The name of Roundhead “was very ill applied to Mr, Hutchinson, who, having naturally a very fine thick sett head of hair, kept it clean and handsome, so that it was a greate ornament to him, although the godly of those dayes, when he embrac’d their party, would not allow him to be religious, because his hayre was not in their cutte, nor his words in their phraze, nor such little formalities altogether fitted to their humour; who were, many of them, so weake as to esteeme rather for such insignificant circumstances, then for solid wisdom, piety, and courage, which brought reall ayd and honor to their party; but as Mr. Hutchinson chose, not them, but the God they serv’d, and the truth and righteousness they defended, so did not their weaknesses, censures, ingratitude, and discouraging behaviour, with which he was abundantly exercised all his life, make him forsake them in any thing wherein they adher’d to just and honourable principles and practizes; but when they apostatized from these, none cast them off with greater indignation, how shining soever the profession were that gilt, not a temple of living grace, but a tomb which only held the carkase of religion.” In other words, like other partisans, whose principles have degenerated into the spirit of faction, he overlooked the baseness of ingratitude, and worse immoralities, in his associates, so long as they maintained the just and honourable character of traitors and rebels.
[7] The Manchester Synod, at which were present 620 ministers of various denominations, was held in the year 1841, for the purpose of discussing the corn laws, with a view to their abolition. The professed object was the relief of the poor by procuring cheap bread; the real object was the depression of the landed aristocracy, and, through them, of the Clergy of the National Church, whose tithes are regulated by the average value of corn. Had those gentlemen been sincere in their lamentations for the manufacturing poor, they would have long ago agitated the country for the abolition of the Factory System, and the rescue of its miserable victims from oppression and famine. That system must be strengthened by the abolition of the corn laws, which would only aggrandize the great manufacturers, and plunge the working people into deeper misery, by throwing the agricultural poor out of employment, and driving them to the towns and cities for occupation, thus glutting the market with superfluous labour. Looking at some of those individuals who took a leading part in the Synod, men of reputed truth and probity in their customary habits, their disingenuousness on this occasion supplies a striking proof of the power of faction to impair the moral sense, especially when originating in hatred of the Church. The great body of this Synod were ministers of Calvinistic Churches. The “dissenting interest” has degraded itself by assuming the character of a political faction.