were nominally presbyterian; but in the course of time, great numbers either became converted to, or made way for such as held, other views. However accounted for, it is indisputable that from year to year the army of the parliament became more liberalized, both in respect to civil and ecclesiastical principles, until at length presbyterianism almost died away or returned to its own country. Cromwell's influence, from the commencement, was wholly thrown into the scale of Independency. His famous troop of cavalry, composed chiefly of freeholders and freeholders' sons, besides soon learning the lessons of civil and religious freedom, were early led to act on the principles of a voluntary congregationalism ;† and the officers, amongst whom were such men as Desborough, Thornhaugh, Harrison, and Ireton, were leaders as much in religious as in military matters. Lord Brooke and John Hampden were prevented, by their untimely decease, from rendering the army similar services to those just referred to in the case of Cromwell. Those illustrious patriots, however, had gathered around them, and attracted to the parliamentary forces, a considerable body of high-principled men, who acted afterwards in the spirit of their fallen chiefs. From these begin

* According to Baxter, at first "each regiment had an able preacher; but at Edgehill fight, almost all of them went home; and as the sectaries increased, they were the more averse to go into the army." He also informs us that these able preachers, no doubt presbyterian, were stigmatised as "Military Levites." Life, i. p. 52.

"His officers," says Baxter, "purposed to make their troop a gathered church, and they all subscribed an invitation to me to be their pastor. . . These very men were the men that headed

...

much of the army, and some of them were the forwardest in all our charges." Ibid.

nings, the army became gradually leavened with the religious spirit; and after its consolidation by the operation of the new model, it may almost be said to have been the army of the Independents.

Of course the above will be regarded as a general statement only. There were many exceptions. In some regiments presbyterianism prevailed, but in its more simple forms; in others, extreme views, amounting to fanaticism; and in a few a spirit only a degree removed from that of the Levellers of a later period. It should also be observed that baptist, or as they were still termed anabaptist opinions, either coalesced with or divided those of the Independents, while the great cementing principle which kept all in order was the principle of liberty of conscience. The testimony of Baxter, on this latter point, is only one out of the many that might be adduced; but it is given in a manner so illustrative of the condition of the army in one of its most singular aspects, that we quote it at length. Let the reader excuse the egotism of the man who thought himself more than a match in logomacy for the invincible Ironsides, and deem himself compensated by the following.

"Here," he writes, referring to the camp of Cromwell, "I set myself from day to day to find out the corruptions of the soldiers, and to discourse and dispute them out of their mistakes, both religious and political. My life among them was a daily contending against seducers, and gently arguing with the most tractable; but another kind of warfare I had than theirs. I found that many honest men, of weak judgments, and little acquaintance with such matters, had been seduced into a disputing vein, and made it too much of their religion to talk for this opinion and

for that; sometimes for state democracy, and sometimes for church democracy; sometimes against forms of prayer, and sometimes against infant baptism, which yet some of them did maintain; sometimes against set times of prayer, and against the tying of ourselves to any duty before the Spirit move us; and sometimes about free-grace and free-will, and all the points of antinomianism and arminianism. So that I was almost always, when I had opportunity, disputing with one or other of them; sometimes for our civil government, and sometimes for church order and government; sometimes for infant baptism, and oft against antinomianism and the contrary extreme. But their most frequent and vehement disputes were for liberty of conscience, as they called it; that is, that the civil magistrate had nothing to do to determine anything in matters of religion, by constraint or restraint; but every man might not only hold, but preach and do, in matters of religion, what he pleased: that the civil magistrate hath nothing to do but with civil things."*

In another place the same witness testifies to the influence of those whom he stigmatizes on account of their zeal in the cause of religious truth and liberty, partly, no doubt, because they were as invincible to his dialectics as they were to Charles's cavaliers. "Abundance of the common troopers," he writes, "and many of the officers, I found to be honest, sober, orthodox men; others were tractable, ready to hear the truth, and of upright intentions. But a few proud, self-conceited, hot-headed sectaries had got into the highest places, and were Cromwell's chief favourites; and, by their very heat and activity, bore down the rest, or carried them along with them. These were *Baxter's Life, i. 53.

the soul of the army, though much fewer in number than the rest, being indeed not one in twenty in it." *

Making allowance for the quarter from which these testimonies come, and remembering that in Baxter's vocabulary a "hot-headed sectary " is only another name for a zealous advocate of liberty of conscience, we are thankful that he should have recorded his observations respecting the composition of this remarkable army. The same passion that moved the great Cromwell to heroic deeds, inspired those also whom Baxter has designated "the soul of the army;" nerved them with unwonted courage; united them, amidst great diversities of character and opinion, in a bond of strictest amity; and led the way to all those brilliant successes which still astonish the world. For once in the history of military affairs, religious sentiment became more potent than cupidity and the love of glory. For once the spectacle was to be witnessed of an army of earnestly devout and therefore irresistible warriors, moved to engage in war from no mercenary motives, but from love of liberty; animated in their exploits not by the hope of plunder and rapine, but by the prospect of enfranchising their fellow-countrymen; and who, if sectaries, were so only by accident, while in the highest sense they were philanthropists on principle. Of these men, the most servile of historians has written: "When they were marching to battle, the whole field resounded as well with psalms and spiritual songs, adapted to the occasion, as with the instruments of military music; and every man endeavoured to drown the sense of present danger in the prospect of * Ibid. i. 50.

*

66 were such as knew own unhappy wars Indeed, I may say

that crown of glory which was set before him. In so holy a cause, wounds were esteemed meritorious; death, martyrdom; and the hurry and dangers of action, instead of banishing their pious visions, rather served to impress their minds more strongly with them." Neither should we omit the testimony of Sprigge, one of Fairfax's chaplains, whose opportunities of forming a correct estimate of the real character of the army were of a rare order. "The officers of this army," he says, little more of war than our taught them, except some few. this: they were better Christians than soldiers, wiser in faith than in fighting, and could believe a victory sooner than contrive it. Yet they were as wise in soldiery as the little time and experience they had could make them. Many of the officers, with their men, were much engaged in prayer and reading the scriptures; an exercise that soldiers, till of late, have used but little; and thus they went on and prospered. Men conquer better as they are saints than soldiers, and in the counties where they came, they left something of God, as well as Cæsar, behind them; something of piety, as well as pay. The army was, by example and justice, kept in good order, both in respect of itself and the country. Nor was it their pay that pacified them; for, had they not had more civility than money, things had not been so fairly managed. There were many of them differing in opinion, yet not in action or business; they all agreed to preserve the kingdom; they prospered more in their amity than in their uniformity. Whatever their opinions were, they plundered none with

* Hume's Hist. of England; Anno. 1654.