brought before the joint MONTHLY MEETING, and if still obdurate was ordered to be admonished by the pastor of the Church to which he belonged, and prayed for, for three days together, the Church being ultimately required "to avoid him as a person unfit for the Communion." This was the method followed by all these associated ministers and Churches.1

The Association in Cumberland and Westmoreland.—The

1 This may be the fittest place for stating briefly Baxter's ecclesiastical position and views. The great excitement connected with the issue of Laud's canons and the "et cetera" oath, directed his attention to questions of Church polity; and it was not long ere he revolted from and entirely rejected the Diocesan scheme of Prelatic Episcopacy as exhibited in England. In this sense he is commonly and rightly designated a Presbyterian: though he was not unwilling to serve under a modified Episcopacy where a Bishop was simply the first among equals, and not with any precedency in order above Presbyters as of Divine right. Regarding Church government as subservient and subordinate to the claims of practical religion, his attachment to Presbyterianism, though sincere, was not rigid nor exclusive. The following excerpts from Calamy's Abridgment of his Life (pp. 113-115), will best explain and define his relation to the several ecclesiastical parties.

"In the Presbyterian way, he disliked the order of lay-elders, who had no ordination nor authority to preach nor administer Sacraments. Some of them were for binding the magistrate to confiscate and imprison men, merely because they were excommunicate," whereas he reckoned Church discipline to be purely spiritual and voluntary, if it were to be truly effective. "In the way of the Independents, he disliked their making too light of ordination, their having among them also the office of lay-eldership, and their being stricter about the qualifications of Church members than Scripture, reason, or the practice of the Universal Church would allow ; a serious and sober credible profession being all that was necessary. "He discerned a great tendency in the Independent way to divisions; and he could not at all approve of their making the people by majority of votes to be Church-governors in excommunications and the like, which Christ had made acts of office. He also greatly disliked their too great exploding of Synods, and their making a minister to be no minister to any but his own flock." Many things he disliked in the Episcopal Diocesan party; their extirpating the true discipline of Christ; their altering the ancient species of Presbyters and Bishops: one Bishop with his Consistory having sole authority over many Churches, and many thousands of persons they were never likely to see, without setting up any parochial government, while Pastors had only a power of teaching and worshipping, and not of governing; their exercise of Church government in a merely secular way; their vexing honest Christians who esteemed their ceremonies unlawful, and their silencing of able godly preachers, because they durst not subscribe and swear to all that was by civil authority im posed. As to the Erastian party, he disliked these three things: their making light of the ministry and Church discipline; their making the Articles of the Church and the Communion of Saints mere civil affairs; and their injuriously insinuating that Church discipline would be necessarily a coercive jurisdiction over men's bodies and purses, whereas true ministers of Christ pretend not to any bodily force, but only to apply God's Word to men's consciences." Baxter, in his Reformed Pastor, does not spare his Presbyterian brethren for their lukewarmness in exercising the "Discipline," and for their sulkily refusing to exert themselves on its behalf up to the full extent of their liberty and power, on account of their not having got the whole of their scheme established and sauctioned. His remonstrances are very pungent and faithful.

Presbyterian spirit and genius of these Associations may be readily gathered from the "Articles of Agreement of the Associated Ministers and Churches of the Counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland." The first and main article of the four, is as follows:--

1

"No. 1. That in the exercise of discipline, it is not only the most safe course, but also the most conducive to brotherly union and satisfaction, that particular Churches carry on as much of their work with joint and mutual assistance as they can with conveniency and edification, and as little as may be in their actings to stand distinctly by themselves and apart from each other."

In Cheshire.-Adam Martindale, in his Autobiography, thus describes the Association in Cheshire, representing it as a kind of cross between a Presbytery and a County Union."In September, 1653, at a meeting of ministers at Wilmslow, the 14th day of that month, a motion was made and a letter drawne to invite many other ministers, to give them the meeting at Knutsford, on the 20th October, being the Exercise day, as accordingly many of them did; and there they agreed upon a voluntary association of themselves and their Churches, if it could be done, for mutual advice and strengthening one another. Into this Societie I quickly after fell and met with much comfort and assistance. If it be asked how I got satisfaction to act with them now, when I had scrupled some things concerning classical government at the time of my being at Gorton, I answer, The case was not the same. Here was onely a Voluntary Association; we pretended not to any power to convent any before us, or suppresse any minister because dwelling in such a place, within such a verge, and differing from us in practice."

The way it operated in his own parish he thus notices, "We agreed in our CLASSIS, by mutual consent, upon such rules for

1 This paper was drawn up by Dr. Richard Gilpin, Restor of Greystoke, who,-like his great relative, Bernard Gilpin, before him,-declined the Bishopric of Carlisle, and who became the first Nonconformist Presbyterian minister in Newcastle-onTyne. It is entitled, The Agreement, etc. (as above) with something for explication and exhortation annexed. London, 1656, pp. 59, 4to. See Dr. Grosart's valuable Memoir of Gilpin prefixed to the Demonologia sacra, p. 48, also Baxter's Life and Times, vol. i. pp. 117, 118, 2nd edition.

the administration of Baptisme and the Lord's Supper, as also of the solemnization of matrimonie, as my religious neighbours seemed well pleased with. And as for transactions among ourselves, we never disputed about the power of Church guides, nor libertie of the brethren. For smaller matters, that came of course, they were willing enough the officers should dispatch without troubling the Societie. And for those that were weightier we always tooke their consent along with us, which we used to ask after the Sacrament, or at a week-day confirmer. And so unanimous were we, that, though most of all the communicants that were accounted the chiefe for parts and piety, leaned much toward the Congregational way of Church government, and some of them for their natural tempers peevish enough, yet I cannot remember that so much as one

of them forsooke us." This Cheshire Classis seems to have been the type of organization set up in other parts of England at this time, but which had to be dissolved at the Restoration along with the firmer establishments of Presbytery in London and Lancashire. We shall find a somewhat similar though more lasting Associa tion of Presbyterian and Independent ministers in Cheshire, maintained from 1691 to 1745.1

