This is high praise; but it comes nearer to the truth than the condemnatory verdicts pronounced by some others. The godliness of the men is proved by the spirit of their writings, and by the history of their lives. Their talents and attainments even Milton does not attempt to deny. No one would think of comparing any of them with Jeremy Taylor in point of eloquence; and in breadth of sacred learning, in a certain skilful mastery of knowledge, and in the majesty and grace of polemical argument, the best were not equal to Hammond and Pearson. Cosin would surpass them all in some branches of study, which they would account useless. Certainly, none of them had the sagacious quaintness of Bishop Hall, or the inexhaustible wit of Thomas Fuller; but quaintness and wit are qualities not needed in theological conferences. Even superior eloquence and large accomplishments may, in such case, be dispensed with. The Westminster Divines had learning-scriptural, patristic, scholastical, and modern-enough, and to spare; all solid, substantial, and ready for use. Lightfoot and Selden were of ponderous but not unwieldy edition; and Arrowsmith and Calamy, though less known to literary fame, were ripe and ready scholars. Caryl and Greenhill had abundance of knowledge; Dr. Goodwin was, in many respects, the greatest Divine amongst them all. Moreover, in the perception and advocacy of what is most characteristic and fundamental in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they were, as a body, considerably in advance of some who could put in a claim dition; er 'Hallam speaks of the Assembly as "perhaps equal in learning, good sense, and other merits, to any Lower House of Convocation that ever They had a to equal, and perhaps higher scholarship. clear, firm grasp of evangelical truths. The main defect and the chief reproach of the Assembly consisted in the narrowness and severity of their Calvinism, and in the fierce and persistent spirit of intolerance manifested by the majority. THE CHAPTER XXI. HE new modelling of the army was a necessary measure, and produced a very great moral improvement. Even Hampden had spoken of the insolence of the soldiers, and, after the fall of Reading, complaints of their conduct reached the Earl of Essex. It was declared that they had grown "outrageous," and that they were "common plunderers." According to report, they had ransacked five or six gentlemen's houses in a single morning. In fact, the Roundheads, in some instances, had grown to be as odious as the Cavaliers; and, without better discipline, they were threatening to prove a ruin, rather than "a remedy to this distracted kingdom." Having claimed an independence incompatible with military subjection, these volunteers needed a thorough re-organization, such as was accomplished by the new model. Fairfax, in his first march after the reform had commenced, resolved on "the punishment of former disorders, and the prevention of future misdemeanours." Offenders were tried and justice was summarily executed. A "renegado was hanged in terrorem upon a tree at Wallop, in Hampshire, as certain troops were marching through that parish; and the next day a proclamation was issued, threatening with death any one who should dare to commit any act of plunder. There is no reason to doubt the testimony of Joshua Sprigg, Fairfax's chaplain, that a moral reformation ensued upon the adoption of the new military constitution, and that the men became generally constant, and conscientious in duties; and by such soberness and strictness conquered much upon the vanity and looseness of the enemy." 66 But the state of religion chiefly concerns us. If the church at Oxford had been turned into a Royalist camp, the camp of Fairfax and Cromwell might now be said to be turned into a Republican Church. Not that there existed any organized ecclesiastical government, or any uniformity of worship; but, according to the authority just quoted, "the officers, many of them, with their soldiery, were much in prayer and reading Scripture," an exercise which before they had "used but little." conquer better," adds the chaplain, "as they are saints than soldiers; and in the countries where they came they left something of God as well as of Cæsar behind them something of piety as well as pay." "Men Richard Baxter spent some time with the army, and has largely recorded his opinion of its condition. He found that an "abundance of the common troopers," and that many of the officers were honest, sober, and orthodox; but he complains of a few proud, hot-headed sectaries, amongst Cromwell's chief favourites, who by their "heat and activity bore down the rest, or carried them along with them." Baxter, with all his large-hearted charity, was not free from prejudice with regard to this subject, and his accounts of the "sectaries must therefore be received with caution. He tells us they were hard upon the Presbyterian ministers, putting some gall into their Sprigg's Englands Recovery, 326. wit, calling them " priest-byters, dry-vines, and the dissembly men." Honest soldiers of weak judgments, and little theological knowledge, were seduced into a disputing vein, sometimes for state democracy, and sometimes for church democracy, sometimes against forms of prayer, and sometimes against infant baptism,-sometimes against set times of prayer and the binding themselves to any duty before the Spirit moved them, and sometimes about free grace and free will," and all the points of Antinomianism and Arminianism." We are by this reminded of the description of the Eastern Church by Gregory, of Nyssa. He tells us that knots of people at the street corners of Constantinople were discussing incomprehensibilities; in the market-place moneychangers and shopkeepers were similarly employed. When a man was asked how many oboli a thing cost, he started a discussion upon generated and ungenerated existence. Enquiries of a baker about bread were answered by the assertion-that the Father is greater than the Son. When anybody wanted a bath, the reply was, the Son of God was created from nothing. With some allowance for the extravagance of the satire, and with a change of terms to suit the Commonwealth controversies, the description of his countrymen by the Greek preacher may be applied to many of the soldiers of the newmodelled army. Here a field opened for controversy, adapted to Baxter's subtle and debate-loving nature. Honest as the day, with a passionate desire to reform the army, he went from tent to tent, with the Bible under his arm, whilst his eyes flashed with fire burning in the very depths of his soul. Everybody who knows the man will believe him when he says: "I was almost 1 Opera, iii. 466. |