Looking at the quarrel between the Parliament and the University, we must admit that the Parliament had on its side a right such as invariably follows victory, and such as always waits on established government. But another aspect of this affair remains to be considered, corresponding with the second phase of the Cambridge proceedings. What was ecclesiastical became mixed up with what was political. Not content with requiring obedience to the civil authority, the victors aimed at extinguishing all spiritual power in Oxford save their own. If, in justification or excuse it be pleaded that this came as a necessity, arising out of the civil establishment of religion, then the same plea of justification or excuse is valid in relation to the conduct of the now ejected, but afterwards restored Prelatists, when they turned out Presbyterians and Independents in 1662. The cases, so far as ecclesiastical imposition is concerned, appear to be alike. Those who think the proceedings of 1662 were unrighteous, and that national universities ought not to be subjected to ecclesiastical tests, must, if consistent, also think that the proceedings of 1644 and 1647 were unrighteous in the very same respects.
To remove men of scandalous life was proper, and nobody could complain of the punishment of those who violated university statutes, or wasted university property. Persons also who had taken up arms against the Parliament might be justly considered liable to some kind of penalty. But the articles of enquiry, instead of being confined to such points, were extended so as to embrace the neglect of the Covenant, and all opposition made to the Directory, or to any doctrine, "ignorance whereof doth exclude from the sacrament of the Lord's supper.[625]"
1646.
University of Oxford.
This kind of ecclesiastical inquisition served, as it often did, to put Parliament in an utterly false position. Armed in this manner, the ruling power stood up, not as the shield-bearer of order, but as the sword-bearer of persecution. The University availed itself of the circumstance, and instead of attempting to justify its resistance of the new government—which would have been a difficult task—it immediately betook itself to the doing of what was easy, and employed its ablest pens in drawing up an elaborate paper in Latin and English against the imposition of the new spiritual tests. In this way, men who only paid the penalty of insubordination were enabled to appear, as if carrying in their hands the martyr's palm. The Oxford champions did not plead for religious liberty. They did not found their case on any broad principle of toleration. They did not assert the rights of conscience, or expose the evils of persecution. Sentiments in favour of arbitrary government occurred even in this very manifesto, and a good deal of the reasoning they employed was one-sided, full of special pleading, and altogether unsatisfactory. Yet some of their objections were forcible, as when they urged that the adoption of the Covenant would be incompatible with their subscription to the Prayer Book, and when they complained of Prelacy being ranked with Popery and profaneness. They slyly intimated that they thought reform a necessity in Scotland, as well as in England, and truly said that the policy of the Parliament made the religion of England look like a Parliamentary religion. The following remark, which they offered on the fourth article of the Covenant, was not more galling than it was just:—"That the imposing the Covenant in this article may lay a necessity upon the son to accuse the father, in case he be a malignant, which is contrary to religion, nature, and humanity; or it may open a way for children that are sick of their fathers, to effect their unlawful intentions, by accusing them of malignity; besides, the subjecting ourselves to an arbitrary punishment, at the sole pleasure of such uncertain judges as may be deputed for that effect, is betraying the liberty of the subject."[626]
