churchman and a schoolman, one of that race which Hume says never produced a philosopher, is the first person with whom principles so important to the welfare and stability of nations originated. In the time of Charles, indeed, these principles were promulgated-but the throne was of course the last place to which they were likely to find access. They were lessons which a monarch was almost sure to be first taught by the rough assertion of them in the practice of his own subjects. Without, then, dwelling upon an ignorance of the first prin ciples of government for which Charles was to be pitied rather than blamed, let us pass on to certain defects in morals-which, as moral principles depend neither on time, person, nor place, may justly be denominated crimes, in whatever individuals they may be found.

One of these defects was, we think, a want of complete fidelity to his engagements. The universality of this Charge against Charles is well known, as well as the particular cases on which it is founded. And though we might be inclined to suspend our judgment on some of these cases, and are, at all events, persuaded that his enemies, in many instances, drew Strong conclusions from slender premises, yet we think the very universality of the charge a presump. tion that he was in some measure guilty. The charge is not brought merely by violent partizans. It is adduced by many who represent the king's insincerity as the cause of their abandonment of him. And indeed had not some such suspicion prevailed, another cause which will soon be noticed would be insufficient to account for so large a proportion of the more religious body in the kingdom being found in the ranks of his adversaries. No imputation of personal profligacy is brought against him what then can account for such a defection of those who might be expected spontaneously to have adhered to a virtuous sovereign? The cause they them

selves uniformly proclaim to have been his want of fidelity and carelessness of truth. We will not pretend to explain how so criminal and ̧ base a quality should be incorporated in the same bosom with others of a holy and lofty character. It is a property of the fallen nature of man to reconcile the most discordant qualities: to knead up the clay and iron into the same statue; to force into unnatural combination light and darkness, good and evil; till, contrary to all theory, and to the general constitution of nature, the same fountain gives forth sweet and bitter-the same mouth breathes hot and cold. It is perhaps also the peculiar infirmity of timid minds to attempt the accomplishment of their ends by hidden instruments; to work by fraud rather than by force; by the "punica fides," instead of the Roman integrity. And, moreover, it is to be remembered, that Charles was not always the character we contemplate in the pages of Sir Thomas Herbert. Many circum

stances authorise us to conclude, that he acquired much of his purity and piety in the school of affliction. In the last months of his life he discovered a magnanimity not natural to him, but superinduced under the Divine blessing by the influence of his outward circumstances. And the Hand which wrought this change had probably wrought that more important change which was in part the source of this very magnanimity, that change of heart which lifted him above the world, and rescued him from any temptation to secure through doubtful means his earthly sceptre by fixing his desires and hopes upon a kingdom not of this world. Nevertheless, his fate is a solemn lesson to kings on the value of integrity.

A second fault of Charles, of which the evidence is still less equivocal, and the mischief no less extensive, is the licentiousness connived at or at least tolerated by him in the manners of his court, and even of his particular friends. This fact stands

not only upon the assertion of his enemies but the admissions of his friends. Many concur in lamenting the licentiousness of the royal camps and courts. There indeed almost every loose character was to be found. And, though the personal character of the king was by no means such as to sanction these excesses, yet the re-issuing of the Book of Sports-the silence of the crown as to the too-general profligacy of manners-the admission to his court and even to his favour of the most profligate individuals-the immediate society placed round the young princes-all loudly proclaim the king's neutrality in the war of morals; his neglect to spread the wing of authority over those principles and men who would have been the champions of his throne and of his life in the approaching struggle. The evils which were likely to result, and which did in fact result, from this religious indifference were almost incalculable. It withdrew from him (may we not venture to say it?) the ægis of Divine protection -it drove devout men from his side -it hedged him in with persons incapable either of advising him or of calling out, by their virtues, the better and loftier feelings of his wavering subjects-it created in bis children those habits which dishonoured the life of the one, which accelerated the ruin of the other, and which finally transferred the crown to hands more worthy to possess it. Charles was one of those irresolute and inefficient ser vants of God who wrap up their talent in a napkin; who fancy that their business is alone to trim the little lamp of their own devotion, though, at the same time, all the fires of the sanctuary are extinguished by their criminal negligence. We can scarcely hope that our humble voice should ever reach the precincts of royalty: but if it could, our wish would be to repeat, by day and by night, the declaration of one who was a king himself: "I am a companion of all them that fear

thee." The best buttresses of a throne are, under God, those which are supplied by the breasts of a pious people. Directly these cease to yield their support, it may, at least in a free country, be expected to fall.

