CHAPTER IX.

ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

Necessity of Organization-Ecclesiastical Commission-Errors-Impartiality-Baxter's Testimony-Cromwell's-The State-Discontents-Letter to Fleetwood-Bridget's Anxiety-Indulgence-Act of Oblivion-The Major-Generals-Address from the Corporation of Guildford Cromwell's Aversion to Cruelty- Attempts at Assassination-Cromwell's Forbearance-His System in IrelandOfficial and Popular Protestantism-Puritan Mannerism-A better Christianity.

CROMWELL was not the only one who thought he had received a call from heaven: many of the greatest men of the kingdom were of the same opinion. Milton in particular believed that the Protectorate was a thing required by the necessities of the times and the everlasting laws of justice, and that the Protector ought now to fulfil the duties of the charge to which he had been summoned by the nation, like a christian hero, as he had been used to do in things of less importance. It is an honour to Oliver to have received this testimony of respect and approbation from the bard of Paradise Lost. He knew how to satisfy such great expectations.

In a country like England, after a revolution which had just shaken it to its foundations, it was of primary importance to regulate religion and the clergy. Episcopacy was nearly overthrown, and presbyterianism was not yet established. Old abuses frequently existed by the side of new errors. Cromwell did not think the Church capable of organizing itself, and he felt it his duty to put his hand to the work. We should have preferred his leaving to the Church the power of self-government, but must in all truth acknowledge, that without his mighty aid it would have

been difficult to bring order and regularity out of the chaos in which the country was then labouring. It was therefore one of the first objects of the Protector's solicitude.

Even before the dissolution of parliament, he had been seriously engaged in the organization of the Church. On the 20th of March 1654, he had nominated thirty-eight chosen men, the acknowledged flower of puritanism, who were to form a supreme Commission for the Trial of Public Preachers. Of these nine were laymen, and twenty-nine were clergymen; and by them any person pretending to hold a church-living, or levy tithes or clergy-dues, was first to be tried and approved. The Protector had no wish that this commission should be composed of presbyterians alone, fearful that in this case they would admit none but men of their own persuasion. It contained presbyterians, independents, and even baptists. He had cared for one thing only, that they should be men of wisdom, who had the love of the Gospel in their hearts. Among their number were Owen, Sterry, Marshall, and Manton. To this ordinance he added another on the 28th of August following, nominating a body of commissioners selected from the puritan gentry. The latter, who were distinct from the former, varied from fifteen to thirty in each county of England; and it was their duty to inquire into "scandalous, ignorant, and insufficient ministers," and to be a tribunal for judging and ejecting them. In case of ejection, a small pension was to be allowed those who were married. These commissioners judged and sifted until by degrees they had winnowed the Church. This was undoubt edly a very republican arrangement, but it was found in practice to work well.

Of the lay inquisitors not a few were Cromwell's political enemies; but that mattered not; they were men of pious probity, and that was enough for him.

The task assigned to these persons was by no means easy, and nothing was more calculated to excite discontent. And, accordingly, loud complaints were heard both from episcopalians and heterodox dissenters. These Triers, as they are sometimes called, were charged with paying little attention to knowledge or learning, and with inquiring too

much into the internal marks and character of the grace of God in the heart. No doubt they committed many errors -inevitable errors; but a great number of cases might be produced in refutation of the charges brought against them. For example, the celebrated historian Fuller, who, as the king's partisan, had lost his place under the parliament, and whose principles were not only episcopalian, but High Church, who afterwards showed such activity for the recall of Charles II., who became this king's chaplain, and who would have been made a bishop if death had not cut short his career in 1661,-this very man was presented to a living by the Triers at Cromwell's recommendation, although they could find no other evidence of the grace of God in him than this: That he made conscience of his thoughts.

