a watchful eye upon those who write books or pamphlets derogatory to the Church or State of England, and by every means prevent them.

VI. "In case of doubt or difficulty about the meaning or execution of these particulars, that they shall address themselves to his Majesty's ambassador."

This Communication met with a spirited rebuff from the Synod, whose reply to it has also fortunately been recovered.1

แ

After professing their loyal attachment to King Charles, and reminding him that they were also amenable to the States-General, they answer each article in turn with great vigour and historical detail.

I. "As to making and publishing any new Liturgy, it never entered our minds; neither would we attack or condemn the Liturgy of any other Churches, but simply revise our own formularies.

II. "Regarding the ordination of ministers, we humbly pray your Majesty to consider the nature of the ordinance; being an essential point of our office, so that we cannot conscientiously resign it, without being guilty of neglect of the office which Christ has given us.

III. "We are heartily sorry that our lawful and ordinary proceedings, in conformity with all other Reformed Churches, should have been so unjustly stigmatized. Nothing has been done by us, but what is laudable and decent, agreeably to the old and present customs of these Churches.

IV. "Although we have good cause to thank God for your Majesty's devout care, that the truth be preserved, we must be pardoned for stating our astonishment that your Majesty should have been induced to form so unfavourable an opinion of us. Among our whole number there is none polluted in the least degree with Popery, Arminianism, or any other doctrinal error; but we have always stood, and through the mercy of heaven shall ever stand, firm to the truth recognised by the English and German Churches.

V. "We never understood that your Majesty's father, of glorious memory, contemplated granting us less power than is imparted to the French Churches in these provinces; though it has been attempted (for what reason, we know not) to make your Majesty believe the contrary. We earnestly beseech your Majesty to retain us in your royal favour and protection, and to harbour no suspicion of us, that we would ever designedly do anything disagreeable to your Majesty, or against the Churches of England and Scotland. Such disingenuous reports can only originate with those who endeavour to gratify a malignant party, and have little estimation for God's glory and your Majesty's honour, in the peace and welfare of our Churches."

1 Given at great length by the Dutch Historian, Van Aitzema, and in an abridged form by Dr. Steven.

After so respectful yet firm an answer, with its able and conclusive historical statement, the interference of CHARLES and LAUD, might well have come to an end.

But they returned to the attack with accustomed pertinacity, endeavouring to gain their object by representations also to the Dutch Ecclesiastical Courts; though without success, if we may judge from the following minute :

"Dordrecht, 1637. The Synod's sanction was desired by his Britannic Majesty's Agent to some alteration in their outward form of worship in all the English Churches in this country, agreeably to the usages of the Church of England. The Court decline giving the Agent an immediate reply, because the Resolution of the States relative to the form of religious worship in the English Churches here does not appear to accord with such a request."

The Synod had the satisfaction of recording on its minutes of 1645 the agreeable intelligence that England was thinking of Presbyterially shaping its own national Church, so as more to accord with the Dutch and other Reformed Churches.

It only remains to be added, that in 1816 these ancient English and Scottish Presbyterian Churches in Holland were incorporated with the Dutch National Presbyterian Establishment, with the right, however, of retaining their own ancient and distinctive privileges and regulations.

The State-paper Calendars abound in evidences of this. See for example, in index of vol. for 1633-1634, under heading William Laud regulates English Churches in the United Provinces, pages 74, 153, 225, 226, 279, 317-8, 324-5, 314, 413, 447, 449, 545, and in subsequent volumes as well. Though Laud was not raised to the primacy till the death of Abbot, 1633, he had been virtually metropolitan for years previous (through Abbot's melancholy misfortune in accidentally shooting Lord Zouch's deer-keeper); and the State-Paper Calendars afford plentiful evidences of his interference with Churches of English people resident in Holland and elsewhere. See also Heylin's Life of Laud (under 1634, for example), and Collier's Ecclesiastical History, vol. viii. pp. 55-59.

IV.

THE PRESBYTERIAN PAMPHLET WAR AND EARLY CHURCH DEBATES IN THE LONG PARLIAMENT, 1640-41.

BETWEEN the years 1640 and 1660 it has been estimated that 30,000 pamphlets appeared on varied phases of the Church question. But of all years in English history that of 1641 must bear the palm for literary activity on the subject of Ecclesiastical government. If 1640 be memorable in Constitutional history because of the two Parliaments that met in itthe Short and the Long-we may fasten on 1641 as perhaps the most prolific hitherto in the whole range of controversy on Church administration. We bring the two facts into conjunction because they are closely related, not merely in point of time, but of mutual dependence. The long-suppressed demand for further reformation in Church and State was at last finding utterance both in Parliamentary debate and printed pamphlet. The cry was loud and deep in proportion to the years of tyrannically enforced silence. For an interval unparalleled in English history, from 1629 to 1640, eleven years,—the infatuated and misguided Charles I., had attempted the hazardous experiment (which had been risked for seven years by his father, and was to be adopted by his son Charles II., for the last four of his life, not without danger) of dispensing with Parliament and ruling as an absolute monarch. He had called into full play those three notorious and lawlessly-conducted tribunals, the High Commission Court, with the Star Chamber and Council of York, managed by Laud and Strafford respectively, in the ecclesiastical and civil departments. THOROUGH was the policy, and it nearly succeeded-thorough absolutism in the State, thorough despotism in the Church. But the spell of this cruel and iniquitous régime was soon to be unceremoniously broken, and to Scotland the credit justly belongs. In an evil hour for Charles, the mad attempt was made to force on the people a

