8.21.2013 THE FREE CHURCH 1

the following is taken from 'a popular history of the free churches' by c. silvester horne
two reasons for interest in this most intriguing of books, to me:
1. he seems to have the ability to make history come alive which few other authors i have read possess.
2. the reason may be simply that true catholicity, the ability to be
a. a convinced believer in and student of and ardent obeyer of the truth of scripture
b. while still according to others the freedom to do and be the same (in their own mind..and hopefully, actions) while loving them as Christ loves, without judgment, condemnation or harm given.
c. while inviting discourse, without censure or ill will, where understanding of this truth differs.

i don't know many, truly, free followers of Christ...as defined above. i don't know if i am arrived at that place either, but this is my aspiration...to love all men as Christ loves me, to speak truth freely and openly as Christ does and to make it known with crystal clarity when called to.

for these reasons, it was wonderful to be introduced to the gallery of persons who seemed to have similar aspiration and to have made clear many things that the reading of other books left cloudy.

1 ..the historian who is interested in investigating the origins of religious freedom in england
is arrested by wyclif's three fold witness.

firstly, that the Bible IS THE ULTIMATE COURT OF APPEAL
IN ALL MATTERS
of conduct, doctrine and government.
he gave expression to this conviction
by translating the bible into the vulgar tongue,
so that even the 'wayfaring man' might come at its contents.

secondly, that THERE IS SUCH A THING AS PRIVATE JUDGMENT
in matters theological,
and that it is OPEN to the christian thinker and teacher
TO CALL IN QUESTION
EVEN THE MOST CHERISHED DOGMA
OF THE AUTHORITATIVE CHURCH,
AND MAKE APPEAL TO
THE SIMPLICITY OF THE TEACHING OF CHRIST.
this was seen in his protest against the dogma of transubstantiation,
a protest that cost him dear,
but which was of immense significance in english history.

thirdly, that THE CHURCH
IN GRASPING TEMPORAL AUTHORITY
IS SACRIFICING HER TRUE AUTHORITY
AND JEOPARDISING HER INFLUENCE.
'i assume, he wrote, that as chief vicar of Christ upon earth
the bishop of rome is of all mortal men
most bound to the law of Chris's gospel,
for among the disciples of Christ a majority is not reckoned
by simply counting heads...
but according to the imitation of Christ on either side.
now Christ during His life upon earth was of all men the poorest,
casting from Him all worldly authority.
i deduce from these premisses...
that the pope should surrender all temporal authority
to the civil power ans advise his clergy to do the same.
this was in the year 1383.
it contains the fundamental free church contention....

4   ..(before wyclif?) ..marsilius of padua 'of accursed memory'
sought to recover for the church itself (the company of redeemed individuals in one place?)
 those privileges and responsibilities
usurped by one order (priests?) in the church

6  ..thomas more, in his 'utopia'
just missed the honour of being the first to state the honour of
being the first to state the full principle of toleration.
..in 'utopia' nobody is to suffer physical punishment
on account of his religious opinions.
every man is free to convince another, if he can,
of the truth of his belief by persuasion,
but not by coercion.

17  ...1570 robert brown matriculated at cambridge...
they confined him 32 times in prisons...
his mental equilibrium was destroyed by his many sufferings...
those who were all for his persecution while he was advocating heresy
confess that though he returned to the church
he was never known to recant his opinions.
silenced he (finally) was , but not convinced.

...answer to a ecclesiastical persecutor
'my lord, your face we fear not
and for your threats we care not,
and to come to your read service we dare not.

51 (concerning john penry)
born and bred in the mountains of wales
he began his religious life as a papist.
he was educated at both cambridge and oxford,
and in the process his romish prejudices dropped away from him,
while his study of the new testament
carried him ultimately far beyond the current moderatism
into separatism and independency.
he had taken orders At oxford, and was esteemed by many..
a tolerable scholar, an edifying preacher and a good man.
..was known to have more than ordinary learning in him.
what kindled the young man's indignation
against the existing state of things was the spiritual condition of wales.
the english prelates were too busy suppressing the puritan preachers
to spare time to deal with the real godlessness of the land;
and anyone who pleaded as penry...for some preaching of the gospel
among the people
wrote himself down a heretic and a malcontent.
it was not only his scathing condemnation of the non-resident clergy-
'non-residences have cut the throte of our church
-that counted against him;
he had the temerity to believe that a true preacher might even
'live of the gospel' in the 16th century as well as in the first.

...'be it known that in this cause i am not afraid of earth. if i perish i perish.'
..and again...'if my blood were an ocean sea and every drop thereof were a lyfe unto me,
i would give them all by the help of the Lord
for the maintenance of the same my confession.

54..it is safe to say that even (his persecutors ) intolerance
would not have been equal to sending penry to the gallows if it had not been for
the rage excited by the MARTIN MARPRELATE TRACTS.
the authorship ..was attributed to penry.
he denied it;
and others who had every opportunity of knowing..denied it also.
there was no shadow of a proof.
but the bishops, smarting from the lashes of marin's whip of satire,
seem to have felt it incumbent upon them to hang somebody.
the real author was, unfortunately, unknown;
but penry had been hunted down,
and it was notorious that penry's 'pilgrim press' had been used to print the tracts.
this was enough for his accusers.
..penry was sacrificed to avenge the wrongs which the bishops had suffered
at the merciless hands of martin marprelate.
the M MJ tracts belong not more to the history of our ecclesiastical life
than to the history of our literature.
they are now recognised  as prose satires of quite extraordinary genius.
criticism has not succeeded in solving the problem of their authorship;
but it has established their claim to a permanent place among english classics.

when martin began to write, the case of the separatists was almost desperate.
most of their leaders were in durance vile.
the gaols of london were crowded with their most courageous members.
the bishops had a terrible weapon at their command for the eradication of dissent,
and we have seen already that they did not scruple to use it.
then suddenly the despised sectaries made a discovery.
they too had their weapon;
and with it they could strike such a blow for reform as would turn the tide of battle.
someone among that little band of devoted and desperate men was a wit,
With that rare gift, a saxon tongue.
other members of the fraternity, we do not doubt,
fed him with the facts as to the abuses in the church, 
and the oppressions of the day.
but it is impossible that the 7 M tracts were the work of several hands.
martin's personality is too inimitable.
his sharp, bright racy style is a thing apart
and we know nobody among the separatist 'tractarians'
who could write like that.
...it must not be supposed that we are indifferent to their faults;
only we find it difficult to understand why those
who have only mild censures for the methods of
whitgift and aylmer (the chief persecutors of the separatists) in the fight for reform,
should be so hypersensitive as to the freedom of martin's speech.

the tracts teem with personalities.
they could hardly do less,
as they were written to show up certain definite acts of oppression.
their impertinences are grotesque.
the threat to tell something worse about some great ecclesiastical personage,
in the next number, unless he mends his ways,
was probably little appreciated by one who knew
that worse  remained to tell;
while at the same time it gave to the tracts the fascination of a serial story.
their popularity was immense.
the scholars at the universities concealed them under their gowns
and laughed over them in secret.
elizabeth herself, who had none too high an opinion of her bishops,
procured copies and read them,
...with mingled indignation and amusement.
the court read them
the politicians read them
the peasantry read them.
the bishops, pursuing their grim policy of persecution,
found the whole land laughing at them.
it was too much.
somewhere in merrie england,
a depraved puritan was still at large who had the boundless insolence,
not so much to abuse the bishops, as to mock them.

