ΤΟ Bigotry " made no part of Cromwell's character. Like an honest man, he professed his ry welcome into England, and during your abode here, you shall find all due regard and respect to be given to your person, and to the business about which you come. I am very willing to enter into a nearer and more strict alliance and friendship with the king of Swedland, as that which in my judgment will tend much to the honor and commodity of both nations, and to the general advantage of the protestant interest; I shall nominate some persons to meet and treat with your lordship upon such particulars as you shall communicate to them." Perhaps a better turned answer than this is not to be found in England in Cromwell's age! -it shews what he could do: though he seldom equalled it. 10 Bigotry made no part of Cromwell's character.] Bigotill becomes a great man, if a truly great man is capable of it. In a politician it is a defect, in a sovereign a fault of the first magnitude. Woe be to that country whose princes and ministers are tinctured with it. There ecclesiastics reign -and the rule of ecclesiastics has been always severe and tyrannical. Bigotry produced the massacres of Paris and Ireland; repealed the edict of Nantz; annulled the privileges of the Moriscoes in Spain; drove the nonconformists out of England; and deprived Philip the Second of the United Provinces. These were the effects of this fiend, black as the infernal pit where it first was produced, and mischievous as Satan its parent. May all princes have it in abhorrence! may they keep its favourers and abettors far from their councils! vain else will be their endeavours for the public, vain their hopes of perpetuating their fame. No prince, it is well known, was ever well counselled by priests. They have themselves too much in view; their own order too much at heart-They cannot sacrifice these though inconsistent with the welfare of the community, nor can they forbear preferring them to the most useful members of it. * Whitlock, p. 628. See also note 21. own sentiments, and adhered to the sect he But the bigot is the tool of the priest. He must be sofrom him therefore is to be expected nothing truly generous, We know what cardinal Granvall did in Spain; what Laud in England; but they had never been in a capacity of executing their mad and destructive schemes, had they had masters less bigotted. But Cromwell had a mind superior, he was above the sway of these kind of men; there was nothing in him for them to work on, they, therefore either never attacked him, or desisted. This will appear from his judgment concerning the nature of the ministerial function, and the bounds within which it ought to be confined; his fixt opinion concerning liberty of conscience in matters of religion; and his behaviour towards men of the most dif ferent and opposite principles. 1. Cromwell's open and avowed judgment concerning the nature and bounds of the ministerial function, clearly leads us to conclude that he was free from bigotry. In his letter to the governor of Edinburgh Castle, dated Sept. 9, 1650, he says, "The ministers in England are supported, and have liberty to preach the Gospel, though not to raile, nor under pretence thereof to overtop the civil power, or debase it as they please. No man hath been troubled in England or Ireland for preaching the Gospel, nor has any minister been molested in Scotland since, the coming of the army hither. The speaking truth becomes the ministers of Christ. When ministers pretend to a glorious reformation, and lay the foundation thereof in getting to themselves worldly power, and can make worldly mixtures to accomplish the same, such as their late agreement with their king, and hopes by him to carry on their design, may know, that the Sion promised and hoped for, will not be built with such untempered mortar "." a In reply to the Scottish ministers saying, "they had just cause to regret, that men of civil employments should most approved;-but he spoke at all times usurp the calling and employment of the ministry:" he asks, "Are you troubled that Christ is preached? Is preaching so inclusive in your function? Doth it scandalize the reformed kirks, and Scotland in particular? Is it against the covenant? Away with the covenant if this be so. I thought the covenant and these could have been willing, that any should speak good of the name of Christ; if not, it is no covenant of God's approving, nor of the kirk's you mention, in so much the spouse of Christ. Where do you find in Scripture a ground to warrant such an assertion, that preaching is included in your function? Tho' an approbation from men hath order in it, and may doe well, yet he that hath not a better warrant than that, hath none at all. I hope he that ascended up on high may give his gifts to whom he please; and if those gifts be the seal of mission, be not envious, though Eldad and Medad prophesie.Indeed you erre through the mistake of the Scriptures; approbation is an act of conveniency in respect of order, not of necessity to give faculty to preach the Gospel. Your pretended fear, least error should step in, is like the man, that would keep all the wine out of the country, least men should be drunk. It would be found an unjust and unwise jealousie, to deny a man the liberty, he hath by nature, upon a supposition he may abuse it: when he doth abuse it, judge. If a man speak foolishly, ye suffer him gladly, because ye are wise; if erroneously, the truth more appears by your conviction; stop such a man's mouth with sound. words, that cannot be gainsaid: if blasphemously, or to the disturbance of the publick peace, let the civil magistrate punish him if truly, rejoice in the truth. And if you will call our speakings together, since we came into Scotland, to provoke one another to love and good works, to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and repentance from dead works, to charity and love towards you, to pray and mourne for you, and for the bitter returns to, and incredulity of our professions of love to you, of the truth of which we have made our with honour of those who differed from him, solemne and humble appeals to the Lord our God, which he hath heard and born witness to; if these things be scandalous to the kirk, and against the covenant, because done by men of civill callings, we rejoice in them, notwithstanding what you say "."-These are sentiments which, however tinctured with enthusiasm, declare a mind free from bigotry, and incapable of being deluded by the cant of heavenly mission, uninterrupted succession, indelible character, and the power of binding and loosing men's sins! Oliver had a sufficient preservative in his own understanding against the principles and practices of these men who make use of such magical terms. 2. Cromwell's fixt opinion concerning liberty of conscience in matters of religion, evinces his freedom from bigotry. No bigot has had sense enough to see the plain and just right which every man has to think and act for himself in matters purely of a religious nature; or to be convinced that unless men freely and voluntarily choose their religion, they can have no merit in the eyes of God or reasonable men; and consequently that they ought never to be debarred from acting according to their own choice. The bigot is always in the right; every man of a different belief is in the wrong; heaven is his own portion, but hell and damnation attend those who think and act opposite to him.Oliver was not of this cast. He always professed it to be his belief that men had a right to think and act for themselves in matters of religion, and that as long as they behaved peaceably they were free to dissent from the magistrate and the priest. Mr. Ludlow tells us, "the liberty that was to be extended to tender consciences, was an engine by which Cromwell did most of his work "." And Mr. Baxter says, 66 Liberty of conscience he pretended to be most zealous for." What follows will I think plainly make appear that he was indeed so. it a Thurloe, vol. I. p. 161. b Baxterianæ, by Silvester, part II. p. 205. folio. Lond. 1696, treated them with much respect and decency, Milton, in the following beautiful sonnet, which I believe every lover of virtue and the Muses will read here with pleasure, addresses himself to him as the patron of this most glorious cause. Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd, Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursued, Cromwell's own sentiments concerning this matter will be best known from the following paragraphs in his speech at the dissolution of the parliament in 1654. He is rebuking them for their conduct, and among other things, says, "When you were entered upon this government raveling into it, if you had gone upon that foot of account, to have made such good and wholsome provisions for the good of the people of these nations, for the settling of such matters in things of religion as would have upheld and given countenance to a godly ministry, and yet would have given a just liberty to godly men of different judgments, men of the same faith with them, that you call the orthodox ministry in England, as it is well known the independants are, and many under the form of baptism, who are sound in the faith, only may perhaps be different in judgment in some lesser matters, yet as true Christians both looking at salvation, only by faith in the blood of Christ, men professing the fear of God, and having recourse to the name of God as to a strong tower; I say you might have had opportunity to have settled peace and quietness amongst all professing |