CROMWELL’S DOMESTIC POLICY
1654–1658
Cromwell came into power as the nominee of the army, and in domestic
affairs the programme which he set himself to carry out was that which
the army had set forth in its petitions and manifestoes. For the moment
he was invested with all the authority of a dictator. According to the
“Instrument of Government,” the first triennial Parliament was to meet
in September, 1654, and in the interval the Protector and his Council
were empowered to issue ordinances, which had the force of law “until
order shall be taken in Parliament concerning them.” Cromwell made a
liberal use of this provision, and the period of nine months which
followed his accession was the creative period of his government.
Between December, 1653, and September, 1654, he issued eighty-two
ordinances, nearly all of which were confirmed in 1656 by his second
Parliament. Hallam, in a disparaging comparison between Cromwell and
Napoleon, concludes by saying that Cromwell, unlike Napoleon, “never
showed any signs of a legislative mind, or any desire to fix his renown
on that noblest basis, the amelioration of social institutions.” In
reality, nothing could be farther from the truth, and if Cromwell’s
reforming zeal has left no trace on the statute book, the reason is that
all the laws passed during the Protectorate were annulled at the
Restoration.
All the leading principles of Cromwell’s domestic policy are contained
in the small folio volume of his ordinances. A few are merely
prolongations of expiring acts, others are personal or local in their
application. There is an ordinance for the relief of poor prisoners,
another codifying the law relating to the maintenance of highways, and
there are three devoted to the reorganisation of the Treasury. The
settlement of Ireland and Scotland, and the completion of the union of
the three kingdoms, which the Long Parliament had left unfinished, form
the subject of a third series. But none exhibit so plainly the
Protector’s domestic policy as the three sets of ordinances dealing with
the reform of the Law, the reformation of manners, and the
reorganisation of the national Church.
Ever since 1647, the army had demanded that the laws of England should
be so reformed, “that all suits and questions of right may be made more
clear and certain in their issues, and not so tedious nor chargeable in
their proceedings.” The Long Parliament took the task in hand, made some
slight progress, and then stuck fast. The Little Parliament attempted it
with so much rude vigour that it seemed likely to end in the subversion
of all law. The Protector took up the work where the Long Parliament
left off, and persistently pursued it as long as he ruled.
Cromwell realised its difficulty. “If any man,” he once said, “should
ask me, ‘Why, how will you have it done?’ I confess I do not know.” All
he could do was to select the best men for the purpose, and to leave
them a free hand. Therefore he applied to the lawyers to co-operate,
“being resolved to give the learned of the robe the honour of reforming
their profession,” and hoping “that God will give them hearts to do it.”
His chief assistant was Matthew Hale, who was made a judge by the
Protector early in 1654. At the opening of Parliament in September,
1654, Cromwell announced that the Government had called together
“persons of as great ability and great interest as are in the nation, to
consider how the laws might be made plain and short, and less chargeable
to the people,” and that they had prepared several bills. The most
important of these schemes was the ordinance for the regulation of the
Court of Chancery, published August 21, 1654, and confirmed by
Parliament in 1656. It contained a reduced scale of fees, and embodied,
according to modern lawyers, many valuable reforms. Contemporary
practitioners, such as Whitelocke, held that there was much in the new
procedure which it was impossible or undesirable to carry out, but with
some subsequent modifications it was duly put in force.
Cromwell was equally zealous for the reform of the Criminal Law. In
April, 1653, as soon as he had turned out the Long Parliament, he gave
pardons to all prisoners sentenced to death except those guilty of
murder. His object was to make the laws “conformable to the just and
righteous laws of God.” Some English laws, he told Parliament, were
“wicked and abominable laws.”
“To hang a man for six and eightpence and I know not what—to hang
for a trifle and acquit murder, is in the ministration of the law
through ill framing of it.... To see men lose their lives for petty
matters is a thing God will reckon, and I wish it may not be laid on
this nation a day longer than you have opportunity to give a
remedy.”
To carry out these schemes required not merely the help of lawyers to
devise them, but the co-operation of Parliament to make them law. The
Protector’s first Parliament spent all its time in constitutional
debates, and did nothing to reform the Law. His second, busy most of its
existence in the like manner, discussed the bills introduced by the
Government for the establishment of county registers and local courts,
but allowed them to drop. It completed the abolition of feudal incidents
which the Long Parliament had commenced, and which Charles II.’s
Parliament finally placed on the statute book, but it left the harshness
and cruelty of the criminal code for the nineteenth century to redress.
