ruction of the monarchy and the ecclesiastical
order was a moral earthquake, overturning all minds, and opening all
changes. A theological logomachy was substituted by the sullen and proud
ascetics who ascended into power. These, without wearying themselves,
wearied all others, and triumphed over each other by their mutual
obscurity. The two great giants in this theological war were the famous
Richard Baxter and Dr. Owen. They both wrote a library of books; but the
endless controversy between them was the extraordinary and
incomprehensible subject, whether the death of Christ was _solutio
ejusdem_, or only _tantundem_; that is, whether it was a payment of the
very thing, which by law we ought to have paid, or of something held by
God to be equivalent. Such was the point on which this debate between
Owen and Baxter lasted without end.

Yet these metaphysical absurdities were harmless, compared to what was
passing among the more hot fanatics, who were for acting the wild
fancies which their melancholy brains engendered; men, who from the
places into which they had thrust themselves, might now be called "the
higher orders of society!" These two parties alike sent forth an evil
spirit to walk among the multitude. Every one would become his own
law-maker, and even his own prophet; the meanest aspired to give his
name to his sect. All things were to be put in motion according to the
St. Vitus's dance of the last new saint. "Away with the Law! which cuts
off a man's legs and then bids him walk!" cried one from his pulpit.
"Let believers sin as fast as they will, they have a fountain open to
wash them;" declared another teacher. We had the _Brownists_, from
Robert Brown, the _Vaneists_, from Sir Harry Vane, then we sink down to
Mr. Traske, Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Robinson, and H. N., or Henry Nicholas,
of the Family of Love, besides Mrs. Hutchinson, and the Grindletonian
family, who preferred "motions to motives," and conveniently assumed
that "their spirit is not to be tried by the Scripture, but the
Scripture by their spirit." Edwards, the author of "Gangraena," the
adversary of Milton, whose work may still be preserved for its
curiosity, though immortalised by the scourge of genius, has furnished
a list of about two hundred of such sects in these times. A divine of
the Church of England observed to a great sectary, "You talk of the
idolatry of Rome: but each of you, whenever you have made and set up a
calf, will dance about it."[