The Life of John Milton

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. EPISCOPAL ALARMS IN ENGLAND ? BISHOP HALLS EPISCOPACY BF DIVIDE RIGHT?THE SHORT PARLIAMENT?THE SECOND BISHOPS' WAR WITH THE SCOTS?CALLINO OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. The Scots had duly held their second General Assembly, as authorized hy the Pacification of Birks. It met at Edinburgh, with David Dickson as Moderator, and sat from the 12th to the 30th of August, 1639. Ostensibly it discussed matters de now; but in reality it reasserted and confirmed all the decisions of the Glasgow Assembly of 1638. The Parliament promised at the Pacification had also met, with no Prelates in it, but only the nobles, and representatives of the lairds, and of the burghs. Thwarted, however, at every step by the King's Commissioner, Traquair, this Parliament (Aug. 31?Nov. 14) had not been able to do much. Its most important act was the nomination of a committee of twenty- two of its number to watch proceedings till June 2, 1640, the day to which it stood prorogued. Still, in the main, Scotland was at ease. She had swept away her Bishops, and Avas able to rejoice once more in an apparatus of simple Presbyterianism. EPISCOPAL ALARMS IX KXGLAXD: BISHOV HALL'S EPISCOPACY BY DlfJNK RIGHT. In England the prevalent feeling continued to be that of sympathy with the Scots. To this feeling, however, there -were some exceptions. More particularly among the English clergy, and among those laymen who had an affection for theexisting forms and constitution of the Church of England, there was a sense of danger and provocation. There was both danger and provocation in the proximity of a kirk so zealous in its assertion of anti-Episcopal principles as that of the Scots, and viewed with such ominous interest by a large body of the English people. It might not be great matter of regret, so far a...