opinions of the Presbyterians on toleration, these brethren felt the danger they were likely to be placed in by the bigotry of the Assembly, and pleaded nobly the cause of religious liberty.

Let it be distinctly borne in mind that this question, as carried on by the champions of liberty, was not the establishment of Presbyterianism or Independency, as has been too often affirmed, for the Independents conceded the subject of the establishment of the former, and only asked for toleration on behalf of those who conscientiously seceded from it. But their forcible arguments and eloquent appeals were in vain. No toleration could be granted, and absolute and universal conformity to their opinions was required by the sticklers for the divine right of Presbyterianism. The Parliament was disposed to more liberal opinions, and to grant a certain measure of toleration, but it was controuled by the influence of the Assembly. The whole country was in a flame about the subject, and one Edwards published a tirade against toleration, called

Gangræna," so full of fire and fury that it contained combustible matter enough to set the nation in flames. Toleration was reviled as the great Diana of the Independents. The opponents of liberty said, "If we tolerate one, we must tolerate all." And why not? Little did it occur to these persecuting theologians that in less than twenty years from that time, all this artillery would be turned upon themselves; that they should be excluded the Establishment by a re-enactment of the Act of Uniformity; and that they should be reduced to the necessity of pleading for the indulgence which they now refused to their brethren.

The Long Parliament at length lent itself to the cruel and dirty work of persecution. They required all men

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to subscribe to that renowned instrument, "The Solemn League and Covenant;" they interdicted, under heavy penalties, the use of the Book of Common Prayer, not only in churches, but in private familes. It was a crime in a child to read by the bed-side of a sick parent one of those beautiful collects which had soothed the griefs of twenty generations of Christians." Most of the old clergy were ejected from their benefices, and in some instances exposed to the outrages of a fanatical rabble. Severe punishments were denounced against such as should presume to blame the Calvinistic wor ship. Nor were they more tolerant of things than they were of opinions, for they waged war against matters of taste as well as religion. Churches and sepulchres were defaced; fine works of art and precious remains of antiquity were destroyed. Popular and polluting amusements, which should have been suppressed by the growing intelligence and virtue of the people, were put down by statute. All this-alas! for human consistencywas done by the very men who had delivered the nation from despotism; and it proves how greatness may be sometimes allied to littleness, and how a passion for liberty in one direction may be associated with a taste for persecution in another.

The bigotry and intolerance of the Assembly of Divines and their adherents, roused to indignation the mighty soul of that great man whom the pen of Macaulay thus beautifully describes:-"A mightier poet, tried at once by pain, danger, obloquy, and blindness, meditated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around him, a song so sublime and so holy that it would not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement

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their crowns of amaranth and gold." Milton stepped forth to wither with the sarcasm of his verse, and to abash with the power of prose immortal as his poetry, the narrow and jealous spirit of the party predominant in the Assembly. In a work entitled "The Liberty of Unlicensed Printing," written to defend the freedom of publications against the Assembly, who had seized the press and set up a system of licensing, he pleaded in some of the noblest paragraphs in the English language for unrestricted toleration. The following is an attack upon the bigots, in verse:

"Because you have thrown off your prelate lord,
And with stiff vows renounc'd his liturgy,
To seize the widow'd whore plurality

From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr'd,

Dare ye for this abjure the civil sword

To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic hierarchy ?

But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent,
That so the parliament
May with their wholesome and preventive shears
Clip your phylacteries, though balk your ears,

And succour our just fears,
When they shall read this clearly in your charge,
New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.

One of those great minds, which appear at rare intervals of time, now rose upon the nation, and threw the light of his genius upon the troubled scenes of intestine commotion. At length, after ages of misrepresentation and misconception, the clouds of reproach are rolling off from the true character of Oliver Cromwell, and by the defences of two such opposite men as Carlyle and D'Aubigne, aided by Macaulay, he begins to be understood. In common with those who acted with him, he committed the sin, and the fault, for it was

* Milton's Poems, p. 265.

both, of beheading Charles, a monarch, it is true, who, by his despotism, his perfidy, and his obstinate folly, exhausted the forbearance of his foes and disgusted the moral taste even of his friends. Whatever may be said in the way of palliation, in regard to the death of Charles, it cannot be defended. It is a question, however, whether Cromwell could have averted it, had he been so disposed. In his views of religious liberty, he surpassed his age. The power, and therefore the persecutions, of the Parliament, were now over, and Cromwell granted liberty of conscience to all but Papists and Unitarians. The clergy of the Anglican church were allowed to celebrate their worship in their own forms, on condition that they would abstain from preaching about politics; and even the Jews, whose public worship, ever since the thirteenth century, had been interdicted, were, in spite of the gloomy opposition of zealous traders, and fanatical theologians, permitted to build a synagogue in London. Just a little before the Protector's death, the Independents petitioned his Highness for liberty to hold a synod, in order to agree upon, and publish to the world, a confession of their faith. The very act of asking permission for such a meeting shews that even in the time of the Protectorate religious liberty had yet some heavy restrictions upon it, for who, when this is complete, would think it necessary to ask the civil magistrate for permission to assemble for such a business? The meet. ing accordingly was held at the Savoy, in the year 1658, and consisted of ministers and delegates of above one hundred churches. A declaration of principles was agreed upon, which was soon after published, and on account of the place where the meeting was held, was called "The Savoy Confession."

It may be here proper to remark that the great ques

tion of modern times, the separation of religion altogether from the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate, and the support of it exclusively by the voluntary offerings of its friends, had scarcely been mooted, except in a few minds like those of Milton, and even in them rather as speculation than as a practicability. The Independents came nearer to this than any other, but even they were not clear upon the subject. Dr. Owen, in his sermon entitled "Christ's Kingdom and the Magistrates' Power," preached to the Parliament, October, 1659, has the following remarks:— "Some think that if you were settled, you ought not in any thing, as rulers of the nation, to put forth your power for the interest of Christ: the good Lord keep you from such an apprehension. If it once comes to this that you should say you have nothing to do with religion as rulers of the nation, God will quickly manifest that he hath nothing to do with you as rulers of the nation." He also uses the very allusion and illustration, the fallacy of which has been so often and so fully demonstrated in modern times, of the duty of the Parliament, as fathers, and masters of the nation, to take care for the religion of their great household. The Independents generally contended for an establishment, but an establishment which at the same time should allow of toleration, and also comprehension. Their theory was the protection and support of those who preached the gospel, whether belonging to Presbyterians or Independents; and many of both at that time possessed the benefices of the church, though the great bulk of the ministers were Presbyterians. The purely voluntary principle, as that to which religion is to be exclusively left, was almost unknown, and had scarcely become a matter even of speculation. It was the establishment of error only that was opposed; for