'i am called martin marprelate,'
so his own apologia ran:
-'there be many that greatly dislike of my doinges.
i may have my wants, i know.
for i am a man, but my course i knowe to be ordinary and lawfull.
i sawe the cause of Christ's government, and of the bishops' antichristian dealing,
to be hidden.
the most part of men could not be gotten to read anything written
in the defence of the one and against the other.
i bethought mee therefore of a way whereby men might be drawne to do both,
perceiving the humours of man in these times...to be given to mirth.
i tooke that course.
i might lawfully do it.
i (aye) for jesting is lawful by circumstances even in the greatest matters.
the circumstances of time, place and persons urged me thereunto.
i never profaned the word in any jeste.
other mirth i used as a covert werein i would bring the truth to light.
the Lord being the author both of mirth and gravitie,
is it not lawfull in itself for the truth to use
either of these wayes when the circumstances do make it lawfull?

the latter sentences reveal the depth of martin's purpose.
he is no mere jester.
he is as serious of aim as the most solemn pamphleteer.
he will 'bring the Truth to light';
and he will profane no sacred subject in his jesting.
surely they who had constantly made it a reproach against the puritan school
that it was so mirthless,
had now got all the humour they could desire.

martin's wit played most freely about the august persons of
whitgift of canter bury, aylmer of london and cooper of winchester.
(all 'official' church persecutors)
he knew all the scandals concerning them
and they were sufficiently numerous to furnish abundant material.
all england had to know the aylmer played bowls on sunday
and sold the timber off the church estates to enrich himself.
the notorious scandal about the bishop of winchester's wife became public property
in an even wider sense through the tracts.
all instances of oppression of the part of whitgift to the puritans were set on record
and lost nothing in the telling.
the bishops' books were quoted against the bishops themselves;
especially aylmer's 'harborow', written before he attained a bishopric.
therein he had waxed eloquent in an appeal to all the bishops in this strain:
'come downe, you bishopps, from your thousands and content you with your hundreds,
let your diet be priestlike and not princelike, etc.
'i pray you, bishop john, quoth our author saucily,
dissolve this our question to your brother martin:
if this prophesie of yours come to passe in your dayse, who shal be bishop of london?

upon all the prelates, but chiefly upon these three, he rains epithets.
above all, he is anxious to prove that they
'ought not to be maintained by the authoritie of the magistrate in any christian commonwealth.
and finally he has a bargain to propose to them,
the impertinent fellow that he is,
that  if they will encourage preaching,
make only godly and fit persons preachers,
publish a book of cartwrights,
punish nobody for refusing to wear popish garments,
or omitting popish corruptions from the prayer book,
leave off private excommunication,
and molest nobody for this book,
he on his side will engage
'never to make any more of your knavery knowne unto the worlde!
verily here is blackmail levied on the whole episcopal bench by an
anonymous scribbler of puritan 'libels'!

as great a feat in its way as writing the M tracts was printing them.
this is where penry came in;
he and a certain robert waldegrave,
who had had one press confiscated and destroyed for printing
udall's diotrephes, a celebrated puritan pamphlet.
a printing press with boxes of types is a cumbrous and clumsy thing to convey from place to place;
and when we remember that the whole constabulary of the time
was in motion to discover and destroy the offending instrument,
we may well wonder that the conspirators enjoyed so long a period of freedom.
burghley wrote to the archbishop urging him
'to use all privy meanes, by force of your commission ecclesiaticall or otherwise,
to search out the authours hereof and their complices and ye printers and ye secret dispersers
of the same.
we may be very sure whitgift needed no urging.
but weeks became months
and tract succeeded tract,
and nobody was arrested.
it was guerrilla warfare.
some sheltered spot was discovered from which to deliver a 'broadside'
and then the 'pilgrim press' found new refuge,
conveyed under cover of night somewhere, anywhere,
where the scent might be less hot.
the mobility and resourcefulness of the agitators was amazing.
from east molesy to fawsley in northamptonshire,
and again to coventry and haseley near warwick,
and yet again to newton lane near manchester,
were the press was eventually seized;
backwards and forwards went the two or three who had concluded
that the prize to be attained was well worth all the risks of the fight...

60 as gardiner and bonner made protestantism,
so archbishop whitgift made the Free churches.
protestantism in england had been too much identified with the right of
henry VIII to divorce his wife.
the great spiritual principles involved had been obscured.
in mary's reign, however, the battle was fairly joined,
and men took sides for the decision of the real issue.
it is no exaggeration to say that the constancy and testimony
of the Marian martyrs did more than any official acts
to turn the heart of england permanently protestant.
moreover, the persecutions did much to reveal where
the real Church of Christ lay.
those who were burned were not, for the most part,
in 'holy orders' in the conventional sense.
they were plain men and women who, by their death,
taught england the value of new testament christianity.
mr. froude has graphically described what happened.
the persecutors 'went out into the highways and hedges;
they gathered up the lame, the halt and the blind;
they took the weave from his loom, the carpenter from his workshop,
the husbandman from his plough;
they laid hands on maidens and boys who had never head of any other religion
than that they were called on to abjure;
old men tottering into the grave and children whose lips could  but just lisp
the articles of their creed;
and of these they made their burnt offerings;
with these they crowded their prisons,
and when filth and famine killed hem, they flung them out to rot.'

this is no more than the truth,
and it made plain to all that the true defenders of the faith were not
popes or kings or prelates or clergy,
but the christian people
-they  who had proved the worth of the gospel in their own experience.
after that, one thing was inevitable.
men and women who were prepared on occasion to die for the faith
could not for long be excluded from their rightful privileges in the church of Christ.

everywhere the nature of 'authority' was being discussed.
the same temper that challenged the prelatical authority in the church
was to challenge the royal absolutism in the state.
the heresies of yesterday become the orthodoxies of tomorrow;
and alike in Church and state there was to be
bitter controversy and effusion of blood before two great beliefs were established,
namely, that the ultimate authority in the state is
not the king, nor the nobles, nor even the house of commons,
but the english people;
and that the ultimate authority in the church is not
the pope, nor the prelates, nor even convocations and synods,
but the christian people.
they who in mary's reign claimed their privilege of defending the faith with their life blood
did much to establish the claim of their successors to the equal privilege of defending the faith
by voice and vote in the councils of the free churches.

that this latter privilege was involved in the Protestant attitude
hardly admits of doubt.
the right of private judgment in religion
cannot be conceded
and the right of judgment and counsel in church affairs
be denied.
whitgift fought against the latter right by dungeon and rope,
as bonner had fought against the former by dungeon and stake.
in doing so, both were fighting against the future
and opposing themselves to irresistible forces of progress.
there was a certain shrewdness, doubtless,
as well as a certain blindness about both men.
the authority of the christian people
is the end of the authority of the priest.
the one all sufficient bulwark against sacerdotalism
was the doctrine which thoroughgoing, logical and consistent protestants
such as browne, barrowe and penry were advocating at their lives' peril.
whitgift knew very well that if barrowe's congregational faith were allowed,
the whole sacerdotal fabric must totter and fall.

