t.r^rfy' ' f , , • . ■ , t-kli....*!-^,.., i itf^p^v^i".-; ■: Sil ^) Ht ^ ^ Z. Z> riie churc h anl -he Purirans ^pDcl)^ of Cl)urcl) Ipmot^ EDITED BY THE REV. MANDELL CREIGHTON, M.A, THE CHUKCH and THE PUEITANS PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREFiT SQUARE LONDON THE OHUECH and THE PUEITANS 1570 — 1660 BY / HENEY OFFLEY%AKEMAN, M.A. FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE TUTOR OF KEBLE COLLEGE, OXFORD LONDON LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 1887 All rights reserved PEEFAOE. The history of the Reformed Church of England between the years 1570 and 1660 is too often treated as if it were but the history of a Government department of education and morals. The close connexion which un- doubtedly existed between Church and State under the Tudors and the Stuarts has tended to obscure the fact, that during those years within the bosom of the Church itself was being worked out, independently of the Government, a problem which was essentially religious in its nature, and which only affected politics when men felt bound to put their principles into practice and try to enforce them upon others. That problem was no less than whether England as a na- tion should or should not cut itself off from historical Christianity, from the principles of Christianity as they had been understood for sixteen centuries ; or, in other words, whether Puritanism should or should not succeed in establishing itself as legitimately within the pale of the English Church. That question was decided once for all in the negative by the Laudian movement, but vi The Church and the Puritans by that movement not in its political, but in its re- ligious development, by Hooker and Andrewes and the opponent of Fisher, not by Charles I. and the Pre- sident of the High Commission Court. Like all great questions, it was solved by the action of the human mind much more than by courts or governments. For this reason, therefore, I have tried to make this ques- tion the central one of those with which this volume has to deal, and have devoted more space to the con- sideration of the origin and intellectual basis of the Laudian movement than might at first sight seem justifiable. Among the original authorities upon whom I have mainly relied may be mentioned, besides the State Papers, Cardwell, Strype, the Zurich Letters, Laud's Diary, Hooker, Heylin, Prynne, May, Clarendon, Baillie, Eushworth, and Cromwell ; while among recent his- torians I should like to express my great indebtedness to Dr. Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Ganterbury^ Mr. Perry's History of the Ghiirch of England, Dr. Stoughton's History of Bsligion in England, Mr. Simpson's Lfe of Campion, and Mr. Barclay's interesting sketch of the Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Gommomvealth. For the reigns of James I. and Charles I. the assistance of Mr. Gardiner's History of England from the Accession of James I. has been simply invaluable. CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. THE STATE OF EELIGION AT THE BEGINNING OF ELIZABETH'S EEIGN. TAtrE The character of the Keformation in England — The aims of Elizabeth — Prerogative government in Church and State — The Elizabethan settlement — English ecclesiastical parties — The Koman Catholics — The Protestants — The Anglicans — The isolation of England — The lowering of j)ublic morals — The dependence of the Church upon the Crown ... 1 CHAPTEE II. ELIZABETH AND THE BOMAN CATHOLICS. The Papacy in 1569 — The bull of deposition — The attitude of Elizabeth — Two parties among the Eoman Catholics, the loyal and the disloyal — Elizabeth attacks both equally — The penal laws — The plots against Elizabeth's life — The perse- cution — The Armada — Continuance of the persecution — Its injustice and impolicy 17 CHAPTEE III. ELIZABETH AND THE PUEITANS. The growth of Calvinism— Its danger to the Government— The Puritans and the Nonconformists— Kepression of Noncon- ■ formity by EHzabeth— The Advertisements— Formation of the two bodies of the Presbyterians and the Independents- Suppression of the Prophesyings - Attempt of the Presby- viii The Church and the Puritans terians to organise themselves within the Church — The poli- tical character of Presbyterianism — The spiritual character of Independency — Measures of Whitgift — The Lambeth Articles- -Persecution of Nonconformists — Partial success of Whitgift — The principles of Puritanism — Witness of Spenser, Milton, and Eliot — Its moral strength — Its intellectual in- compatibility with the Church 34 CHAPTER IV. THE CHURCH UNDER JAMES I. The character and political attitude of James — Altered nature of the Eoman Catholic question at home and abroad — James's attempt at toleration — Increased severity of the penal laws after the Gunpowder Plot— The Hampton Court Con- ference — James's treatment of the Puritan question — Main- tenance of the supremacy of the Church by Whitgift and Bancroft — Growth of Church principle— Inherent weakness of the Church system 62 CHAPTER V. THE RISE OF ARMINIANISM. Reaction against Calvinism — Hooker, Bacon, Andrewes, and Laud — The intellectual strength of the Arminian move- ment — Its political and moral weakness — Close connexion between politics and religion — Weakness of Puritanism and strength of Arminiauism as religious princii)les . . .79 CHAPTER VI. WILLIAM LAUD. The primacy of Abbot— Early training of Laud— Rivalry between him and Abbot — Laud as Dean of Gloucester — His conference with Fisher— His intimacy with Buckingham and influence Contents ix with Charles I. — His character and principles- His attempt to silence opponents and promote his friends by court in- fluence — The bad results of this policy— His reliance on the royal prerogative — His claim of independence from Parlia- mentary control — The cases of Montague, Sibthorpe, and Mainwaring — Distinct breach between Charles and the Com- mons on ecclesiastical questions 9^ CHAPTER VII. THE ENFOECEMENT OF DISCIPLINE. Cosin's Book of Devotions— Laud determines to enforce Church discii^line by royal prerogative — His measures against the careless Bishops, the Lecturers, and the Feoffees — His revival of ceremonial — The metropolitical visitation— The removal of the altars — His activity appears innovating and becomes unpopular — Enforcement of discipline upon the laity — Political results of this policy — Fall of Laud and his political system — Eventual triumph of his religious principles — Their exemplification by Herbert, Crashaw, and Nicholas Ferrar . 119 CHAPTER VIII. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. Fall of Laud's system— Growth of an anti-Church party— Failure of attempts at compromise — Attacks on Episcopacy at first unsuccessful — Formation of an Episcopal and Royalist party — The Civil War— The King's success renders alliance with the Scots necessary for the Parliament— Practical overthrow of the Church by the Solemn League and Covenant— Grow- ing importance of the Independents— Their supremacy in the Army — Disputes in Parliament and the Assembly — Formal establishment of Presbyterianism and practical supremacy of Independency — Persecution of the Church— Failure of Williams's attempt to establish a limited Episco- pacy—Ejectment of the Eoyalist clergy— Wrecking of the Cathedrals — Execution of Laud and Charles . • • 1-iO \ X The Church and the Puritans CHAPTEE IX. EELIGIOUS ANARCHY. PAGE The supremacy of Independency under Presbyterian forms prac- tically religious anarchy — Outbreak of fanaticism — The State becomes censor of public morals — Weakness of the Long Parliament — Its expulsion — Failure of the Little Parliament — Cromwell's ecclesiastical policy — His toleration of all but Papists, Prelatists, and the unruly — His ejectment and silencing of the clergy — His failure to give the nation peace — Growth of a party of order favourable to a Restoration . 170 CHAPTER X. THE RESTOEATION. Difficulties of the Kii .g — Different kinds of clergy in possession of benefices — Restoration of the Church — Attempts at com- prehension of the Puritans — Impossibility of comprehension of the Independents — Uselessness of comprehension of the Presbyterians — Fundamental differences of opinion — Failure of Charles's proposal for a limited Episcopacy — The Savoy Conference — Triumph of Laud's principles in the revision of the Prayer Book — Ejectment and persecution of the unor- dained ministers— Milton's attack on the Restoration — In reality it is a step towards civil and religious liberty . . 184 INDEX 203 THE CHURCH and THE PURITANS. CHAPTER I. the state of religion at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. The changes in the Church of England begun at the Reformation were not completed until the Restoration, The charac- ^hen Church and State agreed to accept the Refonnation P^aycr Book in its revised form, and to enforce in England conformity to it by law ; but the direction which the movement was eventually to take was settled in the reign of Elizabeth. It was under her that the system of the Church became fixed after the struggles of the sixteenth century. It was her guiding hand that marked out the middle course between the Catho- licism and the Protestantism of the day, which it has been the special boast of the Church of England ever since to have attempted to keep. Henry VIII. contented himself with asserting, in ecclesiastical affairs, the same principles which in civil affairs had already proved to be the chief supports of his throne, and to a great extent the cause of his C.H, B / 2 The Church and the Puritans popularity, i.e. the independence of the nation and the supremacy of the Crown. He did not hesitate to apply these principles to his own advantage, with no greater regard to right and justice than he displayed in his dealings with the constitution. Still, in spite of much tyranny to individuals, of much rapacity, of much open violation of pledges solemnly given, Henry succeeded with singular dexterity in making the nation realise that the ecclesiastical change through which it was passing, was in its main essence a return to, and not a subversion of, the old principles of the ecclesiastical organisation ; a re-assertion of buried but not forgotten precedent, in part a revival, in part a development, but in no sense a revolution. Edward VI. and Mary went much further. By their rival attempts to alter the character of the Church as it had been left by Henry — the one to make it Protestant, the other to make it Papal — they plunged England into the storm of continental controversy and continental politics, which it had been one of the great objects of Henry to avoid. Men were obliged to range themselves on one side or the other under the banners of the great leaders of the continental struggle. To be opposed to the Pope was to be a Protestant in the sense of Luther or Calvin. Not to be a Protestant was to be a Papalist in the sense of Ignatius Loyola or Philip II. It is significant that Reginald Pole, who in 1541 was the leader of the party of conciliation between the Catholics and the Lutherans at the diet of Ratisbon, was in 1555 the abettor, if not the leader, of the Marian persecutions. Men were opposed to each other, not, as in Henry's reign, because they looked upon themselves Religion in Elizabeth's Reign 3 as belonging to different parties of tlie same religious body, but as belonging to different religious bodies. When Swiss Protestant theologians were placed in the teaching chairs of the Universities, when persons who had never received Episcopal Ordination were put into English benefices, or when English bishops were pro- ceeded against for heresy because they had rebelled against the Pope, it was evident that principles were working among the leaders on both sides far removed from the doctrinal orthodoxy and national independence of Henry VIII. It was the great aim of Elizabeth to take up and pursue the policy of her father. To this she adhered Theaimf3of cousistcntly throughout her reigu. In all her Elizabeth dealings with the difficulties which sur- rounded her, whether abroad or at home, she never forgot that she was the daughter of Henry VIII. She tried as far as she could to act as she believed he would have acted. In the affairs of the Church this tendency was more marked than in her domestic or foreign policy, for she was more free to follow her own inclinations. In the Acts of Supremacy and Unifor- mity, passed soon after her accession to the throne, she re-asserted, almost in the language originally used by Henry VIII., the supremacy of the Crown and the in- dependence of the Church. She was careful to declare in the very title of the Act of Supremacy that she was but restoring to the Crown an ' ancient jurisdiction,' and not investing it with fresh powers. By her Royal Injunctions issued in 1559 she explained the true scope of the Eoyal Supremacy to extend only to ' that authority used by the noble kings of famous memory, B 2 4 Tee Church and the Puritans Henry VIII. and Edward VI., which is and was of ancient time due to the imperial Crown of this realm ; that is, under God, to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these her realms, dominions and countries, of what state, either ecclesias- ' tical or temporal, soever they be, so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them.' By her repudiation of the title of Supreme Head, she was careful to dissociate herself from the evil traditions of the dictatorships of Cromwell and of Northumberland. By the pains she took that Archbishop Parker should 1 be canonically consecrated ; by her sanction of the re- introduction into the Prayer Book of 1559 of the rubric which enjoined the use of the eucharistic vestments ; by her introduction into the twentieth Article of 1571 (probably with her own hand) of the acknowledgment of the authority of the Church in controversies of faith ; by her dislike of clerical marriage, and by her retention of much of the old ceremonial in the services of her private chapel, she showed how anxious she was to insist upon the continuity of the life of the Church as an obvious historical fact as well as a useful contro- versial argument. Elizabeth was thus prepared not merely to admit, but to insist upon, the independent character of the or- Prero ative g^nisation, and the reality of the uninterrupted government j^fg ^f ^j^g Church. She was careful to make in Church ' and State ^^ clear that, from her point of view, the schism, if there was schism, was the act of Rome, and not of England. Yet to her, as to her father, the maintenance of her crown and the strength of her government were ever the first considerations. All else Religion in Elizabeth's Reign 5 must be sacrificed. No possible rival could be per- mitted within the sphere of her own influence. Scotland was too near for a rival queen to be allowed freedom of action. The first mutterings of the awakening spirit of Parliamentary liberty were jealously watched and suppressed. Above all, religion, the strongest of the powers which swayed men and nations in the sixteenth century, was to be tied to the chariot wheels of royalty. No religion but that of the Queen was to be allowed to exist in her dominions. The Church herself — free though she was proclaimed to be in her jurisdiction by her Articles ; independent of all worldly power in her origin and organisation though she was acknowledged to be in her Prayer Book, now a statute of the realm ; strong though she was in the traditions of ten centuries of vigorous life — was to be the humble handmaid of monarchy. Her freedom, like that of the State, was a freedom after the Tudor pattern — a child too carefully cherished by its mother ever to dare to lift up its hand against her, too fondly embraced ever to be permitted to grow. Just as in her civil government Elizabeth habitu- ally exercised an amount of personal authority which Parliament, as it grew in political capacity, was soon to find incompatible with the constitutional liberties of the nation ; so in her ecclesiastical government she was permitted a license of prerogative which was soon found incompatible with the constitutional liberties of the Church. By the 17th clause of the Act of Supremacy^ the Crown was stated to be invested with power ' to visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend all such • 1 Eliz. c. 1. 6 The Church and the Puritans errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts and enormities which by any manner, spiritual or eccle- siastical power, authority, or jurisdiction, can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, corrected, or amended; ' and by the following clause it was empowered to appoint commissioners to give effect to this jurisdic- tion. Such was the origin of the Court of High Com- mission^ which was a powerful eilgine of ecclesiastical government in the hands of Elizabeth and the earlier Stuarts, but was declared to be unconstitutional by the Long Parliament of 1641 and the Restoration Parliament of 1661. The right of legislation over the Church by virtue of the Royal Supremacy, without the consent of either Convocation or Parliament, was fre- quently exercised by Elizabeth by the issue of injunctions and declarations ; but after her time this questionable practice gradually gave way to a more orderly and constitutional procedure, much as the analogous right of legislating in civil matters by proclamation fell into gradual disuse. After the Restoration the most noted exercise of it was the admittedly unconstitutional De- claration of Indulgence of James IT. in 1687. In her treatment of Church property too she showed herself an apt pupil of her father, and even challenged comparison with some of the worst sovereigns that ever disgraced the English throne. Like William Rufus, she kept sees vacant, and appropriated the revenues during the vacancy. Like Henry VIIL, she re-annexed to the Crown the first fruits of benefices which since the thir- teenth century had been paid to the Pope, and were not restored to the Church to whom they rightfully belonged till the reign of Anne. She even obtained an Act of Religion in Ehzabrth's Reign y Parliament in 1559 to authorise her to exchange manors belonging to Bishoprics for tithes which Henry VIII. had taken from the monasteries ; and as in such exchanges the value of what was given was always much less than the value of what was taken by the Crown, the Queen rendered herself liable to the accusation of using the proceeds of one robbery as an instrument whereby to effect anotlier. Such was the character of the settlement of religion effected by Elizabeth. It bears on every part of it the TheEiizabe- marks of the practical wisdom and the disre- than settle- t p • • i i • • r meut gard 01 prmciple, characteristic of the Tudor race. Like the Elizabethan sovereignty, it seemed that it could never escape from the dangers which surrounded it in its cradle, yet before the death of the Queen it had won for itself respect abroad and pre-eminence at home. It was a compromise, and, like all religious compromises, it won the politicians and the indifferent, it lost the earnest, and it pleased nobody ; yet before fifty years had passed it had given birth to a school of religious philosophy which has earned a permanent place in the history of religious thought. It was essen- tially the work of a statesman, it was carried out in the ; interests of government far more than in the interests of truth ; yet in less than a century it had shown itself capable of inspiring enthusiastic love, and had weathered the storms of persecution. The secret of the strength , of the Church of England since the Reformation lay,; not where Cranmer sought for it, in the power of the >/ Church to influence and moderate the Protestantism of the Continent, with which it was politically allied ; not where Elizabeth and James I. tried to place it, in the 8 The Church aa'd the Puritans support that the Church gave to and derived from the power of the Crown ; but where Hooker, and Laud, and George Herbert found it. It lay in the right of the Church to the prestige and the traditions of the Church of the Apostles and of the Middle Ages, in her fearless appeal to history, in the fact that, however great might be for the time her helplessness in the hands of the Crown, however severe the buffetings of discordant opinion she had to endure, though she might change her mode of worship, and in part remodel her constitu- tion, nevertheless she preserved unimpaired the faith and the discipline of the Catholic Church. A crisis so acute as the Reformation could not fail to bring in its train results of its own quite difierent English from any which had been experienced by the ticai parties Churchmeu of the Middle Ages. New pro- blems, difficult enough to tax all the statesmanship of the leaders of Church and State, presented themselves for solution ; and first among these problems came the existence of religious division. The policy of Edward VI. and of Mary had left three religious parties distinctly defined in England. (1) The Roman Catholics, who, attached to the old forms of worship, had preserved a hearty loyalty to the Pope as the vicar of Christ, and had seen with misgiving the relations between Rome and England impaired in the reign of Henry VIII. They had been unable to follow Somerset and Northumberland in their Protestant policy in the years 1552 and 1553. Startled at the threatening declension of England into heresy, they threw themselves into the arms of the Pope, welcomed the reconciliation of Mary with Rome, acquiesced in Religion in Elizabeth's Reign g the persecution which followed, and learned to look upon Philip II. as the leader and champion of orthodoxy. The accession of Elizabeth put them into a consider- able difficulty. They were anxious to be loyal to her government. Most of them saw but little objection to the Prayer Book or the services of the Church. It was rumoured that the Pope himself was willing to give his sanction to the Prayer Book, if only his Supremacy was recognised. On the other hand, after having been the dominant party in the reign of Mary, after having iden- tified themselves with the Papal claim of Supremacy, they could not in honour draw back from demands which the Pope might make upon them. They accordingly consulted their own convenience, and perhaps their in- clinations, in conforming outwardly to the Government by attendance at Church, while Mass was said privately in their own houses. (2) The Protestants were for the most part followers of Zwingle and Calvin. In thorough sympathy with the Reformation in Switzerland and Scotland, they professed doctrines wholly incompatible with historical Christianity. To them the Church of the Fathers was as corrupt as the Church of Mary and of Pole. The Pope was undoubtedly Antichrist. Pure Christianity had been unknown from the times of the Apostles to those of Luther. Such men looked upon the Reforma- tion in England as a movement which was merely in its infancy. In the reign of Edward VI. a good beginning had been made, but much still remained to be done. The Marian persecution, and the exile which resulted from it, whetted the zeal of the reformers, and made them the more determined to destroy from out of 10 The Church and the Puritans the Church of England, whatever might be left which savoured of the old superstition. It required the earnest expostulations of their leading theologians to induce men like these to acquiesce in the Elizabethan settlement. As it was, they merely acquiesced in it, they never accepted it.