our's, and all the reformed churches, as Lucian and the Pagans (were) wont to stir up princes and states against the Christian religion. We were all highly offended with him. The Assembly voted him to have spoken against the order— this is the highest of their censures. Maitland was absent, but enraged when he heard of it. We had many consultations what to do, at last we resolved to pursue it no farther, only we would not meet with him, except he acknowledged his fault. The Independents were resolute not to meet without him, and he resolute to recall nothing of the substance of what he had said. At last we were entreated by our friends to shuffle it over the best way might be, and to go on in our business. God, that brings good out of evil, made that miscarriage of Nye a mean to do him some good; for ever • Wood's Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. Na, 97. Ibid, vol. ii. p. 110.

Ibid, vol. ii. p. 121.

*יי

CHAP. II.

since, we find him, in all things, the most accommodating BOOK III man in the company." Baillie complains again, of Nye's opposition in several circumstancial matters, and of a remonstrance to Parliament against “the huge increase, and insolences intolerable of the Anabaptists and Antinomians," and of his contending for the right of church members to vote in matters of discipline.

bers of the

The eminent statesmen, jurists, and scholars, who sat as Lay memlaymen in this Assembly, are well known to the readers of Westminster English history, to which their character belongs, rather Assembly. than to that of the Puritans. On the general character of the Assembly itself, very different opinions have been given, according to the party views or personal feelings with which the minds of the writers have been tinctured. It was, surely, a noble gathering for a noble purpose. It was summoned for giving advice to Parliament in one department of its multifarious business. The Assembly had no power. Its long debates were, probably, encouraged by the Parliamentary leaders, to divert the subtle and active minds which composed it from meddling too much with general politics, and to keep them not only employed but under control.+

The progress of religious freedom in modern times has kept many from duly estimating the learned and pious churchmen who expressed their horror of tolerating all sects; and comparatively few, perhaps, are now in a condition to appreciate the labours of that Assembly, or to trace their influence on the minds of men in following generations.

Although the Scottish commissioners mistook, as we believe, the genius of the English people, and had but dim insight into the intentions of the English Parliament; although there was too much both of northern and southern nationality; although the spirit so natural to every priesthood, and to every church establishment was stronger than it ought to be; though there was a morbid dread of the evils that seemed to be the necessary consequences of entire religious freedom ;-still the Westminster Assembly con

* Wood's Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. pp. 145, 146.

Orme's Life of Baxter. For an elaborate history of the Assembly, written by a Presbyterian, see the "History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines,' by the Rev. W. M. Hetherington, author of the "History of the Church of Scotland," &c. &c. Edinburgh, 1843.

BOOK II. tained within it the germs of nearly all the civil and reliCHAP. II. gious liberty which has wrought such happy effects in England, and in her ancient colonies on the western side of the Atlantic. And even yet, it must be acknowledged, the very principle of religious liberty is far from being understood, or acted on, throughout the greater part of Christendom.

SECTION IV.-OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY.

As it does not belong to our object to narrate the political history of the times, the reader will not expect more than a very brief reference to the abolition of the monarchy, and the execution of the King. The time it is hoped, has gone by, when persons were so ignorant, or so bigoted, as to connect those events with either the religious or the political principles now held by any party in common with the Puritans.

From the conflicting statements of men pledged to opposite parties, on the most exciting of all questions, the calmer writers of later times and of other countries besides our own, have drawn a tolerably correct narrative of the facts, and have formed a somewhat impartial judgment of the

men.

With the aid of such writers, we have studied this grand tragedy in English history. The spirit of English liberty which had been down-trodden by the Norman barons, and, with the help of their feudal successors, and of the church, curbed by the princes of the house of Tudor, slowly but steadily diffused itself among the yeomanry, and still more through the communities that grew into power with the progress of trade and the increase of towns. The wealth and intelligence, the union and energy, arising from the same causes which also prepared the way for the Reformation, required a great enlargement of wisdom, and we must add of goodness, in the rulers of such a people. Unhappily, such were not the qualities either of James or of his son; and the rulers of the church, Bancroft and Laud, in both these reigns, believed, we may suppose, that they served the church by exalting the prerogative of the monarch, and jealously thwarting the liberties of the people.

