free play of intellectual life
would be as much endangered by the rule of the presbyters as by the
rule of the bishops. We should, however, do well to remember that at the
outbreak of the war most of the great Parliamentary leaders, including
Pym, Hampden, and even Cromwell, had no deep-rooted objection to
Episcopacy as a form of Church government, provided only that it was
controlled by Parliament, and allowed the fullest possible liberty of
conscience. They all shared Pym's expressed conviction that "the
greatest liberty of the kingdom is religion," and seemed to have
inclined toward the ideal of Chillingworth, a full liberty of thought
maintained within the unity of the Church. It was their necessity, not
their will, the necessity to gain the cordial co-operation of the
Scotch, that later compelled them to commit themselves to
Presbyterianism, of their profound distrust of which they gave repeated
proof. And it is worthy of special note that even in the time of their
greatest need the English Parliament, to use Gardiner's words,[31:1]
"was as disinclined as the Tudor kings had ever been to allow the
establishment in England of a Church system claiming to exist by Divine
right, or by any right whatever independent of the State."

That religious conformity was a necessary condition of national unity,
aye, even of national existence, was, however, still accepted as an
axiomatic truth by those whose mental visions were limited by inherited
conceptions. To such as these the only question at issue seems to have
been whether an Episcopalian or a Presbyterian system of Church
government should prevail. Of the claims of those who would bow the head
neither to Rome, to Geneva, nor to Canterbury, who refused to entrust
their conscience to pope, to bishop, or to presbyter, the extreme
adherents of both these systems were probably equally insensible. And
yet it was precisely such men who were to come to the front during the
coming struggle, and who, under the guidance of their great leader, were
to become the champions of that great democratic principle of
toleration, of liberty of conscience, which was the one leading
principle of his life.[31:2] It was precisely such men who were to
proclaim to the rulers of the nation--"That matters of religion and the
ways of God's worship are not at all entrusted by us to any human
power, because therein we cannot remit or exceed a tittle of what our
consciences dictate to be the mind of Go