Star.
London, England, 1824-03-25 00:00:00

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History of the Commonwealth of Engl2ad. front the
Co.-;mencement to the Restoration of Mole.; 11. By
GoDul.v. Vol. 1. Svc). pp. 414:6.
From the first announcement of the work Of wl.ich
one volume is now laid before the Public, we expected,
from the acknowledged powers, vigorous intellect, and
matured judgment of the author, a lucid and im-
pal tial history of a-most imp:Aunt retiod, to which,
nothing like justice had hitherto been done by any
titer. In fact, as nr. Godwin observes, in his preface,
the men who figured during the interregnum were,
immediately after the restoration, spoken of with horror,
and their Memoirs were composed alter the manner of
the Newgate Calendar; and what MRS begun lion):
party rage has been continued from indolence." The
aim of the author-has-been " to restore the just tone of
historical relation on the subject, to attend to the neg-
lected, to remember the forgotten, and to distribute an
impartial award to all that was planned and achieved
durtur- this eventful period ;"—and it is but justice to
say, that' he has impartially and successfully accom-
plished his object. He does not attempt to di,guise'
the reference which he thinks due to a Reptibbearil
form of Government in the abstract ; but we do not
think that he has suffered this attachment to bias his
details of facts.

As the religious fends of the period have never hi-
therto been viewed with anything like an impartial eye,
we shall lay before our Readers some extracts from the
3d and from the 13th chapters, which treat more par-
ticularly of this subject.
" One of the qi.estions which particularly occupied
the mind of the leaders in the Long Parliament, was
that of our church-establishment ; and upon this subject
they were somewhat less temporisirg and uncertain
than upon many others. Religion with them was a
serious consideration, a topic .which they were dislw;ited
to treat with good faith and in earnest. They were
sinceme patriots to the best of their judgment, anxious
to promote the substantial welfare of their fellow-crea-
tures. They knew that there could be no real liberty,

and no good political government, without morality;
and they believed that the morality of the various mem-
bers of the community intimately depended upon their
religious creed, and upon the character and conduct of
the Ministers of the national religion.
" The Reformation in England dates is commence-
ment from the year 1532. It was conducted in all its
early operations by dna capricious and arbitrary mo-
narch, Henry the Eighth ; and, in no long time after
his death, the old religicin was called back again by Iris
daughter, Queen Mary Tudor. Various causes contri-
buted to render the progress of the Reformation in this
country particularly fluctuating and uncertain; and
the early reformers here were greatly divided among
themselves.
" On the Continent the Reformation strewed itself
in two forms. In Sweden, in Denmark, and in some
parts of Germany, where the authority of the ince was
most considerable, its principles Mete mitigated, and
the policy of its conductors appears to have been, to ba-
tiish the more glaring corruptions of tits choler cf
Rome, but to preserve the hiercrchy and the forms of
religious worship as nearly as might be are same. This
mode of proceeding seemed best to accord with mo-
mit chical government. The church served to give lustre,
tifilhe throne ; and its methodical forms and solemnities
rend !red it a more apt and pliant machine in the hands
of the civil power. In Holland, in Switverland, and in
Geneva, the process had been somewhat different. The
reformers there, not being obliged to consult the inch
nations of a potentate reigning among them, were less
di3posed to ivnitate the institutions of the church of
Rome, and thought it more reasonable to consult the
primitive pattern ant the simplicity of the Gospel. Tire
can equence was the establishment of a parity among
their clergy, no one or more of the members of the hie-
rarchy assuming a dominion over the rest, or living in
splend .ur and magnificence, while the major uy of their
brethren could command little more than the bare means
ofsub,istence. The reformers in France, not having
the benefit or disadvantage of an alliance with the State,
proceeded on the same principles. And this mdde of
church-government- and religious worship was also
established in Scotland _ _ _