Two distinct classes of motives were at work in widening

the breach between the throne and the subjects-the reli- BOOK IIL gious and the political. Though both might unite, and CHAP. IL doubtless often did, in the same mind, they were not necessarily blended; numbers acted as politicians, and numbers acted as the religious. But as these parties were suffering from a common grievance, it was impossible that the one should not influence the other. It is among the proofs of human weakness, that there should be men who cannot conceive of the love of liberty being allied to religion; and others who will not believe that religion can have anything to do with social subordination, and graduated political institutions. One consequence of this weakness is, that by one party, every advocate of authority is regarded as something very like a tyrant, and every combatant for freedom by another party, as of necessity a rebel; while each party joined with the other in denouncing the tyrant or the rebel, according to their respective views, as a hypocrite.

To one of these extremes it belonged to believe or say all manner of evil things against the King and the bishops, and to the other, to believe or say quite as many evil things of regicides, who destroyed a church. Now here are the facts: the Parliaments were so disliked by Charles, that, like his father, he resolved, if possible, to reign without them. This, however, he could not do, without inflicting grievances on his subjects contrary to the laws. When the Parliament -the Long Parliament-met, it quarrelled with the King, both the King and Parliament appealed to the sword. This brought a new power into the field, an army without a constitutional leader. That army having conquered the King, quarrelled with the Parliament, and crushed it in its turn. It was by this triumphant army-not by the Parliament-not by the people-not by any church or religious sect, that the King was destroyed; because they knew that if they did not destroy him, he would destroy them, and with them, all the liberties for which they had pledged their fortunes, and exposed their lives. There was among them, at least one man who saw that either Charles or himself must perish-the hero of Marston Moor, and of Naseby. He made his choice; he had the sword in his hand; Charles was brought to the block; Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England.

BOOK III.

CHAP III

"Modern readers," says Mr. Carlyle, “ought to believe that there was a real impulse of heavenly faith at work in the controversy; that on both sides, more especially on the army's side; here lay the central element of all, modifying all other elements and passions; that this controversy was in several respects very different from the common wrestling of Greek with Greek, for what are called 'political objects.' Modern readers, mindful of the French Revolution, will perhaps compare these Presbyterians and Independents to the Gironde and the Mountain. And there is an analogy, yet with differences. With a great difference of situations; with the difference, too, between Englishmen and Frenchmen, which is always considerable; and then with the difference between believers in Jesus Christ, and believers in Jean Jacques, which is still more considerable."

CHAPTER III.

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS DURING THE COMMONWEALTH.

IMMEDIATELY after the death of the King, the ancient monarchy of England, and all the institutions dependent on it, were abolished. Two-thirds of the members of Parliament were expelled by Cromwell from the House of Commcns; the House of Lords was declared useless, and

• Carlyle's Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, vol. i. p. 289. In the same volume (p. 337) Mr. Carlyle inserts from Some's Tracts, vii. 499-501, "a faithful memorial of that remarkable meeting of many officers of the army in Eng. land, at Windsor Castle, in the year 1648," on which he makes these characteristic remarks: "In which, however, if he (the reader) will look till it become credible and intelligent to him, a strange thing, most elucidative of the heart of this matter, will disclose itself. . . . . (They meet to pray.) Entirely amazing to us. These are the longest heads and strongest hearts in England, and this is the thing they are doing; this is the way they, for their part, begin dispatch of business. The reader, if he is an earnest man, may look at it with very many thoughts, for which there is no word at present. Abysses, black chaotic whirlwinds;- does the reader look upon it all as madness? Madness lies close by; as madness does to the highest wisdom in man's life always: but this is not mad! This dark element, it is the mother of the lightnings and the splendours; it is very sure this!"-P. 336, 341.