violent innovation in Church usage. Then came the explosion and crash. By a sudden and fierce revolt, the Scottish people effectually disposed of the miserable experiment. The NATIONAL COVENANT (to be distinguished from the later SOLEMN LEAGUE and Covenant) was got ready, and signed in a couple of months (February and March, 1638,) by nearly the whole population; and the famous Glasgow Assembly of the same year (under the able guidance of its great moderator, ALEXANDER HENDERSON) converted the Presbyterian victory into a solid and irreversible bulwark against Prelacy. The King and Archbishop were alike startled and mortified to see their scheme clean swept away with a stroke. Then came in swift succession the first "Bishops' War" against Scotland-a silly fiasco, followed by the necessitous summoning of the SHORT Parliament, which was dissolved in vexation and disgust by the King, after only a three weeks' session (April 13 to May 5, 1640); the equally futile second "Bishops' War," in the course of the same summer, with another collapse of the royal military enterprise; and then, no other choice but another Parliament-the LONG Parliament, either of twelve or (more properly) of twenty years' duration, which assembled 3rd November, 1640, and was not destined to be finally dissolved till the Restoration in 1660.

A great crisis in Church and State was evidently impending. The question of Church reform was coming rapidly to the front, stimulated in no small measure by the triumph of Presbyterian resistance in the North, which was giving shape and colour to the movement in England. The Commons had not

1 Cromwell dispersed it in 1652; but it reassembled under Monk, after Richard Cromwell's abdication, to arrange for the return of Charles II.

2 The common insinuation, that Scotland was desirous of forcing her own Presbyterian system on England, is effectually disproved by that masterly and statesmanlike paper, drawn up by ALEXANDER HENDERSON, and handed by the Scottish Commissioners to the "Lords of the Treaty," 1641, on the negotiations being transferred from Ripon to London after the "Bishops' War." (It is given in full by Hetherington in Appendix I. of his History of Westminster Assembly.) No doubt this great Document is a warm defence of Presbyterian principles, and its publication helped greatly the diffusion of these principles in England; but far from showing a proselytizing spirit, it in set terms disavows the idea of " presuming to propound the form of government of the Church of Scotland as a pattern for the Church of England," while showing on historical grounds that the Prelatic spirit, working from England, had always striven for the overthrow of Scottish Presbyterianism. For it says, in one of its weighty paragraphs, "the government of the Church of

sat for three days before resolving themselves into a Committee of Religion. Pym had expressed the universal sentiment of his time "it belonged to the duty of Parliament to establish true religion, and to punish false." Petitions for radical reform in Church administration were pouring in from different parts of England. In ten days after the meeting of Parliament, antiEpiscopal petitions were presented from old Puritan strongholds like Warwickshire, Bedfordshire, and elsewhere. In December came the famous "root and branch" one from LONDON, with twenty-eight heads of complaint, presented by that vigorous representative of the city, Alderman Pennington, bearing 15,000 signatures, with language like this:

"Whereas the government of Archbishops and Lord Bishops, etc., hath proved very prejudicial and dangerous both to the Church and Commonwealth. . . We therefore most humbly pray and beseech this honourable Assembly, the premises considered, that the said Government, with all its dependencies, roots and branches, may be abolished.”1

This sufficiently indicates how keenly London had felt the sting of Laud's policy; while the " Ministers' petition," as it was called (signed by 700 clergy of the Church of England) praying that the Bishops might be removed from Parliament, and that Presbyters should share in ordination and general ecclesiastical jurisdiction, revealed the uprising of the older Puritan spirit in new strength through the country.

Then, as now, there were three parties in the Church of England, though constituted on very different lines from those now existing. The modern distinctions of High, Low, and Broad Churchism indicate mainly what are divergences of doctrine and ritual; those of 1641 were rather of doctrine and polity; the conflict then begun bringing into new and special

England was not changed with the doctrine at the Reformation. The Pope was rejected, but his Church was retained, which hath been a ground of jealousy and suspicion to the Reformed Churches; of continual contention in the Church of England these eighty years (since the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign), and of hopes and expectation to the Church of Rome; for, saith CONTZEN in his Politicks, lib. ii. cap. 18, Were all England once brought to approve of Bishops, it were easy to reduce it to the Church of Rome.""

1 See Rushworth, iii. p. 309, for this "London Petition against Bishops," presented to the Commons, Dec. 11th, 1640. It was drawn up in Calamy's house, St. Mary's, Aldermanbury. See the younger Calamy's Autobiography, vol. i. p. 54.