And further, if the Little Parliament had been composed of the wisest of mortals, and had plainly and skilfully propounded a system of pure voluntaryism, such as is ably and successfully advocated in our own time, still, with the Presbyterians all against them; with many of the Independents against them; and with the Episcopalians also against them; in short, with the bulk of the wealth, of the intelligence, and of the power of the country against them—how useless would have been their attempts to work out the measure. Common sense teaches, and voluntaryism in its very nature implies, that before it can be established as the exclusive method of dealing with spiritual interests, a very large number of those who have to adopt it must be convinced of its wisdom. And as to the alternative of revising the Establishment, and placing it upon grounds adapted to the needs of existing society, that also was an undertaking which, it is needless to repeat, the Little Parliament did not accomplish, and one, too, with which the whole history of that Assembly proved that it was utterly incompetent to deal. The whole web of ecclesiastical affairs had raveled out, and it devolved on a more than ordinarily skilful hand to gather up the threads and arrange them in some sort of order.

Cromwell ever shewed himself to be a practical man, by no means wedded to any fine-spun theory. No ideal republic, such as was conceived by Plato or by Harrington, floated before his imagination. In this respect a marked distinction existed between him and his contemporaries of the philosophical schools which were led by Sir Harry Vane and Algernon Sidney; and, as in pure politics, so in ecclesiastical politics, he aimed simply at accomplishing what he saw to be practicable. His strong religious feelings, the mystic cast of his piety, his enthusiastic faith in prayer and providence, never turned him aside from plain paths of human action, where he could get common people to walk and work beside him. Whatever idea he might have had as to what was best in itself, and under other circumstances than those of England in his own day, then rocking with the throes of revolution, certainly the plan which he adopted was not that of attempting the exclusive establishment of a voluntary system of supporting religion. He saw that to alienate church property from sacred uses—had he wished to do so—would arouse against him at once all the Presbyterians of the country, and would give them a rallying point and a battle cry quite sufficient to render them irresistible. He knew, that supported in this respect by Episcopalians, and not without sympathy amongst Independents, the Presbyterians would have protested against spoliation, and would have contended for the inviolateness of tithe property with a temper too fierce and with an amount of influence too strong for any government to resist with success. He perceived the wisdom of conciliating the Presbyterian party, and even on that ground he would shrink from provoking them by the confiscation of all church revenues. His keen eye also discerned such a spirit in some of the sects, such violent anti-social principles abroad, such elements seething in the cauldron of religious excitement, that he felt it would not be safe to leave all theological teachers at that time to do and say just what they liked without any sort of legal restraint. The liberty which he believed it just and right to concede in reference to the discussion of simple questions of divinity, he did not consider it just and right to afford to all sorts of semi-political agitations; which, under the cover of prophetical study and of transcendental schemes of society, directly tended to overthrow all law and order, and with law and order, the very liberty which such enthusiasts themselves really desired to enthrone.

What, then, was the kind of National Church which Cromwell's practical sagacity led him to establish? Though he might not work according to any definite theory, and was mainly prompted by the quick insight of his own genius, yet there could not but be some principles lying at the basis of his operations. Three politico-ecclesiastical theories of union may be entertained: that of the Church's mistress-ship over the State, that of the Church's servitude to the State, and that of the Church's marriage with the State. What the Lord Protector aimed at accomplishing appears far removed from the first of these. He would not allow Presbyters, or Pastors, or Preachers of any kind, any more than Anglican Priests, to lord it over the people. He would carry the staff in his own hands. At the same time, he did not put the Church in perfect servitude. Though Erastian in one way, his method of ecclesiastical government does not appear to have been so in another. Whilst the appointment and recognition of ministers receiving State pay were placed under the authority of persons who owed their official position to State appointment, yet the inner working, the worship, and the discipline of Churches continued to be left free to a very large extent. Perhaps, on the whole, Cromwell's Broad Church embodied more of the idea of the marriage of the Church with the State than any other Establishment which ever existed.[71]

His ecclesiastical policy rested on five principles:—State recognition, State control, State support, State protection, and State penalties. How those principles were developed in Cromwell's administration will be seen in the next chapter.