...(speaking of one of the congregations)..this 'privye
(participating in the knowledge of something private or sacred)
church' had no fixed meeting place for obvious reasons.
the members met where they could, in private houses...
'they seem very steadfast in their opinions
wrote the anonymous author of 'the brownist's synagogue,
and say, 'rather than they will turn, they will burn'

..of early separatist martyrs..
whatever their faults may have been,
their attitude to the civil, as distinguished from the ecclesiastical authorities,
was blameless.
they then, go on to record that 17 or18 have been imprisoned unto death
'in the same noisome gaols within these six years.
'are we malefactors? they exclaim.
'are we anywise undutiful to our prince?
maintain we any errors?
let us, then, be judicially convicted thereof, and delivered to the civil authority.
but let not these bloody men both accuse, condemn and close murder us after this sort;
contrary to all law, equity and conscience;
where, alone, they are
the plaintiff,
the accusers,
the judges
and the executioners
their most fearful, barbarous tyranny.
they conclude with these words,
'we crave for all of us but liberty
either to die openly
or to live openly
in the land of our nativity.

...exodus had always had its place in the possible programme of the puritans.
cartwright took refuge in middelburg
robert brown sought asylum in the same town.
neither flanders nor holland had much in the way of worldly prospects to offer;
but to those who were prepared to count all things but loss
that they might fulfill the will of Christ,
they were veritable haves of refuge.
how many english separatists crossed over to the Low Countries
during the next few years we have no exact knowledge.
the leaders of the movement passed out of english life;
and if the question be asked what of the many thousands who were undoubtedly
touched by the principles of separatism in the early days,
our reply must be that their faith remained
but as a deep undercurrent in english religious life,
waiting only the occasion to flow upward again
with the force of passionate conviction.
this 'flowing under' of puritan faith and feeling
is a phenomenon that we have seen repeated more than once in english history.
so still, silent and invisible has puritan life become at times
that its antagonists have presumed on the fact;
but at some supreme call the old spirit has awakened from the grave,
and has borne down all opposition before it.
the work of the separatist preachers and pamphleteers was not lost.
a day was coming which would declare it.

...one example given is of the congregational church at scrooby manor house.
'they claimed that the church they founded was of the apostolic pattern:
it was certainly officered by apostolic men
the cause that had such servants might be numerically weak,
yet it had the best of all guarantees of success in
the character and capacity of its defenders.

..it was impossible that men of such mark as the scrooby separatists
would be left in peace.
bradford tells us that they
'were hunted and persecuted on every side.
some were taken and clapt up in prison,
others had their houses beset and watcht night and day...
and the most were fain to fly and leave their houses
and habitations and the means of their livelihood.
they were yet to discover that even this latter cruel alternative
was not open to them.
they were neither allowed to live in peace at home,
nor seek peace abroad.
it was apparently in the autumn of 1607 that the first attempt at emigration
was made by the scrooby community as a whole.
several attempts had been previously made to escape
by twos and threes,
but the king's officers had frustrated them
-the would be pilgrims had suffered in person and property
for their audacity.
this time, however, a ship had been hired to accommodate all the company.
the quaint old town of boston in lincolnshire was to be the place of departure;
and all the particulars of embarkation had been satisfactorily arranged.
all that is to say save one
-the integrity of the captain of the vessel.
this..played them false;
converted his ship into a government trap
and when all were safely on board handed them over to the law officers.
the attentions of these latter were not of a scrupulous order,
even to the women.
'rifled and stripped of their money, books and much other goods',
these..were then haled before the magistrates
and subsequently crowded into the cells of boston prison...

despite this rebuff, there was no faltering in their purpose.
in the following spring another concerted attempt was made
to  get away to the Low Countries...

80 after speaking of their difficult time there the account continues...
'all these reasons, and many others, caused the church to turn its eyes westward
and to hearken to the rumours that reached it of a great land beyond the ocean.
many circumstances combined to make the 'pilgrim fathers' ideal colonist and pioneers.
some of these are set forth in the noble document forwarded to london
to induce the english authorities to consent to the enterprise.
'we are well weaned from the delicate milk of our mother country
and enured to difficulties of a strange and hard land which
yet in a great part we have by patience overcome...
we are knit together as a body in a most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord,
of the violation, whereof we make great conscience,
and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good
and of the whole by every one and so mutually...
it is not with us as with other men whom small things can discourage,
or small discontentments cause to wish themselves at home again....
the negotiations wer long and troublesome.
the separatists did not receive all the assurances as to
religious liberty that they wished;
but they considered they had sufficient guarantee
that if they made the adventure they would not be molested...

...laud, the head of the church of england,
 persecutes the puritans in england during the first half of the 1600s...
he was king charles instrument to enable the king to do as he wished
with no gainsayers (to deny, dispute or contradict...him)..

'laud loved the parliament as little as charles did;
and now that he was no longer subject to its supervision,
he pursued his policy more relentlessly than ever.
the puritan ministers, harassed and persecuted at every turn,
found a haven of refuge in new england.
neal compiled a list of 67 ministers of the church of england who
went out to america during these twelve years
(during which time the king did not call pariament to meet)
the first considerable exodus of puritans resulted
in the foundation of the massachusetts bay colony.
the founders of this colony, although episcopalians (state church in england)
by tradition and custom, decided to follow the congregational order
which had had such happy results in the original plymouth colony.
it is said that 4000 planters settled in the new colonies during these 12 years,
taking with them out of england a considerable amount of wealth,
as well as the moral and mental force which the mother country could ill afford to lose.
suicidal as the policy seems to us today,
we recognise that laud did not misconceive the situation.
he knew that to change the faith of england,
he must first break the puritan spirit.
he had no idea how unconquerable that spirit was,
but he knew that unless it were broken his designs would come to nothing.
he had thee insight also to perceive that its strength was
not so much political as theological.
it was calvinism that stood between laud and the realisation of his dreams.
the arminianism so dear to his heart was a more pliant creed.
...the calvinist was less plastic (capable of being molded or receiving a certain form)
material in the hands of ecclesiastical authority.
to break the puritan spirit, then, he must
break up the puritan dogmas,
and force upon the church a less inflexible type of creed.
but it was just here he failed.
the puritan might look on without open violence,
while laud transformed the externals of the church;
but this attack upon his faith
kindled him to active indignation.
arminianism (belief that Christ died for all people and not only the elect)
began to loom large on the list of national grievances.
preachers and lecturers were forbidden to refer to predestination and election;
but the result was to give these doctrines a new sanctity and authority in the puritan mind.
...laud knew well that calvinism and prelacy were irreconcilable
and the bishop only retained his see at the price of silence. ..