But we turn, secondly, to the faults of the Parliament of the Parliament, not considered as made up in part of the adherents of the army, but of that body especially who were, in the main, opposed to the mea sures of the army.

In the first place, then, we have no hesitation in condemning the Parliament for hastening to decide their contest with the King by arms, Without entering on the thorny question of the right of resistance, we think it enough to state, what the adherents of the Parliament do not now dispute, that the war was not then necessary to secure that free constitution of which the nation was in search. Charles was suffi ciently reduced in power, had alrea dy made such large concessions, and discovered a disposition to make so many more, that, unless, a complete revolution was meditated, the war was superfluous. And it is surely needless to prove, that a superfluous war is a criminal war.

This crime

then, we think, lies altogether at the door of the Parliament: of this blood they can never wash their hands, The guilt, therefore, of any subsequent acts of the assailed sovereign, as they sprang, in part, from circums stances into which they had plunged him is, at least, to be shared between the two parties. And his ultimate dethronement and death, however deprecated by these very men, are to be considered as natural consequences of a contest which originated chiefly with themselves.

But a second fault of the Parliament, and that, in fact, from which the first arose, was their speedy abandonment of the general and na tional object, for the pursuit of their private ends, and the establishment of their peculiar opinions. For a time, then, measures were such as it

is impossible not to commend; such as a nation had a right to expect, and might be rejoiced to find in its representatives. But soon these representatives began to secure their own perpetuity; to reward their own exertions; and to take measures for building the fabric of Presbyterianism out of the ruins of Episcopacy. All these measures were no thing short of iniquitous. To exchange an arbitrary monarch for a perpetual parliament was to exchange one tyrant for many. To make themselves the sole judges of their own deserts, and distributors of their own rewards, was to create a drain upon the national resources which nothing could satisfy. And, finally, to establish Presbyterianism on the foundation of Episcopacy was to force, upon all, the religion of a few-to plant the English vales with the Scottish thistle-to take from the party loving an establishment the only establishment they revered --and to force a detested establishment upon those who would endure no establishment at all. How fine a lesson is this for statesmen, on the duty of investigating their motives of plumbing the depth of their patriotism-of taking the guage of those highly rectified professions of independence and nationalityand of not mistaking for the banners of the nation the petty flag of private interest and party feeling! The Parliament certainly began well"-and, if it be asked, "What did hinder" them from pursuing their disinterested and illustrious career?—we answer: The conceit that power was safe only in their own hands-that unlimited power was safe in any hands-that the welfare of a country is not necessarily sacrificed when parliaments, as well as kings, begin to exhaust the general fountain of national resources, in order to replenish the petty dykes of private advantage.

We come, thirdly, to the faults of the army. Cromwell, from his credit with the religious body, from his

acquaintance with the heart of man, and consequent conviction of the suitableness of those elements which goto form the character of an enthusiast for the plans of innovation and subversion be had in view,-when once he had concerted these plans, most anxiously endeavoured to enlist inta the armies of the Parliament all the enthusiasm of the country. He knew it to be a burning weapon, and felt that he could give it the guidance he desired. But, even before his schemes were thus completely or ganized-partly the republican notions which are likely to ally themselves with certain modes of church discipline, and partly the dissolute character of the court, had, as we have said, collected the more devout part of the nation under the standard of the Parliament, Considering the army, then, in this point of view, is it not a matter of astonishment that they should be the chief agents of the revolution-that the bayonets of men, at once, Englishmen and Christians, should be stained with the bloodof their sovereign? Now it is almost certain that neither Cromwell nor his army originally conceived the design of subverting the throne and the church. us, then, in treating of the faults of this third party, endeavour to trace the causes by which they were led on to the perpetration of these crimes.

