CHAPTER XXI.
The new modelling of the army was a necessary measure, and produced a very great moral improvement. Even Hampden had spoken of the insolence of the soldiers, and, after the fall of Reading, complaints of their conduct reached the Earl of Essex. It was declared that they had grown "outrageous," and that they were "common plunderers." According to report, they had ransacked five or six gentlemen's houses in a single morning. In fact, the Roundheads, in some instances, had grown to be as odious as the Cavaliers; and, without better discipline, they were threatening to prove a ruin, rather than "a remedy to this distracted kingdom." Having claimed an independence incompatible with military subjection, these volunteers needed a thorough re-organization, such as was accomplished by the new model. Fairfax, in his first march after the reform had commenced, resolved on "the punishment of former disorders, and the prevention of future misdemeanours." Offenders were tried and justice was summarily executed. A "renegado" was hanged in terrorem upon a tree at Wallop, in Hampshire, as certain troops were marching through that parish; and the next day a proclamation was issued, threatening with death any one who should dare to commit any act of plunder. There is no reason to doubt the testimony of Joshua Sprigg, Fairfax's chaplain, that a moral reformation ensued upon the adoption of the new military constitution, and that the men became "generally constant, and conscientious in duties; and by such soberness and strictness conquered much upon the vanity and looseness of the enemy."
1646.
But the state of religion chiefly concerns us. If the church at Oxford had been turned into a Royalist camp, the camp of Fairfax and Cromwell might now be said to be turned into a Republican Church. Not that there existed any organized ecclesiastical government, or any uniformity of worship; but, according to the authority just quoted, "the officers, many of them, with their soldiery, were much in prayer and reading Scripture," an exercise which before they had "used but little." "Men conquer better," adds the chaplain, "as they are saints than soldiers; and in the countries where they came they left something of God as well as of Cæsar behind them—something of piety as well as pay."[567]
Religion in the Camp.
1646.
Richard Baxter spent some time with the army, and has largely recorded his opinion of its condition. He found that an "abundance of the common troopers," and that many of the officers were honest, sober, and orthodox; but he complains of a few proud, hot-headed sectaries, amongst Cromwell's chief favourites, who by their "heat and activity bore down the rest, or carried them along with them." Baxter, with all his large-hearted charity, was not free from prejudice with regard to this subject, and his accounts of the "sectaries" must therefore be received with caution. He tells us they were hard upon the Presbyterian ministers, putting some gall into their wit, calling them "priest-byters, dry-vines, and the dissembly men." Honest soldiers of weak judgments, and little theological knowledge, were seduced into a disputing vein, sometimes for state democracy, and sometimes for church democracy, sometimes against forms of prayer, and sometimes against infant baptism,—sometimes against set times of prayer and the binding themselves to any duty before the Spirit moved them, and sometimes about free grace and free will, "and all the points of Antinomianism and Arminianism." We are by this reminded of the description of the Eastern Church by Gregory, of Nyssa. He tells us that knots of people at the street corners of Constantinople were discussing incomprehensibilities; in the market-place money-changers and shopkeepers were similarly employed. When a man was asked how many oboli a thing cost, he started a discussion upon generated and ungenerated existence. Enquiries of a baker about bread were answered by the assertion—that the Father is greater than the Son. When anybody wanted a bath, the reply was, the Son of God was created from nothing.[568] With some allowance for the extravagance of the satire, and with a change of terms to suit the Commonwealth controversies, the description of his countrymen by the Greek preacher may be applied to many of the soldiers of the new-modelled army. Here a field opened for controversy, adapted to Baxter's subtle and debate-loving nature. Honest as the day, with a passionate desire to reform the army, he went from tent to tent, with the Bible under his arm, whilst his eyes flashed with fire burning in the very depths of his soul. Everybody who knows the man will believe him when he says: "I was almost always, when I had opportunity, disputing with one or other of them, sometimes for our civil government, and sometimes for church order and government, sometimes for infant baptism, and oft against Antinomianism and the contrary extreme." Well armed with theological weapons, he was as much in his element with "the sword of the Spirit," cutting down regiments of ghostly errors, as any pikeman or trooper could be as he was stabbing an enemy or firing a pistol at his breast. Baxter particularly records an encounter he had at Amersham. Bethel's troopers, with other sectarian soldiers, accompanied by some of the inhabitants of Chesham, had a pitched battle with the Presbyterian Divine. He occupied the reading pew, and his antagonists, "Pitchford's cornet and troopers," took their place in the gallery: the church being filled "with poor, well-meaning people, that came in the simplicity of their hearts to be deceived." The debate went on till nightfall; Baxter stopping to the very last, lest his retirement should be construed into a confession of defeat.
Religion in the Camp.
It is remarkable that this champion of orthodoxy assures us that he found nearly one half of the religious party either sound in their belief, or only slightly tinged with error; and that the other half consisted of honest men, who, with kindly and patient help, seemed likely to be recovered from their theological mistakes. There were, in his judgment, only a few fiery spirits, and they made all the noise and bustle. One of the heaviest charges which he brings against the sectaries will, in the present day, redound to their honour; for he observes: "Their most frequent and vehement disputes were for liberty of conscience, as they called it, that is, that the civil magistrate had nothing to do to determine anything in matters of religion, by constraint or restraint, but every man might not only hold, but preach and do, in matters of religion, what he pleased—that the civil magistrate hath nothing to do but with civil things, to keep the peace, and protect the Churches, liberties."[569] In short, it appears that the Roundhead army really contained a set of men who anticipated John Locke's doctrine of toleration, and something more.