Two ecclesiastical principles are seen at work in connection with the religious organizations which existed in the middle of the seventeenth century: Erastianism and Voluntaryism. Erastianism came across the path of both Presbyterians and Congregationalists. It wrought powerfully through the ordinances and laws of the Long Parliament, in the way of checking what it justly deemed the despotic tendencies of uncontrolled authority in the exercise of discipline. The working of Erastianism is visible in the legal prevention of the full establishment of parochial assemblies and provincial synods; and in the interference of the magistrate with those Independent pastors holding benefices, who would fain have excluded from the Lord's table persons whom they deemed morally unfitted for approaching it. In curbing suspected despotism, Erastianism, as is its wont, paralyzed the hand of a salutary restraint upon the irregularities of Christian professors. It opened a door for promiscuous communion. It thwarted the designs, and enfeebled the energy of ecclesiastical Puritanism; and thus laxity of fellowship followed as a penalty for seeking State support, on the part of communities which prized the purity of Christ's Church. Voluntaryism cannot properly be identified with Puritanism. The leading Puritans neither advocated nor countenanced that principle; such as were Episcopalians did not. The Presbyterians, and some of the Independents, as we have this moment noticed, did not. A few of the Baptists did not. Oliver Cromwell, who protected them all, did not. Whilst some Puritans thus stood apart from Voluntaries, and even opposed _them_, there were some Voluntaries who stood apart from Puritanism, and even opposed _that_. The Quakers, from the commencement of their history, protested against the union of Church and State, and were ever faithful to their convictions in this as well as in other respects; they also kept aloof from Puritanism altogether, and even condemned it severely, under several of its aspects. Many of the Independents, and more of the Baptists, previously to the Civil Wars, also disapproved strongly of that kind of union which displeased the Quakers, and contended firmly for the support of Churches by voluntary contributions; yet they entered into cordial alliance with Puritanism in other things, promoting certain of its political proceedings, and sympathizing generally with its spiritual movements and tendencies. Voluntaryism had strong affinities for the spiritual side of Puritanism, deriving from it the most vigorous impulses, contributing towards it the most devoted service; and if it did not win its way at first amongst the rich, the noble, and the learned, it laid hold upon the hearts of the humbler classes; and, by widely leavening them with its power, prepared for subsequently working upwards to that influence which is exercised by it in the present day. The history of