They had no desire to establish a State Church of
their own; they were not prepared to deny that at least "a public way of
instructing the nation" might be necessary; but they were determined
that any such Church should be tolerant of the claims of men like
themselves, who could not conform their conscience to its requirements.
To create a home of liberty out of the England of the Tudors and the
Stuarts, of Laud and of Prynne, was a task beyond even their powers. But
whatever they may have failed to accomplish, they saved England from the
ecclesiastical tyranny Presbyterianism at that time involved, and raised
the standard of liberty and toleration, which during the great struggle
obtained a hold of the mind of the nation such as it never had before,
but never entirely lost again.
At the very outbreak of the Civil War, Cromwell's aim had been to find
"men who know what they fight for, and love what they know,--men as had
the fear of God before them, as made some conscience of what they
did."[33:1] Such men soon gathered round the great Independent, and he
moulded them into the famous Ironsides, by whose aid he turned the tide
of defeat at Marston Moor, and gained the glorious victories of Naseby,
Preston, Dunbar, and Worcester. Such men stood by his side at the
momentous Army Council at Windsor, May 1st, 1648, when it was solemnly
resolved, "not any dissenting," "that it was our duty, if ever the Lord
brought us back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of
blood, to account for the blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to
his utmost, against the Lord's cause and people in these poor
nations.
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