The “Reformation of Manners” was an object in which the Protector
obtained more support from Parliament. All Puritans were eager for it,
and the Long Parliament had made a beginning by acts enjoining the
stricter observance of Sunday, punishing swearing with greater severity,
and making adultery a capital offence. Of the Protector’s ordinances,
one declared duelling “unpleasing to God, unbecoming Christians, and
contrary to all good order and government.” A person sending a challenge
was to be bound over to keep the peace for six months, and a duellist
who killed his opponent was to be tried for murder. A second ordinance
supplemented the act against swearing by special provisions for the
punishment of carmen, porters, and watermen, “who are very ordinarily
drunk and do blaspheme.” A third forbade cock-fighting, because it often
led to disturbances of the peace and was accompanied by gaming and
drunkenness. A fourth suppressed horse-racing for six months, not
because of its accompaniments, but because the Cavaliers made use of
race-meetings “to carry on their pernicious designs.”
When Cromwell’s second Parliament met, he appealed to it to further the
work.
“I am confident,” said he, “our liberty and prosperity depend upon
reformation. Make it a shame to see men bold in sin and profaneness
and God will bless you. Truly these things do respect the souls of
men, and the spirits, which are the men. The mind is the man. If
that be kept pure the man signifies somewhat; if not, I would very
fain see what difference there is betwixt him and a beast. He hath
only some activity to do some more mischief.”
Parliament answered by confirming the ordinances against duelling,
swearing, and cock-fighting, and passing similar acts of its own. One
was directed against the vagrants and “idle, dissolute” persons who
abounded in all parts of the country. Amongst them, “the bigots of that
iron time” included fiddlers and minstrels taken “playing or making
music” in taverns, who were declared punishable as “rogues and
vagabonds.” A second act was aimed at the professional gamesters about
London, who made it their trade “to cheat and debauch the young gentry.”
A third act enforced the Puritan Sabbath in all its severity. On that
day, no shops might be opened and no manufactures carried on. No
travelling was to be allowed, except in cases of necessity attested by a
certificate from a justice, and persons “vainly and profanely walking on
the day aforesaid” were to be punished. Sunday closing was the rule for
all inns and alehouses, though the dressing or sale of victuals in a
moderate way, “for the use of such as cannot otherwise be provided for,”
was permitted.
Much of this drastic legislation was ineffective. In some cases it went
far beyond the feeling of the times. Juries steadily refused to convict
persons charged with adultery under the act of 1650, and it is doubtful
whether the capital penalty was ever actually inflicted. In many places,
the local authorities were indifferent or timid. “We may have good
laws,” said the Protector, “against the common country disorders that
are everywhere, yet who is to execute them?” Hardly the country
justices. “A justice of the peace shall by most be wondered at as an
owl, if he go but one step out of the ordinary course of his fellow
justices in the reformation of these things.” Hence the value in
Cromwell’s eyes of the Major-Generals established throughout England in
the autumn of 1655. They were not simply military officers charged to
keep an eye on the political enemies of the government, but police
magistrates required to repress crime and immorality in their respective
districts. Pride put a stop to bear-baiting in London by killing the
bears, and to cock-fighting by wringing the necks of the cocks. Whalley
boasted, after he had been a few months in office, that there were no
vagrants left in Nottinghamshire, and in every county his colleagues
suppressed unnecessary alehouses by the score. Nor was it only humble
offenders who were struck at: neither the rich nor the noble escaped the
impartial severity of these military reformers. “Let them be who they
may that are debauched,” said Cromwell, “it is for the glory of God that
nothing of outward consideration should save them from a just punishment
and reformation.” He claimed that the establishment of the
Major-Generals had been “more effectual towards the discountenancing of
vice and the settling of religion than anything done these fifty years.”
Their rule ended in the spring of 1657, and Cromwell feared that the
work of reformation would come to a stop. But the experiment had infused
new vigour into the local administration, which lasted as long as the
Protectorate endured.
In spite of these restrictive laws, it must not be imagined that there
was any general suppression of public amusements or sports. “Lawful and
laudable recreations” even Puritans encouraged. In 1647, when the Long
Parliament prohibited the observation of Christmas and of saints’ days
in general, it passed an act giving servants, apprentices, and scholars
a whole holiday once a month, for “recreation and relaxation from their
constant and ordinary labours.” The Protector himself hunted, hawked,
and played bowls, just as if he had been a Royalist country-gentleman.