Let

In Cromwell himself, we conceive that the chief cause was the allowing himself to pursue secular ends under religious pretences. He ended, indeed, by deceiving others. But he began, probably, by deceiving himself. It was necessary, as he conceived, to the welfare of religion, that the king should be resisted. Accordingly he placed himself in the ranks of rebellion. Soon personal ambition combined itself with religious zeal; and he fought partly for Christ, and partly for Cromwell. Then all the ends necessary to religious liberty being secured-does he stop? No!-he has so identified the interests of

Cromwell with the interests of religion, that religion is not safe till the sceptre is transferred to his own hands. But his religious friends, and far less the nation at large, not attaching the same importance to his accession of power, he is driven to measures of hypocrisy, of low and detestable cunning, to compass his ends; and thus the enthusiast becomes the knave. O what a lesson is here, on the value of simplicity in religion-simplicity of principle, of object, of practice! There are those, who, especially considering the tenor of his religious creed, and the particular conversation with his chaplain on the bed of death, are disposed to attribute some portion of his crimes to his apparently unguarded and unqualified adoption of certain religious opinions. And perhaps the supposition is just. But, without dwelling upon hypothetical points, the practical lesson is, as we have said, full and important-su important indeed, that every man placed as a churchman, a writer, a legislator, or a soldier, within the sphere of ambition, with in the possibilities of honour and wealth, will do well, when prompted, even for a moment, to pursue high worldly objects under the pretence of religion, to remember Cromwell, and descend to safer and holier ground. We would not pursue the usurper beyond the grave. We would not presume to draw the veil, behind which the "High and Holy One" administers the justice and inflicts the awful penalties of his violated law. But if any one is disposed to view the results, even here, of a departure from Christian simplicity, let him survey the powerful picture drawn by the historian of the last years of Cromwell. We can scarcely read the last sentence of that celebrated description, without shuddering. "Society terrified him, while he reflected on his numerous, unknown, and implacable enemies; solitude astonished him, by withdrawing that protection which he found so necessary for his CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 150.

security." But let us speak, next, of the followers of Cromwell.

Their fault was this; that they freely surrendered themselves to the plots and crimes of those leaders who allowed the fullest licence, or rather gave the strongest impulse, to their own enthusiasm:-for let their case be examined. The army not only trampled on the matchless barriers to conceit and extravagance erected by the discipline and formularies of the Established Church: they resisted also, what they themselves esteemed the mild persuasion and holy eloquence of Baxter and others; of men, whom they could not suspect of blindness to the truth or indifference to liberty of conscience; whose " only fault," namely, their "non-conformity," was the very quality calculated to give them authority in their eyes. But they disdained the accents of sobriety, however allied and recommended. Moderation was the anti-Christ whom they abhorred. When Cromwell, therefore, availing him of this temporary phrenzy, fell in with their insanity, they at once lent themselves to his plans, and dipped the banner of the Cross in the blood of their country. If there should be any one of our readers, whether poor or rich, who is tempted to undervalue the apostles of a sober, temperate, practical, self-denying religion; to fancy that intemperance, is zeal; and presumption, faith; that he who pretends to see the farthest, is always the most clear-sighted; that moderation is timidity; that he who fans the fire of their own enthusiasm, is the safest adviser and friend;—we should counsel such persons to look to the history of these fearful times; to take a few turns in the front of Whitehall; to inquire for the window out of which the murdered Charles was dragged to execution, and to ask themselves, whether the spirit of their own proceedings would not have betrayed them into the perpetration of these acts of revolution and of blood; of apostacy from 3 D