the guidance of Cartwright, Travers, and others whose names have come down to us. The synods of London alone ratified the decrees of the subaltern governments, and from the synods of London alone emanated the orders which regulated the members through every county.

The Puritan faction however affirmed that their whole system was solely directed to the reformation of the Church, and the establishment of the Presbyterial discipline. But they were betrayed by the depositions of some faithless brothers; such as one Edwards whom Bancroft thus designates, "then of that faction but now a very honest man." Possibly the ministers of Elizabeth had employed that usual prevention of treason in sending a wolf in sheep'sclothing, or what the French revolutionary police termed a mouton, among this saintly flock; for unquestionably to the eye of the statesman, the political design of the synodical discipline assumed all the menacing appearances of an organized conspiracy. The civil magistrate was allowed to share in the common equality, but should he refuse "admonition" he was to be excommunicated; nor was the Sovereign less exempt than the ordinary magistrate, in this democracy of priests and elders.

This Presbyterial government with all the exterior of a popular assembly, proved to be the horriblest tyranny which ever afflicted a community.

This monstrous government was not conducted without policy. The people at large were not as yet to be stirred up until they were better instructed in "the discipline;" but the maturer and more daring spirits were to be privately encouraged. When they ambiguously mentioned in this Book of Discipline that "other means" besides petitioning the Sovereign and the Parliament were to be resorted to for the advancement of their cause, they found this peculiar phrase more difficult to expound, than did the royal council. They not only insisted on the independence of the Church, but they declared that the chief magistrate was only a member of the church, as any other citizen. Their true design, and they were sanguine of its success, appeared in some intercepted letters. When one of the more innocent class, objected to their proceedings in reviling the Anglican church and the difficulty of beating into the heads of the common people, their new reformation, an eminent Puritan replied "Hold your peace! since we cannot compass these things by suit, nor by

dispute, it is the multitude and people which must bring them to pass." As is usual in all similar conspiracies the fiery spirits had assumed that their "reformation cannot come without blood;" and those who afterwards manifested to the world that they were willing to shed theirs, could not be expected to exact less from their adversaries.

Neal, the historian of the Puritans, as an apology for their proceedings, urges that "they had for several years peaceably waited for the consent of the Magistrate; but if after all, the consent of the Magistrate must be expected before we follow the dictates of our conscience, there would have been no Reformation in the Protestant world." Neal does not deny the secret design of this great confederacy, and excuses it on the plea of conscience. The conscience of these saints then was to put the contemptible yoke of a Presbytery on the neck of a great people, and while they were combating with the usurpations of the Court of Rome were converting their Father-land into the same "Kingdom of Priests." Milton in his anger denounced them;

66

"New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large."

That is," says Warburton, "more domineer

1

ing and tyrannical." It was indeed only a dethronement of the same class of Priests to transfer the same plenitude of power to another race under a different designation.

About sixty years afterwards these very Puritans triumphed and exhibited to the astonishment of Europe their singular government. They were constructing the constitution of England by the Judaic model. The observance, or the non-observance, of the Code of Moses, occasioned perpetual confusions among these modern Israelites, till some of their politicians hesitated to adopt what was not found expedient; but they ever appealed to the laws of Moses when they thought proper to insist on their perpetuity. We therefore know what this party designed to have done, by what they did.

It seemed extravagant in the days of Elizabeth when the writer of one of the intercepted letters advised "Let us take our pennyworths of them (the Bishops) and not die in their debt!" Another more humanely apprehended that "The Commonwealth would be pestered with a new race of beggars in the Bishops and the Deans and all the Churchmen ejected from their offices." Such sanguine politicians only anticipated the event which occurred under Charles the First!

CHAPTER XII.

CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE PURITANS CONTINUED.-OF THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF CALVIN.

THE father of Presbytery and Puritanism is held to be CALVIN; his admirers look on this as his triumph; others reproach the novel system as incompatible with the existing state of human affairs; great kingdoms are to be governed, and not parochial republics to be superintended. Dangerous principles, subversive of established governments, were ascribed to the Puritans, as afterwards to the famous order of the Jesuits.

In what degree these charges attach to the Republican polity of Calvin has not perhaps been developed with all the impartiality that is requisite. We must contemplate the genius of this legislator who founded this new state of