^ They looked upon it as an instalment, and eagerly watched for an opportunity of carrying it further. They conformed to the Church, not like the Roman Catholics, because they did not wish to quarrel with the Government, but because they hoped in a few years to make the Church different from what it was. (o) The most powerful, perhaps the most numerous of these parties g^^the Anglican/ the source of whose strength lay in the inertness of the mass of mankind. They included in their ranks all who were neither adherents of the Pope nor followers of Calvin. In that motley assembly were many who were careless about scientific precision in matters of religion, and valued the worldly wisdom of the via media of Henry and Elizabeth. There were others who were deeply attached to the principles of historical Christianity, and were ready to accept the Elizabethan settlement as an ex- pression ^IW them adequate, if not wholly satisfactory. There were some who were pledged to the Reformation by the spoils with which it had endowed them; and many more who, indifferent in their faith and immoral in their lives, were willing to surrender their consciences to the keeping of the Government, provided the terms of conformity were not too severe. , To combine these parties b}^ a common obedience to ' Zurich Letters, i., Lett. III., app. Religion in Elizabeth's Reign ii an uniform worsliij^ was the problem which Elizabeth and Cecil had to solve, and it was a problem which Thedifficui- ^^^s in its very nature insoluble. It was beth^hrcfto hopeless to expect to include for long in the ^''''^ same religious fold the Marian convert and the Calvinistic enthusiast. It was clear that by losing both the Church of England would lose much of the religious zeal of the country, and be in danger of degenerating into mere official respectability. It was possible that if that zeal were arrayed against her the stability of the Government itself might be seriously endangered. But, besides this, Elizabeth had a special difficulty to contend with. In other countries the difficulties The isolation brought about by religious division were to of England ggnie extent mitigated by the support and sympathy, which the different Governments or reli- gious bodies, as the case might be, received from each other. The obligations of religion and the dangers to the authority of the Government from the dissidents were the same, whether the actual seat of the conflict was in France or in Germany or in the Low Countries. Wherever a difficulty arose between the religions, the whole Catholic world and the whole Protestant world felt themselves interested. Whenever a Government was threatened by an opposition which sheltered itself under the garb of religion, all Governments felt themselves equally attacked, and were ready to come to the assist- ance of what was felt to be a common cause. The peculiar course which the Eeformation had taken in England deprived Elizabeth of this advantage. England had become isolated from the rest of Christendom, and cut off from the flow of its religious thought. She was 12 The Church and the Puritans not Catholic, as countries which accepted the decrees of the Council of Trent understood Catholicism ; still less was she Protestant, as Calvin or William the Silent understood Protestantism. Politically, she was almost from the first allied with the Protestants, on account of her opposition to Spain ; but, with the exception of the unlucky commission sent by James I. to the Synod of Dort in 1619, there is no trace of any attempt on the part of England to influence religious feeling on the Continent. This isolation was the direct result of the Reforma- tion. It helped to strengthen the insularity of the English character. It helped to weaken the influence of England in the world. It helped to narrow an Englishman's conceptions of religion and hinder the progress of a spirit of toleration. Nevertheless, it enabled England to settle her own religious differences for herself in her own way. It preserved her from committing herself to a logical and uniform policy, which history has shown to be, in religious matters at any rate, the surest unwisdom. It enabled her to spread over half the civilised world a system of Christi- anity, agreeable to reason and justified by histor)^, which, with all its imperfections, theoretical and prac- tical, cannot fail to be destined to play a great part in the future, when the time shall come for the healing of divisions, and tbe gathering together of the divided pieces of the robe of Christ. The Reformation had, besides, brought with it results to the religious life of England herself, which must have made it difficult in those days to believe that the world was growing better. An observer who judged Religion in Elizabeth's Reign 13 the Eeformation by the lives of its disciples, instead of by the arguments of its professors, must have pronounced The lower- a Very unfavourable verdict. The shameless So rapacity of the courtiers of Henry VIII. and morals Edward VI. has passed into a byword. The cruel selfishness of the Protestant landlords, who op- pressed the poor and plundered the Church, is now generally acknowledged. Venality among judges, want of principle among statesmen, had never before been so conspicuous. The people of England might well be excused if they preferred the easy-going sluggishness of the monasteries, and the aristocratic listlessness of the bishops of the fifteenth century, or even the coarse, unlettered, and often immoral life of the friar, to the callous, self-seeking cruelty of men like Northumberland or Rich. Under Elizabeth an improvement came, but it came slowly, and the Queen did but little to forward it. She herself set \X\q example of plundering the Church, Her public conduct, skilful and successful though it was, was marked by mendacity and double-dealing, unique even in that age of diplomatic lying. Her private conduct was, to say the least of it, singularly wanting in self-respect and decorum. Among her courtiers hardly one is found of admitted probity. The most attractive of them, Sir Walter Raleigh, at tlie crisis of his life met his accusers with a lie. Even tlie Swiss exiles, on their return to England, anxious though they were to celebrate the glories of the ' wise and religious Queen,' could not fail to notice the sad plight of the Church, especially wdth regard to the education and numbers of the Clergy. ' I cannot at 14 The Church and the Puritans this time recommend you,' writes Jewel in 1559, 'to send your young men to us, either for a learned or religious education, unless you would have them sent back to you wicked and barbarous.' ' In the following year Lever writes piteously of the state of the country parishes. '' Many of our parishes have no clergymen, and some dioceses are without a bishop. And out of that very small number who administer the sacraments throughout this great country there is hardly one in a hundred who is both able and willing to preach the word of God.' Three years later, Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich, writes still more plainly : ' There are in England many good and zealous men ; there are many, too, cold, and not a few lukewarm ; but, to be plain with you, I fear many evils are hanging over our heads,. For almost all are covetous, all love gifts. There is no truth, no liberality, no knowledge of God. Men have broken forth to curse and to lie, and murder and steal and commit adultery. The English indulge in pleasures as if they were to die to-morrow, while they build as if they were to live always. But God grant that we may repent from our inmost soul.' Nor was this verdict really too harsh, though it may seem at first sight to be merely the expression of despair on the part of ecclesiastical officials unable to make men carry out their wishes. The Earl of Sussex writes to Cecil in a similar strain in 1562 : ' The people, without discipline, utterly devoid of religion, come to divine service as to a May game ; the ministers, for disability and greedi- ness, be had in contempt ; and the wise fear more the impiety of the licentious professors than the superstition > Zurich Letters, i. 33, 85. Religion in Elizabeth's Reign 15 of the erroneous Papists. God hold His hand over us, that our lack of religious hearts do not breed in the meantime His wrath and revenge upon us.' Such, then, was the nature of the problem with which Elizabeth, her ministers, and her Bishops had to deal. They bore rule in an organisation which was weakened and discredited by the storm through which it had passed. The majority of those who nominally adhered to it neither understood its principles nor believed its doctrines. The more religious among the nation had either emancipated themselves from its in- fluence, while formally attending its ministrations ; or else, disregarding altogether its law, had instituted their own form of worship and taught their own tenets within its pale, in the hope that some day they might confirm by law what they were then engaged in establishing by custom. The politicians were the only class of the community which were heartily attached to the Church system, and Dependence they wero attached to it, not for the religion Church which it taught, but for the social order which down it maintained, and the assistance which it lent to the Government. The Church, thus torn by internal dissensions, misunderstood and misrepresented by her own children and her own officers, lay helpless in the hands of the Crown. More than once it was saved from dangerous compromise with heresy by the firmness of the Queen herself. This weakness was not altogether distasteful to Elizabeth, for thereby she was assured that her will would be law ; yet she could not but feel that if the Church was to be an efficient support to her government, it must present an united front to her 1 6 The Church and the Puritans enemies. Whatever dissensions might reign within, to the foreigner and to the enemy must appear the un- broken phalanx of the powers of Church and State united in solid array in the defence of their Queen. The more that political troubles thickened round her, the higher that the waves of the Counter-Eeformation gathered and swelled, the more determined Elizabeth became that she would tolerate among her subjects no outward expression of divergence from her government. And more than this, directly she was assured of the loyalty of her subjects, directly she felt that what- ever might be their private opinions on matters of religion, on questions of government they realised that her whole heart was bound up with the welfare of England, that she was in the truest sense of the word a national Queen — the embodiment of England's power, the hope of England's glory — she went one step further and forced her subjects to make up their minds as to the grounds of their loyalty, and declare under which king they would live and die. Open enemies she could deal with, secret enemies she would not have if she could lielp it. Just as Henry VIII. forced men to sub- scribe a particular theory of the Royal Supremacy, and put them to death if they were unable in conscience to take the particular oath tendered to them, although they were willing enough to obey the Supremacy as a fact ; so Elizabeth put men to death because they would not condemn an abstract theory about Papal preroga- tives, though they would never stir one finger to assert those prerogatives by act. Uniformity of action in Church and State, based upon identity of thought on the all-important question of loyalty, was the weapon Religion in Elizabeth's Reign \y with which she prepared to meet the open and secret attacks of the forces of the Counter-Reformation led by Pius v., the Guises, and Philip II. CHAPTER II. ELIZABETH AND THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. The bull di-awn up by Pius V. in 1569, in which he pronounced Elizabeth a heretic, excommunicated her, The position ^eposcd her, and forbade her people to obey Papacy iu ^^^ uuder paiu of excommunication, was a 1569 declaration of w^ar. The Counter-Reformation had since the year 1555 been gradually but surely gaining ground. In 1569 the state of Europe seemed to herald its approaching triumph. Philip II. was com- plete master of his vast dominions, now in the zenith of their wealth and prosperity. The rebellion in the Low Countries was for the moment extinct. In France the Catholic League, under the House of Guise, was in the ascendent. The Council of Trent had lately finished its sittings, and had placed" the Roman system on a logical basis, and bound the Roman Catholic world to- gether by adding the doctrine of I*apal Supremacy to the creed. The Pope himself, Pius V., was a man in whose mind religious truth and Papal power were inseparably The cbarac- counectcd. Within a body small of stature, Pope and worn with rigid asceticism, burnt the fire of an indomitable energy. Stern, uncompromising, CM. ^' 1 8 The Church and the Puritans and unconquerable, lie knew no policy toward tlie heretic but war, no duty but extermination. Under such, a leader it was not likely tkat counsels of modera- tion would have much place. There was but one power whose existence threatened to check the spread of the faith, and whose conquest would assure the complete ascendency of the Papal authority. Elizabeth's policy at home was becoming daily more and more hampered by the difficulties which arose through the imprisonment of the Scottish Queen, and by the in- crease of Puritanism. Abroad, the rivalry with Spain on the coasts of America had almost assumed the pro- portions of a war. The time for half-measures was over. An opportunity offered which might never occur again. The Pope's mind was made up. Regardless of ulterior consequences to his cause and his followers, he launched the forces of Koman Catholicism upon a war of extermination with England. The bull of deposition was drawn up in 1569. Its existence was made known to the malcontents in Eng- Pubiicatiou land by Dr. Morton, and did much to foster of deposition the rebellion of the northern earls in the autumn of that year. The Guises proposed to Philip II. an alliance of the Roman Catholic powers on behalf of Mary against Elizabeth, and England was only saved from a joint attack by the desire of I^hilip to put down the Moriscoes before he embarked on the English expedition. The ease with which the outbreak of the great families of the north was suppressed, the evident jealousies and personal self-seeking of so many of the rebels, the staunch loj'alty of the mass of Englishmen, whatever their religion, were all thrown Elizabeth and the Roman Catholics 19 away upon the headstrong Pope. Blind to the fact that no court had thought of altering its relations with Elizabeth, although it was an open secret that the sen- tence of deposition was prepared, impervious to the remonstrances of politicians like the Emperor Maxi- milian, who, too late to prevent the promulgation of the bull, wrote to urge its withdrawal before it was printed, Pius determined to prosecute to the end a policy which depended for its success upon the support of the powers of Europe. The war was to be carried on with the whole forces of the Papacy, both spiritual and temporal. Side by The policy ^^^^ with the intriguer and the conspirator, of the Pope g^irpjj^g up disaffectiou, and no strangers to plots even of assassination, was to go the single-minded missionary, eager only for the salvation of perishing souls. While France and Spain were preparing for an armed invasion, Englishmen were to be converted to the faith. The condition of affairs in England was totally misconceived by the Pope and his advisers. They pictured to themselves a country groaning under the weight of an intolerable tyranny, and anxious to rid itself of the hateful yoke of a State-imposed faith. They found a nation glorying in its libert}^, and at least contented with its Church. The England of their imagination was eager to rise on behalf of religion against a perjured and excommunicated sovereign ; the England of reality was becoming increasingly Protest- ant, was rapidly learning to look upon the Pope as the most deadly enemy of its liberty and national greatness, and, whatever were its religious divisions, was conspicu- ously united in enthusiastic loyalty to its Queen. I' 20 The Church and the Puritans Elizabetli on her side prepared to meet the storm by an appeal, not to the loyalty of her subjects, where The nature ^^ ^^"^ invulnerable, but to the prejudices of of the pro- Protestautism and the terrors of the law, where Diem beiore ' Elizabeth ^ Governments must be weak in the presence of religious zeal. She accepted the gage of battle thrown down by the Pope. Tf he was prepared to pro- nounce her deposed from her throne, to declare that no faithful Roman Catholic might profess allegiance to her; and, having thus identified Roman Catholicism with disloyalty, was simultaneously sending mission- aries into England to make men Roman Catholics, and stirring up the Continental powers against England, what wonder was there that Elizabeth should take him at his word ? She naturally assumed that the converts whom the missionaries made would be obedient to the Pope, and therefore disloyal to herself; and that the missionaries themselves, however holy in their lives and single-minded in their spiritual zeal, were really preachers and teachers of sedition, because they were preachers and teachers of a creed which had identified itself with sedition. Nevertheless, it is easy to see that Elizabeth's de- cision was a wrong one. History shows clearly enough that, simply from the point of view of a statesman, with- out any reference to morals whatever, religious persecu- tion is never successful except at the cost of being so thorough as to defeat its own ends. The outward expression of religious opinion may be stamped out by a system of repression as thoroughgoing as that of the Inquisition in Spain, but it is at the expense of stamp- ing out with it the mental and moral energy necessary Elizabeth and the Roman Catholics 21 to enable tlie dominant religion to flourish and expand. Had Elizabeth contented