A very wonderful day's work was that of the 16th of December.[70] It was an act of usurpation beyond all doubt, yet one which it would be pedantic to criticise according to constitutional rules. For when a house is catching fire, or a vessel is on the edge of a rock, people in their senses do not expect that a strong man, who can extinguish the flame, or steer the ship into open waters, should stand on ceremony and wait for red-tape formalities. A crisis had come, such as must come in the wake of great revolutions, when, however firmly we may maintain Locke's principles of the origin of government, we find people in such a state of perfect helplessness, and former rulers so utterly destitute of power to rule, so incapable, so inevitably rushing to destruction, dragging the whole country along with them--that in mercy to mankind we feel all theories woven of the wisest webs must be laid aside, and a competently skilful hand be allowed to gather up the scattered threads in such fashion as it may be able. Public affairs had now reached such a crisis that the alternative was a Protector or destruction, Cromwell or chaos. The fire long kindling now at length burst into a blaze, and there was only one man who could put an end to the conflagration. The ship was within an inch of foundering, and there remained but one pilot who had the power of steering her off the rocks.
The Church, it should be recollected, had not ceased to be a State Church. The constant discussion of its affairs by Parliament and the Council of State implied its continued subjection to secular control. No scheme of severance had been propounded, though certain proposals had been made which might seem to involve such a result. However desirable it may appear to some of our readers that the civil and ecclesiastical powers in a country should stand each on its own basis, and not interfere with one another's action; whatever anticipations may be formed of a new and better era of Christian civilization, to be inaugurated when a separation of the Church from the State shall take place, subject to the authority of New Testament teaching, aided by the lights of experience through the exercise of political sagacity, and under the inspiration of Christian disinterestedness; yet every one must see that the time had not then come for such a revolution. Such a revolution involved not only the settlement of questions touching ecclesiastical property and revenue, but also the determination of two other points, namely, that religion should be left to its own unfettered exercise, and that no man should be disqualified by his theological opinions for the discharge of the offices and the enjoyment of the honours of the State. Now, without doing injustice to the character of the Little Parliament, we certainly may go so far as to say that it never indicated the possession of that clearsightedness, that deep wisdom, and that broad sympathy which are essential to the satisfactory solution of the practical problems included in the change just indicated. The members had neither the intellectual nor the moral qualifications requisite for the task. It was in those days more difficult than it is at present to draw the line where free religious action comes to an end, and something else quite different from it begins; for millenarian opinions ran over into Fifth Monarchy schemes, and the Dutch wars had become mixed up in men's brains with the dominion of the saints. The Little Parliament lacked the mental power necessary in those days for carrying out the doctrines of voluntaryism, even had they understood them. But they did not understand them. Had they done so, they would not have clung to the idea in any form, of the State supporting the Christian ministry, nor would they have cherished the conviction that certain theological qualifications are indispensable for the discharge of political trusts.