[1]. The Solemn League and Covenant was a contract agreed to by the Scots, in the year 1638, for maintaining their religion free from innovation. In 1643 it was brought into England; and on February 2, of that year, it was enacted, by a joint ordinance of both Houses of Parliament, “that the League and Covenant should be solemnly taken and subscribed, in all places throughout the kingdom of England and dominion of Wales, by all persons above the age of eighteen.” Accordingly, it was signed by most of the members of the two houses of legislature, by all the principal officers of the rebel army, by all the Divines of the Assembly then sitting at Westminster, and by a large number of the people in general. Two of the principal vows were—1. That the party taking and subscribing the Covenant would endeavour to “bring the Churches of God in all the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, and form of church government, as the Directory prescribes for worship and catechising.” And, 2. That he would “endeavour, without respect of persons, to extirpate Popery and Prelacy—that is to say, church government by archbishops and bishops.”
[2]. And yet, perhaps this is hardly true. A most pitiful picture might be drawn of the clergymen who, twenty years previously, had been expelled from the same churches by the ipse dixit of Oliver Cromwell, whom Bishop Hackett represents as regarding neither parliaments nor patents—neither canons nor scriptures—“in comparison of some new light shining in the lantern of his own head.” Men of learning and religion were in many instances succeeded by “mere rhapsodists and ramblers,” “cried up as rare soul-saving preachers.” Not a few venerable and worthy ministers, expelled by the rough hand of violence, “lingered out their lives, laden and almost oppressed, worried, and worn out with fears, anxieties, necessities, rude affronts, and remediless afflictions.” A great deal may be said on both sides of the question.
[3]. Baxter estimates the number of the ejected and deprived as from 1800 to 2000. Calamy gives it at 2400. A catalogue in Dr Williams’s library gives 2257. A manuscript, by Oliver Heywood, gives 2500.
[4]. Wesley’s Works, vol. ii. p. 297.
[5]. Ibid., vol. xi. p. 37.
[6]. Gent. Mag., 1785, p. 427.
[7]. Ibid.
[8]. Wesley’s History of England, vol. iii. p. 230.
[9]. Gent. Mag., 1785, p. 487.