general propositions, by which those ill consequences might be condemned, and the doctrine in general settled; leaving it free to the men of the different systems to adhere to their own opinions; but withal obliging them to judge charitably and favourably of others, and to maintain communion with them, notwithstanding that diversity.

"But till the Lutherans abate of their rigidity in censuring the opinions of the Calvinists, as charging God with all those blasphemous consequences that they think follow the doctrine of absolute decrees; and till the Calvinists in Holland, Switzerland, and Geneva, abate also on theirs, in charging the others as enemies to the grace of God, and as guilty of those consequences that they think follow the doctrine of conditionate decrees, it is not possible to see that much-wished-for agreement come to any good effect.

"When a man is inclined by strong arguments to an opinion, against which he sees difficulties which he cannot resolve, he ought either to suspend his assent, or if he sees a superiority of argument of one side, he may be determined by that, though he cannot satisfy even himself in the objections that are against it: In that case he ought to reflect on the weakness and defects of his faculties, which cannot rise up to full and comprehensive ideas of things, especially in that which relates to the attributes of God, aud to his counsels or acts. If men can be brought once to apprehend this rightly, it may make propositions for peace and union hopeful and practicable; and till they are brought to this, all such propositions may well be laid aside; for men's minds are not yet prepared for that which can only reconcile this difference, and heal this breach.”

Let any competent person examine the rival claims, which Oliver Cromwell and Archbishop Laud may have to the title of "a patron of religious toleration," and, whether he considers their respective labours at home or abroad, he will without hesitation adjudge the palm to the Prelate. The Archbishop's greatest crime, in the eyes of the British Predestinarians, was his determination to have the temperate Articles of the Church of England explained according to their literal and grammatical

"That for myself, I am so far inclinable to peace, that I can yield to a christian communion at as great a distance of opinions as any Protestant whatsoever. For 1 hold, communion is not to be broken but for fundamentals; of which kind I take none of the differences between the Calvinists and Lutherans to be. Yet am I not so well versed in the subtilties of those controversies, as I think fit to adventure my judgment to the public view by an examination and censure of particulars, wherein my unskilfulness would too soon appear. Nor do I think this union, which every true Christian ought so much to desire, will ever be brought to pass by a full decision of the controversies; but only by abating of that vast distance which contention hath made, and by approaching the differences so near, as either party may be induced to tolerate the other, and acknowledge them for brethren and members of the same body."-MEDE's Letter to Hartlib.

signification, and to admit within its tolerant pale both Calvinists and Arminians: His efforts abroad were directed to a similar fraternal agreement, in all countries, between the Lutherans and Calvinists. And after the consolidation of these two great Protestant parties at home and abroad, it was his further purpose to have admitted the Greek Church and the Papists to a participation of its benefits, only on such conditions, as would have shorn the Pope of a great portion of his usurped dominion.Cromwell's boasted toleration excluded the members of the Episcopal Church from its influence; and this very exclusion confined the benefits almost solely to the Calvinists:* For at that period, scarcely one of the many dissenting sects openly professed the doctrines of Arminianism: (page 687) The Protector's interference in religious matters abroad was very trifling, being restricted to his early friends the Calvinists in the south of France, who were persecuted by the Duke of Savoy, and to part of the claims of the Elector Palatine, the recognition of which he successfully advocated.

As the terms on which Cromwell's republican divines were willing to tolerate even their beloved Predestinarian brethren have been frequently misunderstood, and sometimes confounded with the highly benevolent plan of which Dury was the bearer, I subjoin a brief account of the former from JACKSON's Life of John Goodwin, the truth and accuracy of which will be acknowledged by all those who are acquainted with the history of that eventful period: "When the friends of Cromwell were investing him with the Protectorate, they drew up a scheme of Polity, which they entitled, "The Government of England;' and in which it was specified, that all classes of people should enjoy the free exercise of their religion, who professed faith in God by Jesus Christ. After this, the Usurper called a Parliament, who, on the examination of that clause, pronounced it to signify, All who held the fundamental doctrines of Religion; and accordingly appointed a Committee further to examine this subject, and to nominate a certain

* "The government of Cromwell, though tolerant enough towards most sects, except the Quakers and the Episcopalians, never ceased to treat these last with great and unmingled severity. The usurper himself was indeed, as is well known, averse to such measures, and personally well inclined, not only to many individuals of the Episcopal clergy, but even to their form of government. His inclinations were, however, obliged to give way to those of the zealots around him; and the whole history of the time evinces, that, wicked and unwise as was the retaliation which, a few years afterwards, the Episcopalians inflicted on their opponents, it was no more than RETALIATION after all, and what the opposite party therefore, on their own principles, had no right to complain of."-HEBER'S Life of Bishop Taylor.

