This

nearly all allowed of the establishment of truth. is not unfrequently alledged against the modern dissenters, who are told, by an argumentum ad verecundiam, that they go farther than their great ancestors, who only contended for reform, but not for an entire revolution. But the question is not what the nonconformists of ancient days believed and practised, but whether their faith and practice were accordant with the New Testa

ment.

Mr. Macaulay gives us a very accurate and striking description of the religious and moral character of Cromwell's army That which chiefly distinguished it from other armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous royalists that, in that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that during the long dominion of the soldiers, the property of the peaceful citizen and the honour of woman were held sacred. If outrages were committed they were outrages of a very different kind of which a victorious army is generally guilty. No servant girl complained of the rough gallantry of the red coats. Not an ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. But a Pelagian sermon or a window on which the Virgin and Child were painted, produced in the Puritan ranks an excitement which it required the utmost exertions of the officers to quell. One of Oliver's chief difficulties was to restrain his pikemen and dragoons from invading by main force the pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time, were not savoury and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks of the hatred with which these stern spirits regarded every vestige of Popery." And now let the same pen tell what these

warriors continued to be when, at the Restoration, they laid down their military character and returned to the occupations of peace and their homes. "The troops were now to be disbanded. Fifty thousand men accustomed to the profession of arms were at once to be thrown upon the world; and experience seemed to warrant the belief that this change would produce much misery and crime, that the discharged veterans would be seen begging in every strect, or would be driven by hunger to pillage. But no such result followed. In a few months there remained not a trace indicating that the most formidable army in the world had been admitted into the mass of the community. The royalists themselves confessed that in every department of honest industry, the discarded warriors prospered beyond other men, that none was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was heard to ask an alms, and that if a mason, or a baker, or a waggoner, attracted notice by diligence and sobriety, he was in all probability one of Oliver's old soldiers."* All history may be challenged for the parallel to this.t

Such testimony proves that if it be the tendency of one great crime to subvert the foundation and overthrow the superstructure of all personal virtue, and leave the character in ruins, how well and strongly must the basis of morals and religion have been laid in those men's hearts, which, to borrow the representation of many royalist writers, even the shock of this greatest of all crimes,

* Macaulay, vol. I. p. 154.

+ Since the former sheet was struck off, I have examined into the evidence of the truth of the report of Cromwell and Hampden having been detained and prevented from sailing for America after they had gone on board for that purpose, and find that it is utterly incredible.

next to the death of Christ, did not in the smallest degree weaken.

On the death of CROMWELL, and the resignation of the Protectorate by his son Richard, the nation, tired of changes, and now in danger of universal anarchy, manifested the general uneasiness which was felt. General Monk with his army was called out of Scotland, and on his arrival in London declared in favour of CHARLES II. A council of state was summoned, and having agreed to invite the royal exile to the throne, put the question, "Whether they should call him in open treaty and covenant, or entirely confide in him ?" After some debate it was resolved to trust him absolutely. This want of caution has been severely censured by many, but has lately been explained and even defended, as rendered necessary by the circumstances of the nation, which did not admit of the delays and the dangers which protracted discussion on that point would have certainly occasioned. And, moreover, with the army on his side, and the nation so generally conciliated to his interests, it may be questioned whether any covenant he might have entered into to secure liberty of conscience, would have been permitted to remain in force a single year. The Puritans, notwithstanding this omission, entertained hopes that though Episcopacy would, of course, be re-established, that yet toleration would be granted to those who conscientiously dissented from it. For these hopes they had all the ground that could be afforded by the word of the King. Both to the Presbyterian divines who waited upon him, and in his declaration from Breda, he assured them that "He would grant liberty to tender consciences, and that no man should be questioned for a difference of opinion in matters of religion, who did not disturb the peace of the

kingdom." Had the King been left to himself, it is the opinion of many that he would have abided by his own declaration, and that it was the instigation of the bishops, and of others bent upon revenge, which so soon led him to falsify all these promises. Episcopacy was restored in all its splendour, and with it, of course, all that pertained to the offices and services of the hierarchy and the church. The clergy who had been expelled, by order of the Long Parliament, for incompetency or immorality, or at least those of them who still lived, were restored to their former livings: the fellows and heads of colleges of the two universities, who had been ejected, were re-instated, and things brought back as nearly as possible to their condition before the Commonwealth.

The Puritans would have had no great reason to complain, considering the views entertained on these matters by the court and the nation, had matters gone no farther than this, and if they had been allowed, in matters of indifference to use their liberty in the church, or to exercise their ministry according to their own views, out of it. But they soon learnt that they were permitted to do neither. The King was scarcely seated upon his throne before persecution commenced its dreadful work, by dragging the nonconformists info the spiritual courts, and there mulcting them of their property and condemning them to prison.

Still the voice of the Puritan ministers, who called for church reform, was not wholly suppressed, for a commission was granted by the King for the purpose of reviewing the liturgy, which met at the Savoy, in 1661, and from its place of meeting was called "The Savoy Conference." On the side of the Church of England were the Archbishop of York, and many of the bishops,

and on that of the Puritans many of their leading ministers, among whom were Baxter, Bates, Calamy, and others. To this meeting the nonconformists proposed the alterations which they desired in the liturgy and in the rites and ceremonies, which were the same as those that had all along been the ground of contention. The Conference ended in a determination on the part of the bishops, to make no alterations in the liturgy, and therefore no concessions to the objecting party. There had not been wanting some in the Church of England, both among the higher clergy and laity, who were desirous of a coalition, and who laboured hard to promote it, among whom was the eminently learned and pious Usher, primate of Ireland. The questions in dispute at that time lay within a very narrow compass, and if at the Savoy Conference the Church party would have conceded such seemingly trifling matters as the use of the cross in baptizing; kneeling at the Lord's Supper; the surplice; the exclusion of the Apocrypha from the public services of the Church; and a few other such things, treating them as matters of liberty either to be observed or not, as the consciences of ministers might prefer, the consequences of the Act of Uniformity, which soon followed, might have been spared, and though there would not have been rigid uniformity, there still might have been what is a thousand times more valuable, unity. Or, though this had not been conceded, which in the estimation of many would have failed to secure the harmonious working of the Establishment, yet had toleration been granted to separatists, the dissidents would have felt that much was gained, and like their descendants have been, if not altogether satisfied, yet certainly thankful and happy.

But these instances of petty malice were but the first