"If then the Scots became such losers by the bargain, (as most sure they did,) as sure it is that their dear brethren in the cause of Presbytery, the Puritans or Presbyterians in the realm of England, got as little by it. The English Puritans laid their heads and hands together to embroil the realm, out of a confidence, that, having alienated the greatest part of the tribes from the house of David, they might advance the golden calves of their Presbyteries, in Dan and Bethel, and all other places whatsoever within the land. And for the maintenance thereof, they had devoured (in conceit) all chapter-lands, and parcelled them amongst themselves into augmentations.* But no sooner had they driven this bargain, but a vote passed for selling those lands towards the payment of the debts of the commonwealth. Nor have they lived to see their dear Presbytery settled, or their lay-elders entertained in any one parish of the kingdom. For the advancement whereof, the Scots were first encouraged to begin at home, and afterwards to pursue their work by invading England.

Nor fared it better with those great Achitophels of the popular party, who laboured in the raising of a new commonwealth, out of the ruins of a glorious and ancient monarchy. To which end they employed the Presbyterians, as the fittest instruments for drawing the people to their side, and preaching up the piety of their intentions; which plot they had been carrying on from the first coming of this King to the crown of England, till they had got his sacred person into their possession: Which made them a fit parallel to those husband-men in St. Matthew's gospel, (Matt. xxi. 38.) who said amongst themselves,This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.' A commonwealth which they had founded, and so modelled in their brains, that neither Sir Thomas More's Utopia, nor the Lord Verulam's new Atlantis, nor Plato's Platform, nor any of the old ideas, were equal to it: through the kingdom, and determined all matters of right by the rules and customs which were observed in England. They had liberty to send a particular number that was assigned to them,to sit in the Parliament of England, and to vote there with all liberty; which they had done. And in recompence thereof, all such monies were levied in Scotland, as were given by the Parliament of England, by which such contributions were raised, as were proportionable to the expense, which the army and garrisons which subdued them put the kingdom of England to. Nor was there any other authority to raise money in Scotland, but what was derived from the Parliament or General of England. And all this prodigious mutation and transformation had been submitted to with the same resignation and obedience, as if the same had been transmitted by an uninterrupted succession from King Fergus: And it might well be a question, whether the generality of the nation was not better contented with it, than to return into the old road of subjection. But the King would not build according to Cromwell's models, aud had many reasons to continue Scotland within its own limits and bounds and sole dependence upon himself, rather than unite it to England with so many hazards and dangers as would inevitably have accompanied it, under any government less tyrannical than that of Cromwell." CLARENDON'S Life. See a note from Baxter, page 331.

The honours and offices whereof, they had distributed amongst themselves, and their own dependents. But having brought the King (though, as it chanced, by other hands) to the end [to which] they aimed, and being intent on nothing more than the dividing of that rich prey amongst themselves, gratifying one another with huge sums of money, and growing fat on the revenues of the crown and the lands of the church, and guarded as they thought by invincible armies, they were upon a sudden scattered like the dust before the wind, turned out of all, and publicly exposed to contempt and scorn.* All which was done so easily, with so little noise, that the loss of that exorbitant power did not cost so much as a broken head, or a bloody nose; in pur

This wonderful change was indeed the Lord's doing and it was marvellous in the eyes of the whole nation. That great and wise man, the Earl of Clarendon, alludes to this singular interposition of Providence in the following pious strain: "The easy and glorious reception of the King, in the manner that hath been mentioned, without any other conditions than what bad been frankly offered by himself in his Declaration and letters from Breda; the Parliament's casting themselves in a body at his feet, in the minute of his arrival at Whitehall, with all the professions of duty and submission imaginable; and no man having authority there, but they who had either eminently served the late King, or who were since grown up out of their nonage from such fathers, and had thoroughly manifested their fast fidelity to his present Majesty; the rest who had been enough criminal, shewing more animosity towards the severe punishment of those who having more power in the late times had exceeded them in mischief, than care for their own indemnity: This temper sufficiently evident, and the universal joy of the people, which was equally visible, for the total suppression of all those who had so many years exercised tyranny over them, made most men believe both abroad and at home, that God had not only restored the King miraculously to his throne, but that he had, as he did in the time of Hezekiah, prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly, (2 Chron. xxix, 36.) in such a manner, that his authority and greatness would have been more illustrious, than it had been in any of his ancestors. And it is most true, and must never be denied, that the people were admirably disposed and prepared to pay all the subjection, duty and obedience, that a just and prudent king could expect from them, and had a very sharp aversion and detestation of all those who had formerly misled and corrupted them; so that, except the General, who seemed to be possessed entirely of the affection of the army, and whose fidelity was now above any misapprehension, there appeared no man whose power and interest could in any degree shake or endanger the peace and security the King was in; the congratulations for his return being so universal from all the counties of England, as well as from the Parliament and city; from all those who had most signally disserved and disclaimed him, as well as from those of his own party and those who were descended from them: Insomuch as the King was wont merrily to say, as hath been mentioned before, that it could be nobody's fault but his own, that he had stayed so long abroad, when all mankind wished him so heartily at home.'

