2. With regard to Presbyterians writing against toleration, it is not to be either denied or concealed that many of them protested stoutly against the idea of toleration, as it was advanced by the Sectaries; denouncing it in no measured terms. Still, their true leaders and spokesmen were by no means so far behind the most advanced and liberal-minded of their opponents, as is too often supposed. A man even like Owen could school the Cromwellian Parliament of 1652 with such words as these:

"Know that error and falsehood have no right or title from God or man to any privilege, protection, advantage, liberty, or any good thing you are entrusted withal."

And he goes on to say, that while men are not to be disturbed from their opinions so long as they keep them to themselves, they have no right and should have no liberty to propagate them as they like. And it is too seldom remembered that the

of the sword on the crook,-that led to the evil which they inherited from the past. As Dante says,"The Church of Rome,

Mixing two governments that ill assort,

Hath missed her footing, fallen into the mire,
And there herself and burden much defiled."

-Purgatorio, xvi. 129–132.

1 We refer to such polemical tracts as that entitled "A Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience," by Samuel Rutherford (whose name, such was the confusion of the times, is made in Milton's Epigram to rhyme with "sword,” though his Lex Rex is so able a defence of Constitutional Liberty); or those by Thomas Edwards (called "Shallow Edwardes," by Milton), in his Gangræna, a large and portentous indictment in three parts, and his Casting Down of the Last and Strongest Hold of Satan; or, A Treatise against Toleration.

The book, however, with the largest measure of opprobrium attached to it, is the oft-cited 66 HARMONIOUS CONSENT of the Ministers within the County Palatine of Lancaster with their Brethren the Ministers of the Province of London, in their late Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ and to our Solemn League and Covenant; as also of the Errors, Heresies, and Blasphemies of those times and the Toleration of them," 1648. A passage often quoted is this: A toleration would be the putting of a sword into a madman's hand; a cup of poison into the hand of a child; a letting loose of madmen with firebrands in their hands; an appointing a city of refuge in men's consciences for the devils to fly to; a laying of the stumbling-block before the blind; a proclaiming of liberty to the wolves to come into Christ's flock to prey upon His lambs; " and so forth. But it must not be forgotten, that even this violent and hysterical tirade is only an echo of words used by that gentlest of Independents, JEREMIAH BURROUGHS, in his Heart Divisions.

2 It is notorious, though apt to be kept in the background, that Owen, Goodwin, Simpson, and Nye were actually engaged, in 1654, in drawing up a list of Fundamentals which should be imposed on all religionists who claimed toleration. Neal (iv. pp. 98-100) gives sixteen of these; and the Journals of the House speak of

Presbyterian leaders opposed a certain limited toleration, only because they desired what they deemed a preferable thing, mutual forbearance and accommodation. As GEORGE GILLESPIE says-

“I wish that, instead of toleration, there may be a mutual endeavour for a happy accommodation. . . . There is a certain measure of forbearance; but it is not so seasonable now to be talking of forbearance, but of mutual endeavours for accommodation."

And when any quote the "Harmonious Consent of the LANCASHIRE Ministers," it would be only fair to quote also the "TESTIMONY OF THE ESSEX MINISTERS," with its pleading for tender consciences. But the best defence of the Presbyterians is such a public and official paper as the "VINDICATION OF THE PRESBYTERIAL GOVERNMENT AND MINISTRY," issued in 1649, by the LONDON PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLY, and in which it is said—

"We abhor an over rigid urging of uniformity in circumstantial things, and are far from the cruelty of that giant who laid upon a bed all he took, and those who were too long he cut them even with his bed, and such as were too short he stretched out to the length of it. God hath not made all men of a length or height. Men's parts, gifts, graces, differ; and if there should be no forbearance in matters of inferior alloy, all the world would be perpetually quarrelling. If you would fully know our judgments herein, we will present them in these two propositions: 1. That it is the duty of all Christians to study to enjoy the ordinances of Christ in unity and uniformity as far as it is possible. . . . 2. That it is their duty to hold communion together as one Church in what they agree, and in this way of union mutually to tolerate and bear with one another in lesser differences. . For our parts we do here manifest our willingness

twenty, the first only having been passed when Cromwell dissolved Parliament. The toleration of the leading Independents at this time, was simply a toleration for orthodox fellow-Christians; and even Dr. Thomas Goodwin, when presenting to Richard Cromwell the Declaration of the "Savoy Conference" of 1658 (which was attended by two hundred delegates from the one hundred Independent Churches then established in England and Wales), said in their name, "We look at the magistrates as custos utriusque tabula, and so commit it (the Gospel) to your trust, as our chief magistrate, to countenance and propagate" (Orme's Life of Owen, pp. 180-183). This, and similar inconsistencies, brought down the scorn of Milton on the Independents, equally with the Presbyterians. Unquestionably it was the Baptists who first repudiated, clearly and strongly, all coercive power whatever in religion (see especially Leonard Busher's Religious Peace, or a Plea for Liberty of Conscience, 1614); and they were constant to this principle throughout, v. Skeats, History of the Free Churches of England, pp. 40-42. But Hooper, so early as 1550, had grasped and enunciated the whole breadth of the principle of religious freedom (see ante, p. 56).

