times? But will they endure a moment's comparison? "Supposing," to use the words of the Edinburgh Review,* "that the republican religionists of those days had been more unconciliatory to their spiritual opponents than the members of the Church of England,-supposing that they had imprisoned, and mutilated, and butchered greater numbers, even then would it be a gross injustice to brand their intolerance with as much moral turpitude. Despotic cruelty, and retaliation, is each to be ranked as a crime in our moral codes; but assuredly as a crime of higher or lower gradation than the other. Wantonness and cold-blooded deliberation enhance the guilt of the one; the partial infusion of justice and the hurry of passion diminish the guilt of the other. And be it remembered that these were the precise moral distinctions of the Episcopalian and Republican. The former had haughtily trampled down, without any necessity, all who dared to dissent from their pretensions; the latter, when the hour of requital came, had higher reasons for gratifying their vengeance. We are far-very far-from exculpating the Presbyterians; they would have shown a glorious magnanimity and a Christian piety in overlooking wrongs; but, nevertheless, we must protest against their being equalized with their foes." It would be idle in us to say that the opponents of the Church of England were in "no instances intolerant. Education, passion, kept many of them ignorant of the true principles of civil and religious liberty. But it is beyond bearing, that party-spirit should make a man so purblind to facts, and so self-contradictory, as to prompt him to institute any thing like a comparison between the intolerance of Charles I. and the intolerance of" his opponents.

"That during the Protectorate," continues the Review, "there were many instances of unrighteous oppression; that there were numerous sequestrations of the Episcopal clergy, which were most indefensible, must be admitted. But the calm observer of these times will perceive, that revenge, not religious intolerance, caused such proceedings: and, INASMUCH AS THE LEAD

ING MINISTERS OF RELIGION HAD NO PART IN THESE RETALIATIONS, THEY ARE NOT to be urgeD AGAINST THEM AS PROOFS OF RELIGIOUS OR POLITICAL INSINCERITY."

But who, we further ask, were the Episcopal ministers who were thus ejected, and on what grounds were they thus treated? "They cast out," says Baxter,† "the grosser sort of insufficient and scandalous clergy, and some few civil men, that had acted in the wars for the king; but left in near one-half of those that were but barely tolerable." He further states, "that in the

*Oct. 1836, p. 53.

†Dr. A. Alexander's Hist. of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, p.

counties where he was acquainted, six to one of the sequestered ministers were, by the oaths of witnesses, proved insufficient, or scandalous, or both." This ejectment, then, does not admit of a comparison with that which took place at the restoration, for non-conformity. In this case, the principal ground was either political, because they were considered enemies to the existing government, or, because they were totally unfit for the sacred office of the ministry; whereas the ejected ministers of 1662 were loyal subjects of the king, had had a considerable share in his restoration, and were certainly among the most pious and best qualified ministers in the kingdom. There was another striking difference in the two cases: in the ejectment by parliament, one-fifth of the income of all ejected ministers was appropriated to the support of their wives and children; whereas, in the case of those ministers cast out after the restoration, no provision whatever was made for the suffering families of the ejected ministers; but on the contrary, by severe penalties, they were prohibited from coming within five miles of any incorporated town; so that their opportunities of making a living by teaching, or in any other way, were exceedingly circumscribed." When prelacy had again triumphed; when, through the agency of Presbyterians, the king was restored to his throne; when all power was in the hands of Episcipalians; when Presbyterians confided in their oaths and promises of conciliation and kindness; who can palliate that act of barbarous intolerance by which two thousand ministers were thus ejected, in opposition to the petitions, prayers, and tears of their parishioners, and then hunted down, fined. imprisoned, and made to suffer a thousand deaths?