106...yet, deep as the discontent with 'personal government'
(the king had absolute control over the persons and properties of his subjects.)
was in the south of his dominions,
it was in scotland that the smouldering embers broke into conflagration.
episcopacy imposed by james upon the scottish church
had never been popular,
but it had provoked no determined resistance.
episcopacy, however, without canon or rubrics.
was to laud a poor makeshift
and accordingly measures had been taken to prepare canons and a book of prayer,
to which the ministers and people of scotland must conform
or incur the penalties that english nonconformists had to suffer.
in 1637 the new ecclesiastical clothes fashioned by english tailors for the soul of scotland
were ready to be sent north.
every minister was commanded to buy two copies of the new book,
and it was henceforth to be read in every parish church.
it had not been thought necessary to consult
the church of scotland on the matter.
archbishop laud had no misgivings as to his capacity and authority.
the start was not auspicious.
there was a riot in st giles', edinburgh and
jenny geddes made herself an everlasting name by aiming a stool at the head of the Dean;
while lindsay, bishop of edinburgh, narrowly escaped injury at the hands of the mob.
a few fanatics might have mattered little,
but as it tuned out, scotland was behind the rioters.
prepared, if it came to the test,
to supplement jenny geddes stool with more deadly missiles.
in a moderate, but firm petition alexander henderson gave expression
to the deep and solemn convictions of the scottish people.
the only effect of this outbreak on charles and laud
was to enrage them
they took the scottish bishops to task for their timidity.
they insisted that the book must be adopted and its usage enforced.
it was easy to be bold and confident in lambeth,
but the bishops in the North were realising what pent forces of
discontent and pride and worthy aspiration had been suddenly released.
edinburgh became at once the centre of a national movement.
charles's proclamatikon, that all strangers were to leave the capital under pain of outlawry,
was as fuel to the flames.
the petitioners against the new order and discipline organised themselves
for resistance and appointed comissioners to represent them.
so the struggle was joined.

the great device of the commissioners for making the voice of scotland articulate
was the covenant.
there had been a covenant in james's time of those who vowed
to defend the kingdom against popery.
this earlier covenant was now enlarged
and contained a demand for the restitution of the ancient kirk order
as it was before episcopal innovations began.
the covenant was signed, first by the nobles,
next by the ministers,
and then by the people.
on the flat tombstones in Grey Friars churchyard
the historic document was signed by hundreds and thousands of men and women.
amid many tears and prayers
and mutual exhortations  and ejaculations of passionate resolve.
they were signing their dearest conviction
-that of the right of a people to determine what its own religious faith and worship should be....

...no parliament from 1628-40. then the Long Parliament assembled on november 3, 1640.

111 the problems to which parliament had to apply itself were gigantic.
'the judges have overthrown the law,
and the bishops the Gospel,'
was a terse statement of the situation.
we well know, said rudyard, what disturbance hath been brought into the church
for petty trifles;
how the whole church, the whole kingdom,
hath been troubled where to place a metaphor-an altar!
we have seen ministers, their wives, children and families undone
against the law
against conscience,
against all bowels of compassion,
about not dancing on sundays.
what do those sort of men think will become of themselves
when the Master of the House shall come and find them beating their fellow servants?'
such precisely had been the effect of the regime of archbishop laud....

..these were all independents of the somewhat mild type ...
but bishop hall asserts that in london and its suburbs alone there sprang up in 1641
'no fewer than fourscore congregations of several sectaries,
instructed by guides fit for them,
cobblers, tailors, felt makers and such like trash.'

even from america many returned who had watched the successful experiment of
congregationalism in that new commonwelath.
..numbers of ...individuals brought back to the mother country
their experience of the congregational...

in 1641 john milton had written three anti episcopal pamphlets
unburdening his soul against prelatical oppression
with all the generous vehemence of a young patriot.
..so far as they were pro anything they were pro presbyterian.
he had not yet reached his conviction that new prebyter is but old priest writ large;
but there are signs that he was studying the independent pamphlets,
and when in 1642 he published 'the reason of church goverfnment'
there may be discerned throughout, to quote professor masson,
'a certain vague melting towards independency.'
in this year, too, a letter was sent to the american colonies to ask
that certain of their ministers might be sent over to participate
in the discussions of the westminster assembly of divines.
in the meanwhile the relations between charles and his people had come to an open rupture.
if ever it could be said of any war that it was the result
of the conflict of irreconcilable ideals as to which no compromise was possible,
it could be said of this one.
even the government of the state admitted of easier settlement
than the government of the church.
the house of commons was only united in its fear and hatred of popery
and its impatience with the sectaries.
it was resolved not 'to loose the golden reins of discipline'.
the only policy on which it was agreed was a policy of intolerance.
in the eyes of parliament charles's cause was
more and more prejudiced by the aggressive romanism of the court of the queen.
here schemes and intrigues were as endless as they were fatuous,
(foolish or inane, especially in an unconscious, complacent manner; silly)

and her influence over her husband was now almost absolute.
while appearing to make concessions to the parliament,
he was in reality looking
to holland, to france, to spain, to ireland, even to the pope,
for alien troops to overwhelm his own subjects.
he had sought a reconciliation with scotland,
and had appeared in edinburgh coquetting with the presbyterian leaders,
and scattering promises with open hand.
only the shrewdest men read him truly
and knew that the end he contemplated was
the restoration of the prerogative
(exclusive right or privilege exercised because of rank or office)
and the laudian uniformity (only one church)
and that to this end he would not hesitate to consecrate
all means that might offer.
...(finally) his belief that parliament intended to call
queen henrietta to account
let to his abortive attempt to arrest the five members,
pym, hampden, hazelrig, holles and strood.
after that there could be no accommodation.
charles succeeded in shipping henrietta off to france
with the crown jewels and her children.
then he went North
and ultimately on august 22, 1642,
the royal standard was unfurled at nottingham and the civil war began.