lierself with taking proceed- ings against those only who, whether priests or laymen, whether Roman Catholics or Anglicans, were found to be engaged in plots against herself or against the stability of her throne, the bull of the Pope would have fallen absolutely flat. As it was, but little importance was attached to it until the proceedings were taken against the seminary Priests. It is clear that at Rome considerable dissatisfaction was experienced at the way in which it was received, not only in England, but by the Courts of Europe. If Elizabeth had taken care that in no prosecution instituted by the Government against a Roman Catholic could it be said, with an}^ appear- ance of truth, that it was the religion of the accused which was being attacked, and not his political conduct, the sympathy of the bulk of the Roman Catholics them- selves would have been on the side of the Queen. \ They would eagerly have resented the imputation of disloyalty, which the ill-advised action of the Pope and his followers was bringing upon them. If, in addition to this, they had found it difficult to provide for them- selves the ministrations of their own religion, their condition as a separate body would soon have become intolerable. Zeal, unfed by persecution, would have died away into a reasonable moderation, and the Laudian revival giving them, as it would have done, the sense of identity with the Christianity of the past, which they most ardently desired, would have brought them gradu- ally back into the national Church. But this was not to be, nor perhaps could so bold and straightforward a policy be expected in times so 22 The Church and the Puritans difficult. It was safer to meet the strokes of religious division at liome and religious war abroad, by the The policy couuter-strokes of religious persecution and of Elizabeth jjatioual Uniformity, although the persecution was but skin-deep, and the uniformity but the outward result of penal laws. Each fresh effort on the part of the Pope, or of the less responsible followers of the Papacy, was met by a legislative attack upon the religion which the guilty professed in common with far larger numbers of the innocent; and, as so often happens in snch cases, it was the innocent majority that suffered, while the guilty few, for the most part, escaped. Among the English Roman Catholics were two quite distinct parties. By far the larger part consisted Different ^^ ™^^ ^^^^ Were perfectly loyal to the Govern- ainoifgthe ^^^eut, and who had, as we have seen, been Roma? ^^ ^^^ habit of conforming to the requii'ements Catholics qI" ^i^q ^^^ ^f Uniformit}^ Attendance at church was, however, looked upon with great disfavour at Eome, and it was one of the special objects of the missionary priests, who came from the seminaries of Douai and Rheims, to prevent such conformity. After 1570, it may be said that the Roman Catholics as a rule absented themselves from church in deference to the wishes of the Pope, but refused to follow him in his personal war against Elizabeth, and were not pre- pared to admit, even if they would not deliberately deny,' the validity of her deposition. Among the ' That this was the attitude of many Roman Catholics, including several seminary priests, towards the deposing power of the PojDe, see Barclay, Be Potentate Paj)ce, c. xxx., pp. 11.5-16. Simpson, Ufe of Champon, pp. 296-97, 302-3. Elizabeth and the Roman Catholics 23 members of this party may be reckoned the Jesuit Campion and most of the seminary priests ; but besides them there was undoubtedly a party, weak in numbers but strong in influence, who were too zealous for their religion and too loyal to the Pope to be good subjects of a heretic Queen — in the words of a Jesuit historian, ' more warm-hearted than careful.' Such men could not forget that in the policy of Elizabeth and Cecil the Papacy found its most dangerous obstacle, and that if Elizabeth was once removed, the next heir to the throne was the Roman Catholic Queen of Scotland. Cardinal Allen, the head of the seminary at Rheims, Agazzari, the superior of the English college at Rome, Father Parsons, the leader of the Jesuit mission to England, and Fathers Holt and Creighton, his colleagues, were repeatedly concerned in treasonable negotiations with the Spanish and French ambassadors, which no Govern- ment could tolerate. They were privy to the attempt of Sanders and San Giuseppe upon Ireland in 1580. Blinded by their zeal for the Papacy, they deliberately preferred the extension of the power of the Pope to the conversion of individual souls. To them the work of conversion was merely a preliminary to the establish- ment of Papal supremacy. The overthrow of the heretical Government and the restoration of Papal authority in England, if possible, by the voluntary action of Englishmen, but, if necessary, by the employ- ment of force from abroad, were the real objects of their desire. Elizabeth, as we have seen, determined to ignore the difiereuce between these two parties, and to treat all Roman Catholics as presumably, as indeed tliey 24 The Church and the Puritans were logically, traitors, until they had proved them- selves to be loyal. In this policy she was supported by Enactment the timidity of the English clergy and the of penal i r? i -r. xt ^ n laws, 1559-70 zeal 01 the Protestant House of Commons. The Act of Supremacy passed in the first year of her reign compelled all beneficed Clergy, all who inherited land, and most of the lay officials of the country, to take an oath acknowledging the ecclesiastical supre- macy of the Crown. The Act of Uniformity made the saying of Mass an off"ence punishable in the last resort by death. In 1562, after the conspiracy of the Poles — which, though ridiculous in itself, showed Elizabeth plainly enough how dangerous a rival Mary of Scotland might be — the necessity of taking the oath of Supremacy was extended to all in a position of trust, such as schoolmasters and attorneys, and to all who disapproved of the Prayer Book or attended Mass. The penalty for the first refusal of the oath was a jyi'cemwiire ; that for the second, death. This statute put the lives of nearly all Roman Catholics at the mercy of the Government, but it was intended merely as a political safeguard, and special instructions were issued by Cecil that it was not to be enforced except with his sanction. In 1568 the seminary at Douai was founded by William Allen for the purpose of training missionaries Increased ^^ effect the couvcrsion of England, and in theTaws"* three years from its foundation it contained ^'^^^^ ' no less than 150 students. In 1570 the Pope published his bull of deposition. Elizabeth was now thoroughly frightened, and from that time really dates the beginning of the persecution. In the Parliament Elizabeth and the Roman Catholics 25 of 1571, as tlie answer of England to the Papal bull, two statutes were passed wliicli were intended to bring all Roman Oatliolics, who accepted the policy of the Pope, under the penalties of treason ; and did in fact bring under those penalties many who acknowledged his spiritual authority, without any reference at all to his power of deposing sovereigns. By the first statute any one who denied the Queen's right to the crown, by writing or express words, or published that she was a heretic, a schismatic, infidel, or tyrant, or who claimed a right to the crown was declared to be guilty of high treason.^ By the second statute it was also made treason (1) ' for any person to ure or put in use in any place within the Queen's dominions any bull, writing, or in- strument of absolution or reconciliation from the Bishop of Rome, or from any other person claiming authority from the said Bishop of Rome ; (2) for any person to take upon him by colour of any such bull to absolve or reconcile any person ; (3) for any person to willingly receive any such absolution or reconciliation; (4) for any person to obtain from the Bishop of Rome any manner of bull containing anything whatsoever, or to publish such bull ; and it was made misprision of treason for any one not to disclose the existence of any such bull; while any person bringing into the realm of England any tokens or things called by the name of Agnus Dei, or any crosses, pictures, or beads from the Bishop of Rome, was made liable to the penalty of yrcemimire!' Under these statutes a considerable number of per- sons were committed to prison, and one priest belonging ' 13 Eliz. c. 1 & 2. 26 The Church and the Puritans to the Marian clerg}", named Thomas Woodhonse, was put to death for denying the Queen's supremacy. In Beginning 1574 the Stream of missionaries from the cution,^^^^^' seminaries began to flow. The influence of 1574-81 j^gj^ gQ carefully trained, uncompromising in their zeal, and anxious for the crown of martyrdom, was soon felt. Many lukewarm Conformists ceased to attend church. Many who had unwillingly acquiesced in the Elizabethan compromise now boldly avowed themselves at heart adherents of the Roman see. It seemed as if the Papists had suddenly doubled in numbers. The Government determined upon severer measures, and the work of persecution began in earnest. In 1578, Cuthbert Mayne, a seminarist, was executed as a traitor, upon evidence which was admitted by the judge to be wholly presumptive, and would not now be sufficient for the flnding of a true bill by the grand jury. The gaols were filled with Roman Catholics who refused to attend church. Many of them died in prison of infectious complaints, but the attack upon them merely increased the zeal of the survivors. In 1579 Gregory XIII. founded the English College at Rome. In 1580 he fitted out and despatched to Ireland a force under Sanders and San Giuseppe, which was to assist the Irish to obtain the independence of their country and the supremacy of their religion. In 1581, Mercurian, the general of the Jesuits, determined to allow the order to take part in the great The sending work of the couversion of England, and the of the Jesuit „ -^ . . , • -ri i t mission first J csuit uiissiou was scut luto England under Fathers Parsons and Campion. In order to quiet the scruples of many of the English Roman Catholics Elizabeth and the Roman Catholics 27 about the deposing power of the Popes, they procured from Gregory an authoritative statement that no one was expected or required to act upon the bull of Pius V. under the present circumstances — a gloss which left the principle of the bull untouched, or rather admitted. To meet this new danger more severe laws were called for. In the Parliament of 1582 a statute was passed Fresh peuai which made it hisrh treason to ' withdraw anv legislation, o ^ r\ ■> ^ 1582 of the Queen s Majesty's subjects from the religion by her Highness's authority established within her dominions,' or ' to move them to promise any obe- dience to any pretended authority of the see of Rome, or to be reconciled willingly to the Romish Church ; ' and all aiders and abettors of such offences were declared guilty of misprision of treason. Further, any person saying Mass, or willingly hearing Mass said, was made liable to fine and imprisonment ; and any person wilfully absenting himself from church for a month was made liable to the payment of a fine of 20Z. every month until he conformed and made submission.* These precautions were in the eyes of the Govern- ment abundantl}^ justified by the repeated intrigues piotsagainst ^gainst the throne of Elizabeth, which centred Ehzabeth's ^Quud the captive Queen of Scots, and of which 1570-85 there now seems little doubt that she was both the victim and the accomplice. In the political war carried on by the Pope and Philip II. against England, plots not only against the crown, but against the life of Elizabeth, played no small part. Even the seminarists who headed the religious war for the conversion of England were not • 23 Eliz. c. 1 . 28 The Church and the Puritans wholly aliens, as we have seen, to treasonable project. As early as 1572, Ridolplii, an Italian banker, and tlie Bishop of Ross, Mary's agent, had been engaged in a negotiation with Philip and the Pope, which seems distinctly to have aimed at the life of Elizabeth as well as at the overthrow of her government. In 1580 oc- curred the invasion of Ireland by the Papal and Spanish forces. In 1581, Allen, the head of the seminary at Rheims, now rewarded for his zeal with a cardinal's hat. Parsons, the head of the Jesuit mission in England, Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, Mathieu, the pro- vincial of the French Jesuits, and the Duke of Guise, entered into a conspiracy to place Mary on the throne of England. In 1584, Arden and Throgmorton, two Roman Catholic gentlemen, were convicted upon ques- tionable evidence of having been priv}' to this foreign plot. During the past three 3'ears as many as twenty- five persons, cliiefl}^ Priests, but including some laymen and some women, had been put to death for presumed treason in refusing to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy. The existence of real plots against the life and govern- ment of the Queen, known to some of the leaders of the seminarist movement, fostered by the ambassadors of France and Spain, and possibly approved by the Pope himself, had been made abundantly manifest. The nation was in a frenzy of fear and excitement as the great death-struggle of England and the Counter- Reformation approached its crisis. In the Parliament of 1585 fresh measures of severity were introduced, directed especially against the semi- narists, whose head, Cardinal Allen, had been the chief contriver of the ^^lot of 1583. All Jesuits, seminarv Elizabeth and the Roman Catholics 29 priests, and other priests of the Koman Church were ordered to leave the country within forty days under the iucrease.1 peualty of high treason. All who should be- thlTaSi ""^ come seminarists after the passing of the statute, 1580-87 ^QYQ declared traitors unless they returned to England within six months and took the oath of supre- macy. All who knowingly relieved or harboured any Jesuit or seminary priest were declared guilty of felony and liable to suffer death. All who willingly gave money or relief to any Jesuit or seminary priest, or for the support of any seminary or Jesuit college, were de- clared liable to a jpvcemunire. Finally, those who, knowing that any Jesuit or seminary priest was in the realm, did not give information to the magistrates were to be punished by fine and imprisonment.' Two years later another statute empowered the Queen to enter upon the lands of any recusant who was in arrear with his 20L fine, and appropriate all his personalty and two-thirds of his real property by way of forfeiture.- In 1586 occurred Babington's conspiracy, in which Ballard, a Roman Catholic priest, Morgan, and many other well- known members of the younger section of Koman Catholics were all implicated, and which undoubtedly included in its scope the murder of the Queen. It was the discovery of this plot that finally determined Eliza- beth to listen to the counsels of Walsingham, and to put Mary to death as the only way of preserving her own life and monarchy. It was the death of Mary that finally brought matters to a crisis and led to the Spanish Armada. Directly the political and religious war that had ' 27 Eliz. c. 2. - 2'J Eliz. c. G. 30 The Church and the Puritans been waged so long between Elizabeth and the Counter- Reformation left the byways of conspiracy and iu- The Spanish trigue for the straightforward path of simple Ai-mada conqucst, the internal difficulty lost half of its terrors. As long as the foreign enemies of Elizabeth's throne were using the differences of religious belief among Elizabeth's subjects to clothe a political aggres- sion with the garb of a missionary work, and as long as the Government was determined to meet that aggression by a counter attack upon difference of religious belief, it was impossible for a Roman Catholic to be at once faithful to his religion and loyal to the Queen ; it was impossible for the Government to treat the denial of the Royal Supremacy except as an admission of traitorous conviction. Directly the Pope and Philip II. directed the Armada against the shores of England, the difficulty hitherto so insoluble was solved. Men who were unable theoretically to subscribe to the supremac}- of the Queen, because it militated against that of the Pope, had no difficulty in defending with their lives the throne of the Queen against the organised attack of the Pope. The Government, which felt bound to treat all Roman Catholics as the traitors which the Pope would have them to be, had no difficulty in accepting the assistance of men whom they knew as a fact to be thorough]}^ loyal. So it happened that during the terrible year 1588, when the freedom of England and of Europe was trembling in the balance, not one English Roman Catholic increased the peril of his country by forgetting the duties of pa- triotism in his zeal for the spread of his religion. Elizabeth made but a poor return for such devotion. Directly the danger of the Armada was over, the pro- Elizabeth and the Roman Catholics 31 secutions under the penal laws began afresh. It ap- peared as if the Government were determined to prove Continuance that it was not the political but the relii2fious of the policy T,.^f.. i-i • of repression beliei 01 its suDjccts that it was attacking. The throne of Elizabeth was now safe from the armed attempts of Pope or Jesuit. Though her person was still in danger from plots of assassination, those plots were now the work of a small section of obscure fanatics, and were no longer countenanced by ambassadors or hatched by cardinals. Nevertheless, the penal laws were put into force relentlessly. By an Act passed in 1593 recusants were forbidden to move more than five miles from their usual place of Presiipeuai abode Under pain of forfeiture.* The recusancy 1593 ' fines were rigorously imposed, and the gaols became so full of recusants that serious complaints were made by the magistrates of the expense which fell upon the country in consequence. Domiciliary visits by poursuivants and priest-hunters were frequent, and were peculiarly galling to the pride of the Roman Catholic gentry. Between the date of the defeat of the Armada and the death of the Queen, over one hundred persons, including a considerable number of laymen and two women, suffered death under one section or another of the penal laws. Although some of these may have been guilty of harbouring treasonable designs, the vast majority of them were prosecuted for simply obeying their ordinary religious duties. The main fault of the Acts was that they drew no distinction between the guilty and the innocent. The political agitator who circulated copies of the bull of • 35 Eliz. c. 2. 