" The most zealous of the fix st reformers in England
probably entertained no great degree of good will to the
institution of prelacy. There existed in the time of Ed-
%yard the Sixth a disposition to catty the spirit of the
Reformation into a considerably greater effect thus ha.!
been permitt,d under Henry the Eighth. But what
enmpleted the establishment of an anti-prelatical party
in England, was the persecution carried on by Queen
Marv, which drove the ablest and the most fervent of
the.Proteaants to take refuge in foreign countries,where
of necessity they were led -)tif study the for ms to which
that spirit had given With in those countries. The de-
nomination by which this party now became known was
that of Puritans, and it needed all the energy of Eliza-
beth's government, who was herself an earnest supporter
of ecclesiastical pomp, to keep tl.is set of men within
the bounds which her policy ptc•cribed.
The contest which had subsisted under Elizabeth,
became mote active and critical afte.• the accession of the
Stuarts and was rendered infinitely mote serious
by the cruel and '.tibitrary proceedings of Laud. gis
punishments were of the most odious kind—whippinr,
!"),
setting on the pillory, cutting off the ears, slitting the
Lose, and imprisonment for life ; and one peculiarity of
his system was, that it seemed to ain't at the levelling all
distinctions of rank. An eminent barrister, an eminent
yhyician, a clergyman who had been clerk of the closet
to two successive Princes of Wales, a professor ( f mot al
philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, and the mas-
ter of Westminster school, we; e among his victims."
fluting the military contests ill 16.1-3 and 16.11, many
interesting ralticular% occurred in the Assembly of Di-
vines and the Parliament. !‘ A majority of the rdiect-
ing and religious part of the nation had been thoroughly
disgusted with the episcopal government of the church,
as administered by Laud and his compeers, wen of
haughty and insolent temper, wedded to pouip and
splendour, detesting the Puritan, looking with compa-
rative favour upon the principles and system of the
church of notne, servile to the Court, advocates on all

occasions of passive obedience in matters of civil policy,
thoroughly imbued with an intolerant spirit, and ever
ready, when the.question was of suppres:ing obnoxiou,
tenets, to-employ the most odious severities, in the shape
of heavy fines, tedious and strait imp] isonment, the
scourge, the knife, and the pillory. It seems certainoabat.
evcr some histosiaus algy /1411.1 allcge.lW tilt; COillr.try,

that a great majority of the nation Was at the meeting
of the Long Parliament hostile to the institution of
B shops. There were no doubt *many.pious and excel-'
lent men, among those who filled conspicuous stations ,
in the hierarchy. There was a consid.srable portion of
the NObiiity,Gentry, and others, wholooked with partial
regard upon the ecel,,siastical system of their fathers.
But that is mere human nature; and in cases of this
sort it can scarcely be otherwise. Tire active and ope-
rant part of the community, the vigour and energy of
the living in ineiple in the body politic, was almost ex-
clusively on the other side.
6. But the mind of man had at this time only arrived
at a ceitain stage of its graduated progress. The Church
of England was a vast and complicated body, all of
whose, officers and ministers were arranged in an as-
cending scale, and closely knit and compacted one with
the other. The discontent party disapproved of the
number of the steps, and the extensive emoluments and
power of its superior members. But for the most part
they only conceived the plan of a system of greater
plainness a:.d simplicity. They proposed to substitute
for the Episcopal Church now in being, a Presbyterian
Church. The Episcopal Church had a hatred of sects;
the Pr esbyterians did not come behind her in that par-
ticular. The Episcopal Church was intolerant ; so were
the Presbyterians. Both of them regarded with horror
the idea of a free press, and that every man should be
permitted to publish and support by his writings what-
ever positions his caprice or his conviction might dictate
to him
s' Still, however, among the great geniuses and pro-
found politicians of this memorable period, there were
a few, who could look with a ,toady eye into the future,
could measure the limbs and muscles of the human
mind, and could see chat man in a state of liberty could
do and sustain, and what were likely to be the results
of all he cpuld suffer and all he could effect. They
viewed controversy and
,intellectual conteation as the
-toad to substantial peace and genuine vigour. Trey
saw that liberty of disquisition %VA., the wholesome ele-
ment in which intellect refines, that to.weigh and discein
truth from falsehood the scales which are employed in
the trial must be freely poised, and.tha. ,were can be no I
real copscience and no pure religion, where religion and
conscience are not permitted to act without restraint.
'6 But what is scarcely less worthy of notice, there
was at this time a sect of Christians, penetrated ssith
the fervours of the most earnest zeal, the Independents,
who maintained nearly the same tenets on this subject
with the party last mentioned. Theyawere led to the
conclusions they adopted, by somewhat of a Jac:rent
process. Like the Presbyterians, they cordially disap-
proVed of the pomp and hierarchy of the Church of
England. But they went further. They equally dis-
appeared of the Synods, provincial and general, the
classes and incorporations of pi e,bytery,a system scarcely
less complicated, though irfinitely lets dazzling, than.
that of diocesan episcopacy. They held, that a church
was a body of Christians assembled in one place appro-
priated for their worship, and that every such body was
complete in itself, that they had a right to draw up the
rules by which they thought proper to be regulated, and
that no man not a member of their assembly, and no'
body of men, was entitled to interfere with their pro-
ceedings. Demanding toleration on these grounds, they
felt that they were equally bound to concede and as-
sert it for others ; and they preferred to see a number of
churches with different sentiments and institutes within
the same political community, to the idea of remedy-
ing the evil, and exterminating error, by means of ex-
clusive-regulations and the menaces and severities of
punishment."