the parliament had drawn the sword for constitutional rights,
but not for religious liberty.
the story of the next few months is the story of the definite emergence of a new issue.
archbishop laud was in prison awaiting his trial and death.
his day was over
the prelatical
(having to do with bishops, archbishops, pope..ie. positions above pastor)
cause he had championed had taken shelter under the standard of the king.
laud had shown no mercy to the puritan party in the establishment
and now that that party was fairly in the ascendency
no mercy would be shown to him and his friends.
nothing was common to laud and the puritan erastians,
save the hatred of toleration.
each party accused the other of being a persecuting party.
during the opening months of the war
the parliament gradually inclined towards a prebyterian settlement of the stat-church;
and as it became evident that scotland would be called upon to throw her weight
into the balance against charles,
the expediency of establishing prebyterianism in england was recognised.
the war was being waged with varying fortune in all parts of the kingdom.
at edgehill an inconclusive battle was fought.
john hampden was mortally wounded on chalgrove field.
after an abortive advance on london,
charles had taken up his headquarters at oxford.
essex, the parliamentary general, was slow and unenthusiastic.
in 1643 the result was stale-mate.
the country was suffering all the misery of a state of war,
and was as far from deciding the issue as when hostilities began.

all unknown to the parliament a greater issue was being decided within the army
than even the national quarrel with the king.
an experiment was being made which was to have far reaching results.
it was inevitable that in recruiting the puritan army,
men of every variety of protestant opinion should crowd into the ranks.
the despised separatists were now discovered to be a valuable national asset.
they were men of conviction and resolution;
men whose forefathers had gone to the stake or to prison sooner than abjure their faith.
here was the stuff out of which soldiers could be made capable
of holding their own against the cavaliers of charles in the open field.
but as they flocked to the parliamentary standard it was
abundantly evident that they had no intention of leaving their religion behind them.
their willingness to risk their lives in their country's service was bound up with
the permission to worship God after their own fashion.
the army thus became the most comprehensive Church of England
that has ever been known in this country,
a veritable church militant in the most literal sense of the phrase.
men went down into the valley of the shadow of death side by side
who held every variety of denominational opinion.
independent, baptists, presbyterians, episcopalians,
and devotees of a whole host of less considerable  religious bodies,
discovered in association a deep moral and spiritual agreement.
many ordained ministers were among them whose services were valued;
but lay preachers abounded also, and in he prayer meetings of the camp
voices were lifted up in supplication that were  asserting unconsciously
the freedom of the spiritual life and the immediacy of personal access to God.
it is little wonder that under such conditions a new idea should spread
through the army like wildfire
-the idea of a toleration;
and that the great phrase 'freedom of conscience'
should be passed from mouth to mouth.
it remained only for this new idea to find its prophet
for it to be accepted in this crisis as
the master key to the intractable religious problem of the ages.

when oliver cromwell comes into prominence it is as something more than a captain of cavalry.
he is the expositor and interpreter of this new idea.
when and how he dissevered himself in thought from his fellow parliamentarians
we do not know.
but both he and his cousin hampden early became root and branch men;
their thorough going protestantism brought them into sympathy with the separatists.
cromwell was born at huntingdon in 1599
and grew up to manhood in the fen country about huntingdon and st. ives.
like so many others among his puritan associates,
he found peace with God only after severe agonies of mind and searchings of heart.
he was ever a fighter and his first great fight was
with himself  and his own ungovernable temper and unregenerate will.
when he entered parliament it was as a man who believed
that the greatest issue for every man had to be determined
between his own soul and God.
he took no great part in the early parliamentary struggles with the king;
but he was always to be found on the side of popular privilege.
so keenly did he feel the peril to which absolutism had brought the country
that he is credited with the determination to emigrate to america
if the parliament had failed to carry the root and branch bill.

he is now active more than most in recruiting and organising the parliamentary army.
moreover, he has his own ideas of the type of soldier who is wanted.
he thinks God's battles can only be fought and won by God's men.
'he who prays best and preaches best will fight best' he says.
his own men were 'a lovely company'.
he has searched for men 'patient in wants,
faithful and conscientious in their employment',
and he has found them.
each trooper in colonel cromwell's company
'knows what he fight for and loves what he knows'.
behind those terrible swords of theirs,
and those grim iron sides, lie convictions that
fire their souls and nerve their hearts.
even such royalist witnesses as chillingworth and lord clarendon
bore tribute to the character of the men who served in the parliament's army.
'i confess, says chillingworth, their discourse and behaviour do speak christians,
but i can find little of God or godliness in our men (charles's troops)'.
Lord clarendon declares that the commonwealth army was
'an army whose sobriety and manner, whose courage and success
made it famous and terrible all over the world'
while the king's army was 'a dissolute, undisciplined, wicked beaten army,
whose horse

  their friends feared,
being terrible only in plunder and resolute only in running away'.
this contrast became more and more marked as cromwell had his way
in modelling the army of the commonwealth.
he brought to the fight men of ideas and beliefs,
who were 'armed well within with satisfaction of conscience.'.

..it was not simply a remodelled army that won the war,
it was a remodelled programme.
the greater zeal displayed was due to the larger issue raised.
where the cry of 'parliamentary privilege' was strong but insufficient,
the cry of 'liberty of conscience ' was irresistible.

undoubtedly, a contributory factor to the success of the new ideal was to be found
in the proceedings of the westminster assembly of divines.
this famous council was summoned by parliament to
'settle' the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England.
it consisted of some 149 members,
of whom 30 were laymen
and of the 119 divines a few were episcopalians,
5 were independents, while the rest favoured a presbyterian and calvinisic settlement.
the episcopalians withdrew from the council early
and the only opposition to the rigid calvinism and presbyterianism of the assembly
came from the 5 independents,
and one or tow of the laymen
-notably john selden, the famous jurist.
in the debates in the assembly the 5 independents,
thomas goodwin, philp nye, sidrach simpson,
jeremiah burroughs, and william bridge
exercised an influence out of all proportion to their numbers.
before entering the assembly they had made their own position explicit
by a document  bearing the horrible title,
'apologetical narration'.

it was better than its title.
the principal contents were:
1. that the signatories believed the supreme rule in chruch matters
to be the pattern of the primitive of apostolic churches.
2. that they would not bind themselves by their present judgment in any matter
against a possible future change of judgment.
3. that they would study accommodation as far as they could
to the judgments of others.
the whole 'narration' was an able and moderate address,
designed to appeal perhaps less to the assembly than to parliament and to the people.
the assembly met for the first time on july 1, 1643,in henry VII's chapel..
..the nation wearied of the interminable debates,
while the evident determination of the majority to enforce their findings
as rigorously as archbishop laud had enforced his own church dogmas
convinced tens of thousands...of milton's affirmation, that
'new presbyter is but old priest writ large.
the independents might make no impression on the granite
antitolerationism of the assembly,
but they were creating an effect outside
which would become in turn as efficient cause of greater consequences still.

..a 'solemn league and covenant' of scotland and england
..'was seemingly the triumph of presbyterianism in england,
for the assembly now had its 'test',
which every householder must satisfy or take the consequences.

...the appearance of a presbyterian army was to give presbyterianism in england
the necessary backing of force....
meanwhile independency was spreading daily among the army men who meant business
...the ascendency of cromwell must mean the ascendency of his ideas.
it was decided on marston moor that
liberty of conscience must become a fundamental privilege of the english commonwealth.

