CHAPTER WEALTH, A.D. 1649. CHAPTER VIII. A.D. 1649-1653. The DURING the commonwealth and the protectorate of Cromwell puritanism enjoyed its triumph. For the COMMON- first time in its changeful history it was left without an adversary. If it was at times uneasy and disturbed, its dissensions were internal. Its divisions proceeded from itself. The church of England scarcely lifted up her head from the dust, and popery was banished from England with utter scorn. ruling powers, shifting and uncertain in everything besides, were consistent in maintaining the principles and doing honour to the men who, with considerable diversities both in doctrine and practice, still formed one great party, and still bore the name of puritans. With the nation in their favour, and its preferments in their hands, they now looked forward to a long career of usefulness and honour. There were prizes for the ambitious, fields of vast extent in which the zealous might labour, and quiet resting-places where the weary might repose. But beneath the surface some evil portents lay concealed. To religion the dangers of prosperity are always great. To a discerning eye the church of Christ has never long been glorious in seasons of VIII. COMMON WEALTH, prosperity. The jewels with which she loves to be CHAPTER adorned fade before the noon-day sun, and regain their lustre beneath a clouded sky. It was to be seen whether puritanism would withstand the temp- A.D. 1649. tations of prosperity, and bask in the broad daylight, as she had hitherto lived in dungeons and in poverty, without injury and loss of health. To this trial she was now to be exposed; a furnace through which no religious party has ever yet been known to pass but the smell of the fire was left upon their raiment. And there were other dangers likewise, peculiar in their nature and in appearance new, which could scarcely fail to exercise a pernicious influence upon the religious character of the puritans. The religious puritans were involved with the ruling powers, and implicated in their measures, to a great extent. The connection was unfortunate and at length disastrous. Setting aside those political considerations of necessity or utility by which it is sometimes excused, the government, after Charles's death, was a mere usurpation. The house of commons appointed a council of state, consisting of forty members, with whose assistance it resolved. to undertake the supreme control. The council, as indeed the parliament itself, was under the dictation of the army. How carefully the expression of public opinion was suppressed we may learn from the fact, that not only were those members excluded from the house who disapproved of the king's death, but even those who subscribed a declaration that they approved of the proceedings against the king, and engaged to be true to the commonwealth, underwent a rigorous sifting, and many of them COMMON WEALTH, CHAPTER were excluded. Ludlow, who was a member of the VIII. council of state, and, upon the whole, a man of rare integrity, is not ashamed to write "that while all AD. 1649. possible satisfaction was given in words, the former deportment of every particular member who presented himself was nicely weighed," and his probable conduct for the future ascertained, before he was admitted.* The house of peers having been abolished, three of its members were returned as representatives, and obtained admission to the house of commons; these were Philip earl of Pembroke, lord Edward Howard, and the earl of Salisbury. They took the same engagement as the rest-to be true and faithful to the commonwealth, as it was now established, without a king or a house of lords. But in fact no commonwealth existed. A commonwealth, or, to use its modern synonyme, a republic, implies something more than the absence of a king and of a senatorial aristocracy. The essence of a republic is government by the people: in classic ages this was effected by their choice of their own rulers; in later times, by their election of their own representatives. The commonwealth now pretended in England had no title whatever to its name it was a military despotism, or an irresponsible oligarchy, having the faults and possibly the advantages of both. No appeal, however, was made to the people in whose name this government was carried on. A free election, an independent house of commons, would have scattered it to the winds, and, probably enough, have dragged its leaders to the gallows. Of this they were fully aware. They grounded their justification, in fact, upon this plea. * Ludlow, p. 113. We VIII. COMMON WEALTH, They had undertaken the nation's interests against CHAPTER the nation's will: it was a froward child; and they governed it with parental wisdom; and, it may be added, with something more than parental discipline. A.D. 1649. But in all this there was a practical dishonesty most injurious to religion. If we allow the justice of their defence we make a mournful concession to the world. We avow that truth and politics are incompatible; and that the man who serves his country must abandon the service of his God. admit the maxim that nations cannot be governed upon christian principles. It is true, no doubt, that if the puritans had boldly made this avowal they would merely have placed themselves upon the common level; they would not have fallen beneath it. The assertion has been echoed in our own times from within the walls of parliament, and it has been loudly cheered. Men in power have enunciated it as a political axiom, and their political opponents have heard in silence and assented. Had the men of the commonwealth maintained this dogma, they would have fallen below the Cecils and Walsinghams of an earlier period, but they would have stood upon a level with the statesmen of a later age, and, as men of the world, their character would have been unstained. But the leaders in this great movement aspired after a higher fame. They were emphatically religious men, and they gloried in it. They spoke in the language of holy writ; the phrases of the English bible were their modes of speech; the precepts and doctrines of scripture were always on their lips; their aim was to establish a commonwealth based upon the bible. WEALTH, CHAPTER For the old English constitution they had no great VIII. respect. For the complicated machinery and conCOMMON- flicting principles of English law they had a profound and unreasonable contempt. Cromwell even proposed to sweep away at one stroke the whole fabric of existing jurisprudence; to regard the statutebook, and the decisions of common law, as a sheet of white paper-to adopt his own expression-and to write anew upon it a pure code derived from the principles of natural justice and from the law of God. The experiment was to have been tried in Ireland; and, if successful, to have been extended to Great Britain. Had Cromwell lived, the attempt would probably have been made, and the protector might have been known to posterity as one of those heroes whose laws have outlived their conquests. These and other changes, of which some were merely contemplated and others carried out, might possibly have been beneficial; but they were arbitrary. They were enforced under false pretences. would have been manly at least to have claimed the government by the right of conquest, even though it might not have been honest to retain it. A usurper may impart those blessings which a legitimate government has not conferred. But nothing can excuse duplicity; and the high standard of moral and religious bearing assumed by the leaders of the commonwealth made their inconsistencies the more conspicuous. By what right, except the right of the sword, were they attempting to impose their impracticable commonwealth upon a reluctant people? With what sincerity could they profess to be acting on the nation's behalf when its voice was It |