He told Parliament that he suppressed race-meetings not because they
were unlawful, but because they were temporarily inexpedient. With all
his zeal for Sunday closing, the suppression of unnecessary alehouses,
and the punishment of drunkenness, it never occurred to him to stop the
sale of drink altogether. He drank wine and small beer himself, and
quoted as illogical and absurd “the man who would keep all wine out of
the country lest men should be drunk.” The idea was contrary to his
conception of civil freedom. “It will be found,” he said, “an unjust and
unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a
supposition he may abuse it. When he doth abuse it, judge.”
In the moral crusade he had undertaken, the Protector relied not so much
on restrictive legislation as on the influence of education and
religion. It was to their defective education that he attributed much of
the misconduct of the “profane nobility and gentry of this nation.” “We
send our children to France,” he said, “before they know God or good
manners, and they return with all the licentiousness of that nation.
Neither care taken to educate them before they go, or to keep them in
good order when they come home.” As a party, the Puritans showed a great
zeal for education, and the pamphlet literature of the time is full of
schemes for its reformation or extension. In these discussions, the
modern conception of the duty of the State with regard to education
gradually took shape. While the plan of education which Milton published
in 1644 was intended only for “a select body of our noble and gentle
youth,” in 1660, he advocated the foundation of schools in all parts of
the nation, in order to spread knowledge, civility, and culture to “all
extreme parts which now lie numb and neglected.” In his _Oceana_,
Harrington asserted that the formation of future citizens by means of a
system of free schools was one of the chief duties of a republic.
As usually happens, practical men lagged behind the theorists, but
during the Commonwealth a portion of the revenue of confiscated Church
lands was systematically devoted to the maintenance of schools and
schoolmasters. The Protector pursued the same policy, and publicly
declared when appropriating a grant for educational purposes in
Scotland, that it was “a duty not only to have the Gospel set up, but
schools for children erected and maintenance provided therefor.” His
government undertook the task of ejecting incapable schoolmasters and of
licensing persons fit to teach. It made the proper administration of
educational endowments in general a part of its business, and one of
Cromwell’s earliest ordinances appointed fresh commissioners for the
visitation of the universities, and established a permanent board of
visitors for the great public schools. Personally, he was far more
interested in the reorganisation of the universities than in primary or
secondary education. He vigorously defended them against the attacks of
the zealots of the Little Parliament who threatened their disendowment
or abolition. In 1651, he had been elected Chancellor of Oxford, and
held that office till July, 1657, when he was succeeded by his son
Richard, signalizing his connection with the university by the
foundation of a new readership in Divinity, and the presentation of some
Greek manuscripts to the Bodleian. He appointed John Owen his
Vice-Chancellor, under whose efficient rule Oxford prospered greatly.
Even Clarendon is forced to admit that in spite of visitations and
purgings the university “yielded a harvest of extraordinary good and
sound knowledge in all parts of learning.”
The Protector also endeavoured to found a new university in the north of
England. There was a widespread feeling that the two existing
universities were not enough for the country. In 1641, petitions were
presented praying for the foundation of a university at York or
Manchester, and later it was proposed to establish one in London. In
1651, Cromwell strongly recommended the endowment of a school or college
for all the sciences and literature, out of the property of the Dean and
Chapter of Durham. The scheme, he wrote, was “a matter of great
concernment and importance, as that which by the blessing of God may
conduce to the promoting of learning and piety in these poor, rude,
ignorant parts,” and bring forth in time “such happy and glorious fruits
as are scarce thought of or foreseen.” But Parliament did nothing, and
it was reserved for Oliver himself to found a college at Durham in 1657,
which throve greatly until the Restoration put an end to its existence.
The Protector encouraged learned men and men of letters. With his
relative, the poet Waller, he was on terms of considerable intimacy; he
allowed Hobbes and Cowley, both Royalists, to return from exile, and he
released Cleveland when he was arrested by one of the Major-Generals,
although Cleveland’s fame rested mainly on satires against the Puritans.
Milton and Marvell were in Cromwell’s service as Latin secretaries, and
he also employed Marvell as tutor to one of his wards. Brian Walton was
assisted in the printing of his Polyglot Bible, and Archbishop Ussher
was honoured by a public funeral.
