CHAPTER VIII. The schemes of politicians, the proceedings of Parliament, and the administration of affairs by a Council of State--although necessary to be studied in order to obtain a knowledge of external circumstances, such as, under the Commonwealth, powerfully influenced religious society--can convey but a very inadequate idea of the actual working of ecclesiastical institutions at that period; and no conception whatever of the spiritual life either of churches or of individuals. It is requisite, therefore, that we should turn our attention to the inner history of different communions; and not only look somewhat minutely at their character and proceedings, but also glance at a few of the eminent individuals who were connected with them. Both in theory and practice, Cromwell's Broad Church included Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists. In reviewing the state of these parties respectively, we commence with the Presbyterians. The Presbyterian scheme of church government,[164] as determined by the Assembly of Divines, contains an enumeration of three kinds of officers--namely, pastors, who both preached and ruled; lay elders, who ruled, but did not preach; and deacons, who chiefly attended to the necessities of the poor. Each congregation was to have its affairs administered by such officers; and upon the Presbytery, consisting of Pastors and Elders,[165] devolved the oversight of communicants, the maintenance of discipline, and the administration of censures. Censures, too, admitted of three degrees--admonition, suspension, and excommunication. Notorious offenders were required to make an acknowledgment of sin before the whole congregation; and if they proved incorrigible, they were to be cut off from the communion of the Lord's Supper, and from the right of bringing their children to be baptized. Means, however, were to be employed for the restoration of such unhappy outcasts.[166] [Sidenote: _Presbyterian System._]