elestial pedigree, derived the
legislative power from a source no more dignified than the voluntary
association of the people.

* Rush. vol. vii. p. 224.

** Whitlocke, p. 106. Rush. vol. vii. p. 260, 261.

Under color of keeping the sacraments from profanation, the clergy of
all Christian sects had assumed what they call the power of the keys, or
the right of fulminating excommunication. The example of Scotland was
a sufficient lesson for the parliament to use precaution in guarding
against so severe a tyranny. They determined, by a general ordinance,
all the cases in which excommunication could be used. They allowed of
appeals to parliament from all ecclesiastical courts. And they appointed
commissioners in every province to judge of such cases as fell not
within their general ordinance.[*] So much civil authority, intermixed
with the ecclesiastical, gave disgust to all the zealots.

But nothing was attended with more universal scandal than the propensity
of many in the parliament towards a toleration of the Protestant
sectaries. The Presbyterians exclaimed, that this indulgence made the
church of Christ resemble Noah's ark, and rendered it a receptacle for
all unclean beasts. They insisted, that the least of Christ's truths
was superior to all political considerations.[**] They maintained the
eternal obligation imposed by the covenant to extirpate heresy and
schism. And they menaced all their opponents with the same rigid
persecution under which they themselves had groaned, when held in
subjection by the hierarchy.

* Rush. vol. vii. p. 210.

** Rush, vol vii. p. 308.

So great prudence and reserve, in such material points, does great honor
to the parliament; and proves that, notwithstanding the prevalency of
bigotry and fanaticism, there were many members who had more enlarged
views, and paid regard to the civil interests of society. These men,
uniting themselves to the enthusiasts, whose genius is naturally averse
to clerical usurpations, exercised so jealous an authority over the
assembly of divines, that they allowed them nothing but the liberty
of tendering advice, and would not intrust them even with the power
of electing their own chairman or his substitute, or of supplying the
vacancies of their own members.

While these disputes were canvassed by theologians, who engaged in
their spiritual contests every order of the state the king, though he
entertained hopes of reaping advanta