The brief remark which he immediately subjoins, is likewise worthy of consideration: "It cannot therefore but be concluded by the standers by, and the spectators of this wonderful change and exclamation of all degrees of men, that there must be some wonderful miscarriages in the State, or some unheard of defect of understanding in those who were trusted by the King in the administration of his affairs; that there could in so short a time be a new revolution in the general affections of the people, that they grew even weary of that happiness they were possessed of and had so much valued, and fell into the same discontents and murmurings which had naturally accompanied them in the worst times."

chasing whereof, they had wasted so many millions of treasure, and more than one hundred thousand lives."

Dr. Heylin has stated the period when his Majesty was taken into custody by the army, in whose power he remained a year and a half before he was executed. Another old historian thus relates that sad catastrophe and some of the causes which preceded it:

"Every public action of the King or his ministers being misinterpreted, combinations were held between the factious English and discontented Scots; whose begging-time being over at Court, they bethink of coming to plunder the country. The faction gives out, that the King had deserted the Protestants of the Palatinate and France, when the truth is, they had deserted him. The Bishops in their visitations were every where opposed, and the troublesome taught how to elude all church-obligations by common law, By a general odium cast upon all acts of government, and a perverse spirit of discontent, fears and jealousies, raised throughout the three kingdoms, and vehemently possessing all sorts of people; by the necessities of the King and some foreign troubles; by the treachery of some that had the management of the affairs of Scotland; that which was at first but a n opinion, after that a book-controversy, (and which never durst look beyond a motion, a petition, a supplication, a conference, a disputation, and some private murmurings at best,) became now

a war.

"The cause whereof, on the one side, was an old schism maintained; men's private interests promoted; rebellion, that sin like witchcraft; the overthrow of all laws and government; the ruin of learning, religion and order; the piecing-up of broken estates by rapine and plunder; an ambition to attain to those honours and preferments in troublesome times, that they despaired of in those more quiet, as derived on persons of more worth and deserving; a canting pretence for liberty of conscience and of the subject, that proved at last nothing but licentiousness; the umbrage of the public good, when it appeared at last but the project of private persons, who no sooner overthrew the government but they quarrelled one with another; till at last, instead of one good government, we had so many that we had none at all; and, instead of an excellent king, all the blood, treasures and pretences ended in a sordid, base, bloody, tyrannical and upstart usurper, raised out of the meanest of the people; a revenge of some particular and personal wrongs, with the ruin of the public; the setting up of sects, schisms and heresies upon

"Riddles! Cromwell, Whalley, Ireton, &c. and the army, weep and grieve, (but the hyæna weeps when it intends to devour,) at the hard conditions the houses put upon him; and the houses are displeased with the army's hard usage of him: And yet both ruin him, the one bringing him to the block and holding him there by the hair of the head, and the other cutting off his head. The Scots durst not trust the cavaliers with him; nor the

the subversion of the established doctrine and discipline; a perpetual disgrace and dishonour to christianity and the English nation, occasioning such burdens and mischiefs as the child unborn may rue; burdens and mischiefs conveyed from them to late posterity: The desolation of the country; the ruin of gallant churches, castles and cities; the undoing of some thousands of families; the blood of 80,000 killed on both sides and on all occasions; an unnatural division and animosity begun even among relations, that is like to last from generation to generation; abominable canting; taking of the name of God in vain ; hypocrisy; perjury against the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, the protestation, yea, against the covenant which they took themselves, and all the obligations they owed to God or man; the mocking of God by fasts, prayers, and seeking of his face to wicked and vile purposes; the making of him the author of the abominations he abhors; the making of religion only a cloak to villainies; and all the ordinances of it, especially sermons and sacraments, the ministries of horrid undertakings; filling pulpits with such nonsense and lies as all ears that heard tingled; such encouragement to loose fancies and vile opinions, to enlarge and increase their party, as left not unshaken any foundation in the whole compass of Christian religion; a sacrilege unheard of, that was to swallow up all bishops' and deans' and chapters' lands, all tithes and ministers' maintenance, all universities and public schools, all hospitals, colleges and charitable foundations; a rapine that carried away all the crown revenue, and sent a great royal family a-begging; devoured the estates of above 12000 noblemen, gentlemen and persons of eminent quality; and indeed left no man so much propriety as to say, This is mine, there being no other law or judicature than that arbitrary Houses, the Scots: nor the army, the Houses; nor the Junto, all the army; nor N. the Junto, being never safe till he put his finger into the royal neck, to see, after execution, whether the head were really severed from the body. All the quarrel was, that the Cavaliers kept the King from the Parliament; and the meaning of this, it seems, was, that they kept him from the block.