32 The Church and the Puritans deposition among the disaffected, and the humble Roman Catholic Priest, who absolved and reconciled to the Defects of Church those whom he believed had fallen into the policy Jiej-esy, and even the man who, when pub- licly asked in a court of law whether he believed that the Queen was a heretic, could not conscientiously say that in his opinion she was not, were all confused to- gether under a general charge of high treason. In a crisis as severe as that through which England was passing, it may have been necessary for the Legislature to arm the Government with weapons so doubly edged in their nature ; but if so, it was the bounden duty of the Government to take special care to whom the use I of such weapons was entrusted. The real weight of the accusation of religious persecution brought against Elizabeth's pfovernment and the Church of Eno-land does not lie so much in the nature of the penal legislation, severe though no doubt it was, as in the way in which that legislation was used. Exceptional legislation of this \ character, put in force by spies, informers, and priest- ^ hunters, like Topcliffe and his associates, and resulting in the conviction and death of some 200 men and women as traitors, against two-thirds of whom not one single piece of evidence of an overt act of treason was even alleged, cannot be looked upon in any other light than as legislation used by the Government, if not in- tended by Parliament, for purposes of persecution. By treating the problem of religious division, as it presented itself od the Roman Catholic side, by the simple remedy of persecution, the Government of Eliza- beth laid up for itself and for the Church of England in the future the heritage of a constant menace and of an Elizabeth and the Roman Catholics 33 unreasoning fear. The strength of Roman Catholicism in England has lain since the days of Elizabeth, partly in the magnificent unhistorical assumption of monopoly, illustrated so strikingly by the ' Tu es Petrus,' which in gigantic letters of purple mosaic decorates the dome of the great basilica of the Vatican ; partly in the tradition and solidity which attach to a system and an institu- tion like that of the Papacy, so venerable, so romantic, so successful ; but far more in the perseverance and quiet endurance of two hundred and fifty years of steady repression varied only by outbursts of childish per- secution, which has characterised the history of the English Roman Catholics. Men have felt irresistibly drawn to a religion which has suffered so much and done so much. They have been attracted by its misfor- tunes and its reality. It has been logical yet inte- resting, cosmopolitan yet personal. Nevertheless it has throughout its history been felt distinctly to be foreign. That it has been organised as a system outside of, and in many respects antagonistic to, the national life, and for many years a constant menace to the Church and the Government of England, is due in the first place to Pius V. and Gregory XIII., and in the second place to the policy of religious persecution which Elizabeth adopted and the Church supported, as the best weapon with which to meet the attacks directed against her. C H, 34 The Church and the Puritans CHAPTER III. ELIZABETH AND THE PURITANS. While Elizabeth, with the nation at her back, was thus battling to the death, not always wisely, but The spread alwavs manfully and successfully, against of Calvin- o ' • t • it- i ism foreign aggression and internal sedition, she was threatened with another difficulty at home, which was eventually to prove far more formidable to her system of government than any danger from abroad. During the years which had elapsed since her accession, re- ligious opinion in England had been fast becoming more and more Oalvinistic, The bulk of the Clergy, brought up amid the disputes and the doubts of the Reformation, had learned contentedly to acquiesce in every form of worship prescribed by authority which was reasonably orthodox, and had found it impossible to be enthusiastic about any. As we have seen, the devout among the Englishmen of the times of Edward and Mary had naturally been drawn towards the two extremes of Rome and Geneva. After the accession of Elizabeth this tendency became even more marked. Elizabeth had succeeded in inducing some of the Marian exiles, who had taken refuge at Basel and Zurich to accept Bishoprics ; but a measure which was necessary to preserve the appearance of unity was fatal to interior discipline. Diocese differed from diocese in the doc- trine taught and the forms used. In days when uni- formity was the policy of all parties, and toleration of Elizabeth and the Puritans 35 differences was considered inadmissible — while the Roman system presented to the devout an assump- tion of monopoly which dazzled the intellect, and a reality of devotion which won the heart ; while Cal- vinism offered a masterful logic which enslaved the mind, and an organised discipline which dominated the will — the Church of England held out but a doubtful and hesitating compromise, which none of its own de- fenders pretended as yet to be more than tolerable, and about which there seemed to be nothing certain or per- manent except the Royal Supremacy and the High Commission Court. It was not therefore surprising that the younger Clergy, trained under Elizabeth, in the full glow of the death-struggle with Spain, secure of the sympathy of many of the Bishops, and the sup- port of Leicester and Cecil at the council-table, should have ardently embraced the only logical and definite religious system that was presented to them. , Elizabeth herself was no theologian and despised theological disputation, but she was an uncompromising Its danger disciplinarian ; and when the Calvinism thus vernment Spreading quickly over the land, and annex- ing to itself most of what was honest and real in the English Church, moved forward from being a system of belief confined to the mind, to being a system of religious discipline which was to be put into practice, it ran counter to her most cherished principles of order and of religion. She saw in it, as James I. saw in it afterwards, a system incompatible with, because rival to, monarchy; a system equally. imperious, equally in- fallible, and more divine. She found herself accordingly threatened on both sides at once. Abroad, Pius V. and D 2 36 The Church and the Puritans Philip II. were directing the forces of the Counter- Reformation against her as the leader and protector of the Protestant heretics, while she herself was espous- ing the cause of Calvinists by supporting the Dutch against Philip II., and the Huguenots against the Guises. At home, she was ]3assing penal laws against Protestant heretics who separated from the Church, and was directing all the force of her government to check the spread of Calvinist organisation. Both the Calvinist problem and the Roman Catho- lic problem were met with the same weapon of religious uniformity, but in dealing with the former she was on much safer ground. However severe her enforcement of conformity might be, there was no fear that she would forfeit the confidence of the Calvinists as long as she continued to be the champion of Protestant- ism abroad. More than this, there was no need for her in her war against the Calvinists to pry closely into the opinions they held, provided they were conform- able; for there was nothing necessarily opposed to her government in their opinions, though there might be much in their organisation. It was nonconformity, not Calvinism, that she dreaded. Just in the same way, there was no reason why a Calvinist should not be conformable, unless he happened to live in a parish where the full ceremonial of the Church was rigidly insisted upon. In by far the larger number of parishes, as we see from the Bishop's Visitation articles, the diffi- culty was to exact even the minimuin of ceremonial allowed in the Advertisements of 1565 ; and in that minimum there was nothing retained which had not received the sanction of the Calvinist theologians at Elizabeth and the Puritans 37 Zuricli and Basel. The enforcement of religious uni- formity by Elizabeth against Roman Catholic and Calvinist was subject, therefore, to an important differ- ence : the Roman Catholics were proceeded against for their opinions, because their opinions not only prevented them from obeying the law, but had also been made incompatible with loyalty by the Pope ; but the Cal- vinists were proceeded against principally because they organised themselves into bodies which were consciously or unconsciously in rivalry with the Church, and might possibly be dangerous to the Government. We have already seen that on the accession of Elizabeth many Protestants agreed to accept the Prayer Formation Book and obey Episcopal government, because filrty^in'tiif ^^^J looked upon the compromise enforced by Church Elizabeth as by no means final, but merely a step towards a more complete reformation in the future. As time went on, and Protestant opinions in the ex- treme form of Calvinism spread rapidly over the land, became dominant at the Universities, and commanded the allegiance of most of the earnest and the intellectual among the younger clergy, this party naturally increased greatly, both in number and importance. It was found by experience that many of the evils anticipated by the leaders of the party from the retention of so much of what they considered to be superstitious in doctrine and ceremonial in the Elizabethan Prayer Book and Injunctions, had no foundation in fact. In spite of the efforts of the Queen and some of the Bishops, opinion was so divided at the council-table, and even on the Episcopal bench, that it was impossible, except in iso- lated instances, to enforce the law as it stood. What- 38 The Church and the Puritans ever might be the teaching and the discipline laid down in the formularies of the Church, as a matter of fact the Calvinists were actually enjoying the freedom of that fuller reformation to which they had looked for- ward. All that was now wanting to reduce the Church of England to the ' pattern of the best reformed Churches ' and make the law of the Church agree with the prac- tice of the majority of Churchmen. On the other hand, it was the object of Elizabeth, and after her of Whitgifb, of Bancroft, and of Laud, to make the prac- tice of Churchmen agree with the law of the Church. Here in a nutshell lies the secret of the whole internal difficulties of the Church during the seventeenth cen- tury. Two parties quickly evolved themselves out of the mass of Englishmen who held Calvinistic opinions ; The Puri- namely, those who were willing to conform to *^"^ the requirements of the Queen, and those who were not. To both is often given indiscriminately by historians the name of Puritan, but it seems more correct, and certainly is more convenient, to restrict the use of this name to those who are sometimes called con- forming Puritans — namely, to those who, holding Cal- vinistic doctrines foreign to the teaching of the Church, and using a ceremonial for the most part contrary to the law of the Church, nevertheless claimed to be faith- ful members and true representatives of the Church, not for what she was, but for what they fully believed she intended, and was going, to be. These are the men who played so large a part in the ecclesiastical struggles of the reign of Charles I. ; men who derived much of their influence in the nation from their close Elizabeth and the Puritans 39 union witli the party of liberty in Parliament ; men who were willing to tolerate an Episcopal and sacerdotal Church system as long, and as long only, as it abstained from asserting its principles, and was capable of being worked in their own interests. To the other party TheNon- ^^ly belongs the name of Nonconformist. ^ conformists rpj^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^j^^ Carried their Calvinist principles a little further, and added to the negations of their Protestant creed either a belief in Presbyterian- ism as the divinely ordered system of Church govern- ment, or such a conscientious abhorrence of Episcopacy and Church order as made them consider obedience to it to be a positive sin. It was against Nonconformist organisation that m Elizabeth's efforts were chiefly directed. The Bishops • The enforce- Were the officers charged with the execution nient of con- ^ , , formity of her wisues. Throughout the struggle we find them continually petitioning the Queen to call in the power of Parliament to enforce the conformity she ■ desired. This the Queen saw readily enough was merely because they themselves were lukewarm in the cause, and wished to see the burden shifted on other shoulders, so with equal determination she called upon them to put in force the powers they had got be- fore they demanded others. And, indeed, those powers 1 were amply sufficient. By the Act of Uniformity (1559) the Prayer Book had been incorporated into an Act of ' Parliament, and the ceremonial prescribed by that book was legally binding upon all Clergy. It was true that by the Advertisements of 1565 the simpler ceremonial of the use of the cope in cathedrals, and of the surplice in parish churches, had been permitted instead of that of ^/ 40 The Church and the Puritans the cliasuble and of the other Eucharistic vestments enjoined by the Act ; but the Advertisements were not of statutory force, and only represented the policy which the Bishops found it expedient at that time to adopt. By the same Act, to be absent from the parish church on Sunday was a punishable offence. By the Act of Supremacy of 1559, as amended in 1562, the Bishops were empowered to require any suspected person to take the oath of supremacy, and repeated refusal incurred the penalty of treason. By virtue of the 8th section of the Act of 1559 the Court of High Commission was established, which had especial cognizance of all acts which in any way contravened the Queen's supremacy or ecclesiastical law. I Conformity to the Church, both by attendance at her services and none other, and obedience to her laws, was prescribed by Act of Parliament, and guarded by the ancient jurisdiction of the Episcopal and Archiepis- copal courts, and the new and more formidable engine of the High Commission. When it is remembered that since the days of Henry VIII. it had been usual for courts to treat disobedience to ecclesiastical law as an offence against the Supremacy, and so to bring contu- macious disobedience under the treason laws, and that excommunication, which was the severest punishment known to the spiritual courts, involved imprisonment, it will not probably be thought that the weapons ready to the hands of the Bishops for the enforcement of disci- pline were either too rusty or too blunt for the purjDose. The struggle, therefore, took the form throughout of a disciplinary war between the Bishops, armed with the statutory terrors of the High Commission Court and the Elizabeth and the Puritans 41 royal prerogative, and tlie Calvinist Nonconformists, strong in their conviction of personal infallibility, and supported by the sympathy of the whole Puritan party, and even of some of the Bishops themselves. The Queen herself carefull}^ kept in the background ; and thoQgh she was really urging the enforcement of con- formity, the odium did not fall on her. The Bishops, by consenting to act merely as the henchmen of the Government — the royal officers for the carrying out of that department of the royal policy — fitly brought upon themselves raid their order the hatred of their fellow-countrymen, who saw in them, not the fathers and leaders of religion, but the exponents and enforcers of law. The war began in the enforcement by Archbishop Parker in 1565 of the Advertisements as containing Measures of ^'^ minimum of ceremonial that would be j Parker tolerated. In 1566 the clergy of London were / required to make the declaration of conformity which was appended to the Advertisements, and thirty-seven were suspended or deprived for refusal. Some of the deprived ministers continued to conduct services and preach in spite of their deprivation, and so were formed the first bodies of Nonconformists organised in England. In 1567 more than one hundred of these Nonconformists were seized at Plumber's Hall and imprisoned, but it was soon found impossible to check the spread of their meetings by law. They formed a centre at Wandsworth. They formulated their opinions and published their grievances in a literature of tracts which poured forth all over the country, and soon learning to turn against the whole system of the Church the objections which 42 The Church and the Puritans they had originally entertained only against some cere- monies, they took up a position of conscientious hostility to the Church, from which it was impossible to dislodge them except by the unlikely means of conversion or the impossible one of expatriation. The objections against the Church system thus formulated sprang from two very different sources, and formation led to the formation of the two great Calvinistic bodies of bodies which we find opposed to the Church formists during the civil war, and which constituted the bulk of the Nonconformist party at the Restoration, i.e. the Independents and the Presbyterians. Robert Browne, a relative of Lord Burghley, and a clergyman beneficed in the eastern counties, became The inde- conviuced of the wickedness of remaining in pendents ^ Church which retained an Episcopal organi- sation. Asserting the principle that each congregation was a law to itself, he formed throughout the country bodies of Christians organised on the Congregational or, as it was then called, the Independent model, to whom separation was the first of duties, inasmuch as the separate congregation, and not the visible Church, was the true ark of salvation. Browne himself, after having been . frequently imprisoned, fled to Holland ; but when there he again changed his opinions, conformed to the Church, and ended his days in the possession of his English benefice. In Browne is seen the worst side of the Noncon- formists. In Barrow and Johnson, who are the real founders of Independency, is seen the better and more spiritual side. Underneath the disputes about cere- monial and about Church discipline, underlying the Elizabeth and the Puritans 43 accusations so freely cast against the Clergy that they were dumb dogs, an unpreaching ministry, against the Bishops that they were lordly prelates and greedy wolves, beneath even the scurrility of the Martin Mar- prelate tracts, can be discerned a true religious principle. The yearning after a more direct communion between God and the soul than was offered by a Church which had for the time deposed the Sacraments from their place in the Christian system, was trying to find expression in a sense of personal election and individual mission. This desire for a true spiritual religion, which drove the more earnest and uncompromising of the Calvinists, The Pro- ^^'^ ^^® followcrs of Browue and of Barrow, phesyings ^j^^q Separation from the Church and exile from their country, led among the Puritan party in the Church to the meetings known as Prophesyings, or Exercises. ' The ministers within a precinct ' (says Bacon in describing them) ' did meet upon a week day in some principal town where there was some ancient grave minister that was president, and an auditory ad- mitted of gentlemen or other persons of leisure. Then every minister successively, beginning with the youngest, did handle one and the same part of Scripture, spending severally some quarter of an hour or better, and in the whole some two hours : and so, the exercise being begun and concluded with prayer, and the president giving a text for the next meeting, the assembly was dissolved. And this was, as I take it, a fortnight's exercise ; which, in my opinion, was the best way to frame and train up preachers to handle the word of God as it ought to be handled, that hath been practised.' ' ' Bacon, Considerations on the Pacification of the Church, 44 The Church and the Puritans It was the misfortune of the Church under Queen Elizabeth to be compelled to suppress all efforts of re- Theirsup- ligious zeal, at a time when she herself was Elizabeth lamentably deficient in spiritual power. Arch- bishop Grindal, Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich, and others among the Bishops, looking upon the Prophesy- ings merely as Bacon did afterwards from their religious side, as devotional meetings for the edification of the Clergy and the better understanding of the Scriptures, welcomed them as a step towards the renewal of spiritual life. They issued instructions for their regu- lation, and even refused to obey the Queen's order for their suppression. Elizabeth, in her hearty dislike of theological controversy, and her suspicion of possible development in a political direction, looked u^Don the Prophesyings as dangerous gatherings of disaffected spirits, which, when stirred by the religious zeal evoked by controversy, could not fail to increase the difficulties already so formidable in the way of her policy of re- ligious uniformity. In 1576 she issued her instructions to the Bishops for their suppression. Grindal refused to obey, and addressed a letter of remonstrance to the Queen which was couched in terms' of severe rebuke, and even went the length of recalling the quarrel be- tween Ambrose and Theodosius. By an act of high- handed prerogative the Archbishop was sequestered for five years for his disobedience, but during that time he still received the emoluments and discharged many of the ordinary duties of his office. Before his death a reconciliation was effected, which put an end to an in- cident alike creditable to the courage of the Archbishop and the temper of the Queen. It is easy to imagine Elizabeth and the Puritans 45 die way in which Henry VIII. or Louis XIV. would have treated so plain-spoken an adviser. A far more serious danger than that from the Pro- phesyings threatened the Church from the deliberate ThePresby- attempt made by the Puritans towards the tenans ^^^ ^f Elizabeth's reign to introduce the Genevan discipline under cover of the formularies of the Church. Unlike the Brownists and Barrowists, who maintained a different form of polity from that of the Church, and when it was not accepted by the Bishops formed separate organisations of their own to carry it out ; unlike the advocates of the Prophesyings, who merely added to the authorised public services of the Church unauthorised and private devotional meetings ; these Puritans tried to erect a system of Presbyterian discipline inside the pale of the Church. By render- ing an outward conformity to the law in order to avoid persecution, under cover of that conformity they sought to establish a separate disciplinary ma- chinery of their own which should supersede that of the Church. It