[324] The votes for payment of the sum of £400,000 to the Scots are on Aug. 21, 27, and Sept. 1; though it was not fully agreed between the two nations till Dec. 8. Whitelock, 220, 229. But Whitelock dates the commencement of the understanding as to the delivery of the king about Dec. 24. P. 231. See Commons' Journals. Baillie, ii. 246, 253; Burnet's Memoirs of Hamiltons, 293, etc.; Laing, iii. 362; and Mr. Godwin's History of the Commonwealth, ii. 258; a work in which great attention has been paid to the order of time.
[325] Journals, Aug. and Sept.; Godwin, ubi supra; Baillie, ii. passim.
[326] Baillie, who, in Jan. 1644, speaks of the independents as rather troublesome than formidable, and even says: "No man, I know, in either of the houses of any note is for them" (437); and that "Lord Say's power and reputation is none at all;" admits, in a few months, the alarming increase of independency and sectarianism in the Earl of Manchester's army; more than two parts in three of the officers and soldiers being with them, and those the most resolute and confident; though they had no considerable force either in Essex's or Waller's army, nor in the assembly of divines or the parliament, ii. 5, 19, 20. This was owing in a great degree to the influence, at that period, of Cromwell over Manchester. "The man," he says, "is a very wise and active head, universally well beloved, as religious and stout; being a known independent, and most of the soldiers who love new ways put themselves under his command."—60.
[327] The independent party, or at least some of its most eminent members, as Lord Say and Mr. St. John, were in a secret correspondence with Oxford, through the medium of Lord Saville, in the spring of 1645, if we believe Hollis, who asserts that he had seen their letters, asking offices for themselves. Mem. of Hollis, sect. 43. Baillie refers this to an earlier period, the beginning of 1644 (i. 427); and I conceive that Hollis has been incorrect as to the date. The king, however, was certainly playing a game with them in the beginning of 1646, as well as with the presbyterians, so as to give both parties an opinion of his insincerity. Clarendon State Papers, 214; and see two remarkable letters written by his order to Sir Henry Vane, 226, urging an union, in order to overthrow the presbyterian government.
[328] The principles of the independents are set forth candidly, and even favourably, by Collier, 829; as well as by Neal, ii. 98. For those who are not much acquainted with ecclesiastical distinction, it may be useful to mention the two essential characteristics of this sect, by which they differed from the presbyterians. The first was, that all churches or separate congregations were absolutely independent of each other as to jurisdiction or discipline; whence they rejected all synods and representative assemblies as possessing authority; though they generally admitted, to a very limited degree, the alliance of churches for mutual counsel and support. Their second characteristic was the denial of spiritual powers communicated in ordination by apostolical succession; deeming the call of a congregation a sufficient warrant for the exercise of the ministry. See Orme's Life of Owen, for a clear view and able defence of the principles maintained by this party. I must add, that Neal seems to have proved that the independents, as a body, were not systematically adverse to monarchy.
[329] Edwards's Gangræna, a noted book in that age, enumerates one hundred and seventy-six heresies, which, however, are reduced by him to sixteen heads; and these seem capable of further consideration. Neal, 249. The house ordered a general fast, Feb. 1647, to beseech God to stop the growth of heresy and blasphemy. Whitelock, 236; a presbyterian artifice to alarm the nation.
[330] Parl. Hist. ii. 1479. They did not meet till July 1, 1643. Rushw. Abr. v. 123; Neal, 42; Collier, 823. Though this assembly showed abundance of bigotry and narrowness, they were by no means so contemptible as Clarendon represents them (ii. 423); and perhaps equal in learning, good sense, and other merits, to any lower house of convocation that ever made a figure in England.
[331] Whitelock, 71; Neal, 103. Selden, who owed no gratitude to the episcopal church, was from the beginning of its dangers a steady and active friend, displaying, whatever may have been said of his timidity, full as much courage as could reasonably be expected from a studious man advanced in years. Baillie, in 1641, calls him "the avowed proctor of the bishops" (i. 245); and when provoked by his Erastian opposition in 1646, presumes to talk of his "insolent absurdity" (ii. 96). Selden sat in the assembly of divines; and by his great knowledge of the ancient languages and of ecclesiastical antiquities, as well as by his sound logic and calm clear judgment, obtained an undeniable superiority, which he took no pains to conceal.
[332] Scobell; Rushw. Abr. v. 576; Parl. Hist. iii. 444; Neal, 199. The latter says, this did not pass the Lords till June 6. But this is not so. Whitelock very rightly opposed the prohibition of the use of the common prayer, and of the silencing episcopal ministers, as contrary to the principle of liberty of conscience avowed by the parliament, and like what had been complained of in the bishops. 226, 239, 281. But, in Sept. 1647, it was voted that the indulgence in favour of tender consciences should not extend to tolerate the common prayer. Id. 274.
[333] The Erastians were named from Erastus, a German physician in the sixteenth century. The denomination is often used in the present age ignorantly, and therefore indefinitely; but I apprehend that the fundamental principle of his followers was this: That in a commonwealth where the magistrate professes Christianity, it is not convenient that offences against religion and morality should be punished by the censures of the church, especially by excommunication. Probably he may have gone farther, as Selden seems to have done (Neal, 194), and denied the right of exclusion from church communion, even without reference to the temporal power; but the limited proposition was of course sufficient to raise the practical controversy. The Helvetic divines, Gualter and Bullinger, strongly concurred in this with Erastus; "Contendimus disciplinam esse debere in ecclesiâ, sed satis esse, si ea administretur a magistratu." Erastus, de Excommunicatione, p. 350; and a still stronger passage in p. 379. And it is said, that Archbishop Whitgift caused Erastus's book to be printed at his own expense. See one of Warburton's notes on Neal. Calvin, and the whole of his school, held, as is well known, a very opposite tenet. See Erasti Theses de Excommunicatione, 4to, 1579.