But both learning and education were, in Cromwell’s eyes, inseparably
connected with religion. When he accepted the Chancellorship he
congratulated Oxford on the learning and piety “so marvellously
springing up there,” adding a hope that it might be “useful to that
great and glorious kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Thinking that the
chief function of the universities was to provide ministers for the
Church, he held piety more important than learning. “I believe,” he told
his Parliament, five years later, “that God hath for the ministry a very
great seed in the youth of the universities, who, instead of studying
books, study their own heart.” Cromwell’s desire to develop higher
education, and his defence of the universities against their assailants,
were the natural consequences of his resolve to maintain a national
Church against those who wished to sever the connection between Church
and State. On this question, the army, as a whole, supported Cromwell.
In the “Agreement of the People,” presented to Parliament in 1649, the
army had demanded that “the Christian religion be held forth and
recommended as the public profession of this nation,” and it included
“the instructing of the people thereunto, so it be not compulsive,” and
“the maintaining able teachers for that end,” amongst the legitimate
functions of the government. These principles had been embodied in the
“Instrument of Government,” and the duty of devising means to carry them
out fell to the Protector.
The first question to be decided was the question of the maintenance of
the clergy. The Little Parliament had proposed to abolish tithes
altogether, and in the “Instrument of Government” the substitution of
some other provision was suggested. As no satisfactory scheme for the
commutation of tithes could be devised, Cromwell felt bound to preserve
them. “For my part,” said he, “I should think I were very treacherous if
I took away tithes till I see the legislative power settle maintenance
to ministers another way.” To abolish tithes before that was done, would
be “to cut the throats of the ministers.” Under the Protectorate, as
under the rule of the Long Parliament, it was the permanent policy of
the government to increase the income of the parochial clergy. The
endowments of poor livings were systematically augmented out of the fund
supplied by episcopal lands and the fines imposed on royalist
delinquents.
The basis of the Protector’s plan for the reorganisation of the Church
was the scheme which John Owen had presented to the Long Parliament in
1652. On March 20, 1654, Cromwell issued an ordinance “for the
approbation of public preachers,” which appointed thirty-eight
commissioners, lay and clerical, to sit permanently in London and
examine into the qualifications of all candidates for livings. Their
business was to certify that they found the candidate “to be a person
for the grace of God in him, his holy and unblamable conversation, as
also for his knowledge and utterance, able and fit to preach the
Gospel,” and without obtaining this certificate no one was in future to
be admitted to a benefice. The commissioners were not empowered to
impose any doctrinal tests, and it was expressly declared that
approbation by them “is not intended nor shall be construed to be any
solemn or sacred setting apart of any person to any particular office in
the ministry.” All that the “Triers” undertook to do was to see that
none but fit and proper persons should receive “the public stipend and
maintenance” guaranteed by the State.
After provision for the appointment of the fit, came provision for the
elimination of the unfit. A second ordinance, issued in August, 1654,
appointed local commissioners in every county to remove scandalous and
inefficient ministers and schoolmasters within its limits. Amongst the
reasons which justified ejection were included not merely immoral
conduct or Popish and blasphemous opinions, but disaffection to the
government and the use of the Prayer-book. In September, the work was
completed by a third ordinance for the union of small and the division
of large and populous parishes.
Cromwell’s speeches are full of expressions of satisfaction at the
results that these ordinances produced. He was proud of the character of
his clergy. “In the times of Episcopacy,” said he, “what pitiful
certificates served to make a man a minister. If any man understood
Latin or Greek, he was sure to be admitted.” But now, “neither Mr.
parson nor doctor in the university hath been reckoned stamp enough by
those that made these approbations, though I can say they have a great
esteem for learning.” The rule with the Triers was, “that they must not
admit a man unless they were able to discern something of the grace of
God in him.”
He was equally proud of the comprehensiveness of the Church. There were
“three sorts of godly men,” that is, three sects, to be provided for in
it: the Presbyterians, the Independents, and the Baptists. The Triers
were drawn impartially from all three bodies, and “though a man be of
any of those three judgments, if he have the root of the matter in him
he may be admitted.” Summing up the work of the Triers and Ejectors, he
emphatically declared: “There hath not been such a service to England
since the Christian religion was perfect in England.”