I perfectly co-incide with the excellent Bishop in these remarks, except with regard to Cromwell's alleged personal aversion to persecution, which will be hereafter placed in its proper aspect. In the second volume, I shall have occasion to quote the Bishop's very just and enlightened views of the retaliation to which he here alludes, and of which the reader will find some mention made in pages 301, 302, and 512.

number of divines, who were to draw up a list of such doctrines; a professed belief of which was to be the test of toleration. The Committee consisted of about fourteen persons, who named every one his man. Archbishop Usher was nominated by Lord Broghill; but declined the service, on account of his age and infirmities, and his unwillingness to wrangle with the men who were to be associated with him. Mr. Baxter was therefore appointed in his stead, and accordingly sent for from Kidderminster to London. But before I came,' says he, 'the rest had begun 'otheir work, and drawn up some few of the propositions 'which they call Fundamentals.' In settling the business for which they were convened, these divines spent much time in learned strife and contention. Baxter, who was opposed to a general toleration, displayed greater liberality on this occasion than any of his colleagues. Possessing consummate acuteness and subtlety, by his objections and remarks he gave some of his brethren serious annoyance; and especially Dr. Owen, whose principles and spirit in this debate excite no very high opinion of his catholicism. 'One merry passage,' says Mr. Baxter, I remember, occasioned laughter. Mr. Simpson caused 'them to make this a fundamental: He that alloweth himself, or others, in any known sin, cannot be saved. I pleaded against the word allowed; and told them that many a thousand lived in wilful sin, which they could not be said to allow 'themselves in, but confessed it to be sin, and went on against 'conscience, and yet were impenitent and in a state of death; ' and that there seemed a litle contradiction between known sin ' and allowed: so far as a man knoweth that he sinneth, he doth "not allow, that is, approve it. Other exceptions there were: but they would have their way, and my opposition did but 'heighten their resolution. At last I told them, as stiff as they were in their opinion and way, I would force them with one 'word to change or blot out all that Fundamental. I urged 'them to take my wager: and they would not believe me, but 'marvelled what I meant. I told them, that the Parliament 'took the Independent way of separation to be a sin; and when 'this article came before them, they would say, By our brethren's "judgment, we are all damned men, if we allow the Independents, or any other Sectaries, in their Sin. They gave me no answer, but 'left out all that Fundamental.' It is scarcely necessary to remark, that several of these divines were of the Independent denomination, and that a large majority of the parliament were violent sticklers for Presbyterian uniformity."-What a woeful specimen is this of Calvinistic Fundamentals! How different from the plain and intelligible verities devised by the Arminians and proposed by Dury!

The Biographer of Owen, on many of whose bold and unfounded assertions I have already animadverted, enters into a

formal defence of the bigotry displayed by Owen and his coadjutors, which had been severely censured even by Neal himself. Mr. Orme says, "Neal speaks as if the object of the divines had been to legislate on the subject of Toleration, or to direct the Parliament how far it might proceed in granting liberty of conscience. With the propriety of tolerating those who differed from them on the points of their Declaration, they had nothing to do."-This is exactly the cant phraseology which was employed by the leading men in the Synod of Dort: When some of the inferior members, who were not intrusted with the secret of the prejudication of the Arminians' fate, began to feel some misgivings of conscience, they proposed to the President a few questions about that matter, who replied, "he did not yet know what toleration the States General would allow." But Bogerman and his colleagues, as well as Cromwell's fourteen Fundamentalists, knew well the purposes for which they had beeen convened:* They knew, that they were devising an ecclesiastical test for all professing christians in both countries; and that those who could not comply with it, would be excluded from civil privileges, and not, as Mr. Orme whimsically intimates, "from holding the essentials of christiainty," which could be privately held in spite of all the injudicious enactments of Calvinistic Legislators. But the case against Cromwell's Fundamentalists is much stronger than that against the Dutch Intolerants: For the former were well acquainted with the debates in Parliament which had previously occurred on this subject, and out of which arose their appointment; and at least one of their number (Dr. Owen) was a member of that Parliament in which the matter had been discussed. The rest of Mr. Orme's sophistical finesse, which may be seen in the note appended to this page,* is unworthy of a serious reply: For though according to his axiom, "every man who preaches the