..at the very period.. one of the most notable pamphlets hitherto published in england
came from the press.
it was entitled
'the bloudy tenent (tenet) of persecution for cause of conscience
discussed in a conference between truth and peace'
its author was one of the most famous of the early vindicators of freedom of conscience-roger williams.

roger williams went out to new england in 1631,
a young welshman, oxford bred, who had been a protege of the celebrated sir edward coke.
like so many others, he went to new england because there was no room for him in old england,
his religious opinions being what they were.
he is described ..as 'learned, quick witted, pugnacious'
yet 'with all his love of controversy there has perhaps never lived a more gentle and kindly soul.
he became minister at salem in the colony of massachusetts,
and forthwith began to teach and to preach
the doctrine of religious liberty and toleration in its most developed form.
his views involved
'the entire separation of church from state,
the equal protection of all forms of religious faith,
the repeal of all laws compelling attendance on public worship,
the abolition of tithes and of all forced contributions to the support of religion.
the only fault to be found with these opinions is that they were generations before their time;
and for the fault williams had much to suffer.
as the easiest way of getting rid of him,
it had been decided to kidnap him and ship him back to england.
but williams had wind of this ,
and with his wife and family he plunged into the forest and
for 14 weeks he lived principally among the indians,
with whom he could converse freely
and among whom he seems to have made some rough attempts at evangelisation.
edward winthrop appears to have suggested to him
that at narragansett bay he might settle without molestation;
and accordingly he founded there the providence colony
which became a veritable city of refuge for all sorts of religious cranks and fanatics,
but which had for its distinction that it was the freest place of habitation on the face of the earth.
before he fled, however, from the neighbourhood of boston
he had had the opportunity of exercising his influence over a distinguished young englishman
whose name in history is very noble, sir henry vane the younger.
this latter had imbibed views at geneva that sorely troubled his old father,
and had come to new england to become still further initiated
into religious democracy and republicanism.
he returned to england later on..
williams had now become a baptist, which widened the gulf between him and those
who exiled and excommunicated him.
he was bent on obtaining a charter of incorporation for his colony,
and now that the parliament was in power
and sir harry vane one of its leaders,
he saw his opportunity and in 1643 he arrived in london.
he got his charter...
he wrote and published this famous dialogue between truth and peace,
\in defence of full and complete freedom of conscience.

the significance of williams' visit at this time will be easily appreciated.
there is little reason to doubt that he saw much of sir harry vane,
and in all probability of such influential thinkers and teachers as
john goodwin and john milton.
he may also, very probably, have had interviews with cromwell..
after exploding his pamphlet at the advocates of religious persecution
he took ship for america;
and the westminster assembly promptly gave orders for the public burning of his book
'concerning the tolerating of all sorts of religion.
he had expected this.
'i confess i have little hope..till those flames are over,
that this discourse against the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience
should pass current,
i say not amongst the wolves and lions,
but even amongst the sheep of Christ themselves.
yet liberavi animam meam,
i have not hid within my breast my soul's belief.'

..marston moor, however, had sensibly impaired the assembly's authority;
and instead of persecutions cromwell had got a motion through the house in favour of an
endeavour to find out 'how far tender consciences may be borne with'
-a motion that seemed to the presbyterians the presage of the reign of anti Christ.

128...there was one who had not been suffered to live to see
the wreck of his hopes in the overthrow of the royalist cause.
in january of this year archbishop laud was sent to the block.his grey hairs must have pleaded for mercy;
but otherwise there was little to inspire pity in his powerful adversaries,
whose watch word, like his own, was Intolerance.
'with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again'
might well have been in the old man's thoughts as he walked to the scaffold. ..
uniformity was still the idol to which those in power bowed down.
he was slain with the sword himself  had sharpened. ...
a fortnight after laud's execution, eight resolutions were adopted by the commons for
the complete presbyterianising of the church of england....

cromwell, moreover, had found his greatest ally.
a pamphlet was making its way throughout the country
and awakening thought everywhere among men of intelligence.
this was john milton's areopagitica, a plea for unlicensed printing.

...after naseby, cromwell was sent to the southwest of england
to reduce the royalists there.
his progress was one of unbroken victory.
into his letters and despatches he inserted many of those
terse and powerful vindications of religious liberty and toleration
which are so familiar to us all today.
he was determined that the various free churches
should have a right to live in england.
'presbyterians, independents, all have here the same spirit of faith and prayer;
the same presence and answer;
pity is it shoucl be otherwise anywhere.
all that believe have the real unity,
which is most glorious because inward and spiritual,
in the body and to the head.
for being united in form, commonly called uniformity,
every christian will, for peace sake, study and do as far as conscience will permit.
and for brethren, in things of the mind we look for no compulsion but that of light and reason..

it was high time to write in this strain.
in less than a month after naseby, john goodwin was ejected from
his vicarage of st. stephen's, coleman street,
and henry burton from his living in friday street.
one of the most merciless of prebyterian persecutors was william prynne,
who had suffered so much himself at the hands of laud.
he was for presbytery against prelacy;
but equally he was for presbytery against any other form of churhc government whatsoever.
john lilburne could not hope ato excape prynne's vigilance.
lilburne was the representative of extreme individualism,
and as obstinate in his way as prynne was in his.
it was wittily said that if john lilburne were left alone in the world
john would quarrel with lilburne and lilburne with john.
cromwell urged the house of commons to remember lilburne's services,
but the house was in no humour for cromwell's moderation
and lilburne had three months of newgate before he recovered his liberty.
when he was released matters were coming to a head in the assembly of divines.
the independents in the assembly had hitherto been cautious in the extreme.
but the rapid growth of their principles in the army and in the country
had not been without its influence upon them.
..in november, 1645, they exploded a bombshell in the assembly;
they declared for 'an indefinite toleration'....

...hugh peters, cromwell's army chaplain..
was full of quaint and sometimes rude illustrations such as exactly suited the taste of the army.
he had a kindly hearing for the fads and fanaticisms of all the sectaries,
and thought no worse of any man because he had a 'maggot in his lug'.
he believed that if ministers prayed and dined together they would discover that
they were very much agreed and would 'befool the devil and his instruments'.
he had however, no hope of laud's priests...

a man of very different character had also found his way, in the capacity of chaplain,
into the service of the parliamentary forces.
this was richard baxter, whose admirable autobiography
is a very mine of information on the movements of his day.
baxter was by sympathy a presbyterian, but he was no believer in the
divine right of any church order.
he was, however, horrified at the diversity of opinions in the army
and became very qealous for uniformity of creed, if not worship.
he was amazed at the 'frequent and vehement disputes for liberty of conscience'
among the soldiers;
and their conviction that 'the civil magistrate had nothing to do to determine of anything
in matters of religion, by constraint or restraint.
V was for arguing the sldiers out of their individual eccentricities of believ,
which caused him to be regarded coldly by cromwell...