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(as we have already said) to accommodate with you, according to the Word, in a way of union, and (such of us as are ministers) to preach up and to practise a mutual forbearance and toleration of all things that may consist with the fundamentals of religion, with the power of godliness. and with that peace which Christ hath established in His Church. But to make ruptures in the body of Christ, and to divide Church from Church, and to set up Church against Church, and to gather Churches out of true Churches, and because we differ in some things to hold Church Communion in nothing, this we think hath no warrant out of the Word of God, and will introduce all manner of confusion in Churches and families, and not only disturb but in a little time destroy the power of godliness, purity of religion, and peace of Christians."

If the Presbyterians had not emancipated themselves from the theory of intolerance, they had largely outgrown the spirit of persecution, as certainly as, ere they lost their ascendency, they had forsworn the practice of it.

3. With regard to the charge about the tyrannical civil jurisdiction aimed at by the Presbyterian Ecclesiastical Courts, very much serious misapprehension has been promulgated. The claim really amounted to little more than this:the power of the Keys for the Church judicatories, and the power of the Sword for the Civil Magistrate, with legal guarantees for a cordial entente and good understanding between the two.1

It was no doubt desired that Presbyteries should be clothed with civil authority so far as the management of Church property or finance was concerned, very much as the Independents desired liberty for each congregation to administer its own secular as well as spiritual affairs. The Presbyterians

1 BAILLIE, who, though even less advanced on this point than many of his English Presbyterian brethren, thus distinguishes in his Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time, between all that he himself wished and what had been usual with the Court of High Commission "But if once the government of Christ (meaning of course presbytery) were set up among us, we know not what would impede it, by the sword of God alone, without any secular violence, to banish out of the land those spirits of error, in all meekness, humility, and love, by the force of truth convincing and satisfying the minds of the seduced. Episcopal courts were never fitted for the reclaiming of minds. Their prisons, their fines, their pillories, their nose-slitting, ear-croppings, and cheek-burnings did but hold down the flame, to break out in season with the greater rage. But the reformed presbytery doth proceed in a spiritual method eminently fitted for the gaining of hearts; they go on with the offending party with all respect; they deal with him in all gentleness from weeks to months, from months sometimes to years, before they come near to any censure."

desired also to be legally protected in the honest discharge of ecclesiastical discipline, as well as in their worship; but far from this being a usurpation of civil pains and penalties, it may be regarded as but a legitimate assertion of liberty of judgment operating within its own proper sphere. Believing, as they did, and as they still do, that "the Lord Jesus Christ has appointed. a government in the Church, distinct from and not subordinate to civil government," they insisted on the Divine right of the rulers in the Church to be themselves the judges, apart from parliamentary enactment, as to who should be either members or office-bearers in the Christian Community, this right not in any measure depending on civil authority, nor to be lodged in the hands of the civil magistracy. This was, in short, the great subject of contention between the Westminster Assembly aud the Parliament, which led to the rupture between them, and to the consequent failure of the Presbyterian Establishment. 1 It was on the rock of Erastianism that the vessel at last went to pieces.

1 Much misapprehension has prevailed on this point of "Church power "; and for some of it Neal's History of the Puritans must be held answerable. He occasionally indulges in passages like these: The Presbyterians were now in the height of their power, the hierarchy being destroyed, and the best, if not all the livings in the kingdom being distributed among them; yet still they were dissatisfied for want of the top stone to their new building, which was Church power; the pulpits of the city being filled with invectives against the men in power, because they would not leave the Church independent of the State." Or, again, "The Presbyterian hierarchy was as narrow as the Prelatical; and as it did not allow of liberty of conscience, claiming a civil as well as an ecclesiastical jurisdiction over their persons and properties, it was equally if not more intolerable." Such unwarrantable and extravagant charges have been repeated by various writers,— prelatical, latitudinarian, and sectarian,-against Presbytery, and all because, being opposed to the Erastian theory, it insisted, as Baillie says (Letters, ii., pp. 150 and 195), that it belonged to the Church itself "to keep off from the Sacraments all that were scandalous "; so that "if they cannot obtain the free exercise of THAT TOWER which Christ hath given, they will lay down their charges and rather choose all affliction."

II.

AN ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN COVENANTER AND MARTYR.

CHRISTOPHER LOVE'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION.

ONE circumstance which greatly embittered the Presbyterians against the Commonwealth, and still further strained their relations with the Independents, was the trial and execution, in 1651, of Mr. Christopher Love, for alleged high treason.

This pious and worthy man, a prominent Presbyterian representative, and minister of St. Lawrence Jewry,-whose fidelity and zeal were not perhaps always tempered with discretion,-had been more than once a sufferer for conscience' sake. When but a youth at Oxford, he was expelled from the University, being the first who openly declined to subscribe Laud's new canons in 1640. A few years later, he was imprisoned for preaching in the North against the Prayer Book, although, on being removed by writ of Habeas Corpus to Westminster, he was acquitted; and "by order of the Lords and Commons, 26 May, 1645, Mr. Christopher Love is directed to preach the Word of God at Newcastle-on-Tyne." His most notable appearance was at the Uxbridge Treaty, 1644-5, where his sermon lost him, however, the respect of some of his own party. But his repeated imprisonments for his principles since, and the firmness with which, as a covenanted Presbyterian minister, he testified against both the execution of Charles I. and the new Commonwealth's Engagement, contributed, with his high character, fervent piety, and popular preaching power, to replace him again in their confidence and affection.

Since Cromwell's victory at the battle of Dunbar, (Sept. 3, 1650), the Presbyterians were full of mingled exasperation and fear. Looking on the execution of Charles I. with horror, they recognised the rights of his son Charles II., now in Scotland attending to his own interests. The Scottish Presbyterians strove