was, ^ therefore, little less than an attempt to revolutionise — or rather, as it would appear to them, to develope the reformation of the Church by a subtle and underhand policy, instead of attempting to do it through the ordinary machinery of Convocation and Parliament. It was all the more dangerous from the strong sympathy which the attempt met with from the neighbouring Presbyterianism just established in Scotland, and the dominant Calvinism of Protestant Europe. As early as 1571, Thomas Cartwright, the Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, was expelled from 46 The Church and the Puritans the University through the instrumentality of Whitgift, the Vice-Chancellor, for his advocacy of Presbyterian Attempt to principles. In 1572, in conjunction with other the Presby- diviues, he published two addresses to Parlia- system ment, under the title of the first and second Admonitions, which contained an elaborate attack upon the Church, and asserted strongly the divine origin of the Genevan discipline. In 1580, Cartwright and Travers, who though a graduate of Cambridge had only received Presbyterian ordination abroad, published the Book of Discipline, in which the Genevan system was adapted to the needs of England, and which was in- tended to form an authorised scheme of Church govern- ment for the Puritan party. In 1582 the system was formally established in full working order. A board of Puritan Clergy was formed in each district called a classis or conference, and provision was made for the consolidation of these classes into a national assembly, which should meet in London at the time of the session of Parliament. In each parish was to be formed a con- sistory, which should include lay members elected for that purpose ; but the real direction of the movement lay entirely in the hands of the classis. To it apper- tained the power of deciding in each particular case how much or how little of the ceremonial required by law the minister might be permitted to use, and to it was entrusted the still more important task of deciding on the qualification of candidates for the ministry and of giving them their ' call.' When the classis had thus conferred Presbyterian orders upon a man, he was directed to apply to the Bishop for the legal rite. In this way a complete Church system on the Presbyterian Elizabeth and the Puritans 47 model was formed, which was to work in obedience to the Church system already established, by treating it as a mere legal appendage, until the time came when, undermined from below, it might be successfully and entirely overthrown. From the first, therefore, there was a strong dis- tinction visible between the Independents and the Difference Presbyteriaus. The origin of the one was to - ludlplnd-^^ ^® found wholly in religious conviction, that theVresby. ^^ *^® Other was tainted with political mo- - terians tives. The One demanded scope for the free \ expansion of the soul towards God, in accordance with the sacred dictates of private judgment. The other sought y to impose upon all a system as infallible, as sacerdotal, and far more narrow than that of Eome ; ' for presbyter is but old priest writ large.' The strength of the Independents lay in a distinctly * spiritual conception of the nature of religion. To them The spiritual Private judgment was so sacred, and the eaiTy tode-* ' ^P^^^^ ' ^^ religion so vital, that all forms or pendency organisation appeared of necessity to cramp the free action of the soul, and to come fatally between man and God. To the ' sectaries,' as they were soon emphatically called, not merely the Church system, but any system at all, was contrary to true religion. They believed in the Calvinistic doctrines of election and re-l probation, and in the Calvinistic view of the Sacraments ; but the essential principle of their religion lay rather in the strong sense of the personal tie between God and the soul than in any theological conception of the way in which that tie was formed, and the limitations to which it was subject. This individualism led them 48 The Church and the Puritans into difficulties with the Queen and the Bishops, and the mere existence of those difficulties was sufficient to show them how incompatible with their beliefs was an Episcopal form of Church government. They were thus led on to an attack upon Episcopacy, in which they found themselves acting in concert with the Presby- terians, but on very different grounds. The one asserted strenuously the right of the individual soul, or of the individual congregation, to settle for itself, as it were, the terms of its communion with God. It denied strenuously the right of the civil power to interfere with relations so sacred and personal. The other believed that outside of the Genevan discipline and the Presby- terian system was no salvation, and wished to enforce that belief upon others by means of the civil power. Both agreed in an irreconcilable hostility to Episcopacy, the one because it wanted to abolish all systems, the other because it wanted to establish the Presbyterian system. In the stress which it laid upon the spiritual character of religion, Independency found itself allied M -sticai ^^' ^^^ perhaps in some cases the parent .of, mentso'f In- ""^^re mystical developments of religious zeal, dependency -^j^ich wero Very far removed from the doc- trines of Calvin. Whenever men's minds are deeply stirred by religious emotion, a mystical and trans- cendental view of religion is sure to win its way into prominence among the more spirituallj^-minded of mankind. The teaching of Love is opposed to the teaching of Law, the consolations of communion with the Divine to the satisfaction of obedience. Usually such manifestations of the mystical spirit have been Elizabeth and the Puritans 49 developed within the pale of the Church ; bat in the sixteenth century, partly perhaps as a reaction against the more forbidding parts of the Calvinistic creed, partly as a natural expression of a true longing for union with God, many sects arose whose tenets were founded upon a mystical view of Christianity. Among the more important of these sects were the Family of Love, founded in 1541 by Henry Niclaes of Munster, and the Mennonite Baptists, founded by Menno Simons in Holland about the year 1537. Freed from the safe- guard of Catholic tradition and principle, they soon de- generated into fanaticism, but they had a considerable following in England, and exercised an appreciable influence upon George Fox and the early Quakers. It was to the Mennonite Churches of Holland that such developments of the spirit of Independency in j England were chiefly due. Many of the English fol-j lowers of Barrow took refuge with them in Amsterdam ' or at New Plymouth from the attacks of Whitgiffc, but until the time of the Commonwealth their history belongs rather to Holland than to England.^ In the England of Elizabeth there was little room for the manifestation of any religious enthusiasm whatsoever. The policy which put an end to the Prophesyings was equally directed to the expatriation of the zealous Independents and the suppression of the rival Presby- terians. ' The connexion between English Independency and the mystical Protestant sects of Holland, and their influence upon the rise of Quakerism, is well worked out in Barclay's Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth. C.H. ^ 50 The Church and the Puritans Of this policy Whitgift, the adversary of Cartwright at Cambridge, who succeeded Grindal in the primacy Archbishop ^^ 1583, is the foremost exponent. He was the Whitgift leader of the school to which most prominent members of the Church of England belonged at that time. A Calvinist in doctrine, although himself con- tent with the formularies of the Church as they stood, he was willing to go some lengths towards meeting the difficulties of the Puritans in matters of faith. To him the great struggle with Spain, which was now approach- ing its climax, was the all-absorbing fact which decided all questions of politics and religion. England was to him the last refuge and the staunchest champion of Protestantism and freedom. To be untrue to England's Queen, to be in opposition to England's Government, was to be on the side of the enemy. Conformity to the law, ecclesiastical and civil, was the first duty, not only of every good citizen, but of every good Protestant. Nonconformist scruples were little better than rank treachery. Such a position was one with which all could sym- pathise during a great national crisis, but it was not The Lam- ^^ ^^^^ ^^ reasoning upon which the policy of bethArticies ^j^^ Church, with regard either to Puritans or Nonconformists, could be based for all time. Whitgift himself seems to have felt this. His acceptance of the Lambeth Articles of 1595 was probably intended as the first step in a policy which was to reconcile the Puritans to the Church and render them innocuous to the Government. By assimilating the doctrines of the Church to the dominant Calvinism, but retaining the form of Episcopal discipline, he sought to establish a Elizabeth and the Puritans 51 system more consonant to monarchy than that of the \ '' Genevan platform.' The event proved that the Arch- bishop had underestimated the strength of orthodoxy in the nation, or at any rate had pitched his note too high. The Calvinism of the Articles was too pronounced for statesmen like the Queen and Burghley to accept, and was abhorrent to the rising school of theologians repre- sented by Andrewes and Overall. To the former, such statements as those contained in the first and last of the Articles, ' That God from eternity hath ijreclestinated some to life, some He hath reprohated to death J and that ' it is not placed in the ivill or power of every man to he saved,' seemed to be a direct incentive to lawlessness. ' They were charging God with cruelty,' said Burghley, ' and might make men desperate in their wickedness.' To Andrewes the whole scheme of the Articles, pro- pounding as they did a most rigid statement of capri- cious election and reprobation by God, irrespective of the efforts of man, seemed to be opposed to the doctrine of the Incarnation, as it had always been taught in the Catholic Church. Whitgift accordingly, finding him- self in opposition to the Court, and to much of the religious feeling of the nation, was content to let the matter drop, and hand on to his successors the Puritan difficulty still unsolved. I Meanwhile he was uncompromising in his efforts to ( rid the Church of Nonconformists. Whatever might Re ressive ^® evcutually douc by authority to meet their measures reasonable difficulties in the matter of doc- agamst Non- conformists trine, nothing could excuse them from the obligation of obedience to the law as it stood. In 1583 he compelled all who exercised any ecclesiastical juris- E 2 52 The Church and the Puritans diction to subscribe to the Koyal Supremacy, the Prayer Book, and the Thirty-nine Articles. He obtained fuller powers for the High Commission Court to deal with offenders, by which the court was empowered to tender an oath (usually known as the oath ex officio) to all persons suspected of Nonconformity, pledging them to an ex animo acceptance of the Church system. These proceedings naturally raised a storm of opposition among the Puritans. Urged on by Leicester, the Puri- tan party in 1584 made an unsuccessful effort to pro- cure the sanction of Parliament to Cartwright's Book of Discipline. The attempt failed, partly through the readiness shown by the Primate to effect reforms in the Church in procuring the passing of the canons of that year, and partly through the opposition of the Queen and Burghley ; yet it was well known that Whitgift's uncompromising policy was looked upon with no great favour at the council-table, and that Burghley himself had described the procedure as in his ' simple judgment too much savouring of the Roman Inquisition, and rather a device to seek for offenders than to reform any.' Secure, however, of Elizabeth's support, and fully con- vinced in his own mind of the justice of his cause, the Archbishop persisted. In 1583 two Independents, named Copper and Thacker, were executed for libels against the Queen's Persecution Government, perpetrated by circulating the of Noncon- .. f»-r»i -r> T-i-nn n cormists writings 01 Kobert Browne. In lo9U Cart- wright and sixteen other ministers were committed to prison for refusing to take the ex officio oath. In 1591 and 1593, Nicholas Udal and William Penny were con- demned, and the latter executed, for taking part in the Elizabeth and the Puritans 53 libels of tlie Martin Marprelate controversy. The prisons were soon filled witli men who from conscientious scruples refused to take the required oaths, although many of them were quite willing to conform in fact. Some were kept in prison for years, and apparently even tortured, in the vain hope of thus inducing them to obey the law. It soon became apparent that perse- cution of this sort was just as certain to fail in its object, when applied to the religious zeal of the Protestant Nonconformist, as when applied to that of the Jesuits and Seminary priests. Taught by experience, Elizabeth and her ministers were afraid of increasing the evil they sought to destroy by continuing to people the prisons with sufferers for religion's sake. They determined to adopt the safer expedient of driving away the disease they could not cure. In 1593, Elizabeth at last yielded to the demands which had been so continuously urged by the Bishops, and invoked the authority of Parliament to enforce and increase their disciplinary powers. A statute was passed ^ which provided that any per- son obstinately refusing to repair io church for the The statute space of a moutli without lawful cause, or of banish- . i p i it ment bciug prcseut at any unlawiui assemoiies under pretence of religious exercise, should make sub- mission in the form provided by the Act, and on refusing to make such submission should suffer banish- ment. This statute made Nonconformity a matter to be dealt with by the judges at common law, instead of by the Bishops in the courts ecclesiastical, and the Non- conformists very soon found out the difference. Presbyterianism had really never had much hold » 35 filiz. c. 1. 54 The Church and the Puritans even over its apologists. They were actuated mucli more by a dislike of the Episcopal regimen than by a devotion to Presbyterianism, and they readily Its success pnii- ,.T. •Ill p lell back into the mdistmgmshable mass oi conforming Puritans when they found themselves face to face with the whole powers of the Government. They were content to wait for the time when the death of Elizabeth should give them, as they hoped, a sove- reign after their own heart, trained in the purest prin- ciples of Scotch Presbyterianism. The Independents, left to themselves, were obliged to give way before a storm which they could not weather. Conscientious to the last, they left the land which would no longer afford them protection except at the cost of their principles. Most of them went to Holland, where they found a field of Calvinistic controversy open to them, which was thoroughly congenial to their pragmatic spirit; some of them to North America with the Queen's sanction, and even approbation, for it was only in England that she thought it uecessary, for the safety of her throne, to allow no religion but her own. During the rest of Elizabeth's reign she was free from difficulties of Non- conformity. In reviewing the religious condition of the nation during the reign of Elizabeth, we cannot fail to be Estimate of struck by the progress which the spirit of work Puritanism has made. There can be no doubt on which side the victory lay, if the struggle between authority and private judgment, which we have been recording, is looked upon as the struggle between the principles of the Church and the principles of Puritanism. It is more correct, perhaps, to look upon it as the Elizabeth and the Puritans 55 struggle between the principles of uniformity and . of division, and from that point of view the verdict might be different. It is Whitgift's great merit that he pre- served the framework of the ecclesiastical constitution. There was a real danger that the whole structure might fall, that an irreparable breach might be made with the Christianity of the past, and that England might be given over to be the prey of hundreds of sects, too much occupied with their own rivalries to bestow a thought upon the weakness of a divided nation. From this catastrophe the fearless and uncompromising dis- ciplinarian saved his country. Without sympathy with the higher aspirations of Churchmen, without any intellectual conception of the historical continuity of the Church, such as that which sustained Andrewes and Laud in the moments of deepest depression, Whitgift brought to her service, just at the time when it was most wanted, an indomitable will and a resistless energy which was determined that, come what might in the future, he at least would hand over to his successors the ecclesiastical system of the country unimpaired. Thus he preserved the foundation upon which others in happier times could build. But though the framework of the ecclesiastical constitution was preserved, though the foundation yet Growth of remained unimpaired, the structure of religion Puritanism j-^ised amoug thinking men in Elizabeth's time extended far outside the old limits. Eeligious England, outwardly Catholic, was inwardly Puritan. The best, the purest, the noblest of Elizabethan heroes were Puritans. The more energetic of the great Uni- versities was steeped in Puritanism. The most typirnl $6 The Church and the Puritans poet of the Elizabethan age was a Puritan. Even to George Herbert, in the full flood of the Laudian movement a few years later, it seemed that the old Christianity which he loved so well was leaving Eng- land, though possibly to bear still more glorious fruits in the unknown West. Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, Ready to pass to the American strand. If we inquire where the strength of this great movement lay, why with so much of pride, of assurance. Principles of intolerance, which is so plainly visible, of the . . ,.-,.. movement Jruritauism yet enlisted m its service so many of the noblest minds, obtained so complete a control over the hearts of men, commanded so easily and so thoroughly their devotion and their self-surrender, we shall find it in two great principles — the insistence upon the personal relation between God and man, and the hatred of a professional religion. If we want to see what Puritanism really was in its better aspects, we must go, not to the libels of Martin Marprelate or the disputations of Oartwright, but to the writings of Spenser and of Milton, to the lives and thoughts of Eliot, of Winthrop, and of Pym. In all alike is im- Hatred of planted the deep inextinguishable hatred of Gcclcsifis- ticai abuses a coiTupt Clergy, who trafiic in holy things for their own benefit, and all of them, with too much of reason, pointed to such a Clergy in the Church of England. This is the great mainstay of the Puritan and Nonconformist attack upon the Church, that she was the abettor and the propagator of abuses. It is the consciousness of moral sujDeriority in that which Elizabeth and the Puritans 57 appeared to tliem to be the most important of all moral duties, namely, unworldliness, that gave point to their denunciations. In the ' Shepheard's Calender,' the Witness of earliest of his greater works, published in Spenser 1579^ Speuser strikes the note which is main- tained throughout : — These faytours little regarden their charge, While they, letting their sheep run at large, Passen their time, which should be sparely spent, In lustihede and wanton merryment. Thilke same bene shepheardes for the Devil's steclde That playen when their ilockes be unfedde. Well it is scene theyr sheep bene not their owne That letten them runne at random alone ; But they bene hyred for little pay Of other, that caren as little as they What fallen the flock so they have the fleece, And get all the gayne, paying but a peece. The time was once, and may againe retorne, When shepheards had none inheritaunce, Ne of land, nor fee in sufieraunce. But what might arise out of the bare sheepe. Were it more or less which they did keepe ; Well ywis was it with shepheards thoe Nought having nought feared they to forgoe, For Pan himself e was their inheritaunce, And little served them for their mayntenaunce. But tract of time and long prosperitie. That nource of vice, this of insolencie. Lulled the shepheards in such securitie. That non content with loyal obeysaunce, Some gan to gape for greedy governaunce, 58 The Church and the Puritans And match them selfe with mighty potentates, Lovers of Lordship and troublers of states, Tho gan shepheard swaines to looken aloft, And leave to live hard, and learn to ligge soft. In the satire of ' Mother Hubbard's Tale ' he puts into the mouth of the Priest a recommendation of the clerical life as one of little work and less responsibility. To feed men's soules, quoth he, is not in man, For they must feed themselves, do what we can ; We are but charged to lay the meate before, Eate they that list, we need to doo no more. Now once a week, upon the Sabbath day, It is enough to do our small devotion, And then to follow any merrie notion ; Nor are we tyde to fast but when we list, Ne to weave garments base of woUen twist ; But with the finest silks us to array, That before God we may appeare more gay. How different is this from George Herbert's ideal ! ' The country parson is exceedingly exact in his life, being holy, just, prudent, temperate, bold, grave in all his ways. And first, because country people live hardly, . . . the country parson is very circumspect in avoiding all covetousness, neither being greedy to get, nor nig- gardly to keep, nor troubled to lose any worldly wealth, but in all his words and actions slighting and dises- teeming it even to a wondering that the world should so much value wealth, which, in the day of wrath, hath not one dram of comfort for us.' The reality approximated, it is to be feared, more Elizabeth and the Puritans 59 often to Spenser's satire than to Herbert's picture. Underneath all the torrent of declamation poured by Eliot, by Pym, and by Milton, upon the Arminian clergy, amid all the abuse levelled at convictions with which they did not agree, and at opinions which they did not understand, is to be discerned a firm and settled belief that the Church system was inherently corrupt, and was maintained solely for its worldly advan- tages. Milton asserts this in so many words Of Milton . ° (^ ^^^ ^ n m his ' Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty,' published in 1641. 