d servant of the
Government, might not be called to account for having been so bold.

Altogether, Milton's _Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical
Causes_ can be construed no otherwise than as an effort on his
part, Protectoratist and Court-official though he was, to renew his
relations with the old Republican party in the Parliament in the
special interest of his extreme views on the religious question.
Merely as a pleading against Religious Persecution, the treatise
might have had some effect on the Parliament generally, where it was
in fact much needed, in consequence of the presence of so much of the
Presbyterian element, and the likelihood therefore of increased
stringency against Quakers, Socinians, and other Non-Conformists. The
treatise would have found many in the Parliament, besides the
Republicans, quite willing to listen to its advices so far. But only
or chiefly among the old Republicans can there have been any hope of
an acceptance of its extreme definition of Christian Liberty, as
involving Disestablishment and entire separation of Church and
State.

The Treatise, so far as we can see, produced no effect whatever. So
far as the Religious Question did appear in the Parliament, it was
evident that the preservation of Cromwell's Church-Establishment, its
perpetuation as an integral part of Richard's Protectorate, was a
foregone conclusion in the minds of the vast majority. Any
Disestablishment proposal, emanating from the Republican party, or
from any individual member like Vane, would have been tramped out by
the united strength of the Presbyterians, the Cromwellians of the
Court, and the Wallingford-House Cromwellians. The danger even was
that there might be a retrogression in the matter of mere Toleration,
and that the presence and pressure of so many Presbyterians among the
supporters of Richard might compel Richard's Government, against his
own will and that of his Cromwellian Councillors, to a severer
Church-discipline than had characterized the late Protectorate. But,
indeed, it was not on the Religious Question in any form that the
Republicans found time or need to try their strength. Their battles
in the Parliament were on the two main constitutional
questions:--first, the question of the Protectorate itself or
Single-Person Government; and, next, the question of the Other House
or House of Lords. On the first they were definitively beaten in
February; and on the second they were beaten, no le