f a host of emigrants from New England, with
Hugh Peters at their head, on the opening of the Long Parliament, that
the Congregational or Independent body began to attract attention.

[Sidenote: The Parliament and Uniformity.]

Lilburne and Burton declared themselves adherents of what was called
"the New England way"; and a year later saw in London alone the rise of
"fourscore congregations of several sectaries," as Bishop Hall
scornfully tells us, "instructed by guides fit for them, cobblers,
tailors, felt-makers, and such-like trash." But little religious weight
however could be attributed as yet to the Congregational movement.
Baxter at this time had not heard of the existence of any Independents.
Milton in his earlier pamphlets shows no sign of their influence. Of the
hundred and five ministers present in the Westminster Assembly only five
were Congregational in sympathy, and these were all returned refugees
from Holland. Among the one hundred and twenty London ministers in 1643,
but three were suspected of leaning towards the Sectaries. The struggle
with Charles in fact at its outset only threw new difficulties in the
way of religious freedom. The great majority of the Parliament were
averse from any alterations in the constitution or doctrine of the
Church itself; and it was only the refusal of the bishops to accept any
diminution of their power and revenues, the growth of a party hostile to
Episcopalian government, the necessity for purchasing the aid of the
Scots by a union in religion as in politics, and above all the urgent
need of constructing some new ecclesiastical organization in the place
of the older organization which had become impossible from the political
attitude of the bishops, that forced on the two Houses the adoption of
the Covenant. But the change to a Presbyterian system of Church
government seemed at that time of little import to the bulk of
Englishmen. The dogma of the necessity of bishops was held by few; and
the change was generally regarded with approval as one which brought the
Church of England nearer to that of Scotland, and to the reformed
Churches of the Continent. But whatever might be the change in its
administration, no one imagined that it had ceased to be the Church of
England, or that it had parted with its right to exact conformity to its
worship from the nation at large. The Tudor theory of its relation to
the State, of its right to embrace all Englishmen within its pale, and