pretty sure to agree with Presbyterians on the subjects of the Liturgy,
Sabbath-observance, abolition of Festival-days, and the recommendation of
a plain and Puritan church-service generally. There were significant
proofs of this. Actually on Christmas-day 1643 (who would have thought
it?) the Lords and Commons met for business as usual, thus showing the
example of contempt of the great holiday--all the more to the delight of
the Scottish Commissioners, and of the zealous Puritans of the Assembly
and the City, because the Assembly was still weak-hearted enough as a
whole to adjourn for that day. It was the Scottish Commissioners, indeed,
that had contrived this rebuke to the weaker spirits. And within a week
or two thereafter there was this farther Puritan triumph--also the
contrivance of the Scottish Commissioners through their friends in
Parliament,--that the use of the Liturgy was discontinued in the two
Houses, in favour of extempore prayers by Divines appointed for the duty
by the Assembly. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 120 and 130.]

_Ejection of Scandalous and Malignant Ministers_.--A somewhat
wholesale process, described in such terms by the winning side, had been
going on, everywhere within the sway of Parliament, for several months.
It was part, indeed, of a more general process, for the sequestration to
the use of Parliament of the estates of notorious Delinquents of all
kinds, which had been the subject of various Parliamentary ordinances.
[Footnote: Commons Journals from March 1612-3 onwards. For sequence of
proceedings and dates, see Index to Journals, Vol III. _sub cocc._
"Delinquents." See also the main sequestrating ordinances (March 31 and
Aug. 19, 1643) in Scobell's collection.] By these ordinances a machinery
for the work of sequestration had been established, consisting of a
central committee in London, and of committees in all the accessible
counties. The special application of this machinery to clerical
delinquents had come about gradually. From the very beginning of the