In the main, Cromwell’s satisfaction was justified. Both bodies of
commissioners did the work they were charged to do with fidelity. Some
good men were expelled merely for royalism or using the liturgy, but the
bulk of those who lost their livings deserved their fate, and those
admitted were generally fit for their office. The Presbyterian Richard
Baxter, an opponent on principle of Cromwell and his works, felt bound
to praise the commissioners:
“To give them their due, they did abundance of good to the Church.
They saved many a congregation from ignorant, ungodly, drunken
teachers. That sort of men that intended no more in the ministry
than to say a sermon as readers say their common prayers, and so
patch up a few good words together to talk the people asleep with on
Sunday, and all the rest of the week go with them to the alehouse
and harden them in sin; and that sort of ministers that either
preached against a holy life, or preached as men that were never
acquainted with it; all those that used the ministry but as a common
trade to live by, and were never likely to convert a soul:—all these
they usually rejected, and in their stead admitted of any that were
able, serious preachers, and lived a godly life, of what tolerable
opinion soever they were. So that though they were many of them
somewhat partial for Independents, Separatists, Fifth Monarchy-men,
and Anabaptists, and against the Prelatists and Arminians, yet so
great was the benefit above the hurt to the Church, that many
thousands of souls blessed God for the faithful ministers whom they
let in.”
Outside the bounds of the national Church, the constitution promised
liberty of worship to “all such as do profess faith in God by Jesus
Christ.” Anglicanism and Catholicism, however, labelled Prelacy and
Popery, and regarded as idolatrous or politically dangerous, were
excepted by name from this promise. In practice, although the use of the
liturgy had been prohibited since 1645, many orthodox Anglicans had
contrived to retain their livings, sometimes using portions of the
Prayer-book from memory, in other cases confining themselves to
preaching and to the administration of the sacraments. Many ejected
ministers gathered little congregations in private houses, and were not
molested by the Government. The royalist insurrection of 1655 led to
greater severity, and in October, 1655, Cromwell issued a proclamation
prohibiting the employment of the ejected clergy as chaplains or
schoolmasters. It was meant as a warning, rather than to be rigidly
enforced, and the promise was made that any man whose “godliness and
good affection to the present government” were capable of proof should
be treated with tenderness. Congregations of Royalists continued to meet
in London throughout the Protectorate, and the Government winked at
their use of Anglican services and ceremonies. But whenever there was a
new plot discovered, their meetings were liable to be interrupted by the
soldiery.
The case of the Catholics was harder than that of the Anglicans,
although their lot was less hard than it had been. In 1650, the acts
imposing fines on recusants for not coming to church were repealed, and
there were persistent rumours that the Independents were about to make
proposals for their toleration. In June, 1654, a Catholic priest was
executed in London for no crime except being a priest. Cromwell, it is
said, wished to pardon him, but was prevented by the opposition of his
Council. In 1656, Mazarin urged Cromwell to grant toleration to the
Catholics.
“I cannot,” answered the Protector, “as to a public declaration of
my sense on that point; although I believe that under my government
your Eminency on behalf of the Catholics has less cause for
complaint than under the Parliament. For I have of some and those
very many had compassion, making a difference. I have plucked many
out of the fire,—the raging fire of persecution, which did tyrannise
over their consciences and encroach by arbitrariness of power over
their estates. And herein it is my purpose, as soon as I can remove
impediments and some weights that press me down, to make a further
progress, and discharge my promise to your Eminence.”
The Protector’s purpose was never fulfilled. Public opinion in England
was too hostile to the Catholics to permit of their legal toleration,
and the same thing happened when Cromwell wished to readmit the Jews to
England. In November, 1655, Manasseh Ben Israel, a learned Portuguese
Jew, settled in Amsterdam as a physician, petitioned the Protector to
allow the Jews to reside and trade in England, and to grant them the
free exercise of their religion. Cromwell, who was personally in favour
of their petition, called together a committee of divines, merchants,
and lawyers to confer with the Council on the question. The Protector
himself took part in the conferences. “I never heard a man speak so
well,” said one of his hearers, but the divines feared for their
religion and the merchants for their trade, so the legal toleration the
Jews asked for was not granted. Cromwell, however, granted them leave to
meet in private houses for devotion, and showed them such encouragement
and favour that their resettlement in England really dates from the
Protectorate.
