A fresh controversy was now opened in Parliament, by a petition of the Presbyterians against Sectaries, which was long and bitter.

In May 1647, the assembly finished their Confession of Faith, and transmitted it to the Parliament, who approved and published it under the tittle of "Articles of Religion, approved and passed by both Houses of Parliament, after advice had with an assembly of divines, called together for this purpose." This was sent down to Scotland, and immediately approved by their Parliament and General Assembly, as the established doctrine and discipline of their kirk, where it continues to this day. During the deliberations upon this Confession of Faith, a committee, according to appointment, reduced it to the forms of the Greater and Lesser Catechisms, as they now stand.

Here the business of this assembly fairly ended, and the Scots commissioners returned to Scotland; but the schisms in England continued to rage; to remedy this evil, the Parliament ordered letters to be sent from the speakers of both houses, to the several counties in England, immediately to divide themselves into distinct Presbyteries and classes, they then went on to appoint the elders and ministers of the several classes of the Province of London, to hold their Proviacial Assembly in the convocation-house of St. Paul's in London, on the first Monday of May next, and to adjourn from time to time, as they may see fit. The powers of this assembly were definite. They met accordingly, and were organized and proceeded to business; the schism in the church engrossed the attention of this assembly.

The affairs of the nation, claim a more serious attention; the war was over, and the king at Holmby-House, and the Parliament attempted to disband the army upon full pay, and six weeks advance to all who would go over to Ireland, and an indemnity to all such as should be disbanded; but the army were not ready; they were determined to secure a toleration, that should prevent the king's making peace with the Presbyterians: they chose a council of officers, and a committee of agitators, consisting of two inferior officers from

each regiment; these met in distinct bodies like a Parliament, and sent up their resolutions, by three of their number, to Westminster, in which they demanded full provision for liberty of conscience. These were threatened first with imprisonment in the tower; but finally dismissed with a severe reprimand, for appearing in matters of state without their general: they then sent their general, who was rejected, and the army ordered to be disbanded: Parliament voted the petition seditious, and its promoters traitors; ordered the general to remove the army further from London, and made overtures of peace to the king. This led to another crisis; the army siezed the king at Holmby-House, by a detachment sent for the purpose, and carried him to New-Market, where he enjoyed more liberty than at Holmby-House. This struck a severe blow to the Parliament, and threw them and the nation into confusion: the Parliament remonstrated, and the army replied; but were firm to their purpose. Impeachment and commotions ensu'ed, and the army, 20,000 strong, marched up to London, and took a quiet possession; but the whole odium fell on the intolerance of the Presbyterians, and they, in their turn, fixed it upon the Independants, where it stuck.

The king had no fixed residence; but was removed from place to place as circumstances of safety might require. In this state of affairs, the king was courted by the Parliament, the Presbyterians, and the army; and in his correspondence with the queen, he avowed, "that the party he should abandon must fall." At the same time he told Cromwell, “that the church must be established according to law." These, with other facts of the like kind, led the army to abandon the king, and watch and confine him more closely. This alarmed the king and he fled to the Isle of Wight, where he was confined in Carisbrook Castle, nearly one whole year.

During this time, a treaty of accommodation was entered upon, for settling the religion of the nation upon the Presbyterian plan, and restoring tranquillity to the state generally; which was sent to the king for his concurrence. The king "dissented, and the three parties all took their stand.

The

king was firm; but a prisoner. The Parliament were firm; but. could only legislate; the army were firm, and held the sword. The Parliament and army united, and the king was put under close confinement, where he remained nearly a year.

The confinement of the king excited the feelings of the nation, many rose in arms, and an army of 20,000 Scots entered England, with a view to restore the king, upon the terms of the covenant. The army were again in the service of the. Parliament, and bore down all before them; all was discord and confusion.