137 ...charles had steadily evaded the propositions of the presbyterians;
he was now to hear the proposals of the army.
these were characteristic.
they included the abolition of all coercive power and authority of
bishops and all other ecclesiastical officers
'extending to any civil penalties upon any';
also the repeal of all acts enforcing the book of common prayer
or attendance at church,
or prohibiting meetings for worship apart from the regular church (of england)
and there is to be no enforcing of the covenant upon anyone.

...now for the days of the commonwealth following the execution of charles.

..our chronicle would also be unpardonably defective if it did not set forth the appointment of
mr. john milton, at the call of public duty,
lays aside for many years his purely literary interests,
\strains his eyes in the service of the State until blindness creeps upon him,
but nevertheless gives tongue to the will of cromwell
in his dealings with foreign powers
and finds time to write, in english as well as in latin,
books that will always live,
for the glowing spirit of patriotism and freedom that is in them.

149 ...it is certain that Cromwell never resented the criticisms on his policy
that came from the extreme voluntary and disestablishment men.
there is every reason to believe that his heart was with them.
but he knew that his immediate business was to keep things together
and avoid anything like disintegration in the state.
his always tolerant mind leaned to compromise and accommodation,
provided that the central principle of religious liberty was not denied.
he found in existence the vast machinery of an established church,
with all its edifices and endowments,
and he believed that he could make it an illustration rather than a negation
of what was meant by freedom of conscience.
men like roger williams, milton ...regretted
what they believed to be a declension from the nobler ideal.
it may be said in a sentence that while C's policy was the best for the immediate exigency,
milton had the future on his side.
neither is there any reason to doubt that
in this respect C was a great opportunist
and that he did not abandon his earlier ideal,
though he knew that its full realisation must be in the future rather than the present.

...the protectorate fairly established, C had a freer hand than ever
to deal with the difficult problems of the state.
certain ministers were much about his person
and admitted freely to his confidence-
hugh peters, of course, and with him john own and later on john howe.

..john owen gave early proof of the staunchness of his nonconformist convictions,
for he was driven out of oxford by laud,
and disinherited by the uncle who had educated him.
he came first to london, , afterwards exercised his ministry
at forsham and at coggeshall.
he was a man of massive and vigorous intellect,
a strong calvinist, but with an eminently tolerant spirit...

...presbyterians, epiecopalians, independents, all held pastorates in C's established church.
how many baptists became rectors or vicars we do not know,k
but we do know that there were several.
on the whole, singular harmony and healthy
co operation prevailed among the various ministers within the establishment.
in addition, dissent of various kinds had perfect liberty to organise itself
according to its several preferences.
the hand of the government was heaviest on the high churchmen.
they were notoriously ill affected to the commonwealth...
they were not imprisoned or ill treated...
on the whole, the policy of the commonwealth was fair, tolerant, and prosperous
throughout the real,
and the character and protestant sincerity of the protector
made the name and influence of britain great throughout the world.
it was directly in line with his home policy that he should instruct milton
to write despatches urging liberty of conscience upon the rulers of spain and france.
it was inevitable that he should be the first and boldest in europe
to insist that the cruel massacres of God's 'slaughtered saints' among the piedmontese
should cease and justice be done to the suffering survivors.
we have seen his zeal for the propagation of the gospel among the american indians.
throughout the story of his great and glorious rule
there throbs this passion for the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and for what one may truly call
'the good estate of the catholic church'
-for the church of england has never been more truly catholic than in C's day...

the religious movement, however, which caused oliver more serious perplexity than any other
was the extraordinary revival associated with the life and labours of george fox.
in a very real sense he was the greatest of the voluntaryists.
that john lilburne in his latest days should find satisfaction
in the teaching and practice of the quakers was not at all unnatural.
fox went beyond milton in his denunciation of 'hireling wolves
whose gospel is their maw' (mouth)
he denounced a paid ministery altogether.
it was a long step, doubtless, beyond milton,
but it was not an unnatural development of M's voluntaryism.
take the great passage in which M appeals to C:
'if you leave the church to the church
and discreetly rid yourself and magistracy of that burden,
actually half of the whole and at the same time most incompatible with the rest,
not allowing two powers of utterly diverse natures,
the civil and the ecclesiastical,
to commit fornication together,
and by their promiscuous and delusive helps apparently
to strengthen but in reality to weaken and finally subvert each other;
if also you take away all persecuting power from the church
-for persecuting power will never be absent so long as money,
the poison of the church,
the strangler of truth,
shall be extorted by force from the unwilling
as a pay for preaching the gospel
-then you will have cast out of the church those money changers
that truckle not with doves, but with the Dove itself, the Holy Ghost.

this passage is the sheet anchor (final reliance or resource, as when in danger)
of the liberationist,
and it cannot, of course, be said to support the quaker view of the ministry.
but it pointed in the direction of the testimony of the quakers
that a paid ministry in Christ's church
was a grievous apostasy from primitive christianity.

it will hardly be disputed that among all the teachers and reformers of the 17th century
the MOST ORIGINAL was george fox.
if milton was the poet of that puritan age,
george fox was its prophet.
he had the spiritual insight and the intense moral passion of the prophet
-something also of his narrowness and intolerance.
the genuineness and spontaneity of his religious utterances
were very striking  and refreshing in an age
when the well worn phraseology of calvinism had grown stale with repetition.
to say that fox was original is to say that he
went straight to the springs and sources of life,
thought out his own message in his own way,
owing little to any except the great Teacher, the ever present Spirit.
so it came to pass that his religious vocabulary was singularly rich and quaint.
no theological school could claim him,
for he belonged to none.
he was of that small circle of elect souls of whom it can be said
that they have distinct spiritual genius.
it was his rare gift of getting to the heart of things,
going back to the beginnings,
drinking in christianity at its pure and limpid fount,
that made him so unique a figure then,
and keeps him so unique a figure still.
formalism, ecclesiastical and theological,
he hated with a perfect hatred.
nor can it be denied that he had the defect of this quality.
he was volcanic, passionate, censorious,
too fond of sweeping condemnations,
too scornful of habits and opinions that were not his.
he had too little sense of proportion and perspective;
and by exalting trifles into principles was in some cases
responsible for  a pedantry and formalism
\similar in effect to that which he denounced.
yet, when all due criticism has been made,
the fact remains that his was a singularly emancipated spirit;
that the dead hand of traditionalism and literalism
never hampered or oppressed him;
and that this thoughts, his language, his methods and his life
were emphatically his own.

puritanism, so far, had been almost exclusively
a protest against ceremonialism and sacramentarianism
-the formalism of whitgift and laud.
puritanism in george fox and his friends
became a noble protest against the formalism that had come in with the triumph of calvinism.
the intolerable rabbinical sermons,
the theological hair splittings,
the idolatries of forms of doctrine
as well as forms of worship,
all these thing fox felt to be a corruption of the
simplicity and freedom of the gospel
as fatal in their effects as the corruptions of anglicanism itself.
almost alone in his generation george fox saw the tendency
of this cast iron rabbinism to harden and despiritualise its professors.
from his youth up the days of fox were bound each to each in natural piety.

