of a single separatist congregation was at once a blot on its beauty and a blow at its very basis " (Shaw). Liberty of conscience was in his eyes only liberty of error, and departure from uniformity only meant a hideous deformity and multiformity of blaspheming sects. The independent and the baptist too were equally convinced of the scriptural source and the divine right of their own systems. It was political necessity that drove them reluctantly not only to work as partners with Erastian lawyers in parliament, but to extend the theoretic basis of their own claim for toleration until it comprehended the whole swarm of Anabaptists, Antinomians, Nullifidians, and the rest. Cromwell's toleration was different. It came easy to his natural temperament, when practical convenience recommended or demanded it. When he told Crawford early in the war that the state in choosing men to serve it takes no notice of their opinions, he struck the true note of toleration from the statesman's point of view. His was the practical temper, which first asks about a thing how far it helps or hinders the doing of some other given thing, and the question now with him was whether tolerance would help or hinder union and force in military strength and the general objects of the war.

A grander intellect than Cromwell's had entered the arena, for before the end of the year of Marston Areopagitica had appeared, the noble English classic of spiritual and speculative freedom. It was Milton's lofty genius that did the work of bringing a great universal idea into active relation with what all men could understand, and what all practical men wished for. There were others, indeed, who set the doctrine of toleration in a fuller light; but in Milton's writings on church government he satisfies as well as Socinus, or Roger Williams, or any of his age, the test that has been imposed of making toleration "at once a moral, a

CHAP. III

MILTON ON TOLERATION

145

political, and a theological dogma." With him the law of tolerance is no birth of scepticism or languor or indifference. It is no statesman's argument for reconciling freedom of conscience with public order,

"toleration being a part," as Burke called it, "of moral and political prudence." Nor is it a pungent intellectual demonstration, like Bayle's half a century later. Intolerance with Milton is dishonour to the victim, dishonour to the tyrant. The fountain-head from which every worthy enterprise issues forth is a pious and just honouring of ourselves; it is the sanctity and freedom of the man's own soul. On this austere self-esteem the scornful distinction between lay and cleric is an outrage. The coercive power of ecclesiastics is an impious intrusion into the inner sanctuary. Shame may enter, and remorse and reverence for good men may enter, and a dread of becoming a lost wanderer from the communion of the just and holy may enter, but never the boisterous and secular tyranny of an unlawful and unscriptural jurisdiction. Milton's moving argument, at once so delicate and so haughty, for the rights and selfrespecting obligations of "that inner man which may be termed the spirit of the soul," is the hidden mainspring of the revolt against formalism, against authority, and almost against church organisation in any of its forms. And it is the true base of toleration. Alas, even Milton halts and stammers when he comes to ask himself why, on the same arguments, popery may not plead for toleration. Here he can only fall back upon the regulation commonplaces.

Milton's ideas, which were at the heart of Cromwell's vaguer and less firmly moulded thinking, were in direct antagonism to at least three broad principles that hitherto ruled the minds of men. These ideas were fatal to Uniformity of belief, not merely as a thing within reach, but as an object

L

to be desired. They shattered and destroyed Authority, whether of clergy or laity, or of a king by the grace of God. Finally, they dealt one of the blows that seem so naturally to mark the course of all modern revolutions, to History as a moral power. For it is the essence of every appeal to reason or to the individual conscience to discard the heavy woven garments of tradition, custom, inheritance, prerogative, and ancient institution. History becomes, in Milton's own exorbitant phrase, no more than the perverse iniquity of sixteen hundred years. Uniformity, authority, historyto shake these was to move the foundations of the existing world in England. History, however, shows itself a standing force. It is not a dead, but a living hand. The sixteen hundred years that Milton found so perverse had knit fibres into our national growth that even Cromwell and all the stern fervour of puritanism were powerless to pluck

out.

IV

Events made toleration in its full Miltonic breadth the shibboleth. In principle and theory it enlarged its way both in parliament and the army, in association with the general ideas of political liberalism, and became a practical force. Every war tends to create a peace party, even if for no other cause, yet from the innate tendency of men to take sides. By the end of the year of Marston Moor, political differences of opinion upon the terms of peace had become definitely associated with the ecclesiastical difference between presbyterian and independent. The presbyterians were the peace men, and the independents were for relentless war until the ends of war should be gained. Henceforth these are the two great party names, and of the independents Cromwell's energy and his military success rapidly made him the most powerful figure.

CHAP. II CROMWELL AN INDEPENDENT

147

When it was that Cromwell embraced independent views of church organisation, we cannot with precision tell, nor does it matter. He deferred signing the presbyterian covenant as long as possible (February 1644). He was against exclusion and proscription, but on grounds of policy, and from no reasoned attachment to the ideal of a free or congregational church. He had a kindness for zealots, because zeal, enthusiasm, almost fanaticism, was in its best shape his own temper, and even in its worst shape promoted or protected his own policy. When his policy of war yet hung in the balance, it was the independents who by their action, views, and temper created his opportunity. By their warmth and sincerity they partially impressed him with their tenets, and opened his mind to a range of new ideas that lay beyond their own. Unhappily in practice when the time came, puritan toleration went little farther than Anglican intolerance.

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW MODEL

I

AFTER the victory at Marston, followed as it was by the surrender of York, men expected other decisive exploits from Lord Manchester and his triumphant army. He was directed to attend on the motions of the indomitable Rupert, in whom the disaster before the walls of York seemed to have stirred fresh energy. Manchester saw a lion in every path. The difficulties he made were not devoid of reason, but a nation in a crisis seeks a general whom difficulties confront only to be overcome.

Essex (September 1644) had been overtaken by grievous disaster in the south-west. Escaping by sea from Plymouth, he left his army to find their way out by fighting or surrender as best they could. So great was his influence and popularity, that even in face of this miscarriage, Essex almost at once received a new command. Manchester was to co-operate with him in resisting the king's eastward march from Cornwall to his fixed headquarters at Oxford. He professes to obey, but he loiters, delays, and finds excuses, until even the Derby House Committee lose patience, and send a couple of their members to kindle a little fire in him, just as in the next century the French Convention used to send two commissioners to spur on the revolutionary generals. "Destroy but the king's army," cried