Articles V. and VI. go all length to give strength, solemnity, and mutual confidence, as well as perpetuity to this League and Covenant.

On the 25th of September, 1643, this solemn League and Covenant, (after the religious exercise of prayer and preaching were duly and solemnly attended,) was subscribed and sworn to by the Commons, and the Assembly of Divines, in presence of the Scots commissioners, and the whole was concluded with the solemnity of prayer. October 15, it was in like manner subscribed and sworn to by the House of Lords, and on the 29th it was ordered by the Committee of States in Scotland, to be subscribed all over the kingdom, under the severest penalties. All the Lords of the Council were summoned to sign the Covenant, under the severest penalties, and such as refused, forfeited their goods and estates, and fled to England. In February, the Covenant was ordered to be taken throughout England, in like manner, accompanied with a solemn exhortation from the Assembly.

This solemn League and Covenant, spread a general alarm through the king's party; in it they saw strength, firmness, and resolution, and in the 4th article they saw their doom. The king published a solemn protest and declaration against it ; but to no effect, the die was cast, and the nation were in arms.

I have inserted this transaction at large, because it was the palladium of the reformation in England, and to shew the spirit of the times.

In order to meet this powerful combination, the king armed the Papists, caused a cessation of hostilities against the rebels in Ireland, and drew off his forces to England; even thousands of the Catholic rebels themselves came over into England, with their leaders at their head, and joined the king. But what was the worst of all, they brought with them the same principles, and practised the same cruelties in England they had done in Ireland, laying waste the country with fire and sword. These acts of the king struck the death-blow to his cause, and rendered him the odium of the nation.

The Parliament next proceeded to furnish themselves with a great seal, and to manage the affairs of the church and the nation. The Hierarchy was from this time down. Both parties prepared to prosecute the war.

The next step of the king was to summon by proclamation all the disaffected members of Parliament, to meet in Parlia ment at Oxford; accordingly forty-nine peers, and one hundred and forty commons met the king in Parliament at Oxford, January 22, 1644, which had for its object the breaking up of the Parliament at Westminster; but it failed. The Parliament then consisted of about three hundred members; who, with their great seal, became the palladium of the nation.

On the 19th of January, the Scots army entered England, consisting of twenty-one thousand men. A committee of both Houses of Parliament were sent to meet them; this, when united to a committee of the Scots, became a Parliament in their camp. This committee continued after the English and

Scots armies were united.

CHAPTER IX.

CAUSES THAT PROMOTED THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW-ENGLAND. CIVIL WAR CONTINUED.

THE campaign opened this season, 1644, with the triumph of the king over the army of the Parliament, under the command of the Earl of Essex, which gave rise to a series of excesses, cruelties, and barbarities, from the royal army, which displayed the licentiousness of the characters of their commanders, and roused up the nation for their common, as well as personal defence and safety.

In the midst of this scene, the king took up his march for London; but the army of the Parliament were soon re-united, and ready for action. Both armies met at Newbury; an action was fought; the king was beaten, and retired with the remains of his army to Oxford. The army of the Parliament enjoyed

their victory, not with the excesses and cruelties af the royal army, after the battle in Cornwall; but with a religious triumph, both in discipline and character, that shewed to the nation and the world, that they were fighting the battles of God and their country. The ravages and excesses of the king's army, continued to render him, and his cause, unpopular, and his union with the Papists, joined to the influence the Scots army had with the Parliament, gave a new turn to the affairs of the church; this was nothing less than the total extirpation of the Hierarchy, which was finally accomplished.

The old Liturgy and Hierarchy being laid aside, or destroyed, the formation of a new plan of worship and church discipline, now took up the attention of the assembly of divines, at Westminster, and an arduous task it was. Here were assembled, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Erastians, and Independants, &c. all mingled in one mass, from whence was to be drawn a system of pure church worship and discipline. The assembly first determined that associations of ministers be formed in all the large towns, for the purpose of ordaining ministers to the gospel, and that their ordination be valid. The next step was to appoint a committee to form a directory, or mode of worship for the church; this amounted to the establishing the Presbyterian forms of the Kirk of Scotland, to the exclusion of the Liturgy and Common Prayer-book of the Church of England. This opened the way for the spread of the Anabaptists, who soon became numerous, and a strife sprang up in the church, sharp and bitter.

