cry against the toleration of all religions, and we are willing to join against such a toleration; but that which fills the mouths of many in this, is the heat of their spirits against those that differ from them in any thing, that they might with the more strength be able by this to strike at THEM: Suffer not your power to be abused to serve men's designs. Be faithful with God; encourage those that fear him; and God will take care of your honours ; He will do good to you, and your posterity after you. Do not hearken to those who tell you, These men would lay all level; they would make no difference between the Nobleman and Tradesman. Yes, we know, honour is to be given to whom honour belongs. God hath made a distance between man and man; it is fit it should be acknowledged and observed."

This is certainly a noble description of the consciences of Englishmen; and the warning is very proper against using violence "to force people to things spiritual that they know not." In a preceding page, (lx,) the Presbyterian tyranny has been depicted, by Nathaniel Hardy, before the house of Peers, as consummate "PIETY!" He has there most ingeniously urged their Lordships to commit the foul deed which Burroughes so feelingly deprecates. "If, while the Ark was floating on the waters of strife," says Hardy, you were enforced to entertain WOLVES and LAMBS together; yet now that the waters are abated, and the Ark in some measure settled, send out the WOLVES from the fold." The Independents remembered, for a long time afterwards, this "exasperation of their Lordships' spirits," and Burroughes intreats them "not to listen to any who shall whisper such suggestions."

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On this subject, another Independent Preacher, "WILLIAM DELL, Minister of the Gospel, attending on his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax," speaks thus, in the Dedication of the sermon which he delivered before the House of Commons, Nov. 25, 1646: "Here lies the mystery of iniquity in this that they [the Presbyterians] make the whole kingdom A CHURCH; and then require a power, authority, and jurisdiction in their CHURCHKINGDOM, which the Magistrate is not to deal withal, but themselves.What a balance they may prove against the State where they live, in turning and tumultuous times, as they themselves know, so I hope you clearly perceive. How do they manifest their discontents against you, in pamphlets and pulpits, in their sermons and prayers, because you have not settled the government [which] they have studied out for you as Jus Divinum and the certain and unchangeable mind of God, though they can neither make it out to yourselves, nor to any body else, by THE WORD, that it is so! And how do they labour to instil into the people their own discontents, persuading them you have done nothing at all, because you have not done all that ever they woul have you do, though you can see neither reason nor scripture

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for it! Some discoveries of this spirit you might see in Mr. Love's sermon, telling you before your faces, and before the people, that some called you A MONGREL PARLIAMENT ! Telling you also, The Clergy had done as much service for you in their Pul pits, as your Regiments in the Field; that, by this means, he might mind you what they can do against you, as well as for you, if you be not servants to their designs!-I shall trouble you no further with any such stuff, but only with a smart expression from one, it seems, of some note in the Assembly [of Divines] who said, If the Parliament approved Mr. DELL'S Sermon, it were no blasphemy to say, they were no Parliament !' So that it seems you shall be no longer a Parliament, than you approve what the Assembly approves! But the kingdom hopes,you are built upon a better foundation."

In his Sermon, Dell relates the following anecdote, and adds a few just reflections: "I read, in FRITHE'S Answer to the Bishop of Rochester, that a youth, being present at his father's burning, the officers, seeing him, resolved to examine him also, to try if they might find him a sectary or a heretic: But the youth, dismayed at the sad sight of his father's death, and fearing the like end himself, being asked of one of them, how he believed?, answered, Sir, I believe even as it pleaseth you. And so, the more outward and violent power is used upon men, the more of this kind of faith and obedience you shall have. When men shall see prisons, and banishments, and loss of goods, and death, walking up and down the kingdom for the Reformation of the Church, you shall at last have men say, Sirs, we will believe and do, even as it pleaseth you: We will believe as the State pleaseth, or we will believe as the Council pleaseth; and let them make what confession they will, we had rather BELIEVE them, than ENDURE them! And thus by fear and punishment may men be brought to say and do that which they neither believe nor understand: And how acceptable such Popish faith and obedience is unto God, all spiritual Christians know, and every man's conscience, me thinks, should be convinced."

