false doctrines were published, especially with a good intention and out of weakness only, than that one sound truth should be forcibly smothered or wilfully concealed".
I need not tell the story how Parliament and the Westminster Assembly decided religious matters one way while the army decided them another. Independency grew strong, because it afforded the means of a free expression of religious feelings, and so attracted the sturdy Puritans whom Cromwell formed into a splendid army. The puritan clergy, on the other hand, were attracted by the more ecclesiastical side of Presbyterianism and threw in their lot with the Kirk. The success of the army brought the Independents into power under Cromwell, who attempted a scheme of comprehension. On the one hand, he rejected the primary principle of Congregationalism—for he maintained a Church which was in connexion with the State; on the other hand, he strove to include within that Church all whom he thought could safely be included. Where the presbyterian system had been set in action it was to remain. Congregational churches were to preserve their independence, and every form of combination of these systems was permitted. Only episcopacy was to be suppressed: for papists and prelatists the government of the Commonwealth could find no room.
If this system had been long continued, it seems probable that Congregationalism would have largely modified its principles. It is the necessary characteristic of schemes which owe their power to a protest against evils, that they should flourish in opposition
