plying together a fourfold lesson, as to the folly of attempting to extend or to plant empires by the sword."

It is clear to me that all these nations are deceived by the sorceries of the Great Scarlet Whore, the Mystic Babylon, which I have before described, as comprehended in the word lust, for all are exhibiting lust of power or dominion in some way or other, and any remonstrance from one would be utterly useless upon the other, because all are steadily persuing the

same course.

As a further illustration of this remark, we now see France taking possession of Tahiti under the hypocritical pretence of affording protection, at the same time issuing a proclamation, that any person who shall in deed or word, prejudice the Tahitian people against the French government, shall be banished. The protection is such as the wolf affords to the lamb; and the proclamation proceeds, and is prompted, by the persecuting spirit of the Great Whore, with which that government, civil and ecclesiastical, is committing spiritual fornication; and our own government, being under the same influence, and also guilty of the like things with reference to China and India instead of making any remonstrance, is apparently satisfied with the arrangement. It is of little use for Christian men to cry out against such abominations whilst they admit the lawfulness of drawing the sword at all.

Oh, Zion! awake!" give thy king no rest until he establish Jerusalem a praise in the earth,"-until "the wolf and the lamb feed together, and the leopard lie down with the kid." But I must not digress. The see of Rome I consider is doubly implicated in this spiritual fornication, for holding unlawful dominion over soul and body! Therefore as God in his retributive justice rewardeth all according to their works he will give to her, and all like unto her, double, unless they repent! And the Church of England! and every other church establishment in Christendom! so far as they have forsaken Christ the head, and have set up another head, and have in connexion with the state assumed to themselves the right to grant toleration, which is every man's birthright, or have exacted of others what they would not that others should exact of them, or have sought to bind men down to a human, creed, are implicated too!

And the Nonconformists who in Cromwell's time obtained authority and prevailed upon their countrymen to condemn the king, (for, however criminal, no man's blood should have been shed,) and professed to allow free toleration, but did not, as I shall presently prove, are implicated too! as also those nonconformists who have in any way sought to bind the consciences of men to any particular creed, or any particular form of worship. Form is good, but not formality; being bound to form, and forbidden on any account to alter, begets formality, and that begets indifference, and that robs us of our faith and lulls us in the harlot's lap; therefore these are implicated also; for the Holy Spirit that dwelleth in the heart of all true believers is a "free spirit," and there are "diversities of its operations," and therefore it cannot thus be bound. Doubtless the nonconformists would gladly get rid of the charge of being the murderers of Charles; and I would willingly acquit them if I believed they were not guilty; nevertheless the truth must be told.

That the civil wars of England were not of a secular nature only, and the flames of social discord were fanned by religious strife, and the chariot wheels of war reeking with Briton's noblest blood, were propelled by a professedly religious impetus, it were idle to dispute. The fact stands recorded on the page of history, and may there be seen apparent as the light of day; and forasmuch as the nonconformists did not discountenance the use of violence, and did not hesitate to fight Cromwell's battles, I cannot acquit them either of spiritual fornication, or of being implicated in the death of the king. With reference to the latter it is easy to say, that was Cromwell's act alone; and there is no proof that they instigated him thereto. I say it is unfair to impute to Cromwell what was the act of the party of which he was but the representative or head; but that it was not his act alone, let history testify. One or two quotations will be sufficient for my purpose, which I take from Craik and Macfarlane's History of England.

"The victory at Naseby, and the other successes that immediately followed the "New Model," raised the fame and influence of the army to the highest pitch: in part by moral, in part by material force, the Independents and Sectaries, with Cromwell at their head, carried every thing before them in

parliament and elsewhere; the presbyterian members were thrust out of the House of Commons, the presbyterian ministers were forced to forego the exclusive possession of the Church livings. Presbytery erst, pursued and pressed upon, was now overwhelmed and swallowed up by independency."*

This may serve to shew the nature of the contest, and identifies Cromwell virtually as the head of nonconformity. Now as to the murder of the king, let me shew that it was not Cromwell's act alone, by another quotation from the same work, when speaking with reference to parliament being about to enter into a treaty with him.

"The presbyterians in parliament, beset by the army, and deeming their only salvation to lie in a successful termination of the negociation with the king, added twenty days to the forty originally prescribed for the duration of the treaty.

