Note 588 — Chapter VII

However, Bishop Short (History of the Church of England, 8vo, 1847, pp. 452, 458) says, what is undoubtedly true, that the hostility of Cromwell to the church was not theological, but political. The same remark is made by Bishop Kennet. Note in Burton's Diary, vol. ii. p. 479. See also Vaughan's Cromwell, vol. i. p. xcvii.; and on the generally tolerant spirit of this great man, see Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. p. 14; and the evidence in Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iii. pp. 37–47. But the most distinct recognition of the principle, is in a Letter from Cromwell to Major-General Crawford, recently printed in Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. pp. 201, 202, 8vo, 1846. In it Cromwell writes, ‘Sir, the state, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions; if they be willing faithfully to serve it—that satisfies.’ See additional proof in Carwithen's Hist. of the Church of Engl. vol. ii. pp. 245, 249.