1 Respecting SHROPSHIRE, FLINT, AND THE WELSH BORDER, we read a little later,"In the year 1658, the ministers of that neighbourhood had begun to enlarge their correspondence with the ministers of North Wales, and several meetings they had at Ruthin and other places that year for the settling of a correspondence and the promoting of unity and love and good understanding among themselves, by entering into an Association like those some years before of Worcestershire and Cumberland, to which as their pattern (those two having been published) they did refer themselves. They appointed different Associations and (notwithstanding the differences of apprehension that were among them, some being in their judgments EPISCOPAL, others CONGREGATIONAL, and others CLASSICAL) they agreed to lay aside the thoughts of matters in variance, and to give each other the right hand of fellowship, that with one shoulder, and with one consent they might study each in their places to promote the common interest of Christ's kingdom and the common salvation of precious souls."-Life of PHILIP HENRY, by his son Matthew Henry, 3rd ed., 1712, pp. 45, 46. In the life of JOSEPH ALLEINE, author of the well-known "Alarm to the Unconverted," who was the Presbyterian Co-Pastor of the Rev. George Newton, Vicar of Taunton, an account will be found of pastoral labour and methods, which may be accepted as an index of what was customary among the more earnest and zealous of his brethren. Vide "Joseph Alleine, his Companions and Times," by Charles Stanford.

BB

IV.

THE PRESBYTERIANS IN THE BALANCE AGAIN.

WHEN Cromwell died, on that tempestuous night, 3 September, 1658, which was the anniversary of his two great victories at Dunbar and Worcester, the Commonwealth, with all its institutions, of which he was soul and centre, began to crumble to pieces. His son Richard quietly succeeded him, but could never fill his place. Of an easy nature and unambitious temper, sympathizing, moreover, with the Presbyterian party rather than with the Independents,' Richard Cromwell was quite unable, even if he had been disposed, to cope with the circumstances of the case, or deal with the rivalry of contending factions, and especially of the military chiefs, Lambert, Fleetwood, and the rest. When Richard's first House of Commons met (29 Jan. to 22 April, 1658-59) and proved so reactionary, the Council of Officers, with Fleetwood, his brother-in-law, at their head, compelled him to dissolve it; and Richard Cromwell, then finding himself abandoned by his father's chief supporters, at once abdicated and withdrew. Even when the "Rump of the Parliament was permitted to reassemble, it was the signal of further quarrel, Lambert trying to play the rôle of the

It was within a month after Oliver Cromwell's death that the gathering of "Messengers" of the Independent Churches (previously convened) assembled in the Savoy Palace (Sept. 29, to Oct. 12), to hear "complaints relating to disputes and differences" among them, and to give advice. Their chief work, besides the issue of that modification of the Westminster Confession, known as the "Savoy Confession," was, as the Preface to the "Declaration" says, to devise means "that there might be a constant correspondence held among the Churches for counsel and mutual edification." This was the nearest practical approach the Independents had yet made to the Presbyterians. What need there was for this, may be gathered from what they go on to say, "The generality of our Churches have been like so many ships, though holding forth the same general colours, launched singly, and sailing apart and alone in the vast ocean of these tumultuating times, exposed to every wind of doctrine, without associations among ourselves or so much

as holding our common lights to others, whereby to know where we were."

2 By far the best and fullest account of the events of 1658-60, and of the various steps that led up to Charles's return, is in Guizot's Richard Cromwell and the Restoration.

great Oliver by dismissing it, 13 Oct., 1659. The country was shuddering with the dread of becoming a prey to a mixture of anarchy and military competitorship. The humiliation and fall of Fleetwood afforded proof enough that the political counsels and influence of the Independent party had become hopelessly distracted, and Republicanism entirely impossible. At this critical juncture it is universally allowed the Presbyterians did an enormous, though, as the result showed, a selfimmolating, service to constitutional liberty, and protected the country from the military chaos that seemed impending, by taking their disinterested and patriotic course of allying themselves with the Royalists, and giving military expression to their sentiments. And though their trusty leader, Sir George Booth, was defeated for the time in his Cheshire rising, the cue was given to General Sir George Monk, commander of the forces in Scotland, who had been keenly watching the course of events, and who saw in the hopeless dead-lock after Richard Cromwell's withdrawal, and the fall of the Rump, his own opportunity. Increasingly he felt that the nation was getting tired and dispirited at its many failures to effect a settlement, and was willing to fall back into its old monarchical and ecclesiastical groove. Keeping, however, his own counsel, and cautiously feeling his way toward a policy, Monk moved southward, carefully noting the state of the public mind,1 and entered London, 3 Feb., 1659-60, at the head of 5,000 chosen troops. When he declared in favour of the old Parliament as originally constituted, London went mad with joy, and kindled its bonfires against the "Rump," which it roasted in hatred and derision. The Long Parliament met again on 21 Feb., 1660, with the excluded Presbyterian members reinstated; and inasmuch as many of the Independents felt they had been betrayed by Monk, and declined to attend, the Presbyterians

1 On his progress he received many strong appeals, both from Royalists and those not vehemently partisans for any side, to redress the miseries of a nation "impoverished and bleeding under au intestine sword." A memorial from Devon may be accepted as expressing widely-spread views. "Briefly," it says, "since the death of the King we have been governed by tumult: bandied from one faction to another: this party up to-day, that to-morrow, but still the nation undermost, and a prey to the strongest."