Dell's Sermon contains sentiments more tolerant and liberal, than those of the other Independent ministers, who gave public expression in those days to their opinions. He may be considered as the Army's representative at that period,* having pow

DELL was one of the most fanatical of the Army Chaplains; yet, with sall This eccentricities, he and his multiform brethren of the Independent persuasion were the only persons qualified to cope with the intolerant Presbyterians. The worst feature in his character was that which generally attached to the men of his denomination, a suppleness of principle in accommodating his tenets to the va ing circumstances of the times, and to the prejudices of the people or the army.

vary

In RICHARD BAXTER'S Second Admonition to Bagshaw, it is said: “Alas! kow common was this in the Army-to set up and pull down, do and undo, own

erfully pleaded their cause in his Sermon. Yet, by consulting "the humble Petition of the Officers of the Army," in a succeeding page, (779,) it will be seen, that even they, who, from the number of their discordant sects, required the most extensive indulgence from each other, were very careful to except PoPERY and PRELACY, and under the latter term they always included Arminianism. The same exceptions are made by Dr. Owen, (p. 416,) against "Papists' Images and Prelates' Servicebook," and his open avowal, that "the zeal of them that put Servetus to death may be acquitted," identifies his views on this subject with those of VINES in a preceding page (lxv). Indeed, I have not met with an Independent Minister of that era, (with the exception of John Goodwin,) who, when speaking without ambiguity or circumlocution on the subject, did not bear his testimony against tolerating Episcopalians, who were usually depicted under the epithets of Delinquents, Malignants, Prelatists, or Arminians!

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The reader will find, in page 791, some reasons for the great extent of John Goodwin's catholicism, and his superiority in this respect to his famous cotemporary Dr. Owen. It is there shewn, that both of them acknowledge "their doctrine of Religious Liberty to have been derived from the writings of the Remon"strants: But, with this doctrine, Goodwin almost simultaneously imbibed that of General Redemption; and the latter "rendered the amplitude of the former much more distinct and "apparent. Owen, on the contrary, borrowed only just as much "of the Dutch doctrine of mutual toleration as served a temporary purpose, and fenced it about with many restrictions, which might enable its advocate virtually to disclaim it at a convenient season. Owen's views of toleration partook of the narrowness "of his religious system," &c. But, though the glory of the first promulgation of tolerant principles does not belong to the Calvinistic Independents, it is undoubtedly due to the Arminian branch of that denomination. Indeed, in what quarter soever Dutch Arminianism in those days achieved her conquests,-whether among Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Independents,-she almost inva riably rendered them favourable to the civil and religious liberties of mankind: Of her early trophies among these three denominations, JOHN GOODWIN, RALPH CUDWORTH, and LAWRENCE WOMACK were admirable specimens, that entitled her to the veneration of all the lovers of piety and freedom. I would have substituted JEREMY TAYLOR in the place of Womack, had not the former been an Arminian in the days of Laud; while the and disown, as by the Spirit of God! There was Mr. Erbury, Mr. Saltmarsh, Mr. Dell, Mr. William Sedgwick, who, as from God, wrote one week to the Army against their putting the King to death, and the next week wrote quite to them on the other side; and who set London, by a prophecy or vision, on looking for the Day of Judgment, on a set day."

famous trio, whose names I have classed together, were converts to the doctrinal system of the Remonstrants during the Civil Wars. The Presbyterians, perhaps, have the greatest cause to complain of the manner in which the history of British Tolera tion is generally related: For, the great body of " the Latitude men," (p. 796,) who at the Restoration placed themselves under the wings of Episcopacy, were liberal Arminians. They had either become Presbyterians by education, or by the preference which, in the multitude of contending parties, they had given to that form of ecclesiastical regimen: But they found the doctrinal as well as the ceremonial restraints of the Presbytery too strict for them; and as soon as Episcopacy was, by the good Providence of God, restored to her former pre-eminence, in vast numbers they joined her truly catholic communion.