"A Prince they destroyed that they durst not despise, all the grandees in the army not daring to own the least murtherous thoughts towards him publicly, when they set agitators, that is, two active soldiers out of every regiment in the army, (now modelled into such desperate sects and villainies,) to consult about the horrid fact in private, and to draw a bloody paper, as the Agreement of the People, which was but a conspiracy of traitors; Cromwell assuring the King, as he had a soul,that he should be restored; and his son Ireton at the same time drawing up a remonstrance that he should die. The army treat him like a prince; and that they might deceive his devout soul the more securely, allow him the service of his chaplains, and the liberty of his conscience, (the greatest enjoyments left him in this world,) with a design the more successfully to use him like a traitor. Ah brave prince! that none durst have abused, had they owned what they designed; whom the Houses had saved, had they not been cajoled by the army; and the army, had it not been cajoled by the Houses. The King granted too much,' saith Sir Harry Vane to him at the Isle of Wight; ' and too little,' saith the same man to the Houses; and the King must die, when, whatsoever they asked, they meant his LIFE." LLOYD'S Worthies.

one of the sword; carrying on of the public good till the nation was beggared; a crying up of the power of parliaments, till the House of Lords was laid by, and the house of Commons, (consisting of almost five hundred gentlemen,) reduced to fifty or sixty mechanics and poor fellows, who are turned out by their own army as a pack of knaves and fools; a pretence to make the king glorious till he was murdered, and fighting for him against evil counsellors till they cut off his head,-the best counsellor he had ;* the rendering of a nation, once the envy and terror of the

"The Prefacer owns, "That travelling has hitherto been so mischievous, 'that it is well it has been so little in fashion. Such worthy men as are employ'ed abroad may bring home geuerous notions of liberty, and make admirable ' remarks on the contrary state: which being inculcated from the pulpit, and enforced by the learned arguments of able divines, must needs over'throw those servile opinions, which of late have been too much backed by 'God's authority, almost to the ruin of a free people.' Here we have before us a true platform of our author's grand design: together with an exact delineation of the manner and conduct of the villainy through all its steps and gradations. This was the darling method which the Rabbis of the Separation used heretofore, to new-plant the gospel and to pull down the High Places of the church and monarchy together. The project was first set on foot by English and Scotch travellers; who, having unhappily sojourned awhile at Frankfort, and in the strange land of Geneva, became bewitched at length with the charms of a new discipline: Upon a return home, they made such a pother with fantastical notions of liberty, and such pert remarks upon the admirable constitutions of the English Church, that the whole nation soon rang with the jingle of reformation. Innovations, grievances and disobedience to rulers, were inculcated from the pulpit, and the multitude rendered uneasy both to their governors and themselves, by calumnies, scruples, and such like arguments of good and able divines. The authority of magistrates was blasted and run down by the fair and specious pretensions of a free people; and Christian loyalty, patience and submission were quite dashed out of countenance by the horrible outcry of dangerous and slavish opinions. Never was any black and infamous project so graduated along with good names; nor the power of godliness so stifled with inward suggestions of the Spirit. "The ring-leaders of the faction drew the rabble after them with the hallowed whistle of conscience and inspiration; with prayers unmerciful, clevation of hands and voices, and eyes lifted up to heaven: while their hearts were fixt on sacrilege and rapine (that inheritance of the saints) and other creature comforts here below. The tickling of wanton and itching,ears was called touching the conscience;' and he was thought the fittest champion to sacrifice Antichrist to the beasts of the field and fowls of the air, that could boldly and fluently utter the most edifying nonsense. They caught the simple, even all the sons and daughters of the separation, with the witchcraft of rebellion at last; as once a pied piper drew children after him, with the unaccountable strains of magic and enchantments. And after they had run through the various stages of heterodoxy and schism, liberty and insurrection, prophaneness and blasphemy, plunder and devastation; they completed their reformation in the ruin of the church and state, the depression of the nobility, selling the gentry for slaves, the exaltation of sovereign mob, and the murder of the best of princes.

"I do verily believe, (and surely the black annals of those unhappy times have put it beyond all question,) that if all the religious barbarities and executions which were acted by those who are now sainted up to everlasting rest, and, as it were, conjured to heaven by the republican chaplains of those times; if all the consequences too, under which the whole reformation groans at this very day, could be represented at once unto the view; it would be the most sad and astonishing sight, the most tremendous object of horror and