The Protector’s tolerant nature showed itself again in his dealings with
the Quakers. Under the Commonwealth, the Quakers were persecuted and
imprisoned, not simply because their opinions were regarded as
blasphemous, but because they were held dangerous to the public peace.
Their attacks on the clergy and their misconduct and brawling in
churches gave colour to these accusations. Under the Protectorate, this
persecution continued, till it was mitigated by the intervention of the
Protector and his Council. In 1654, George Fox had a long interview with
the Protector. “I spake much to him,” writes Fox, “of truth; and a great
discourse I had with him about religion, wherein he carried himself very
moderately.” The earnestness and enthusiasm of Fox impressed Cromwell
greatly. “As I spake, he would several times say, it was very good, and
it was truth. And as I was turning to go away, he catches me by the
hand, and with tears in his eyes, said: ‘Come again to my house; for if
thou and I were but an hour of a day together we should be nearer one to
the other’; adding, that he wished me no more ill than he did to his own
soul.” Convinced that the Quakers were not inclined to “take up a carnal
sword” against his government, the Protector ordered Fox to be set free,
and in October, 1656, he released a number of imprisoned Quakers. Again
in November, 1657, he issued a general circular to all justices in
England and Wales, stating that though he was far from countenancing the
mistaken practices or principles of the Quakers, yet as those proceeded
“rather from a spirit of error than a malicious opposition to
authority,” they were “to be pitied, and dealt with as persons under a
strong delusion,” to be discharged from prison, and to be treated in the
future with tenderness rather than severity.
Yet tolerant as Cromwell was, there were limits to his toleration, and
certain opinions he regarded as outside the pale. The Instrument refused
liberty to “such as under the profession of Christ hold forth and
practise licentiousness” and the Petition and Advice added to them those
who “published horrible blasphemies.”
“As for profane persons,” said Cromwell, “blasphemers, such as
preach sedition; the contentious railers, evil-speakers, who seek
by evil words to corrupt good manners; persons of loose
conversation—punishment from the civil magistrate ought to meet
with these. Because if they pretend conscience; yet walking
disorderly and not according but contrary to the Gospel, and even
to natural lights, they are judged by all. And their sins being
open make them subjects of the magistrate’s sword, who ought not
to bear the sword in vain. The discipline of the army was such
that a man would not be suffered to remain there, of whom we could
take notice that he was guilty of such practices as these.”
A well-ordered state, thought Cromwell, should in this respect resemble
an army, but, even with regard to opinions which he held blasphemous, he
was not willing to suffer the extreme penalties to be inflicted which
the law sanctioned and the voice of most Puritans demanded.
In 1656, James Naylor, an old soldier who was one of Fox’s early
disciples, allowed himself to be hailed by his enthusiastic followers as
a new Messiah, and was consequently thrown into prison as a blasphemer.
The Parliament then sitting assumed judicial powers, and, after many
days’ debate, voted that he should be branded, pilloried, whipped, and
imprisoned at pleasure. The Protector vainly pointed out to the House
that it was going beyond its powers, and all the influence of the
Government was required to save Naylor from capital punishment. What the
Protector would probably have done if the punishment of Naylor had been
left to him was shown by his treatment of John Biddle. Unitarians were
by implication excluded from toleration by the Petition and Advice. In
1655, Biddle was prosecuted under the Blasphemy Act of 1648, and would
undoubtedly have been sentenced to death. The Protector was petitioned
to interfere, and replied by soundly rating the petitioners. “If it be
true,” said he, “what Mr. Biddle holds, to wit, that our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ is but a creature, then all those who worship Him
with the worship due to God are idolaters.” No Christian, was his
conclusion, could give any countenance to such a person, but
nevertheless he stopped the trial by issuing a warrant for Biddle’s
confinement at St. Mary’s Castle in the Scilly Islands. Biddle’s life
was undoubtedly saved by this intervention.
In spite of the liberality and comprehensiveness of Cromwell’s
ecclesiastical policy, there were several sections of Puritans whom it
failed to satisfy. Some Independents opposed any established Church, and
denied that the State ought in any way to meddle with religious matters.
The most distinguished adherents of this view were Vane and Milton. The
magistrate, said Milton, had no coercive power at all in matters of
religion. It was not his business “to settle religion,” as it was
popularly termed, “by appointing either what we shall believe in divine
things or practise in religious.” His duty was simply to defend the
Church. “Had he once learned not further to concern himself with Church
affairs, half his labour might be spared and the Commonwealth better
tended.”
