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It continued to meet every Thursday morning for rather more than four years as a Committee for examining ministers, and was never formally dissolved; but Cromwell's dismissal of the "Rump" of the Long Parliament on April 20, 1653, was the beginning of a new order, both in the State and the Church, and the Committee never met again.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH UNDER THE PARLIAMENT, THE COMMONWEALTH, AND THE PROTECTORATE.

PARLIAMENT REDUCES AND REORGANISES THE ARMY-THE SECTS AND
THE SOLDIERS-THE ARMY LEADERS AN INDEPENDENT POWER
IN THE STATE-PARLIAMENT FAVOURS PRESBYTERIAN UNIFORMITY :
THE ARMY AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY-VOTE OF THE COMMONS FOR
LIMITED TOLERATION-SECRET TREATY BETWEEN THE KING AND
THE SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS-ROYALIST PLOTS AND RISINGS-
ORDINANCE FOR SUPPRESSION OF HERESY AND BLASPHEMY-
SECOND CIVIL WAR ENDS IN VICTORY FOR CROMWELL-FRESH
BUT FUTILE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE KING-The King arreSTED
-PRIDE'S PURGE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF CHARLES I.-
CHARLES II. PROCLAIMED KING-ROYALIST DEFEAT AT WORCESTER
-THE "AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE "-PROPOSALS OF THE
INDEPENDENTS FOR A SETTLEMENT OF RELIGION-CROMWELL
EXPELS "THE
RUMP "-THE "BAREBONES PARLIAMENT—
CROMWELL LORD PROTECTOR-THE INSTRUMENT OF GOVERN-
MENT-THE "TRIERS "-TOLERATION AND FUNDAMENTALS OF
FAITH CROMWELL REFUSES THE CROWN-THE "HUMBLE PETI-
TION AND ADVICE "ARTICLES DEALING WITH RELIGION-
CROMWELL'S RELIGIOUS POLICY-THE EXTENT OF TOLERATION-
EXCEPTIONS AND EXCLUSIONS.

ΟΝ

I

N Saturday, January 30, 1646-7, the Scottish army marched out of Newcastle, and left Charles in the hands of the Commissioners of the English Parliament. Rather more than a fortnight later (February 16), he was lodged at Holmby House in Northamptonshire.

The war was over; all that remained was to make the best possible settlement with the King. Parliament determined that the time had come for giving security to its own authority, and to the Presbyterian settlement, by reducing and reorganising the army. After many debates extending through February, March, and the early part of April, it was resolved:

(1) That all the Foot not required for garrison duty should be disbanded. (2) That the Horse under Fairfax should consist of nine regiments of 600 each. (3) That all members of the two Houses of Parliament should be deprived of their commands. (4) That all officers should be required to take the Covenant and conform to the Presbyterian form of church government. Colonels for the nine regiments were nominated. Cromwell's regiment was to be commanded by Huntingdon, a staunch Presbyterian. Fairfax was so distrusted that he almost lost the appointment of Commander-in-Chief. An army for Ireland was to be recruited as far as possible from the existing English army; and Sir William Waller was appointed to the command instead of the Lord LieutenantLord Lisle-who was a friend of Cromwell's.1

At

For the army which had broken the power of the King had theories about the Church, and the duty of the civil magistrate in relation to the affairs of the Church, which were wholly irreconcilable with the theories of the Presbyterian majority in the House of Commons. Never under the sun had there been such an army before." 2 It was largely composed of men who had a grave belief that they had been called of God to rescue the nation from the tyranny of the King, and to secure for the "saints" liberty to worship God according to the will of God, and not according to the commandments of men. the root of their religious life was an intense faith in the illumination granted by the divine Spirit to every Christian man, and in the direct responsibility of every Christian man to Christ for the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Christian Church. They saw, or thought they saw, that the usurpation by the clergy and the civil magistrate of the powers and responsibilities which Christ had entrusted to all godly men, had been the cause of immeasurable evils. By the authority of the bishops, sustained by the Crown, superstitious ceremonies had been forced on the nation. Godly ministers who refused to submit were silenced, and subjected to cruel persecution, while men of scandalous lives, who knew nothing of the power and glory of Christ, were suffered to retain their pulpits and

1 C. J. (March 5, 8, 1646–7), v. 107-108. L. J. (May 27, 1647), ix. 207-208. Parliamentary History, xv. 377-378.

2 For an account of the religious condition of the army, see Masson, Milton, iii, 522-529,

their tithes. It was not clear to them that Presbytery, with its hierarchy of courts, was very much better than Episcopacy. The Spirit of God, given to all that are "in Christ," was not to be fettered by "Confessions," "Covenants," and "Directories" of worship. Freedom must be left for the devout and adventurous soul to follow the guidance of the Spirit wherever the Spirit might lead.

The army was full of men who held these convictions, and who, in their revolt against that church authority which they regarded as an encroachment on the supremacy of Christ and the Spirit of Christ, had adopted an infinite variety of opinions about church doctrine and church government. From morning to night the camp was excited by theological debates. Officers and common soldiers held prayer-meetings and preached sermons every day of the week.

Baxter, who spent two years with the army, describes it as it would appear to a man who regarded the sectaries with no friendly feeling. He says:—

"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 our selves 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 Extream. 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 of 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, to keep the Peace, and to protect the Churches' Liberties."

It was Cromwell who had brought together in the New Model all these dangerous materials.

Baxter, Life, i. (1), 77 (i. p. 53),

"He first made Ireton Commissary General; and when any Troop or Company was to be disposed of, or any considerable Officer's place was void, he was sure to put a Sectary in the place; and when the brunt of the War was over, he looked not so much at their Valour as their Opinions. So that by degrees he had headed the greatest part of the Army with Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers, or Separatists at best and all these he tied together by the point of Liberty of Conscience, which was the Common Interest in which they did unite. Yet all the sober party were carried on by his Profession that he only promoted the Universal Interest of the Godly, without any distinction or partiality at all. But still, when a place fell void, it was twenty to one a Sectary had it, and if a Godly Man of any other Mind or temper had a mind to leave the Army, he would secretly or openly further it." 4

Such an army was not likely to allow itself to be disbanded in order that the Presbyterian party might be at liberty to bring all England under the yoke of a new religious Uniformity. This would be to sacrifice all the results of the war, and to betray the cause of God and His saints. The army refused to submit to the orders of Parliament, and Parliament had to give way. From that time-April, 1647-the army and its leaders became an independent power in the State.

Parliament did not at once discover that its strength was broken. In its negotiations with the King it still insisted on Presbyterian uniformity; while the army leaders demanded the abolition of "all coercive power, authority, and jurisdiction of Bishops and all other ecclesiastical officers whatsoever, extending to any civil penalties upon any "; and also the repeal of all acts enforcing the use of the Book of Common Prayer, or attendance at church, or prohibiting meetings for worship apart from the regular Church; and they expressly stipulated for non-enforcement of the Covenant on any. In other words, the army, as a whole, neither advised an Established Church, nor objected to one; nor would they indicate a preference for Presbytery or Episcopacy in the rule of such a Church, but stood out, in any case and all cases, for Liberty of Religious Dissent.5

Baxter, Life, i. (1), 82 (i. p. 57).

5 Summary of Articles xi.-xiii. of Heads of Proposals. See Parliamentary History, xvi. 212–221. The words in italics are from xi. See also xii., xiii. In Rushworth, iv. (2), 732, and in S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents, 257-258. The substance of these Proposals was submitted to the King about July 24, and they were laid upon the table of the House of Commons by Sir Henry Vane, on August 6, 1647.

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