192 RELIGIOUS HISTORY, 1640-60
the record is so defective that it is difficult to estimate the pro-
gress made, but in most places little seems to have been done.
The future of this attempt to establish presbyterianism as a
national religion now depended largely upon the attitude of the
army. Since 1645, when the New Model came into existence,
and especially since 1647, when presbyterians either withdrew
or were expelled from the army, the majority of the officers
were sectaries. Widely as they often differed among themselves
in their theological views, they were united in their champion-
ship of toleration. They were at one with Milton: 'Give me the
liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to con-
science, above all liberties'.1 This sentence might well have
served as a motto for Cromwell's army. The history of inde-
pendency explains the lack of sympathy between the ideals of
parliament and of the army that fought for it.
One of the most astounding features of the period is the
growth of sectaries from a negligible handful before 1640 to
a body strong enough to have gained control of the army,
executed the king, and founded a commonwealth, in ten years.
Although 'great awakenings like that which characterize the
commonwealth era always present ... an element of surprise
and mystery',2 yet it is possible to suggest factors that con-
tributed to this sudden outburst of sectarianism. The meaner
sort, who had saved protestantism during the Marian persecu-
tion by contributing the bulk of the martyrs, had long been
dissatisfied with the Elizabethan settlement. Their longing for
a more spiritual and less political reformation was fostered by
their reading. They were happy in that they had at hand the
Authorized Version of the Bible* But their devotional literature
was by no means confined to the Scriptures or the Book of
Common Prayer. A remarkable feature of the sixty years
or so which closed in 1640 is the enormous output of devo-
tional literature. Books of pious aphorisms, prayers, sermons,
and devotions literally poured from the press. Arthur Dent's
Plaine Mans Path-Way to Heaven3 went through twenty-five
editions between 1601 and 1640* Thomas Egcrton's Briefe
Method of Catechizing reached its thirty-ninth edition in 1631,
1 Areopagitica, in Works, iv. 346,
3 Rufus M. Jones, Mysticism and Democracy in the English Commonwealth (i932)> p* 4.
3 One of the two books that formed the dowry of Banyan's first wife. The other
was Lewis Bayly's The Practice qf Piety*