'They,' i.e. the Clergy, ' admire and dote upon worldly riches and honours, with an easy and intemperate life, to the bane of Christianity : yea, they and their seminaries shame not to profess to petition, and never leave pealing in our ears that unless we fat them like boars and cram them as they list with wealth, with deaneries and with pluralities, with baronies and stately preferments, all learning and religion will go under foot.' And again in the same year, in his j Anima dversions upon the Remon- strant's Defence against Smectymnuus : ' This is the root of all our mischief. How can it be but ever unhappy to the Church of England while she shall think to entice men into the pure service of God by the same means that were used to tempt our Saviour to the service of the devil, by laying before Him honour and preferment ? State-grown piety ! gospel, rated as cheap as thy Master at thirty pence, and not worth the study unless thou canst buy those that will sell thee ! ' To the fully developed Puritanism of Milton in 1641, the very exist- ence of endowments seemed opposed to the simplicity of the Gospel, and the Church system seemed hopelessly 6o The Church and the Puritans corrupt because of its dependence upon endowments ; yet it is easy to see tliat it was the abuse, not the exist- ence, of endowments that had led him to this decision. In ' Lycidas,' published in 1637, it was not the fold itself that was corrupt, but ' those that for their bellies' sake creep and intrude into the fold.' In that he was at one with Eliot, when in 1629 he denounced Of Eliot . ' Laud, Neile, and Montague, in his place in Parliament, not because they were Bishops, but because they were, as he conceived, corrupt Bishops. ' I reverence the order,' he said, ' but I honour not the man.' Puritanism, in fact, required a practical object at which to direct its forces if it was to win the victory. Puritanism -^^ ^^^ taken its staud boldly within the por- Sff incom- ^^^ <^^ *^® Church of England, and claimed to the^^ciiurch li^vo a right, if not the exclusive right, to be system there. From an intellectual point of view it was a claim impossible to make good. Its theology was not the theology of the Prayer Book, and could with difficulty be made to square with the theology of the Thirty-nine Articles. Its historical position was the exact opposite to that claimed, rightly or wrongly, by the Church in her formularies and in Acts of Parliament. So cramped and uncomfortable did it feel within the limits of the Church, that it had already tried to organ- ise for itself a separate form of discipline in the Genevan platform, and to impose a different standard of theology in the Lambeth Articles. By simply neglecting a large part of the Prayer Book it had succeeded in formulating for itself what was practically a separate form of worship. Morally, on the other hand, Puritanism was in a Elizabeth and the Puritans 6i much better position. Its intense individualism ap- pealed strongly to the deeper and more serious side of Its moral the Eufflish character. Its simplicity and its and political i /. • ^ J streugth self-rcstraint were strengthened by the sense of a personal call and a personal mission ; but it would have remained locked up in the hearts of a few, like other religious motives, had it not been for the powers of attraction and opposition called forth by the political crisis through which England was passing. When men, who loved right and hated wrong above all things, once learned to look upon the government of the king as false and dangerous, and the rule of Bishops as cor- rupt and worldly, they would not be restrained by any timorous scruples for the framework of the constitution from putting their convictions into practice at the risk of a revolution. The system which Whitgift had struggled to maintain, Calvinist though he was, because it was in his eyes bound up with the greatness of Elizabeth's rule, and was part of the constitution of the country ; the system which Laud strenuously enforced, because in his eyes it was part of a great historic past, part of the constitution of the Catholic Church — that system Cromwell and Milton determined to overthrow, because in their eyes it was the symbol of a corrupt Clergy and of a tyrannical Government. Puritanism could only make good its claim to be admitted within the fold of the Church of England by breaking down the barriers raised to protect the sheep from the wolves. 62 The Church and the Puritans CHAPTER IV. THE CHURCH UNDER JAMES I. James I. seems at first sight to have been born to disap- I point the hopes of his friends. The Puritans, remem- ; Political bering how he had been trained in the school of James I. orthodox Protestantism, looked forward to the realisation under him of the complete reformation which / , they had so long desired. At the Hampton Court Con- ference they found in him their most dangerous oppo- nent, if not a judge who had already prejudged their case before hearing the arguments. The Roman Catho- lics, remembering the constancy of his mother, and knowing something of his negotiations with the Pope, hoped for a total repeal of the penal laws. They were treated to much learned theological controversy, were amused with many professions of good- will, and were offered a grudging and fitful toleration which was always subservient to the exigencies of politics. The Protestant powers of Europe, remembering how England had stood forward under the great Queen as the cham- pion of liberty of thought and action against the world- wide tyranny of Spain, recognising gladly in James the father-in-law of the prince upon whom fell the full weight of Austro-Spanish displeasure, looked confidently to England in the great European crisis of the Thirty Years War for leadership and support. They were met with many diplomatic messages and the marriage treaty with Spain. The Church under James I. 6^, Nevertheless James was not quite the false friend, or the deceitful and pusillanimous ally that he seemed His charac ^o be. No oue Understood better than he the ^^"^ difficulties of the problems with which he had to deal, no one had a clearer view as to the course which politics ought to take so that those difficulties might be surmounted ; but no one had less power of inducing men to carry out his views. Gifted with con- siderable political insight, he was always making as- tounding political mistakes. His statecraft was ever at the mercy of his vanity and his cowardice, his shrewd- ness ever the victim of his affection. His personal failings were political blunders. Scotchman though he was, he was the slave of ideals. Ever dreaming of great political and religious combinations, in which, by the sheer power of kingcraft and of reason, he should be able to act as arbiter among nations and faiths, and restore peace to a troubled world, he refused to look facts fairly in the face, and realise that the business of a statesman is not to aim at the ideal, but to achieve the possible. Still we cannot refuse him the credit of understanding the real wants of England better than most Englishmen. He saw, what perhaps no one who had been bred up under the influence of the great death- , struggle with Spain could possibly see, that the danger | to English independence from the Counter-Eeformation had passed away. The crisis was over. The storm had passed. The time had come to repair its ravages and restore peace to a divided nation. It seems almost lu- dicrous to compare James I. and Oliver Cromwell ; yet there was this in common between them, that each, holding the reins of government when the crisis of a 64 The Church and the Puritans great religious struggle was passing away, found in a theory of limited toleration tlie best means of ' healing and settling ' the wounds which the struggle had pro- duced. It was plain, in fact, to any eyes that were not blinded by religious or patriotic enthusiasm, that with the death Changed of Philip II. the whole Roman Catholic problem Euro^*e^n°^ had vcry much altered. There was no longer 1603 g^j^y (danger of the overthrow of the national Government or the national Church by force. There was no longer any danger of treasonable plots among the English Roman Catholics to carry the bull of Pius V. into effect. Those plots had always been stirred up from abroad. They were always closely connected with designs of foreign aggression. With Henry IV., the vanquisher of the Guises on the throne of France, and the incapable Philip III. on that of Spain, the theatre of war had shifted from the coasts of the Channel to the mountains of Bohemia and the valley of the Danube. The baton of command had been seized from the palsied grasp of Spain by the younger hands of Ferdinand of Styria and Maximilian of Bavaria. The storm which had passed from England was lowering and gathering over Germany. The Popes recognised this fact clearly enough. Pius V. and Gregory XIII. had deposed Elizabeth, Altered declared war upon her, stirred up opposition policy of the n . Popes to her at home and abroad, and actually m- vaded her territories. Clement VIII. wrote a letter to James before Elizabeth's death, assuring him of his support, should any of the English Roman Catholics design to oppose his peaceful accession to the throne. The Church under James I. 65 It is true that all danger of assassination had not passed away, for the persecution had raised up in the Roman Catholic ranks a body of desperate men, who were ready to go all lengths for what they believed to be the interests of their religion, and who showed but little obedience to their superiors when they counselled moderation. But directly such criminal ideas took practical shape in the plot of Watson and Copley in 1603, both the Archpriest Blackwell and Father Gerard the Jesuit took care to inform the Grovernment. The enforcement of the penal laws could no longer, then, be defended on the ground that they were directed against a body of men who, whether they wished it or not, were pledged by their superiors to be traitors. The ordinary laws of treason were sufficient to deal with plots such as that of Watson. The assistance which the Roman Catholics had given to secure the peaceful accession of James, and to discover the treason of Watson, the friendly attitude of the Pope, the proved loyalty and attachment of the great house of Howard, all helped to show James that if he continued to en- force the penal laws it could no longer be on the ground that Roman Catholics were traitors. It w^as still open to him to adopt the position taken by the House of Commons, and to maintain either that the Roman Catholic religion should be extirpated or that religious uniformity was so necessary to the national welfare as to justify religious persecution. The latter argument might fairly be taken to excuse political repression and exclusion from offices of trust, and even suppression of public worship, such as the Protestant Nonconformists suffered, but it could hardly, even in the seventeenth c.H. F 66 The Church and the Puritans century, be extended to justify the infliction of a traitor's death upon those who merely celebrated the rites of a proscribed religion. James had, when in Scotland, publicly announced that he was unwilling that the blood of any man should Attempt of be shed for diversity in religion, and he re- Jamesto n i • , . grant a peated this solemnly to his first Parliament. limited tole- \^ c ^ - • ration to the feooii after his acccssion he e'ave Northumber- Pioman it- Catholics land a promise that he would ' not persecute any that will be quiet, and give but an outward obedi- ence to the law.' He also declared, with regard to the recusancy fines, ' that he would not make a merchan- dise of conscience.' At the same time nothing was I further from his wishes than to see an increase in the number of Roman Catholics, or to hamper the supre- macy of the Church, which he always looked upon as bound up with the supremacy of monarchy. He ac- cordingly determined to remit the recusancy fines, and, though maintaining the penal laws in existence, only to enforce them against Priests. By this means he hoped in course of time to solve the Roman Catholic problem by a policy of gradual starvation, while he always held in his hands the power of providing for his own security if occasion arose. Such a policy, conceived entirely in his own inte- rests, pleased no one. To the Puritans it seemed a dangerous tamperinsf with Antichrist, and a Its failure tip, • p i • doubtiul exercise of monarchical power. It did nothing to remove from the Roman Catholics the stigma of disloyalty under which they smarted. It did nothing to give them the assurance of even tempo- rary peace. They were still left absolutely at the The Church under James I. 6y mercy of the King, and must necessarily before long be again the victims of his political necessities or of his personal fears. And so it turned out. In July 1603 the recusancy fines were remitted. In February 1604 1 the increase of avowed Eoman Catholics alarmed James, and a proclamation was issued for the banishment of all Priests. In May the King complained to the House of Commons of the increasing numbers of the Roman Catholics. In July he gave his assent to a Bill which confirmed all the severe statutes of Eliza- beth's reign, although he did not intend to enforce it. In February 1605, anno^^ed at a report which ran like wildfire through Europe, that he was going to follow the example of Henry IV. and make his submission to the Pope, he enforced the recusancy fines. In January I 1606 the terror of the Gunpowder Plot blew to the winds the last shreds of the policy of toleration, and new and more severe Acts against the recusants dis- graced the statute-book, and dishonoured the Church, by imposing a sacramental test for the furtherance of the purposes of the criminal law. By these statutes, as impolitic as they were un- christian, every recusant was to receive ' the blessed Enactment sacrament of the Lord's Supper ' at his parish of fresh church at least once a year, under the penalty recusancy J ^ l d laws Qf a gj^g Qf goZ. or the forfeiture of two-thirds ofhislands.^ But this was not all. A more stringent oath of allegiance was imposed upon those suspected of recusancy. No Roman Catholic was permitted to practise as a barrister, attorney, or physician. His house was subject at all times to the visits ol the * 3 Jac. I. c. 4, 5. F 2 68 The Church and the Pur /tans magistrates in search for arms. He was forbidden to act as guardian or trustee. He was compelled to take an oath of allegiance so framed as to deny the Pope's deposing power, while acknowledging the King's right to the throne. He was treated by the law as an outcast from honourable society, unfit to be entrusted with responsibilities. The wonder is that treatment such as this did not create the evil it was intended to cure, and that Roman Catholics, ousted by the law from honourable employment, did not find themselves forced into treasonable practices. Meanwhile the Attitude of Church, as if glorying in her shame, was so the Church ^^^, from protesting against being used by the State as a detective, that she was actually engaged in proclaiming submission to the King as the basis of all true religion, as well as of all true government. The duty of non-resistance to constituted authority was first formulated as of a I'eligious obligation in the canons which were passed by Convocation in 1606, but which, as they did not receive the royal assent, were never of , binding authority.^ So ended James's honest but hopeless attempt to ' solve the Roman Catholic problem by a limited and i hesitating toleration. It was premature, and was doomed / to failure from the first. The wicked desperation of Catesby and his accomplices served to put an end to all efforts of the sort, not merely for the time, but for many years to come. From the date of the Gunpowder Plot, the policy of Church and State in England towards the Roman Catholics was that of the enforcement of con- ' These canons, together with a defence of them, were published in 1080 under the title of Bishop Overall's Convocation Book. The Church under james L 69 formity pure and simple b}" sucli a use of the recusancy laws as mig'lit at the time be found expedient. The Roman Catholic problem ceased to be important, not because this policy of the enforcement of conformity Subsequent ^^^ successful, but because, with the passing thTquStion^ away of the spirit of the Counter-Reformation 1605-88 ^^^ Qf ^j^g religious wars, Roman Catholicism ceased to be aggressive. The Stuart kings found the power of Roman Catholicism in England more useful than dangerous to their own government, and were willing to let the weapons of persecution rust. It was not until Roman Catholicism, allied with despotism, was threatening, not the safety of the Crown, but the liberties of the nation, that Englishmen were rudely forced to remember that the problem of religious divi- sion still remained unsolved, and blindly rushed in panic to refurbish under William III. the same weapons of re- ligious persecution and civil repression which had proved so useless a century before under Elizabeth and James. The Puritan difficulty did not solve itself so easily^ for, as we have seen, it affected the majority of the The Puritan Clergy and of the laity of England, and was difficulty connected closely with the growing spirit of liberty in Parliament. Directly Elizabeth was dead, Whitgift with many misgivings sent Nevill, Dean of Canterbury, to offer to James his congratulations on his accession, and to find out if the King was really so bent upon the establishment of Presbyterianism as he was reported to be. Nevill was soon able to relieve the Archbishop's mind by the assurance that James had no intention of altering the existing government of the Church. But it was James's special weakness to wish 70 The Church and the Puritans to put every one right in ecclesiastical matters, and he seems to have looked forward to being able to show to the Enolish nation how much better a trained theo- loo'ian like himself could deal with internal disunion o than a politician like his predecessor, whose theological opinions were merely based upon personal preferences. On his way from Scotland in 1603 he received, ap- parently without disfavour, a petition which, though un- The Miiie- si^'ued, claimed to have received the support of naryPeti- 07 j. x - tion more than a thousand of the Clergy. Its prayer was comprised under three main heads. First, for con- siderable alterations in the Prayer Book, especially for the excision of the words ' absolution ' and ' priest,' for the omission of the use of the ring in the marriage ser- vice, and of the sign of the Cross in baptism, and for the discontinuance of the rite of Confirmation. Next, for the restriction of Ordination to those only who were able to preach, and for the enforcement of