Another section, in the name of liberty of conscience, denied the State
any right to punish blasphemous or immoral doctrines. “They tell the
Magistrate,” said the Protector, “that he hath nothing to do with men
holding such notions; these are matters of conscience and opinion; they
are matters of religion; what hath the Magistrate to do with these
things? He is to look to the outward man, not to the inward.” Cromwell’s
own position with regard to dangerous opinions was that, if they were
but opinions, they were best left alone. “Notions will hurt none but
those that have them.” When they developed into actions, it was a
different matter, and especially when they led to rebellion and
bloodshed. “Our practice hath been,” he said in 1656, “to let all this
nation see that whatever pretensions to religion would continue quiet
and peaceable, they should enjoy conscience and liberty to themselves.”
But to be quiet and peaceable was the indispensable condition. Fifth
Monarchy preachers were frequently arrested for sermons against the
government, both before and after the attempted rising of the Fifth
Monarchy men in the spring of 1657. On one occasion, some of the
congregation of John Rogers, one of their preachers, came to Whitehall
to argue with the Protector, complaining that their pastor was suffering
for religion’s sake. Cromwell answered that Rogers suffered as a railer,
a seducer, and a stirrer-up of sedition: that to call suffering for
evil-doing suffering for the Gospel was to make Christ the patron of
such things. “God is my witness,” he concluded, “no man in England doth
suffer for the testimony of Jesus. Nay do not lift up your hands and
your eyes, for there is no man in England which suffers so. There is
such liberty—I wish it be not abused, that no man in England suffereth
for Christ.”
It was true. Cromwell’s was the most tolerant government which had
existed in England since the Reformation. In practice, he was more
lenient than the laws, and more liberal-minded than most of his
advisers. The drawback was, that even the more limited amount of
religious freedom which the laws guaranteed seemed too much to the great
majority of the nation. Englishmen—even Puritans—had not yet learnt the
lesson of toleration. “Is there not yet,” said Cromwell in 1655, “a
strange itch upon the spirits of men? Nothing will satisfy them unless
they can press their finger upon their brethren’s consciences to pinch
them there.” To prevent this, was, he avowed, his task as a ruler.
“If the whole power was in the Presbyterians, they would force all
men their way, and the Fifth Monarchy men would do the same, and so
the Rebaptised persons; and his work was to keep several judgments
in peace, because, like men falling out in the streets, they would
run their heads one against another; he was as a constable to part
them and keep them in peace.”
To induce these jarring sects to co-operate was more difficult, but that
also Cromwell attempted to do. In the Puritan Church, which he
organised, no agreement about ritual or discipline or doctrine was
required, save only the acceptance of the main principles of
Christianity. It was not so much a Church as a confederation of
Christian sects working together for righteousness, under the control of
the State. The absence of agreement in details and of uniformity in
externals was no defect in Cromwell’s eyes. To him it was rather a
merit. “All that believe,” he had once written, “have the real unity
which is more glorious because inward and spiritual.”[8]
Footnote 8:
See p. 152.
The originality of the Protector’s ecclesiastical policy lay in this
attempt to combine the two principles of toleration and comprehension.
It reflected his character. His tolerance was not the result of
scepticism or indifference, but arose from respect for the consciences
of others. The comprehensiveness of his Church was the outcome of his
large-hearted sympathy with every form of Puritanism. To local
magistrates in local religious quarrels, he enjoined “a charity as large
as the whole flock of Christ”; and the same spirit inspired his
exhortation to the Little Parliament.
“Have a care of the whole flock. Love the sheep. Love the lambs.
Love all; tend all; cherish and countenance all in all things that
are good. And if the poorest Christian, the most mistaken Christian,
shall desire to live peaceably and quietly under you: I say if any
desire but to live a life of godliness and honesty, let him be
protected.”
Mr. Greatheart, under whose protection all pilgrims to the Celestial
City walked securely—Feeble-Mind and Ready-to-Halt, as well as
Valiant-for-Truth,—is but an allegorical representation of what Cromwell
was to the Puritans. Cromwell’s ecclesiastical system passed away with
its author, but no man exerted more influence on the religious
development of England. Thanks to him, Nonconformity had time to take
root and to grow so strong in England that the storm which followed the
Restoration had no power to root it up.
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