"In consequence of the debate in the House, a Committee of fourteen was appointed to consider what were fundamentals, and that Committee was empowered to name each a divine, who should meet, and return their opinion on this delicate subject. The ministers who met, were Drs. Owen, Goodwin, and Cheynel; Messrs. Marshal, Reyner, Nye, Simpson, Vines, Manton, Jacomb, and Baxter. After several meetings, they at last returned a list of sixteen articles, in a paper endorsed, The principles of faith, presented by Messrs. Thomas Goodwin, Nye, Simpson, and other ministers, to the Committee of Parliament for religion, by way of explanation to the proposals 'for propagating the gospel.'

"Baxter gives a long and tiresome account of this meeting, ascribing the whole work of it to Dr. Owen, assisted by Nye, Goodwin, and Simpson. He assures us there was a great deal of wrangling, of which, by his own account, he was a principal cause. He says, Dr. Owen' was hotter and better befriended in the assembly than himself;' and that he was then under * great weakness and soporous, or scotomatical illness of his head.' He evidently laboured under his constitutional malady, disputacious pertinacity. What is surprising, he takes credit to himself, lover of peace and unity as he professed all his life to be, for defeating the unanimity that would have prevailed, had he not been there!

gospel is called to declare what is fundamental in the christian religion," yet such a preacher ought to exercise much thought and a sound discretion, before he proposes his own either liberal or confined notions of the necessary verities of the christian faith as the foundation of a CIVIL TEST for others,-which was the business that Owen and his Calvinistic friends were specially deputed to consider. Though they were in that instance frustrated in their narrow intentions, yet their disappointment was compensated by the boon of Cromwell's two ordinances, which invested the TRIERS and EJECTORS with formidable powers resembling those of their brethren the Dutch Calvinists, of whose severe and cruel proceedings towards the Arminian clergy they were the willing and servile imitators.

As these Calvinistic divines intended by their Fundamentals, [according to Neal, to exclude, "not only Deists, Socinians and

"Neal appears to have misunderstood the nature of this meeting, and the design of the framers of these articles. He speaks as if the object of the divines had been to legislate on the subject of toleration, or to direct the Parliament how far it might proceed in granting liberty of conscience. But the fact was simply this, they were called together by a Committee of the House to state, what, in their opinion, was fundamental or essential in Christianity. With the propriety of tolerating those who differed from them on the points of their declaration, they had nothing to do. The use to be made of their paper was no concern of theirs, and to the question proposed to them, they religiously adhered, as they gave no opinion of any kind on the subject of religious liberty. Instead of this, we should conclude from the title of the document, that it was intended for a different purpose, something about the propagation of the gospel. Where then is the occasion for Neal's language about the narrow list of fundamentals, given in by the Independents? So far from its being narrow, it seems to me to be very wide, being almost as general as the Apostles' Creed. I believe, most Christians would consider that it contained rather too little than too much. It appears,' Neal says, by these articles, that these divines intended to exclude, not only Deists, Socinians, and Papists, but Arians, Antinomians, Quakers, and others.' Exclude from what? Not from civil privileges, but from holding the essentials of Christianity. Into such difficulties do wise and good men fall when they usurp the kingly office of Christ, and pretend to restrain that liberty which is the birth-right of every reasonable creature.' The meeting under consideration fell into no difficulties, usurped no part of the office of Christ, and did nothing to restrain the liberty of others. 'It is

an unwarrantable presumption for any number of men to declare what is 'fundamental in the Christian religion, any further than the Scriptures have 'expressly declared it.' If this sentence mean, that the Bible alone can decide what is necessary to salvation, no Christian doubts it. But if it mean that we have no right to declare what, in our opinion, must be believed in order to salvation, it is excessively absurd. Every man who preaches the gospel is called to declare this. Every society of Christians has a professed or implied belief on the subject; and there can be no impropriety in our giving an answer in any circumstances to what is asked us respecting it. Besides,' adds Neal, Why should the civil magistrate protect none but those who profess faith in God by Jesus Christ? I also ask, why? The ministers were not called to answer it. Who proposed this as the law of toleration? Cromwell and his officers, or the Parliament, according to our historian himself!-Thus the main proof which has been alleged of the intolerant conduct of Independents, when possessed of power, completely fails; as this meeting and its acts had nothing to do with determining the bounds, either of civil or religious liberty. And whatever were its views or conduct, it should be noticed, that the majority of the ministers were Presbyterians.”