residence. The third was for the removal of abuses connected with the ecclesiastical courts, tithe impropriations, and pluralities. Shortly after his arrival in London, Bacon addressed to him — not, we may be sure, without first discovering Bacon's whether such an act would be displeasing tions' — certain ' Considerations touching the Better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England,' in which he argued forcibly and dispassionately for the encouragement of preaching, and the attainment of unity, not through the enforcement of discipline by the High Commission Court, but through the teaching of the faith and the practice of virtue. In July 1603, James of his own accord announced that he was going to en- courage the growth of a preaching ministry by sfstting The Church under James I. 71 aside for the purpose some of the impropriate tithes belonging to the Crown, and recommended the Uni- versities to do the same. In the autumn he issued a proclamation to the effect that he was prepared to correct all abuses in the Church, and in order to collect the necessary information upon the points in dispute he summoned a conference to discuss them in his presence in the following winter. In answer to this summons the Hampton Court Conference met on January 14, 1604. On the side of The Hamp- the Cliurcli appeared nineteen Clerg-y, includ- tonCourt . ^ ^^ . ^ n V,- i n Conference ing Archbishop Whitgiit, liancroit, Bisliop 01 London, and Andrewes, the Dean of Westminster. On the side of the Puritans appeared at the King's request only four representatives — Drs. Reynolds, Chaderton^ Sparks, and Knewstubs ; but there is no reason to believe Miat a better selection of representatives could have been made if the choice had been left to the whole Puritan body. The conference had been summoned by James to do the work of a modern Poyal Commission, and inform the royal mind on doubtful points. During the first day of its session the King remembered his position and behaved with dignity. He refused Rey- nolds' request that the Church should be placed under the burden of the heterodox Calvinism of the Lambeth Articles, but acceded willingly enough to the demand that a new translation of the Bible should be made. On the second day, however, an unlucky suggestion on the part of Reynolds, tho,t any disputes which might arise as to the due regulation of the Prophesyings, if they were revived, might be decided by the Presbyters in conjunction with the Bishop, excited all the fear of y 72 The Church and the Puritans the despot as well as the ire of the thelogian. ' Pres- byterianism,' he said, ' agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. Let that government be once up, we shall all of us have work enough, both our hands fall ; but. Dr. Reynolds, until you find that I grow lazy, let that alone ! ' From that moment he forgot the arbiter in the advocate, and the reformer in the contro- versialist. The remaining questions of ceremonial and discipline were brought forward, not to be listened to, but to be disposed of. ' I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land,' said the angry King, as at the close of the conference he shuffled out of the room. The result was unfortunate for the Church and for the nation. The Puritans, in their petition and by Real nature '^^^^^ir attitude at the conference, had shown of the ^^^™ that what they wanted was, not that toleration Puritans sliould be granted to the scruples of the con- scientious precisian, but that Puritanism should be accepted as the orthodox teaching of the Church. By claiming that the Lambeth Articles should be imposed and subscribed as the recognised dogmatic formulary of the Church, they were claiming in fact, not that Calvinistic Puritanism should be allowed a place within the Church system, but that it should be pro- claimed to be itself the true system of the Church. By claiming^ that Confirmation should be discontinued as superfluous, and the use of the sign of the Cross as superstitious, they were claiming in fact that the Church should avowedlv cut herself ofl" from historical Christianity, and assert her willingness to identify herself with the cause of foreign Protestantism. The Church under James 1. 73 This was felt to be the real question at issue by the bulk of the laity and a large part of the Clergy of the James's Church ; but to James and to Bancroft the onfSailny i^^tter presented itself in an aspect more political political than religious. Convinced by Rey- nolds' speech that the real desire of the Puritans was to establish Presbyterianism, James attached himself the closer to the Church system as it was. It is true that he never entirely threw off the bonds of the doctrinal Calvinism in which he had been brought up, but in the institution of Episcopacy he saw the strongest bulwark of monarchy. Forgetful of his promises of reform, blind to the danger pointed out by Bacon, that a system of Church discipline based upon hierarchical authority instead of upon doctrinal unity was a house built without foundations, he sent the Puritans back to their homes browbeaten and silenced, but not convinced ; and created a suspicion of unfair treatment in a large class of his subjects, from among whom were to come in later Parliaments the leaders of the Puritan opposition. To Whitffift and to Bancroft it was the maintenance of the supremacy of the Church that was at stake. When Mistaken Jamos was meditating reforms Whitgift was attitude of . ,, i^i* the Bishops exceedingly pensive ; when ne was aeienamg the ex officio oath he seemed to the Archbishop to be speaking by the direct inspiration of God. Believing that uniformity was the necessary preliminary to unity, and that no uniformity was possible except by means of the strong hand of compulsion, the Bishops welcomed with excessive adulation a sovereign who looked upon them as the surest supports of his throne. They gave themselves over completely to the service of a govern- 74 The Church and the Puritans ment which neither robbed the Church of her property, nor used her chief ministers as policemen. It needed a prophet to tell that this close alliance thus instituted between Episcopacy and monarchy, between Episcopal discipline and arbitrary government, was the beginning of a rift between the Church and the people, which was in a few years to grow into a chasm large enough to engulf both monarchy and Episcopacy in a common ruin. While the Government under James was thus lendiug its power to the maintenance of the Church system from The Canons political motivcs, the Church herself was of 1604 strengthening her own position and sharpen- ing her own weapons. The Convocation of Canterbury in its session of 1603 had agreed upon a book of Canons, which were intended to form a code of discipline more or less complete, and which, though not legally binding upon the laity, have always been considered as express- ing the mind of the Church on disciplinary matters. Bancroft, to whom the compilation of the book was mainly due, and who had acted as president of the Convocation which passed it — owing to the vacancy of the primacy by the death of Whitgift — took care that ino loophole should be left by which a man who dis- / agreed with the discipline and organisation of the / Church could honestly remain among the Clergy of the Church. Canon III. affirmed the Church of England to be a true and Apostolic Church. Canons IV. and V. condemned, under pain of excommunication, those who asserted that anything in the Prayer Book or Articles was superstitious. Canon VII. denounced as excom- municate any one who should affirm that the govern- The Church under James I. 75 ment and discipline of the Ohurcli of England under his Majesty by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, and other officers was Antichristian or contrary to the word of God. Canon XXXVI. provided that all Clergy to be ordained, licensed, or admitted to a benefice should take an oath stating that they williugly and ex ammo subscribed to the Royal Supremacy, the Prayer Book, and the Articles. Armed with these weapons, and urged on by James and the council, Bancroft, who had succeeded Whitgift Enforce- ^^ Archbisliop of Canterbury in December Sonfui^'on l^^^^j proceeded to apply the test of the sub- / the Clergy scription to all beneficed Clergy, and to deprive , those who refused to subscribe. It was doubtful whether | the power of the High Commission Court, through which the deprivations were carried out, extended to the taking away of a man's freehold for the refusal of subscription enjoined merely by ecclesiastical authority. The judges to whom the question was referred decided in the affirmative, on the ground that the King had by virtue of the Royal Supremacy power to make laws for the Clergy and to punish the disobedient, and therefore necessarily had the right of delegating that power to commissioners. This decision was in principle destruc- tive of all ecclesiastical liberty. It proceeded on a theory of the supremacy similar to that held by Henry VIII. and afterwards by James II. It was in direct opposition to the theory contained in the Canons about which the dispute had arisen. It was a foretaste of the ship-money decision in 1636. But Bancroft and the Church party were too much pleased with the success of their policy to inquire into the principles of the 76 The Church and the Puritans decision. They proceeded immediately to impose the subscription test. The bulk of the Puritans accepted it after some hesitation. About 300 resigned their cures and sought a more congenial soil in Calvinistic Holland. The jDolicy of the Archbisho}^ and of the King seemed crowned with success. Purged from the dead weight of so many Clergy who, though nominally her servants, were in reality in active disagreement with the essen- tials of her constitution, the Church seemed more united, more solidly compact than she had been since the ac- cession of Elizabeth. This is what Clarendon meant when he described Bancroft as ' that Metropolitan who understood the Church excellently, and had almost rescued it out of the hands of the Calvinian party, and very much subdued the unruly spirit of the Noncon- formists.' To any one who looked back upon the history of ecclesiastical affairs in England since Elizabeth came to Growth of ^^® throne, amid all the tangle of events, this St^rimde?" ^^^^ could not fail to impress itself upon his and 'ikm- notice, that, in spite of the great spread of <^^^^^ , Calvinistic opinion opposed to the Church among the Clergy, the position of the Church as an organised society was far stronger under Bancroft than it had been under Parker. A glance at the nature of the opposition experienced by the Church will be suffi- cient to prove this. Under Parker the disuse of the cap and surplice was demanded by the Calvinistic party almost as a condition of communion ; in the Millenary Petition it was merely asked that their use be not urged. Cartwright, Brown, and Martin Marprelate had de- nounced the government of the Church by Bishops to The Church under James I. 77 be anti-Scriptural and in itself irreligious ; at Hampton Court the controversy mainly turned upon the retention or abolition of some ceremonies, and all the Puritan Clergy except 300 were found willing to subscribe an oath that they believed the government of the Church by Bishops to be in accordance with the will of God. Such facts show how much stronger the position of the Church had become. It was undeniable that on the face of things Whitgift and Bancroft, supported as they were by Elizabeth and James, had made Nonconformity : unpopular, for they had succeeded in identifying it with disloyalty in an age which was peculiarly, perhaps blindly, loyal. Even the Millenary Petitioners were \ careful to explain that they are ' not factious men affect- ing a popular parity in the Church, nor schismatics aiming at the dissolution of the state ecclesiastical.' The House of Commons of 1604 in their celebrated apology stated that in approaching matters of religion '- they came in no Puritan or Brownist spirit to intro- duce their parity or to work the subversion of the state ecclesiastical as it then stood.' But to one who looked below the surface it was obvious that there was something wanting in this Weakness of edificc of Uniformity. It was without founda- the Church . ^ , i , j i • system tiou. It was a system, but nothmg more — a system powerful in the political authority which supported it, and in the ecclesiastical tradition which i environed it, but which had little relation to the souls , for whom it existed. Whitgift had succeeded in vindi- cating the supremacy of the law, but to him and to the vast majority of the Clergy over whom he ruled, it was the law and nothing more, the supremacy of whicli he ^8 The Church and the Puritans was vindicating. Bancroft fought for his order as well as for the law. In enforcing conformity to an Epis- copal system, he believed fully that he was advancing a Divinely ordered form of government. But more than this was wanted before the Church system could appear to men to be other than the ecclesiastical department of government, coming to them with the same sanction, but with no greater sanction, than the laws of civil obligation. It required the teaching of history, which would show that the Church of England was in truth a descendant of the primitive Apostolic society, would trace her oneness, throughout the ages which had elapsed, with the other parts of that Apostolic Church, and would claim by right of unbroken descent and unstained lineage her part in the Apostolic gifts. It required the evidence of a worship which, though chastened and simple, should j^et by its reverence and in its self-repression show forth to men's eyes the reali- ties of the grace of which it was the shrine. It required, above all things, a theology which should teach that the law which was expressed in Church discipline and Church organisation, was the law of God, and therefore the law of reason — a law which, in the system of the Church, and in that alone, extended by Divine appoint- ment to man the benefits of that higher law by which God for man's sake became man. Such was the intellectual basis of the religious movement so strangely known in English history as Arminianism. 79 CHAPTER V. THE RISE OF ARMINIANISxM. At the beginning of the seventeenth century an ebb was distinctly visible in the wave of Calvinism which had Reaction passed over England in the days of Elizabeth. against at • Calvinism A good many reasons combined to make a reaction probable. The generation had passed away to whom the logical system of Calvin had come as a new and perfect Gospel, alone adequate to cope with the logic and the system of Rome. A generation of men had come to the front, which had grown up under the influence of the hated ceremonies, and had been trained in an Episcopal Church, and yet had proved themselves capable of upholding the banner of Pro- testant liberty against Philip 11. and the Counter- Reformation with at least as much success as their fathers. Experience had shown that there were spots even in the sun of Calvinism, and men were no longer so much dazzled by the success of Presbyterianism in Scotland as to be blind to the fact that Presbyteries and General Assemblies were quite as intolerant as Bishops and the Court of High Commission. They had begun to realise that nothing would be gained to the cause of liberty by placing Cartwright in the chair of Whitgift. The influence of the Government, too, was great and in many cases conclusive, for it appealed to mezj's pockets as well as to their principles. It is So The Church and the Puritans ill arguing with the master of thirty legions, and there was many an honest Englishman who, without any strong convictions on the subject of predestination or of the divine right of Episcopacy, was content to follow where authority pointed the way. There was many an honest clergyman who was perfectly willing to take his opinions from his superiors, when he found he had to choose between conformity and deprivation. But there were deeper reasons than these. As time went on the system of the Church endeared itself to the Popularity ^^^art of the nation. From the first the Prayer Church Book, Containing as it did so much of the old system familiar services of the mediaeval Church, re- arranged and rendered more intelligible to the people, had won its way quickly into their affections. The whole system of the Church was now associated with a period of unexampled glory and national prosperity. Since the death of Mary the nation had taken a new position in the world, and with the responsibilities of that positio^n the Elizabethail Church was associated. The Calvinistic movement of Elizabeth's reign had mainly affected the Clergy, and the laity in the large towns. The country people still remained Catholic in sympathies. Insensibly men became aware of the in- compatibility of the system of the Church with the doc- trine of Calvin. The position of a man like Whitgift, who himself believed in the statements of the Lambeth Articles, and yet could imprison as schismatics those who refused to subscribe to the Prayer Book, was thoroughly illogical. In fact, directly controversy arose, and Churchmen had to defend their doctrine and discipline by argument against the Presbyterian or the The Rise of Arminianism 8i Independent, they could not help laying stress on the doctrines of the necessity of Episcopacy and the visibility of the Church. Accordingly, we find that Bancroft, unlike Whitgift, was a staunch believer in the divine right of Episcopacy, and that the canons directly asserted that the Church of England was a true and Apostolic Church. As soon as Churchmen had to defend their doctrine and discipline by argument against Roman Catholics as well as against Nonconformists, it was necessary to show that the Church of England, being a true and Apostolic Church, differed from the Church of Rome only so far as the latter had deviated from the doctrine of the Apostles, and that therefore she offered to her members all the privileges of the primitive Church, and taught her children the whole deposit of faith. Accordingly we find, as characteristic of the Laudian or Arminian movement, that the doctrine of sacramental grace was insisted upon, and the idea of worship revived. , In fact, the more the Church came to realise her own l position, the more she was forced to part company with Calvinism ; but for some years it was not certain exactly what form the reaction against Calvinism would take. In the year 1594 Hooker published the first four books \ of his ' Ecclesiastical Polity.' In them were sounded ' Hooker;s the first notes of the coming struggle. Though 'Ecclesias- .... , i , i ticai Polity' m its Origin merely the answer to a personal attack by the Presbyterian Travers, in it he seeks to lay down the basis upon which all Church government philo- sophically rests. That basis Hooker finds in the supre- * ^ macy of law, explained by and founded on reason. The > whole moral as well as the physical universe is governed c.H. ^ ^v 82 The Church axd the Puritans by law ; and inasmuch as God has thus subjected His creatures to law, law is to them the expression of a Divine will. But it is the expression of a Divine will which acts, not in an arbitrary, capricious, or spasmodic manner, but after an orderly, regular, and, in a word, reasonable system. Here is a distinct appeal to the jDrinciple of reason- able authority against the personal infallibility of the His doctrine Calviuistic scheme, and the exaggerated au- abieT''' thority of Scriptural texts. If the will of God thority -g expressed in reasonable law, the supremacy ) of that will is to be assured by the supremacy of law ; and the supremacy of law necessitates an ordered, con- tinuous, and historical progression, in which the facts of one age become the precedents of the next. This, in the region of morals or theology, is an admission of the principle of authority as, after all, the chief deter- mining factor of our actions and our belief; not, it is true, the authority of an ex officio infallibility of Popes or Councils, still less of the personal infallibility of in- I dividual theologians, but the authority of an orderly system, of a living historical society, such as the Church, capable of defending by reason the conclusions to which it comes — an authority not very dissimilar to that appealed to in the famous conclusion of St. Augustine, Securus judicat orhis t err arum. Just as Whitgift and Bancroft were engaged in enforcing conformity to the Church system as a matter of civil and ecclesiastical duty. Hooker was recommending that system to the intellect by proving it to be the witness of a continuous and historical body dominated and ruled by law — the legacy of an authority which, inasmuch