FROM TUESDAY'S GAZETTE.

DIV I DINDSto be made in BASI NGHA LL-sTrtnET.

April 13, W. Hamilton, N...v City Chambers, merchant, at one.
April 20, 1). S. Norton, late of Uxbridge, brewer, at twelve.—
April 24, C. Ford, late of Regent-street, linen-draper, at ten.—
April 13, J. Stevens, Stafford, wine-merchant, at one. April 15,
T. Carlen, Langbourn-chambers, Fenchurch-street, coal-factor, at
one. April 3, T. Mauer, Caroline-street, Commercial-road, cooper,
at eleven. April 15, J. Jamison, Little Queen-street, Lincoln's
Inn-fields, coach-maker, at one. April 13, U. Osborne, New
llrentford, fishmonger, at one. April 27, W. Mitchell, Turn-
wheel-lane, sugar factor, at twelve.
DIVIUIsNUSto be made to the COU NT It I%
May 5, 'Thomas, John, and Benjamin Gibbons, just. Wolver-
hampton, bankers, at eleven, at the Jerningliam Arms Inn,
nail, Salop. April 15, T. Lean, Liverpool, coach-maker, at eleven,
the Star and Garter Tavern, Liverpool.

CHILTI FICATES.—Arnu. 15.

J. .Tremy, late of Great Surrey-street, Black friars-road, linen
draper. C. Savory, SoutiLEfford, Devon, lime•burner. It. F.diet
En:nal-street, merchant. T. Atkinson, Ludgate-hill, cabinet-maker
R. T. Drew, liosbury, Herefordshire, maltster. J. G. Powell,
Egham, dealer.
DISSOLUTIONS OF PARTNERSHIPS.
Mins and Newcombe, York, carriers. Illoorhouse and Elliott,
Stock-Exehange, stock-brokers. Dawson and Huxley, Kingstor-
upon-Thames, upholsterers. Hatt and Clark, Hull, coal-merchants.
'finale and Appleby, Croydon, calico-engravers. Clack and Ed-
wards, Bridgewater-square,- child-bed-linen makers. 11I'Cready
and Rennie, Birmingham, linen-drapers. Paviour and Fernley,
Birmingham, fire-iron-manufacturers.

Saturday morning, as the workmen of Colonel Strutt.
M.P. of Tirling-place, Essex, w ,sre making a carriage-
drive in that Gentleman's park, a little beneath the sur
face of the earth they discovered an earthen vessel with
silver coins. There were between 200 and 300, of the
times of Constantine, Valens, Valentinian, il atian,
Theodosius, and Arcadius, who succeeded his father,
Theodosius, and died about 408. They are in an ex-
cellent state• of preservation, and probably have been
concealed between 1,400 and 1,503 years. These coins
are now in the care of Mr. Ellis, the Colonel's steward.
John Marum, of Galmoy, having rendered himself
obnoxious to the Whiteboys, was murdered by a set of
them, while riding home in company with his son on
Tuesday se'nnight. The deceased received five des-
perate bayonet wounds in the region of the heart, one
cat at the back of the neck, and his skull was literally
broken to pieces. Two or chi ee grains of shot from a
blunderbuss Here also lodged in his.shoulder. Ile had'
not been abroad after sunset before for several years,
nor during the same period, until that day, had he tra-
velled without pistols—Ceroner's Verdict—" Wilful
Murder against persons unknown."
Colonel Whaley was tried at NVicklow Assizes, for
sending a challenge, and using disrespectful language
to John Colthurst Lees, Esq. in his capacity as a Magis-
trate, by-di:elm ing that he (Colonel Whaley) would not
get justice from Mr. Lees, but rather injustice. Colonel
Whaley was found guilty after a most patient trial; and
in passing sentence the Chief Justice told the prisoner,.
that had • not Mr. Lees, by an incautious proceeding,
given an excuse whereby the feelings of Colonel Whaley
were roused, be could hardly tell what measure of pu-
nishment would be sufficient to inflict : but taking those
circumstances into consideration, he would sentence Co.t
lont-1 Whaley to one month's imprisonmeutp mid to pay
j a firlc cf .CS:O.

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