'when i came to 11 years of age, i knew pureness and righteousness.
he had no early paroxysms of doubt and acute spritual distress.
his misery was less for himself than for his age
-an age in which brother was at war with brother,
and the peace of Christ would seem to have forsaken the land.
i say 'SEEM to have forsaken', for,
little as george fox knew it, there was more genuine love of man behind the sword of C
than in all the milk and honey of the Restoration.

george fox found that the message delivered to him
by the ordinary religious counselors of the people
was no more than stones to the hungry.
we may admit this without condemning them.
it did not demonstrate their incompetence
that they had so little to offer him.
there are mystic souls that must be fed if at all out of invisible resources,
\and receive their manna direct from the authentic heavens.
they have bread to eat that other men know not of.
F had, as he used to say, 'great openings'.
he saw vistas of truth opening out  before him as he pondered over the scriptures.
'i saw that there was an ocean of darkness and death;
but an infinite ocean of light and love
which flowed over the ocean of darkness.
in that also i saw the infinite Love of God; and i had great openings.

the two peculiarities of F and his quaker followers, as  they were called,
which brought them into conflict with the magistrates,
were first their refusal to take an oath,
and secondly their refusal to remove their hats as a mark of respect.
so far as the former is concerned,
most free churchmen have come to sympathise with the society of friends.
but we must not forget how critical the times were,
and in what real jeopardy the constitution stood.
all who refused to take the oath of allegiance
exposed themselves to the charge of disloyalty;
and, moreover, magistrates were not accustomed to
the idea that a man might dislike the form of and oath
whose purpose was not to avoid telling the truth thereby.
fox's saying on the subject is famous:
'the world saith, kiss the book,
but the book saith, kiss the son, lest He be angry.
and the son saith, swear not at all,
but let your communications be yea, yea,
for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil.

as to the second point, the removal of the hat,
it identified F with the levellers,
and the disciples of absolute equality;
but it will hardly be denied that, as one of F's biographers admits,
'it belongs to the category of the infinitely little'. (in line with john 5.44?)
F was laying stress on a mere form, and confounding the courtesies of society
with the sacred and regal claims of religion.
the refusal to remove the had looked to the magistrates of the commonwealth
like a deliberate and studied insult
and it is fair to say this impression was not always removed by the language
which the early quakers used towards 'the powers that be'.
hundreds of F's followers were imprisoned up and down the country,
not for the form of religion they preferred,
nor for their attack on the established form,
but for contempt of court in refusing to take the oath or to uncover the head.
others were proceeded against under the vagrancy laws,
because as roving evangelists they had the temerity to follow
the example of the early christian apostles.

...there were seldom less than a thousand quakers in prison during the years of the protectorate.
such was the violence of the authorities against them.

if we consider the days in which this wonderful movement began,
the bravest quaker testimony of all was
the testimony as to the unlawfulness of war.
it could not be expected that a nation that was winning so hardly its liberties by the sword
would listen patiently to such a message.
but this very fact, while it show us yet another reason for
the animus against the quakers,
extorts our warmest admiration for their courage and fidelty
to what they believed the truth.
the independent had yet to learn that even liberty,
if she depends for her maintenance upon the sword, is destined to disappear;
and that the kingdom of heaven cannot be established by force of arms.
the quaker stood in an age of strife and bloodshed
advocating the weapons of light rather than might,
of sweet reasonableness and moral suasion rather than sword and pike,
of arbitration rather than war.
in taking such a stand he is not a less heroic figure
than the ironside who died at marston moor or naseby in a death grapple with absolutism.

the organisation of the followers of F into a society went on steadily
from the very early days of this great awakening.
it appears from his own statement that 'the first meeting' 'gathered in the name of Jesus'
was at a place called sedbergh in yorkshire in 1652...

..as for the general meeting, its character may be gathered from F's own account.
he tells us how 'divers justices and captains had come to break it up,
but when they understood the business Friends had met about,
and saw Friends' books and accounts and collections for the relief of the poor,
how we took care-one county to help another-
and to help our friends beyond the sea
and provide for our poor, that none of them should be chargeable to their parishes, etc,
the justices and officers confessed that we did their work,
and would pass away peaceably and lovingly', 'commending friends' practice'.
when we remember how all this went on
through a veritable hurricane of obloquy and hostility;
that in the teeth of persecution the Friends quietly and steadfastly proceeded
with the work of building up their spiritual fellowship,
one feels that there is here before us one of the very noblest pages in christian history.

162  space must be spared for just a word as to the case of john biddle, the unitarian.
B had fortunately escaped from the hands of the Long Parliament by C's dissolution of that body.
but the news got abroad that
'in the new meeting house at paul's,
commonly called captain chillingdon's church meeting place,
B did then and there, in the presence of about 500 persons,
maintain, some hours together, in a dispute
that Jesus Christ was not the Almighty or Most High God.'
it can be imagined what indignation this would provoke.
yet certain independent and baptist ministers,
'whose orthodoxy was above suspicion',
made themselves very active to protect biddle from serious injury.
they drew upon themselves, as was inevitable, much abuse;
but the stood their ground
and C saved B by removing him to 'the isle of scilly, '
and there confining him, granting him an allowance of a hundred crowns per annum.

the on considerable denominational event that occurred in the
latter days of the protectorate
was the convoking of a synod of all the congregational churches of england
and wales, to be held at the savoy on the 29th september 1658.
the main purpose of the synod was to draw up a confession of faith
representative of the common beliefs of these churches.
this was not to be such a confession as would serve for a state creed
in the established church of cromwell.
it was only a 'voluntary agreement' of the congrgationalists.
it was to be an exposition of what was generally believed among them;
but IT WAS NOT INTENDED FOR USE AS A TEST.
the very fact that such synod was convoked points to a distinct growth of
the denominational and communal spirit among the independents.
but, alas, before the date of the assembling of the synod
the greatest of the independents was no more.

the labours of hercules had broken down even the iron frame of the protector.
during the last year or two he had been more and more solitary.
he felt keenly the alienation of some of his old comrades
who though and said that he took too much upon himself.
some who expected special favouritism for their opinions
were angered by his very fairness and catholicity.
but he went stoutly on his way;
and the name and fame of england were indeed great throughout the world.
never had there been, either, such security and prosperity at home.
what all this had meant for cromwell it is impossible to conceive.
and domestic bereavements had come upon him, many and sore.
one of his sons, oliver, had fallen in the war.
'it went to my heart like a dagger, indeed it did, he said.
then ireton..his favourite son in law died...
finally, the daughter elizabeth..was stricken down..
and secluding himself from all cares of state,
he sat by her bedside holding her hand hour after hour.
when she died, he was a broken man.
...events led up to the Restoration of charles II to the throne.