An opportunity had arisen in the history of the Church of England for healing a wound which had been bleeding ever since the Reformation. A moment had arrived, calling upon the two great parties, into which that Church had been so long divided, to look at their differences in the light of wisdom and charity. But the history of mankind presents so many misimproved conjunctions of circumstances, that students of the past become familiar with lost opportunities, and are almost hardened against the sorrow which they inspire in the bosoms of more benevolent but less experienced persons. It is useless to speculate upon the probable issue, at the period under review, if the settlement of affairs had been approached in another kind of spirit. It is more practical to endeavour to understand how things really stood; and it will enable the reader to follow the controversy better, if we here pause for a moment to look distinctly at deep differences which lay around narrow discussions, and to show what were some of the salient points which presented themselves in relation to the larger question. The Presbyterians, with great confidence, carried their cause before the tribunal of Scripture, and showed from their own point of view, that for their fundamental doctrine of the official equality of all Christian ministers they had on their side the law of the New Testament; for they maintained that on its pages the terms Bishop and Presbyter are interchangeably used, and that no traces of a clerical hierarchy are to be found in the inspired records. Turning to Church history, from the third century to the seventeenth, they easily gathered proofs and illustrations of the growth of ecclesiastical usurpation; of the change of primitive Episcopacy into an elaborate system of spiritual despotism; of the rise of Archbishops and Patriarchs; of the pride, the power, the ambition, and the wealth of prelates; of the tyranny they exercised over civil society; of the corruptions of all kinds which gathered round the perverted institute; and of the tendency from bad to worse, which exists in all cases where men are not careful to preserve the simplicity of Christ. The state of England in the time of Archbishop Laud was a subject upon which they were able to dwell with great force. They showed the cruel oppression endured by holy men, at the hands of prelates, who sought to revive in this country the ceremonies renounced, and the doctrines condemned at the Reformation; and they insisted upon the obvious fact that the Church was then in danger of becoming thoroughly Romanized, under the pernicious culture of superstitious teachers. The Revolution accomplished by the Long Parliament, the Presbyterians were prepared to defend as a political and ecclesiastical necessity, arising out of previous corruptions; whilst they pointed, with satisfaction and thankfulness, to the progress of spiritual religion under the Commonwealth, in spite of sectarianism, and the other evils of the times,--all of which they condemned, and deplored quite as much as any of the Episcopalian clergy could do. Ecclesiastical discipline in the parishes of England--for attempting which they had been so much blamed--the Presbyterians could show, rested on a principle conceded by Prelatists; and though it failed to produce all the fruits which its administrators could wish, yet it had turned many a town and village from a wilderness into a garden of the Lord. And when they contended against the Prelacy of former days, and protested against its restoration they distinctly stated, as we have seen, that they had no objection to a modified Episcopacy, to the rule of a Bishop, with his co-Presbyters, over dioceses of such dimensions as would admit of careful oversight and efficient rule; nor did they condemn all liturgies--not even the Book of Common Prayer, if certain things in the formularies and the rubric, which they and their Puritan fathers had complained of as superstitious, were now altered. The Presbyterian party, moreover, professed the most affectionate loyalty to the Crown, and the warmest attachment to the English Constitution; and in support of that profession could point to valuable services rendered by them at the Restoration. Lastly, they were in possession of incumbencies, to which they had been introduced according to the law of the land, some of them before the late troubles began. They had been educated at the Universities, had been many of them episcopally ordained, had led quiet lives in their respective parishes, had preached the Gospel for many long years, and had gathered round them large and affectionate congregations.