Adam;" Baillie, II. 216; and Hanbury's _Hist. Memorials relating to the
Independents_, II. 251 _et seq._, and 341 _et seq._, where there are full
accounts of the pamphlets, with extracts.]


PROCEEDINGS OF PARLIAMENT TO FEB. 1643-4: STATE OF THE WAR: THE SCOTTISH
AUXILIARY ARMY.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding this ominous difference in the Assembly on the
great question of Church-government, all parties in the Assembly were co-
operating harmoniously with each other and with Parliament in other
important items of the general "Reformation" which was in progress. The
chief of these items may be grouped under headings:--

_Simplification of Church Service, and Suppression of unpopular Rites
and Symbols_.--This process, which had been going on naturally from
the beginning of the Parliament, and more violently and riotously in some
places since the beginning of the war, had been accelerated by recent
Parliamentary enactments. Thus, in May 1643, just when Milton was
preparing to leave London on his marriage holiday, there had been a
tearing down, by authority, with the sound of trumpets and amid the
huzzas of the citizens, of Cheapside Cross, Charing Cross, and other such
street-monuments of too Popish make. At the same time the anti-
Sabbatarian "Book of Sports" had been publicly burnt. Then followed (Aug.
27) an ordinance for removing out of churches all "superstitious images,
crucifixes, altars," &c.; the effect of which for the next few months was
a more or less rough visitation of pickaxing, chipping, and chiselling in
all the parish-churches within the Parliament's bounds that had not
already been Puritanized by private effort. Then, again, on the 20th of
November, the House of Commons recommended to the consideration of the