"intreats

In the preceding extracts, one of the Presbyterians intimated, that " Episcopacy in his Pontificalibus might, by means of" the the Toleration for which the Independents pleaded, "be retrieved and called from exile." (Page lxiii.) Yet the same preacher, who knew the wishes of his party as Calvinists, (p. 454,) the PURE INDEPENDENTS," that is, those who adopted all the Westminster Confession of Faith except the parts which relate to Church-government," to declare zealously and seriously against the doctrinal errors and heresies of those days." The manner in which the latter complied with their brethren's request, and by which they brought themselves within the amicable arrangement of their Calvinistic "strivings," (being "those of one Israelite with another," whom "Moses quiets and parts fairly,") will be described in the commencement of the second volume. In that part, I expose the conduct of the TRIERS AND EJECTORS, of whom the Independents formed the majority, and were the most active in the use of their delegated powers."- "These "TRIERS," says Granger, "for the most part, brought the test "to a short issue: If a Minister readily gave up the Five Points "of Arminius, embraced the tenets of Calvin, and was orthodox "in politics, he was generally qualified to hold any benefice in "the Church."

The obnoxious view which both Presbyterians and Independents took of Arminianism, has been shewn in several of the preceding pages. This will be still more apparent from the following extract of a sermon, preached before the House of Commons, December 30, 1646, by MATTHEW NEWCOMEN, who, as one of the famous Smectymnyan faction, had pleaded for Presbyterian liberty against good Bishop Hall:

"There is yet another dying object of your pity; and that is Truth, Religion, the Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ, that lies a bleeding, that is drawn to death, ready to be slain: O do not, I beseech you, forbear to deliver them. There is scarce any truth of Christ, any doctrine of the gospel, any point of our religion, but by some temerarious hand or other hath been invaded, as

saulted, maimed, ready to be slain. The doctrine of the Trinity, of the Godhead of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, of the verity of the scriptures; the doctrine of election, of redemption, of vocation, of justification, of sanctification; the work of the Spirit, the rule of life, of holiness; the doctrine of the sacraments, of the immortality of the soul, &c.-Truth it is, right honourable and beloved, that, when first you met in Parliament, we were in great danger of losing our religion. There was a Popish Arminian faction, that had a design to rob us of our religion. God gave you hearts to be very sensible of that danger, and to be very zealous for the prevention of it: I, and thousands more, must and will bear you record, that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, rather than have parted with the least apex or iota of divine truth, out of a lenity or indulgence to Papist or Arminian, or any other Heretic:* Where is then your former

On the same day and to the same audience, STEPHEN MARSHALL delivered the following harangue :

that

"Our times are times of errors, horrible errors. I mean not such errors as are to be found among God's people, to whom he never hath given an equal light; and, notwithstanding which errors, Himself bears with them, and would have his people bear one with another. But I mean, our times are times of such errors as are heretical and blasphemous, such as concern our christian faith, and holy conversation, in a very high degree. It would weary you, but to tell you the things are generally known to spread as a gangrene. A new generation of men are risen up, and spread all the points of Arminianism, Universal Redemption, Apostasy from Grace, Man's Free-will. Multitudes of others cry down the law, as not having any thing to do with God's people, others denying that the Saints of God should ever any more confess sin to God in prayer: Others questioning whether there be any church or ministry this day upon the face of the earth, and whether there shall be any till new apostles arise. Nay, beyond all these, many denying the Lord Jesus, that bought us with his blood, to be God, or the Holy Ghost to be God: Others denying the Three Persons in the Trinity, and, consequently affirming that we, and all the christian world with us, do worship idols instead of God; for if these men be right, they are idols whom we worship.These, and abundance of such horrid things as these are, do spread and scatter like wild-fire every where in all corners of the land, to the great provocation of God's wrath, and our reproach through the christian world. And what have our heads to do at such a time? Certainly you, and all others, ought to mourn for these things, and tear your clothes, and your hairs, and your hearts, that God should be so dishonoured.

"But for your duties who are in high places, for what is peculiar to you, I'll not dispute any controversy at this time, but set down two things which I know you must yield to. ONE is Certainly you must search diligently into the scriptures, and enquire whether Jesus Christ would have you oppose yourselves against these things that are so opposite to him :-If, upon a diligent search, you find that he hath not authorized you, do not you arrogate any authority that Christ hath not given you :-My lie will never honour God, though I should tell it for God's glory. And your thrusting yourselves into an office Christ hath not called you unto, will never be accepted by him. But if, SECONDLY, Upon a diligent search, it appears he hath given authority unto you, then I am as assured that he hath not left it to your arbitrement whether you will use it, or no; he hath not left it to your will, whether you will punish them. But if you have power to stop them and do not, he will lay them all at your doors, and require them at your hands. Therefore search diligently what you have power to do,