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O, Cuddie, they are but in the court of the Gentiles, and will ne'er win farther ben, I doubt; they are but little better than the prelatists themsells.
It was a Sunday; but to rabble a congregation of prelatists was held to be a work of necessity and mercy. The worshippers were dispersed, beaten, and pelted with snowballs. It was indeed asserted that some wounds were inflicted with much more formidable weapons, Edinburgh, the seat of government, was in a state of anarchy.
Our inroad had the effect of checking the riot, but it simply did so by turning the fury of the zealots from the walls and windows to ourselves. Images, stone-work, and wood-carvings were all abandoned, and the whole swarm came rushing up with a hoarse buzz of rage, all discipline and order completely lost in their religious frenzy. 'Smite the Prelatists! they howled.
The population, as we know, consisted of three sections the numerous Independents and Sectaries; the multitudinous Presbyterians; and the suppressed and all but silenced Prelatists, or adherents of the old Church of England, What had been the signs from these three sections?
He granted an unbounded liberty of conscience to all but Catholics and Prelatists; and by that means he both attached the wild sectaries to his person, and employed them in curbing the domineering spirit of the Presbyterians. "I am the only man," he was often heard to say, "who has known how to subdue that insolent sect, which can suffer none but itself."
The violent Prelatists who were, to a man, zealous for prerogative, and the violent Puritans who were, to a man, zealous for the privileges of Parliament, regarded each other with animosity more intense than that which, in the preceding generation, had existed between Catholics and Protestants.
Not the less did the Presbyterians, with some Prelatists among them, undertake it themselves. -Coming after these authorities, and availing myself of their inquiries, but with other authorities to aid me, and as much of fresh investigation, and of criticism of my authorities, as I can add, I shall attempt what, even for our own forgetful and self-engrossed time, ought to be a not uninteresting portion of the history of bygone English opinion.
"Thou art one of those, who would reap where thou hast not sowed, and divide the spoil while others fight the battle thou art one of those that follow the gospel for the loaves and for the fishes that love their own manse better than the Church of God, and that would rather draw their stipends under prelatists or heathens, than be a partaker with those noble spirits who have cast all behind them for the sake of the Covenant."
The Prelatists, believing their interference would do harm, had remained in dumb horror: only Dr. John Gauden and Dr, Henry Hammond had ventured on protestations in the King's behalf, addressed to Fairfax and the Army Council. The Presbyterians, having more liberty in the way of speech, had certainly not been silent.
The partisans of a comprehension said, that the Presbyterians, as well as the Prelatists, having felt by experience the fatal effects of obstinacy and violence, were now well disposed towards an amicable agreement: that the bishops, by relinquishing some part of their authority, and dispensing with the most exceptionable ceremonies, would so gratify their adversaries as to obtain their cordial and affectionate compliance, and unite the whole nation in one faith and one worship: that by obstinately insisting on forms, in themselves insignificant, an air of importance was bestowed on them, and men were taught to continue equally obstinate in rejecting them: that the Presbyterian clergy would go every reasonable length, rather than, by parting with their livings, expose themselves to a state of beggary, at best of dependence: and that if their pride were flattered by some seeming alterations, and a pretence given them for affirming that they had not abandoned their former principles, nothing further was wanting to produce a thorough union between those two parties, which comprehended the bulk of the nation.
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