qualifying orthodoxy for the Church of the Protectorate.  For such a purpose the Westminster Confession of Faith, even though its doctrinal portions might stand much as they were, could hardly suffice as a whole.  That Confession was to be recast, or a new one framed.  So the Petition and Advice had provided or suggested; but it may be doubted whether Cromwell was very anxious for any such formal definition of the creed of his Established Church.  He preferred the broad general understanding which all men had, with himself, as to what constituted sound Evangelical Christianity, and he had more trust in administration in detail through his Triers and Ejectors than in the application of formulas of orthodoxy.  Here, however, Owen and the other Independent divines most in his confidence appear to have differed from him.  They felt the want of some such confession and agreement for Association and Discipline as might suit at least the Congregationalists of the Established Church, and be to them what the Westminster Confession was to the Presbyterians.  “From the first, all or at least the generality of our churches,” they said, “have been in a manner like so many ships, though holding forth the same general colours, yet launched singly, and sailing apart and alone on the vast ocean of these tumultuous times, and exposed to every wind of doctrine, under no other conduct than that of the word and spirit, and their particular elders and principal brethren, without association among themselves, or so much as holding out common lights to others to know where they were.”  A petition to this effect, though not in these terms, having been presented to his Highness, he reluctantly yielded.  He allowed a preliminary meeting of representatives of the Congregational churches in and about London to be held on June 21, 1658, and circular letters to be sent out to all the Congregational churches in England and Wales convoking a Synod at the Savoy on the 29th of September.  The Confession of Faith, if any, to be drawn up by this Synod was not, of course, to be the comprehensive State Confession foreshadowed in Article XI. of the Petition and Advice, but only the voluntary agreement of the Congregationalists or Independents for themselves.  In fact, to all appearance, if the harmonious comprehension of moderate Anglicans, Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, within one and the same Church, was to be signified by written symbols as well as carried out practically, this could be done only by a plan of concurrent confessions justifying the concurrent endowments.  Even for that, it would seem, Cromwell was now prepared.  Yet he was a little dubious about the policy of the coming Synod, and certainly was as much resolved as ever that Synods and other ecclesiastical assemblies should be only a permitted machinery for the denominations severally, and that the Civil Magistrate should determine what denominations could be soldered together to make a suitable State-Church, and should supervise and make fast the junctions.[1]