"The questions between the revengeful Episcopate that followed the second Charles, and those who afterwards were driven to non-conformity, were," to continue the words of the Review, "not whether that should be the religion of the statenot whether the Episcopacy should retain its government and revenues-not whether the liturgy should be preserved; but whether the 'Apocrypha' should receive sanction the same as inspiration-whether a few exceptionable passages in the ritual should be modified. These, and just such unimportant differences as these, were under agitation. Let us hear Mr. Lathbury,* in his recent defence of the prelacy. "The alliance,' he says, 'between church and state, the lawfulness of a prescribed form, and other points, on which modern Dissenters entertain such strong opinions, were never questioned by the Presbyterians, either prior to or at the Conference; nay, the necessity of an established church was insisted on as strongly by the one party as the other.' The intolerance of an ungrateful Episco*P. 55, Edinburgh Rev., Oct., 1836.

pate one unhumbled by her afflictions-was therefore for the single purpose of revenge. No matters of principle entered into the discussion."+

SECTION VI.

PRESBYTERIANISM VINDICATED FROM CHARGE OF HAVING GIVEN ORIGIN TO INNUMERABLE SECTS, AND THE SUBJECT CONCLUDED.

So much, then, for the charge of intolerance. But it is also alleged by Prelatists that the system of Presbytery, as introduced by this Assemmly, has resulted only in the introduction of innumerable sects, and that its tendency is to degenerate into Socinianism and every error. Never, however, was there a mistake more glaring, or a calumny more monstrous. It would be easy to show, did time permit, that Presbyterianism was never generally established in England; that the ordinance of parliament took effect only in a very few counties; that the system, as recognized by parliament, was shorn of its strength and deprived of all power of discipline and independent jurisdiction; and that even as it was established in some places, it had but little time and opportunity to exemplify its tendencies.* It was strangled almost in its birth, by the young Hercules of Independency, and, after lingering out a dying existence, was finally crushed by the strong hand of prelatic power. It is, we have seen, a fact easily explained by these circumstances, that the Confession of Faith of the Westminster Assembly was not subscribed by any member of that body except the prolocutor, assessors, and clerks, nor was an assent to it required from any minister or layman, as a term of ecclesiastical communion, for forty years afterwards. Presbytery had no authority to carry out its principles. Its courts of review were nullified, its laws emasculated, and its standards converted into mere paper proclamations. To impute, therefore, the results which followed at this time in England to the system of Presbytery, is most preposterous and absurd. Presbytery found the seeds of these pestiferous evils growing up into maturity around it. They were the offspring of the previous ignorance and superstitions of the people, which embraced the first opportunity afforded by the license of the times, to shoot forth into vigorous growth. These sects were everywhere and always denounced and opposed by Presbytery. They, in turn, regarded Presbytery as their most powerful enemy, and hence were they all found combined in fell hostility to its system of doctrine, discipline, and

†See also Appendix.

*See Neal, Vol. IV., 204. Price's Hist., II., 340, 408. Owen's Works, 20, 322. Orme's Life of Baxter, p. 71, 72, 80, 81. Baxter's Disput. on Ch. Gov't., Pref. p. 28 and p. 328. Henderson's Review and Consid., p. 33. Neal III., 329, Note by the Editor, and references there given.

order.

So that instead of fostering these sectaries, the truth is, that Presbytery actually fell a victim to their relentless hate. No-would we trace these evils to their source, we must go back to the lordliness, profaneness and superstition, to the ceremonies, doctrine and worship, of the prelates.*

But we may meet this calumny by an appeal to facts. In France and Geneva a Presbytery was established, and there, so long as it was allowed to call forth into exercise its internal energies, there were neither sects nor schisms. These churches have since been corrupted only by the Erastian interference of the state, and the destruction of all ecclesiastical discipline. In Scotland Presbytery was established, and there dissenters are not as one to a hundred, compared with England.† In Ireland Presbytery was planted in the province of Ulster, and has it not acted as a purifying element in that land of spiritual corruption and death? In New England, so long as a system closely resembling the Presbyterian was strictly enforced, error, heresy, and immorality, were comparatively unknown. In Virginia Presbytery was planted, and did it not restore truth and piety to the church; impart vigor and energy to the state; uproot the system of state religion, and introduce that entire severance between religion and the civil power, which is now the glorious peculiarity of this land of freedom?

*See Prynne's Eng. Prel. II., 505.

