Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/66



HE earlier constitutional position of the Long Parliament was not the only source from which the Levellers might have drawn a reverence for paramount law. The Levellers generally were Independents; and by 1645 the Independents were the recognized advocates of the idea that there was a supreme law in the ecclesiastical world, past the power of Parliament to override. Independency, as par excellence the ecclesiastical system of paramount law, gave both form and content to the Leveller platform.

It is important, therefore, to understand exactly what opinions on church government distinguished the Independents from their contemporaries. The ecclesiastical controversies surrounding the work of the Westminster Assembly offer a mine of valuable material for this purpose. That Assembly, it will be remembered, was called by Parliament in 1643 to substitute a new church government for episcopacy. It drew up a Presbyterian model that met strenuous opposition from the few Independent members of the Assembly, finally passed the Parliament in such weakened form as to be disappointing to the Presbyterians, and in the event never went into effect. An analysis of the struggle over the Assembly’s proposals will reveal the distinctive