During these labours of the assembly, the Parliament had brought Arch-Bishop Laud to their bar, upon his indictment of high treason, on which he had been imprisoned, and passed sentence of death upon him, with a bill of attainder, and sent it up to the House of Lords, where the judgment of the Commons was confirmed in due form. His bead was severed from his body agreeable to his sentence, 1644.

*These were the disciples of Erastes, a German Divine, who taught that the power of ministers was only persuasive, not coercive.

Thus fell Arch-Bishop Laud, the author of all the present troubles of the king and nation; but the great instrument in the hand of God, in building up his Puritan Church in the wilderness, as well as establishing the pure principles of the reformation in Great Britain.

The charges supported against Arch-Bishop Land, at his trial, his condemnation and execution, opened the eyes of the king, to a sense of his perilous situation, and filled him with alarm. A conference was opened at Uxbridge, for a treaty of reconciliation; but the warmth and imprudence of the partizans of the king, defeated the treaty, and the commissioners of the Parliament, after a twenty days' conference, returned in disgust.

The failure of this treaty, opened a new scene; an ordinance passed both Houses of Parliament, stiled the Self-Denying Ordinance, by which it was resolved, that no member of either House, should hold any civil or military office, during the present war. This ordinance removed from the army the Earls of Essex, Manchester, Warwick, and Denbigh; the Lords Roberts, Willoughby, &c. with all others, except Lieut. Gen. Cromwell, who was soon after dispensed with, at the request of the new general, Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had succeeded the Earl of Essex. A new army was formed, a new and severe system of discipline established, and the officers, who were a set of religious enthusiasts, became their chaplains.

Under this new order of things, the campaign opened. The king took the town of Leister, where was much spoil and treasure, which gave him high hopes and expectations; but this triumph was momentary; the army of the Parliament pursued the king, and a battle commenced at Naseby, June 16th, 1645. The armies were equal, but the battle was fatal to the king; his army was routed and cut to pieces; he fied as a fugitive, and shut himself up in Oxford, where he was besieged through the winter.

At this time, the Parliament carried forward the regulation of the church, which after much controversy, settled the forms of worship and church discipline, upon the Presbyterian plan,

with liberty of conscience for all denominations. This opened a controversy about toleration, both in England and Scotland, with much warmth, and the king fanned the fire.

1

During the siege of the city of Oxford, the Parliament army destroyed the king's forces in all parts of the kingdom, and took all his arsenals and magazines, which reduced him to the alternative of surrendering himself a prisoner to the Scots; May 6th, 1646; which concluded the first civil war.

The divisions of the church now raged with renewed warmth, and continued. The king remained with the Scots about eight months, when a conference was opened between the king and a committee of Scots Divines, for a general accommodation in the affairs of the church, which was conducted by the Rector of the University of Edinburgh, The conference was lengthy, and managed with coolness; but the king finally appealed to the fathers for a decision of the controversy, and the conference closed..

During this conference, the Parliament prepared a set of propositions, as a basis of peace and accommodation with the king, which were agreed to by the Scots, and sent to his majes ty for his acceptance. The amount of this treaty was, that the king should sign the League and Covenant, ratify all their doings, and exempt from a general pardon all Papists that had borne arms, both in England and Ireland; also such members as had deserted their posts and gone to Oxford, or such as had borne arms against the two Houses, together with about sixty others, &c. The king's friends pressed him to comply even with this; but he refused.

The king next made overtures and concessions to the Scots; but without effect. The English Parliament claimed the king, and the Scots Parliament delivered him up, upon the ground, that they could not retain the king, since he had refused to subscribe the League and Covenant. The English Commissioners received the king, and conveyed him to Holmby-House, in Northampton-Shire, because they durst not trust him in London, The king enjoyed his liberty, his friends, and amuse ments, (under a strict guard) at Holmby-House.