In the midst of this distress, the Parliament by their com missioners opened again a conference or treaty with the king, in the Isle of Wight; in which all their former demands were renewed, and so much of them rejected by the king as to break off the treaty. The army again expressed their resentment against the treaty, because all toleration and liberty of conscience were omitted, their leaders fanned the flame, by appointing fast days, and prayers, at their head quarters, until they were ripe for desperate measures; they then resolved to assume the sovereign power, bring the king to justice, set aside the covenant, and establish the commonwealth; all this was introduced with a remonstrance to Parliament against the treaty, the king's government, &c. and demanded that he be brought to justice, as the cause of all their troubles. They next seized the king and conveyed him to Windsor for his trial; the Parliament and army were again at issue; the army marched up to London, and entered the city. The Parliament resented all this outrage, and voted to conclude a peace with the king upon the basis of the treaty; but the military disturbed their sittings, and prevented the treaty; most of the commons fled to their homes, and the remainder conformed to the views of the army.

The commons passed a resolution to try the king, 1642. The kirk of Scotland, by their commissioners, with many foreign princes and states, remonstrated against the execution of the king; but to no effect; the army went right on, and obtained a vote of Parliament, that all ceremonies due to crown

ed heads be laid aside, and passed the following resolutions. "1st. That the people under God are the original of all power. 2d. That the House of Commons are the supreme power of the nation. 3d. That whatever is declared for law by the Commons in Parliament, is vaild, though the consent of the king and House of Peers be not bad thereto."

Upon the strength of this resolve, the House of Commons proceeded to act alone, or separately, without the lords, and ordained a high court of justice for the king's trial, of 145 persous, twenty of whom might proceed to business. A process was served upon the king in due form, and he appeared before this tribunal, January 20th, 1648. The king denied the jurisdiction of the court, and persisted in his denial from day to day, for a wnole week; the persident pronounced sentence of death upon him as a traitor. He was accordingly executed in front of his palace, January 30, 1648, in the 49th year of his age.

Thus fell King Charles the 1st, and with him the monarchy, and the Hierarchy of England, and opened the way for the commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.

can

I have given this civil and religious controversy in England in full length, because it was the hinge on which the reformation in England, as well as the civil and religious liberties. of England and America turned. Who that examines the history of the reformation in England from the days of Wickliffe, withhold his belief in the special agency of Divine Providence, in overruling all those events which opened the way for the rise of the Puritan Church, for her retreat to the wilderness of the west, in the wilds of New-England, for her prosperity there, which arose out of those very trials, God was in his wisdom using to suppress Popery, and bring forward the same Puritan Church in England? And finally, who can withhold his acquiescence in the divine government, in using such severity against those incorrigible enemeis of his government and his church? Let us who have lived to see the happy effects that have resulted from this severity, by the united

efforts of the Puritan Churches of England and America, rejoice in the government of that God who doth all things according to his will, and whose causes shall stand.

CHAPTER X.

REMARKS.

I have now carried forward the history of the revolution in England, to the death of the king, for the purpose of shewing how God, in his all-wise providence, raised up a Jamės I a Charles I. and a Bishop Laud, to open the eyes of that nation, by their tyrannical usurpations and persecutions, to see the corruptions of the Papal Church, and how he made use of those rods of tyranny and despotic power, the Courts of StarChamber and High Commission, to persecute his saints, and drive them out from the land of their fathers, to take refuge in the wilds of New-England, and build up the pure chuch of bis modern Canaan in the wilderness of the west. The same hand of Divine Providence is as conspicuous in this, as it was in the despotic power and cruel oppressions of Pharaoh, in driving out God's ancient people from the land of Egypt, to take refuge in the wilds of Asia, and build up the pure church in his ancient Canaan, in the wilderness of the east. No two events, of equal magnitude, in the whole system of Divine Providence, ever compared in all their parts, with greater exactness than these; and no two events were ever of greater magnitude and importance in their consequences to the world. The first opened the way for the diffusion of the knowledge of the one true God, and the first advent of his son Jesus Christ; the second has opened the way for the spread of this knowledge, by the diffusion of the scriptures of truth throughout the world, and for the display of Jesus Christ at his second advent. How far the saints of the Most High, who were the actors in these scenes of distress, who became the immediate subjects of this bitter persecution, fled into voluntary banishment, and laid the foun