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THE

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS

OR

PROTESTANT NONCONFORMISTS;

FROM

THE REFORMATION IN 1517, TO THE REVOLUTION IN 1688:

COMPRISING

An Account of their Principles;

THEIR ATTEMPTS FOR A FARTHER REFORMATION IN THE CHURCH; THEIR SUFFERINGS;
AND THE LIVES AND CHARACTERS OF THEIR MOST CONSIDERABLE DIVINES.

BY DANIEL NEAL, A.M.

REPRINTED

FROM THE TEXT OF DR. TOULMIN'S EDITION: WITH HIS LIFE OF THE AUTHOR

AND ACCOUNT OF HIS WRITINGS.

REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES,

BY JOHN O. CHOULES, A.M.

With nine Portraits on Steel.

IN TWO VOLUME S.

VOL. II.

NEW-YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

329 & 331 PEARL STREET,

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

1855.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.

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ERRATA.

P. 53-" Mr. Neal, in his review of the transac-

tions of this year, has also omitted to inform his read-
ers that the doctrines established by the Reformers
by no means met with an implicit reception from all.
The doctrine of the Trinity was denied by many, and
Unitarian sentiments were so plainly avowed, and
spread so fast, that the leading churchmen were
alarmed at it, and feared their generally prevailing.
Mr. Strype's words are, Arianism now showed it
self so openly, and was in such danger of spreading
farther, that it was thought necessary to suppress it,
by using more rugged methods than seemed agreea-
ble to the merciful principles of the profession of the
Gospel.""-Lindsey's Historical View of the State of
the Unitarian Doctrine and Worship, p. 84.-Ed.

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not here the most correct. Disputes, arising from
differences of opinion on points of speculation, may
be proofs of the frailty of our nature; as they show
that all cannot attain to precise ideas, a clear discern-
ment, and comprehensive views on subjects that are
attended with many difficulties. But how do they
indicate the corruption of human nature? That be-
trays itself in the intemperate spirit and language
with which they are managed, and should be impu-
ted, not to human nature, but to the want of self-gov
ernment in those individuals who thus offend. It is
not proper indiscriminately to condemn disputes, be-
cause such censures operate as discouragements and
bars to the investigation of the truth."-ED.

P. 138.-"It should be added, that one ground of
the odium which fell on those who were called Ana-
baptists, was their deviation from the established
creed, in their ideas concerning the person of Christ
and the doctrine of the Trinity, which shows at how
early a period of the Reformation Unitarian senti-
ments arose among the more thoughtful and inquis-
itive, but the hand of power was lifted up to suppress

P. 65.—" Mr. Neal's language and sentiments are their growth and spread."-ED

HISTORY OF THE PURITANS.

PART III-CONTINUED.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE PROGRESS OF THE WAR.-DEBATES IN THE
ASSEMBLY ABOUT ORDINATION.- -THE POWER OF
THE KEYS. THE DIVINE RIGHT OF PRESBYTERI-
AN GOVERNMENT.—COMMITTEES FOR COMPRE-
HENSION AND TOLERATION OF THE INDEPEND-
ENTS.

THE king's commissioners had been told at the treaty of Uxbridge that the fate of the English monarchy depended upon its success; that if the treaty was broken off abruptly, there was a set of men in the House who would remove the Earl of Essex, and constitute such an army as might force the Parliament and king to consent to everything they demanded, or change the government into a commonwealth; whereas, if the king would yield to the necessity of the times, they might preserve the general, and not only disappoint the designs of the enemies to monarchy, but soon be in circumstances to enable his majesty to recover all he should resign. However, the commissioners looked upon this as the language of despair, and made his majesty believe the divisions at Westminster would soon replace the sceptre in his own hands.*

The House of Commons had been dissatisfied with the conduct of the Earls of Essex and Manchester last summer, as tending to protract the war, lest one party should establish itself upon the ruins of the other; but the warmer spirits in the House, seeing no period of their calamities this way, apprehended a decisive battle ought to be fought as soon as possible, for which purpose after a solemn fast, it was moved that all the present officers should be discharged, and the army intrusted in such hands as they could confide in. December 9, it was resolved that no member of either House should execute any office, civil or military, during the present war; accordingly, the ordinance, commonly called the Self-denying Ordinance, was brought in, and passed the Commons ten days after, but was laid aside by the Lords till after the treaty of Uxbridge, when it was revived and carried with some little opposition. The Earls of Essex, Manchester, Warwick, and Denbigh, the Lord Roberts, Willoughby, and others, were dismissed by this ordi nance,† and all members of the House of Com* Clarendon, vol. ii., p. 595.

"Thus almost all those men by whose interest, power, and authority the war with the king had been undertaken, and without whom no opposition, of any weight, could possibly have been raised, were in a short time deprived of their power and influence over their own army, and obliged, as we shall soon see, to truckle before them. So little can men see into fu

mons, except Lieutenant-general Cromwell, who, after a few months, was dispensed with, at the request of the new general. All the regiments were disbanded, and such only listed under the new commanders as were determined to conquer or die. Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed general,* and Oliver Cromwell, after some time, lieutenant-general; the clause for preservation of the king's person was left out of Sir Thomas's commission; nor did it run in the name of the king and Parliament, but of the Parliament only. The army consisted of twenty-one thousand resolute soldiers, and was called in contempt by the Royalists, the new-modelled army; but their courage quickly revenged the contempt.

Sir Thomas Fairfax was a gentleman of no quick parts or elocution; but religious, faithful, valiant, and of a grave, sober, resolved disposition; neither too great nor too cunning to be directed by the Parliament.† Oliver Cromwell' was more bold and aspiring; and being a soldier of undaunted courage and intrepidity, proved, at length, too powerful for his masters. The army was more at his disposal than at Fairfax's, and the wonders they wrought sprung chiefly from his counsels.

When the old regiments were broken, the chaplains, being discharged of course, returned to their cures; and as new ones were formed, the officers applied to the Parliament and Assembly for a fresh recruit; but the Presbyterian ministers being possessed of warm benefices, were unwilling to undergo the fatigues of another campaign, or, it may be, to serve with men of such desperate measures. This fatal accident proved the ruin of the cause in which the Parliament were engaged; for the army being destitute of chaplains, who might have restrained the irregularities of their zeal, the officers set up for preachers in their several regiments, depending upon a kind of miraculous assistance of the Divine Spirit, without any study or preparation; and when their imaginations were heated, they gave vent to the most crude and undigested absurdities; nor did the evil rest there, for, from preaching at the head of their

turity! so different are the turns things take, from what men are apt to expect and depend on."-Dr. Harris's Life of Ôliver Cromwell, p. 118.

* Sir Thomas Fairfax's power extended to the execution of martial law and the nomination of the officers under him. The army was put solely under the command of one man. "What was this (it has been properly asked) but to put it into his power to give law to the Parliament whenever he thought fit ?"-Dr. Harris, ut supra.-ED.

+ Baxter's Life, p. 48.

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