66 "the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. But "when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword "for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining "hymns, might laugh at them. The intensity of their "feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every "other."* แ In the great struggle which took place between England and the Stuarts, two things characterize the popular party. On the one hand, there was a great principle of liberty and christian truth, for the triumph of which the people contended: this deserves our admiration. But, on the other hand, rust may defile the brightest weapon. Christianity, becoming subservient to a political idea, contracted, as we have seen, a certain narrowness and mannerism. These two elements, the good and the bad,-bore their respective fruits. The good produced that civil and religious liberty, those political and christian institutions, which are the glory of England, and which, in our days, are called to a still nobler expansion. The evil element, the rust on the sword, a narrow and legal formalism, brought on by reaction a contrary evil; namely, a lifeless latitudinarianism, an exaggerated liberalism in religion, and a deplorable relaxation of morals. The human mind, equally disgusted at excessive puritanism and official Christianity, recoiling from the struggles of parties, and desiring neither the servile forms of the state religion, nor the fanaticism of the sectaries, sought another atmosphere in which it could breathe more freely. The freethinkers gave way to incredulity, which, although serious in England, terminated in France in a lamentable materialism. Fortunately the consequences of this evil were but * Macaulay's Essays, i. 49-52. transitory, while the results of the good principle were permanent. In describing the Christianity of England during the Revolution, and in defending it against unjust reproaches, we do not offer it to our own times as an irreproachable model. The present age should profit by the salutary lessons bequeathed to it by the past. We require a better Christianity, one more free, more evangelical, more extensive, more spiritual, more enlightened, more moral, and more emancipated from every political bias. May God grant it to us! CHAPTER X. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Milton to Cromwell-Cromwell's Part with regard to Religious Liberty-Opposition to Radicalism, Political and Religious-Established Religion and Liberty-Milton, a Champion of the Separation of Church and State-Cromwell's System of Religious LibertyThe Two Great Interests-The Protector's Catholicity-George Fox and Cromwell-Nayler-Cromwell and the Episcopalians-Romancatholics and Jews-State and Protestantism Identical-Principia Vite A Danger-True Means of diffusing Christianity-Ély Cathedral-State and Church: Church and People. : CROMWELL'S exertions were not confined to civil liberty only he was an instrument in the hand of God to introduce a new principle into the world,......one till then entirely unknown and overlooked. It was with reference to this that the great bard of England composed the following lines: TO OLIVER CROMWELL. Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd, Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursued. And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains The Protector needed not this appeal. Without doubt the question of religious liberty did not present itself to him as it does to our contemporaries. It is now something more positive and abstract. The love of truth, most assuredly, burnt no less brightly in his heart than the love of liberty; and yet he could respect convictions which differed from his own. At that period such principles were very necessary. The parliamentarians, bigoted successors of the hierarchists, had called for the suppression of that " new heresy" entitled "liberty of conscience," and had laboured earnestly to this end. Oliver did the very contrary. The Protector's ruling passion was religious liberty, and its establishment was his work. Among all the men of past ages, and even of the times present, there is not one who has done so much as he in this cause. It has almost triumphed in every protestant nation; its great victory is yet to come among those which profess the Romish creed: and, under God, it is to Cromwell in particular that men's consciences are beholden. It frequently happens that those who advocate liberty when they are in opposition, no sooner attain power than they employ it to oppress the freedom of others. It was not thus that Oliver acted. Not seldom also, when the cause of liberty is triumphant, its partisans carry it to excess, and indulge in senseless theories of equality and socialism. He steered cautiously between these two shoals. His speeches contain sentiments of admirable wisdom on the extreme disorder of men's minds as well in temporal as in spiritual things. No one could express himself more forcibly than he did against the principles of the radicals and levellers, who aimed at destroying all moral and social distinctions. He was aware that men might as well look for ships without frames, bodies without bones, mountains without rocks, as for a nation without authority and obedience. "What was the face that was upon our affairs as to the "Interest of the nation?" asked Cromwell in his second speech to parliament.* "As to the authority in the 66 nation; to the magistracy; to the ranks and orders of men, whereby England hath been known for hundreds * Parl. Hist. xx. 318. Carlyle, iii. 26, 30. "of years?-A nobleman, a gentleman, a yeoman,.. "the distinction of these, that is a good interest of the "nation and a great one! The natural magistracy of the "nation, was it not almost trampled under foot, under "despite and contempt, by men of levelling principles? "I beseech you, for the orders of men and ranks of men, "did not that levelling principle tend to the reducing of "all to an equality?" He also complains of a similar tendency in spiritual matters, and contrasts it with the former evil,—the evil of prelacy and popery. He continues: "The former "extremity we suffered under was, that no man, though "he had never so good a testimony, though he had "received gifts from Christ, might preach, unless ordained. "So now I think we are at the other extremity, when many affirm, That he who is ordained hath a nullity "stamped thereby upon his calling; so that he ought not 66 to preach, or not be heard." The prudent firmness with which Oliver combated these extremes at a time when they were so potent, and when the true principles of liberty were not generally acknowledged, deserves our highest admiration. Even his adver saries have confessed it. Mr Southey, although a zealous episcopalian, and an enemy to the commonwealth, and who regarded the disastrous restoration of Charles II. as the salvation of England, says in his Book of the Church: "Cromwell relieved the country from presbyterian "intolerance; and he curbed those fanatics who were for proclaiming King Jesus, that, as his Saints, they might "divide the land amongst themselves. But it required "all his strength to do this, and to keep down the spirit "of religious and political fanaticism.”* แ Perhaps his zeal was the more remarkable, as it did not reach the point to which many of his friends had arrived, -the separation, namely, of Church and State. In his third speech, even when professing the doctrine of an established state-religion, he boldly claimed liberty of conscience for all.+"So long as there is liberty of Southey, Book of the Church, 508. London, 1837. + Parl. Hist. xx. 349. Carlyle, iii. 68. |