"This brought them down to the 27th of November, but in the interval, their schemes had been shaken to pieces by the Independents. The army had drawn together in the town of St. Alban's, and there a council of officers, after a week's deliberation and preparation, drew up a remonstrance to the House of Commons, seconded by a letter from Fairfax. The remonstrance urged their sad apprehensions of the danger and evil of the treaty with the king, and of any accommodation with him; that he ought " to be brought to trial for the evils done by him;" + he accordingly was brought to trial, and we all know the result. I do not say the Nonconformists were more guilty in beheading Charles than the parties who opposed them; for had they not succeeded in the perpetration of this deed of blood, the other party would, if they could, have beheaded Cromwell as a traitor, and those who upheld him as the abettors of his treason; they did it from a principle of self-preservation; and when no law could be found whereby to bring the king to the block, they actually made one for the purpose. ‡ All this was wrong on the part of the Nonconformists of that day; for them I should plead guilty; at the same time taking up the prayer of the Psalmist, "Deliver us from

* History of Religion, book viii. page 807.

+ Civil and Military Transactions, vol. iv. page 385-6. same work. Ibid. Government and Laws, book vii. page 514.

such blood guiltiness, O God." It is clear that Nonconformists, as well as others, were for maintaining these opinions by the edge of the sword, and actually did do so during the reign of Cromwell. It may be asked, what authority did they assume; surely not ecclesiastical? I do not accuse them of assuming ecclesiastical authority, but they did assume that which was tantamount to the same: others were for an established Church, they were not, each maintained these opinions by force, therefore all were equally guilty; and their folly seems to me more absurd than a parcel of semi-barbarian schoolboys quarrelling over their marbles, and Satan, like a great churl, egging them on to fight.

Rare sport for him to set men quarrelling about religion, and killing one another for God's sake truly. I admit the Nonconformists were right in their desire to have no establishment, but they were wrong in resorting to force, in order to bring this about, and the consequence was, that all the fair hopes they had formed, became swallowed up in the vortex of secular ambition.

With reference to toleration, I have accused the Nonconformists at that day of not allowing it, although they professed so to do. "If we may believe Fox," says the historian, "the Independent ministers, after getting possession of the benefices of the national Church, inconsistent as such proceedings should seem, with the fundamental principle of Independency, were not behind their Presbyterian brethren in compelling those who belonged to other persuasions to contribute to their support." "Great spoiling also," he writes under date 1655, "there was of Friends' goods for tithes, by the Independent and Presbyterian priests and some Baptist priests who had got the steeple houses." * And in 1662, Fox and his friend Hubberthorn drew up a list of some of the sufferings of the people of God, in scorn called Quakers, which they forwarded to the king, and from which it appeared, that there had been imprisoned in the time of the Commonwealth 3173 persons, of whom 32 had died in their dungeons, and 73 still remained in confinement, and that since the Restoration there had been imprisoned 3068 more.Ӡ

* History of Religion, book viii. page 817 (same work). + Ibid. page 818.

1

"Not content with persecuting them at home," the same historians go on to say, "they followed them to the colonies." "A hot persecution in Massachusetts commenced against the new sect of the Quakers in the year 1656, in the summer of which, the first of them that made their appearance in the colony are said to have arrived, some from England, some from the neighbouring island of Barbadoes."

They were immediately brought before the authorities, committed to prison, and some books they had with them seized and burnt, and in the end they were banished from the colony in terms of the law. Afterwards some additional laws were made, specially directed against Quakerism. It was enacted that any Quaker, after the first conviction, if a man, should lose one of his ears, if a woman, she should be severely whipped; for a second offence, if a man, to have the other ear cut off, if a woman, should receive another severe whipping; for the third, whether man or woman, should have the tongue bored through with a red hot iron. Even these severities, however, being found insufficient to eradicate the obnoxious sect, it was at last enacted that every Quaker, returning to the country after banishment, should be put to death; and several persons were actually executed under this monstrous law. This persecution continued with no abatement till after the Restoration, when it was at last put a stop to by an order obtained by their friends in England from the king, in September, 1661." *

Thus it appears by these historians that the Quakers during the Commonwealth were persecuted more than any. Fox, in his letter to Cromwell, also thus speaks in his Journal, vol. i. p. 302, "Many have suffered great fines because they could not swear; many are cast into prison and made a prey upon, because they cannot take the oath of abjuration; though they denied all that is abjured in it; many also lie in gaols because they cannot pay the priest's tithes; many have their goods spoiled, and treble damages taken of them; and many are whipped and beaten in the house of correction, without breach of any law; and these things," he says to Cromwell, "are done in thy name, in order to protect them in these actions."

* History of Religion, book viii. page 809.