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During the parliamentary recess in 1661, Charles proceeded to disband the army. This act was deemed expedient on several accounts; and that famous body of troops, which had won so many battles and decided so many changes in the past history of the nation, was now entirely passive, and immediately obeyed the voice of authority. Fifty thousand men gave up their arms and quitted the military service for ever. Past experience had taught them that the sword could not effect a settlement of the nation. But their resolution to disband,-an act which, in any other case, would have been attended by the most pernicious moral results,-was accompanied by another, to which they adhered as zealously as to any of their former resolves in the time of Oliver Cromwell. They had never been mercenaries; and they now devoted their energies in the several departments of honest and peaceful industry. The consequence was, that these old soldiers of the Commonwealth,

John Cooke is stated in this testimony to have vindicated Hugh Peters with his dying breath, as "the brightest example of true holiness; by whom more souls had been converted to Christ, than by any other person in this age." For an account of the behaviour of Cooke and Peters, see Hanbury, chapters lxxxiii and lxxxv.

It may here be mentioned that the bones of Oliver Cromwell, Bradshaw, who had presided at Charles the First's trial, Ireton, Pride, and some others, were dug up out of their graves by authority, and hung up at Tyburn. Milton also suffered imprisonment for a short time, but escaped the fate of some who were no more implicated than himself in Charles's death. His Defence of the people of England, however, was publicly burnt by command of parliament. In 1662, Vane and Lambert, who had been state prisoners since the Restoration, were tried for their part in the death of Charles. Lambert was banished for life to Guernsey; Vane was beheaded, on the 14th of June, on Tower Hill.

scattered amongst the people, were known from all the rest by their singular temperance, diligence, and perseverance. So marked was their behaviour, that it became a common proverb, if any man was more provident or industrious than his neighbours, "that man is one of Noll Cromwell's soldiers."

As soon as the royalists had obtained indemnity for their past sufferings by the distribution amongst themselves of the favours of the crown, they went yet further, and became clamorous for the proscription of their enemies. They were determined if possible to wreak their vengeance upon those who had presumed so recently to vanquish them. They accomplished their object by the revival of the old ecclesiastical laws; presbyterianism gave way before the ancient hierarchism; and in a short time episcopacy was restored in all its former virulence.

An attempt was made in an early part of Charles's reign, and apparently with the consent of the monarch, to bring about an accommodation between the moderate episcopalians and presbyterians. Baxter was very earnest in his attempt to realise this object.* The episcopalians of Usher's school admitted that a bishop might have the services and assistance of a council of presbyters; and the presbyterians of Baxter's school admitted that each council of presbyters, or provincial assembly, might have an episcopal president. And since the two theories overlapped each other, it was deemed practicable to amalgamate

* Baxter's bigotry did much to frustrate his object. He expressly declared himself, in the conference at the Savoy, against a system by which socinians and papists might be tolerated. See Sylvester's Life of Baxter; Orme's Life and Times of Baxter ; Mackintosh's History of England, vi. 339, vII. 3.

both interests in one system, with a revised liturgy and ritual. But theory and practice are two different things. The more secure the condition of the royalists, the more were they bent on the exclusive enjoyment of all their former privileges. Now that the army was disbanded, they had nothing to fear from puritan ascendancy. They were determined, therefore, to give loose rein to all the vindictive and licentious passions of their nature. The difference between them and the presbyterians was not speculative merely; it affected the entire character. They hated the very name of puritan. They suffered under the very thought of the austerity and sobriety of the precisians both of the presbyterian and Independent school. They wanted to restore a former sensuousness to literature and the fine arts; to open the theatres and places of public revelry; and to give scope for all the pent-up passions of the multitude. In these objects, the puritans stood in their way. They had always resisted such measures as encouraged immorality of all kinds and degrees. They had done so when in power, and they were prepared to do so now, so far as their influence and example might extend. On this account, they were hated by the cavaliers, the episcopalians, and the debased of all classes. Charles was precisely the man to yield to the wishes of the party, the extreme vices of which were represented in his own person. The convocation, instead of altering the Prayer-book to suit the tastes of the presbyterians, retained all its objectionable parts; and purposely added the edifying story of Bel and the Dragon to the apocryphal portions of the liturgy. It was the object of the bishops, with few

exceptions, to make the presbyterians feel themselves in their power, and to make the terms of conformity as difficult as possible. "I am afraid the presbyterians will not conform," said the Earl of Manchester to the king. "I am afraid they will," said Sheldon, Bishop of London, "but now we know their minds, we will make them all knaves if they do." The conduct of the bishops and of the episcopalian clergy in general, originated, partly in vindictive, and partly in selfish motives. While they desired to punish those who had been the cause of their deprivation during so many years, they were anxious to devise some method of turning them out of those rich livings which they wanted for their own party.

Parliament was quite prepared to do all that the episcopalians desired, and even more. The general election of 1661 brought together a House of Commons more zealous for royalty than the king, and more zealous for episcopacy than the bishops. † The Restoration had opened the floodgates of immorality and sycophancy. The virtuous were drifted along the tide. Charles and his ministers could scarcely prevent parliament from retaliating on presbyterians and Independents more than all the measures which had been formerly directed against the royalists. The resolutions and acts of the House of Commons were such as had never characterised the proceedings of any previous parliament; were such as it would have been glad enough to rescind, a few years later. Every

* Reynolds, for example, who had been a presbyterian, and who accepted an offer of a bishopric, at the time when Baxter refused

one.

† Macaulay's History of England, vol. 1. p. 175.

member was compelled to take the sacrament. The Covenant was publicly burnt in Palace Yard. The Houses pledged themselves in no extremity to resist the will of the king by force. Every officer of a corporation was required to swear that resistance to the king's authority was in all cases unlawful. Some went so far as to attempt the re-institution of the Star Chamber and High Commission. The bishops were restored to their place in the upper house. The hierarchy was established as before; and episcopal ordination was now, for the first time, made indispensable to church preferment.

In 1662, the well known Act of Uniformity was passed, which required all ministers to swear their unfeigned assent and consent to everything in the Book of Common Prayer; and on St. Bartholomew's day, August 24th, about two thousand ministers were compelled to resign their livings and benefices, the great majority of whom were presbyterians, but many of whom were Independents and baptists. A similar deprivation had been enforced on the episcopalians by the Long Parliament; but not exactly on the same principle, nor from the same motives.* By those who hold that the state has no right to interfere with religion, both of these instances of deprivation are condemned. But no impartial person can hesitate to admit that, the principle of a state establishment of religion being granted, an act of great injustice and cruelty was practised on the last occasion. The most religious and worthy ministers of the day were turned out of the establishment, to make way for such as were most ignorant and corrupt.

* It is lamentable to find Bishop Heber, in his Life of Jeremy Taylor, defending the Act of Uniformity.

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