The excellent Richard Baxter has left us the following fair and candid account of these Commissioners :-" Because this assembly of Triers is most heavily accused " and reproached by some men, I shall speak the truth of them, and suppose my word will be taken, because most

"of them took me for one of their boldest adversaries: the "truth is, though some few over-rigid and over-busy in"dependents among them were too severe against all that were arminians, and too particular in inquiring after "evidences of sanctification in those whom they examined, "and somewhat too lax in admitting of unlearned and erroneous men, that favoured antinomianism or anabap"tism; yet, to give them their due, they did abundance of good to the Church. They saved many a congregation "from ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers, that sort of 66 men who intend no more in the ministry than to read a sermon on Sunday, and all the rest of the week go with "the people to the alehouse, and harden them in sin; and "that sort of ministers who either preached against a holy life, or preached as men that were never acquainted with "it these they usually rejected, and in their stead ad"mitted of any that were able, serious preachers, and lived แ a godly life, of what tolerable opinion soever they were; so that though many of them were a little partial for "the independents, separatists, fifth-monarchy men, and

66

แ

"anabaptists, and against the prelatists and arminians, "yet so great was the benefit above the hurt which they "brought to the Church, that many thousands of souls "blessed God for the faithful ministers whom they let in, "and grieved when the prelatists afterwards cast them "out again."

We must observe that the ejected ministers were only excluded from the privileges of the national ministry; they were not deprived of religious liberty.

The regulations of the Triers had especial reference to moral incapacity. The ordinance of the 28th of August 1654 enjoined the dismissal of all ministers who should be guilty of profane cursing and swearing, perjury, adultery, fornication, drunkenness, common haunting of taverns or alehouses, frequent quarrellings or fightings, &c. Those who maintained popish opinions were also to be ejected.

The episcopalians were not proscribed; but a frequent use of the Book of Common Prayer in public was a ground of exclusion: this was alike intolerant and inconsistent. Still there were certain specious reasons for this limitation, and undoubtedly it has never been maintained that a man cannot be a conscientious episcopalian without the Prayer book: this would be setting it on a level with the Bible.

Cromwell in his speech to the second parliament, delivered on the 21st of April 1657, thus alludes to these ordinances: "And truly we have settled very much of "the business of the ministry. But I must needs say, if "I have any thing to rejoice in before the Lord in this "world, as having done any good or service, it is this. I 66 can say it from my heart; and I know I say the truth, "let any man say what he will to the contrary, he will give me leave to enjoy my own opinion in it, and my 66 own conscience and heart: and to dare bear my testimony to it: There hath not been such a service to Eng"land, since the Christian religion was perfect in England! "I dare be bold to say it; however, there may have, here " and there, been passion and mistakes. And the ministers "themselves will tell you, it is beside their instructions, if * Baxter's Life, part i. 72.

66

"they have fallen into passions and mistakes, if they have "meddled with civil matters......

"And if the grounds upon which we went will not "justify us, the issue and event of it doth abundantly "justify us, God having had exceeding glory by it,-in "the generality of it, I am confident, forty-fold! For as "heretofore the men that were admitted into the ministry "in times of episcopacy-alas, what pitiful certificates "served to make a man a minister! If any man could "understand Latin and Greek, he was sure to be admitted, "......I am sure the admission granted to such places "since has been under this character as the rule: That "L they must not admit a man unless they (the Triers) แ were able to discern something of the grace of God in "him. Such and such a man, of whose good life and "conversation they could have a very good testimony "from four or five of the neighbouring ministers who "knew him, he could not yet be admitted unless he "could give a very good testimony of the grace of God "in him."*

But if it was necessary to set the Church in order, it was not less necessary to do the same thing for the State. The royalists and the levellers coalesced, and the latter boldly declared that they would prefer Charles Stuart to Cromwell. Even some of the men for whom the Protector entertained the sincerest affection inclined to the side of the discontented republicans. Among them was his own son-in-law, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Cromwell endeavoured to remove prejudices and to maintain peace. He sent to Fleetwood his second son Henry, a man of real insight, veracity, and resolution, and at the same time wrote the following letter, in which he manifests his great anxiety for concord:

66

"To the Lord Fleetwood, Lord Deputy of Ireland.

"DEAR CHARLES,

Whitehall, 22d June 1655. "I write not often: at once I desire thee to know I most dearly love thee; and indeed my heart is plain to * Somers' Tracts, vi. 389. Carlyle, iii. 360.