A few facts." says Mr. Lorimer, in his Manual of Presbytery, p. 192, 193, "may be noticed in this connection, not usually adverted to, but fitted to correct misapprehensions, and honor Presbytery. According to the late census, the population of Presbyterian Scotland is about one-sixth of that of Episcopalian England and Wales. Hence, if the countries were the same in point of religious divisions on church-government, Scotland should have a sixth of the parties which divide England. The result is widely different; much more creditable to the religious unity of Scotland, and the strength of Presbytery over a nation. The Congregationalists of England and Wales are estimated to have 1600 congregations. If the same division of opinion on church-government prevailed in Scotland, proportionally, there should be nearly 270 Independent congregations. There are only 105, and 21 of these are reported as vacant.

The Baptists of England and Wales are rated at 1520. If the same proportion held in Scotland, there should be much the same number-270 congregations; instead of which, there are 58.

The Wesleyan Methodists have, in England and Wales, above 1100 preachers, and about 330,000 members. In the same proportion, in Scotland, there should have been about 200 preachers, and 55,000 members; instead of which, there are only 30 preachers, and 3700 members.

The Roman Catholics have 561 priests in England and Wales, and 18 convents. Were Scotland equally divided,, or did it equally favor the same soul-destroying system, it should have had 93 priests, and three convents. It has 80 of the one, and one of the other; and that, though old Popery has held some parts of the Highlands and islands as its ancient seat, undisturbed by the Reformation, and though near neighborhood to Popish Ireland has, in later days, given it superior facilities, which have not been unimproved, for invading the Scottish shores.

I have not been able precisely to ascertain the numbers of the Socinion body in England and Wales. Probably they may count 300 congregations. According to this proportion, Scotland should have 50; but so sound has Presbytery kept the country, that she has not five."

In fine, to apply to the Presbyterian party generally, what Milton says of the Long Parliament: "Having by a solemn protestation vowed themselves and the kingdom anew to God and his service, meeting next, as I may so resemble, with the second life of tyranny (for she was grown an ambiguous monster, and to be slain in two shapes) guarded with superstition, which hath no small power to captivate the minds of men otherwise most wise, they neither were taken with her mitred hypocrisy, nor terrified with the push of her bestial horns, but breaking them immediately, forced her to unbend the pontifical brow and recoil; which repulse only given to the prelates (that we may imagine how happy their removal would be) was the producement of such glorious effects and consequences in the church, that if I should compare them with those exploits of highest fame in poems and panegyricks of old, I am certain it would but diminish and impair their work, who are now my argument: for these ancient worthies delivered men from such tyrants as were content to enforce only an outward obedience, letting the mind be as free as it could; but these have freed us from a doctrine of tyranny, that offered violence and corruption even to the inward persuasion. They set at liberty nations and cities of men, good and bad mixed together; but these, opening the dungeons and prisons, called out of darkness and bonds the elect martyrs and witnesses of their Redeemer. They restored the body to ease and wealth; but these, the oppressed conscience to that freedom which is the chief prerogative of the gospel; taking off those cruel burdens imposed not by necessity, as other tyrants are wont, or the safeguard of their lives, but laid upon our necks by the strange wilfulness anl wantonness of a needless and jolly persecutor, called Indifference. Lastly, some of these ancient deliverers have had immortal praise for preserving some of their citizens from a famine of corn. But these, by this only repulse of an unholy hierarchy, almost in a moment replenished with saving knowledge their country, nigh famished for want of that which should feed their souls. All this being done while two armies in the field stood gazing on the one in reverence of such nobleness, quietly gave back and dislodged; the other, in spite of the unruliness and doubted fidelity in some regiments, was either persuaded or compelled to disband and retire home."

But we must here pause. Enough has been said to constitute a sufficient claim to our gratitude, and a justification of the wisdom of this commemoration. Romanists receive their missal almost as inspiration, and yet it is an inharmonious patchwork, compiled from materials drawn from every period of the church, like some old cathedral made up of buildings of

*See McCrie's Unity, p. 160, 161, 165-McCrie's Scott. Hist., p. 108, 106.