as it was The Rise oe Arminlanism 8 reasonable, was at once acceptable to man's intellect and consonant to the Divine will. Bacon approached the subject from a different point of view. To his mind, more imbued with the philosophy Bacon's plea he loved than with the law he professed, for intellec- i p ^ ■^ tuai liberty search alter truth under the leadership of reason could not fail to bring men securely and contentedly under the obedience of law. The way tO; produce conformity of action was first to produce con- formity of thought. The way to produce conformity of thought was to encourage freedom of investigation, to relax the enforcement of coercive discipline, and above all to put before mankind the living witness of a high spiritual life. Men were to be won, not coerced into unity. It is easy to see that Bacon here is the politician, who is seeking for an excuse to put an end, if it were only for a time, to the strain occasioned by penal laws ; and the theorist, who, himself devoted to the search after truth and the attainment of knowledge, forgets that mankind is even less willing to bow down before intellectual than before political authority. The Church at that time was not strong enough either in intellectual, political, or spiritual position to be able to permit the free exer- cise of thought of which he dreamed. Yet Bacon in this very suggestion gave his assistance to the growth of the movement. By insisting that the true security of the Church against the Roman Catholic, as well as | against the Calvinist, lay rather in the impregnability of her intellectual position, and the irresistible attrac-/ tiveness of her spiritual strength, than in the assertion of her political power, he taught her a lesson of which she was not slow to take advantage. G 2 84 The Church and the Puritans Lancelot Andrewes united in himself tlie ecclesias- tical learning and tlie personal saintliness whicli Bacon Andrewes' was demanding, and to which Hooker had theau- appealed. It had been found necessary to the Church base the position ot the Church of England, after the changes of the Reformation, upon something wider than the infallibility of Councils, upon something deeper than the negations of Protestant controversy, or the unphilosophical novelties of Lutheran or Calvinistic theology. Hooker had found this deeper and wider basis in the authority of a reasonable law. It was the work of Andrewes to enforce this argument by showing that the authority thus appealed to was in fact the authority which the Church of England in her Re- formation had especially striven to follow, namely, the authority of primitive Christian antiquity — the authority of the Bible interpreted by the councils and fathers of the undivided Church — that is, by the collective reason of Christendom. Here was a distinct law — the law of Scripture interpreted by the Church ; but a law not simply imposed from without, but which derived its efficacy through the operation of reason working in a permanent and Divinely guided society. Here, too, was the answer to the appeal of Bacon, for in the faith which did not fear to justify itself by the obedience of the thoughtful and the learned during many centuries of Christian teaching, and in the lives and characters of many thousands of Christian saints, was found the wider sympathy and the deeper knowledge which he craved. Andrewes is the bridge which separates and which unites Hooker and Laud. In all three are to be found The Rise of Armiman/sm 85 the spirit of reverence and the spirit of humility, which are necessary for the appreciation of the mysterious Comparison ^^^^ sacrameutal side of Christian teaching. Audrewes' ^^ ^^ three is conspicuous the desire to de- aiiriLaud fend the system of the Cliurch by proving it to be at once Scriptural, reasonable, and historical. All three, therefore, acknowledge the claims of authority ; but to each authority comes in a somewhat different , form. To Hooker, the writer, it is the authority of the law of a Divinely guided reason, through which is dis- cerned the mind of God working in the mind of man. It is an intellectual conception, which, however useful in argument and powerful as an educational weapon, it is somewhat difficult for the ordinary mind to apply to the facts of everyday life. To Laud, the statesman and the party leader, authority comes in the form of the law of the Society of which he is an officer — the ex officio authority of council, of^ doctor, of canon, of rubric : in them Christian wisdom,/ under the guidance of God, has reduced into the sim- plest statements what is right to be believed and followed in matters both of faith and of discipline. In them the mind of God is plainly and clearly ex- pressed. The simple duty of the Christian is to obey, and of the Christian bishop to enforce obedience. Here is a conception of authority which at least had the merits of being perfectly logical and perfectly intelligible, but was not likely to pass unchallenged in an age of great diversity of religious and political belief. Audrewes, the theologian, the saint, and the cour- tier, equally with Laud acknowledges the authority of the society to which he belongs; but to him that S6 The Church and the Puritans /authority appeals, not so mucli in the crystalline form of canon or of rubric, as in the historical form of the Society itself. Canon and rubric exist for the sake of the Church, not the Church for the sake of canon and rubric. The study of theology and the study of history Jiad brought home to Andrewes more vividly than to any other leader of the English Church since the jKeformation the conception of the greatness of the Catholic Church, branching out into all lands from the Apostolic College, developing freely in different wa^^s, under different conditions, in different climates, contract- ing imperfections, and suffering in consequence from grievous division and tyranny; yet, in spite of all, main- taining a visible unity in doctrine and discipline in its identity with the doctrine and discipline of the Apostles ; still the spouse of Christ, and the pillar and ground of the truth, although subjected to Papal tyranny or infidel domination. The greatness and the historical position of the Catholic Church demand the willing obedience of love, not the enforced compliance of compulsion. The wide sympathies of a mind, trained in all the breadth of patristic teaching, would attract men into the fold by the authority of a living power, rather than tie them down by the authority of a written law. Hooker aj)pealed to the head, Andrewes to the heart. Laud to the conduct of Englishmen. The Arminian movement, begun under the guidance of philosophy, took shape through the evidence of his- tory, and was enforced upon men as a matter of law. It was not until it had attained to the later stage of growth that it met with serious opposition, but by that time it had done its chief work. The enforcement of The Rise of Arminianism 87 law under Laud, the opposition he met with, the death which he suffered, the persecution which ensued — all, it is true, served to deepen the impression which the revival had made, to enlist sympathy in its favour, and to make men realise its necessity ; but as a constructive system of theology, based upon the authority of antiquity, justified by the authority of history, and vindicated by the authority of reason, it reached its full development in Andrewes. The strength of Arminianism, then, was found in its vivid realisation of the continuous life of the Church, Thestreiigth in its fcarless reliance upon history, and in and weak- . i • i ness oi its deep sympathy with man s moral nature. Arminian- i • i • i ism it was soon to show its weakness m the con- fusion which it brought about between spiritual and civil authority. From being an intellectual belief affecting conduct through voluntary conviction, it be- came a political system enforced by penalties. The change is intelligible, though none the less lamentable. Directly men ceased to look upon the Church as a religious club or a political organisation, and began to regard her as the one Divine society, endowed with spiritual gifts, the chosen channel of spiritual privileges, tbey began to value the privileges of which they were the inheritors, to be attracted by religious mystery, and to believe in sacramental grace. To minds trained by the holy enthusiasm and loving obedience of the school of Andrewes, the contrast between the orderly dignity of the worship enjoined by the Prayer Book, and the irreverent slovenliness customary among the Puritans, was inexpressibly sad. When the Altar was used as a convenient table for the transaction of secular business, v^^hen parishioners claimed the right of building pews SS The Church and the Puritans for themselves above it, when at the great Puritan loon- dation at Cambridge — Emmanuel College — the use of the surplice was wholly disregarded, and the celebrations of the Eucharist were made as much as possible to re- semble an ordinary meal, and purposely divested of all signs of reverence ; it was not unnatural that those who believed in the sacraments, and loved the orderly ritual of the Church, turned to the authority of the Crown, as the only authority they knew of able to enforce obedience to the law. The Crown on its side was willing enough to come to their aid. James, because he was convinced that the Its alliance cause of Church authority and of monarchical with, the . /^i 1 1 p Crown authority was the same, Charles, because oi his stern, almost prim love of order, and because of his personal attachment to the Church, were quite ready to treat all opposition as disloyalty to the Crown. The court of the Star Chamber, equally with that of the High Commission, included bishops among the judges, and was used to enforce Church discipline. Attacks upon Church administration in Parliament were treated as invasions of the royal prerogative. The government of the Church became thus identified by the Clergy, as well as by the Puritan opposition, with the misgovernment of the country. Everv fresh invasion of popular liberty by the King was condoned, if not applauded by the Clergy, and made them more and more unpopular. Every fresh instance of Episcopal maladministration or clerical cor- ruption increased the hat]-ed with which the Government was regarded. But this was not the worst part of the matter. Directly Arminianism became powerful at court it 7 HE Rise oe Arm/nianism 89 attracted to itself tlie sycophant, the flatterer, and the self-seeker. Many a clergyman succeeded in atoning The self- for liis worldHncss and his laziness by his pro- SGCkillSf of some of the fessions of ortliodoxy. Laud and his friends Armiuiau ^• ^ c i ^ ^ • t clergy werc too little careiul about the reputation and character of those they promoted. Perhaps they could not help themselves. The crisis was acute, the time short, partisans were necessary to carry on the fight. But, whatever the cause, it is impossible not to notice the contrast between the Bishops of the Laudian move- ment in the maturity of its persecution, and those of the heyday of its power — not to compare Sheldon, and Sanderson, and Jeremy Taylor with Wren, and Mon- taigue, and Neile. There is too much truth in Milton's well-known complaint of the Arminian clergy : — Such as for their bellies' sake Creep and intrude and climb into the fold ; Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest : Blind mouths that scarce themselves know how to tell A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught the least That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs. By the middle of the reign of James I. two separate and incompatible principles of religion had established themselves within the bosom of the National principles in Church— the CathoHc and the Puritan. VVith- Churcli and . . State ijj a year of the death of James, two principles equally separate and incompatible had shown themselves within the sphere of civil politics, namely, those of monar- chical and popular government. There was one factor 90 The Church and the Puritans common to all the problems which were raised by these different sets of ideas. By the conception which a man had of the nature and force of authority on matters of opinion, would his religious and political conduct alike be guided, unless he was the slave of prejudice. If he I was prepared to acknowledge that the decisions of I councils were binding upon his faith, and that the tra- ditions of the past ages should guide his conduct ; if he admitted that religious truth was the inheritance of the Divine Society into which he had been baptized, and that he was not free to seek it outside of that Society ; it was likely that he would be content to acquiesce, as his fathers had done, in the traditions of the Tudor government, and seek the welfare of the people in the wisdom of the king. On the other hand, it was pretty certain that the Pui'itan, who in religious matters ac- knowledged no authority but that of his own conscience, w^ould not willingly give in his adhesion to a Govern- ment which regarded the convictions of individuals as of little worth. This intimate connexion between politics and reli- gion is the essential characteristic of the history of Eeiations England during the seventeenth century. It pfitkfs^xud ^^ impossible to understand the controversies religion Qf j^q (-|r^y uuless their double character is always borne in mind. And yet it is easy to see that it was this intimate connexion between politics and religion which prevented the free and orderly develop- ment of both. It would have been much easier for England to have effected the change from the supremacy of the King to the supremacy of Parliament, had not the Church party of the Long Parliament necessarily The Rise oe A e mini an ism 91 become the Royalist party of the Civil War ; had not the political intelligence of Pym been clouded by the suspicion that Charles and Laud were engaged in a con- spiracy to restore England to the obedience of the Pope. It would have been much easier for the Church of Eng- land to have won back the nation to a loyal and reverent obedience to the Prayer Book, without losing the moral earnestness which was the glory of Puritanism, had not the Long Parliament abolished Episcopacy, and Puritan- ism become synonymous with rebellion. For it was not likely that Puritanism, if left to its own unaided strength, could long maintain its position Weakness of in the English Church. It was out of har- principie mouy with the formularies, the ritual, and politics the discipline to which every member of the Church was accustomed from his childhood. It had failed in its effort to establish, under cover of the for- mularies of the Church, a ritual and a discipline of its own, which should be a faithful expression of its belief. Its strength lay in its appeal to the conscience, in its uncompromising protest against worldliness. In most cases which arose the decision of the conscience was instinctively the right one. The line between right and wrong is usually plainly to be discerned, from what- ever quarter of religious or moral belief it is approached. .But if the inquiry was pushed a little further, and the question was asked upon what grounds the conscience had acted, the Puritan had either to take refuge behind the dogmatism of Calvin, or to lay claim to personal infallibility. There was no power of cohesion in such a system. As long as Puritanism was in opposition it was kept 92 The Church and the Puritans together by the strongest of all ties, that of a common hatred. It mattered not upon what grounds the deci- sion was arrived at, as long as in the end it was that of uncompromising hostility to Laud and all his works. Directly Puritanism was victorious its fatal weakness began to show itself. In Scotland, in order to avoid the disruption which must necessarily follow on the un- limited exercise of personal infallibility, obedience to authority was insisted upon with a fervour worthy of Ignatius Loyola — only it was the authority of Calvin, and not of the Pope. Confessions of faith, covenants, and protestations bound the Presbyterians together, like a vice, in the bonds of a rigid and narrow sacer- dotal system, as unyielding and as deadening as that of the Spanish Inquisition. In England the personal infallibility of the new model army triumphed over Calvinistic orthodoxy. The bands which bind religious societies together were loosed and thrown to the winds. Every man became a law^ to himself, and the more thoughtful and orderly of the nation, weary of a tolera- ' tion which had resulted in licence, welcomed back the Church system of uniformity, which, although intolerant, was at any rate not anarchical. The Catholic spirit, as it displayed itself within the sober lines of the Church formularies, appealed to a wider strengrth of area of thouQ'ht and was based upon a more the Catholic . .^ . , , . ^ . ^ ^ principle enduimg^ principle than the Puritan. It, too, apiirt from ^. , . . politics claimed on its side the decision oi the conscience, but it was the decision of a conscience guided and formed by sixteen centuries of Christian teaching and ecclesiastical obedience. It claimed as of right the help of St. Athanasius, and St. Augustine, and St. Thdnias, The Rise of Arminianism 93 while free to accept if it liked the assistance of Calvin. To the fierce dogmatism of Presbyterian orthodoxy- it opposed the intellectual breadth and deeper know- ledge of Hooker and of Andrewes. The stern, self- centred individualism of Cromwell was met by the gentle, orderly self-repression of Nicholas Ferrar ; the scornful denunciations of Milton by the quiet, humble introspection of George Herbert. Not that the sterner side of human nature was wanting. It is the patient endurance of suffering that has in the eyes of posterity redeemed the irresolute insincerity of Charles. Manful obedience to the call of duty has dignified the unsym- pathetic roughness of Laud. Love of justice and keen hatred of abuses have done much to conceal the darker traits of the character of Strafford. Claiming to represent the whole of human nature, and not merely one side, the Catholic spirit made its bid for pre-eminence in England. Strong in its traditions and in history as the inheritor of the past, it claimed in fact and in law to be the representative of the pre- sent, it looked forward beyond the present to command in the future. In this it was mistaken. The future of England, when the struggle was over, was to lie as much with its adversary as with itself. The future even of the English Church was not to be wholly its own. Not content with resting its strength on its own intellectual position, and fortifying it with its own deepened spiritual life, it sought for help from a system of government which belonged wholly to the past, and with which England was losing sympathy every day. It wasted and frittered away its spiritual power in the vain attempt to snatch the fatal gift of temporal 94 The Church and the Puritans I dominion. The mistake was a natural one, but that it was a mistake must have been evident before his death even to its author William Laud. CHAPTER VI. WILLIAM LAUD. The death of Bancroft in 1610 seemed to most men to leave the primacy of the English Church in the hands Abbot of Andre wes. His colleagues in the Episco- appointed -, . . i • i Primate paterecommeudedhmi, his own high character and intellectual gifts marked him out for the post, it was well known that James esteemed him highly. All England was astonished when it learned that the royal choice had passed over AndreAves, and had fallen upon George Abbot, Bishop of London, who had had no paro- chial experience whatever, and had only been on the Episcopal bench for a little over a year. It is difficult to fathom James's reasons for the appointment. Whether it is to be attributed to his love of flattery, or merely to a fit of royal petulance, or considered as a tribute to the memory of Dunbar, whose chaplain Abbot had been, it is impossible to say. Certain it is that the appoint- ment was an unfortunate one ; not so much because Abbot in doctrine was a Calvinist, and out of sympathy with the religious opinions now beginning to manifest themselves in the Church and so soon to be dominant at court, as because he was wholly deficient in the qualities necessary for a leader of m.enj just at q, time when a leader was most wanted. WiLL/AAf Laud 95 Austere, harsh, narrow-minded, and unsympathetic, he was without influence at court and unloved by the Character of nation. His Very virtues told against him. Abbot rpj^g straightforward conscientiousness which made him resolutely refuse to allow himself to become a party to the wicked schemes of the adulteress Lady Essex, made him also the most relentless judge of the High Commission Court. The hatred of tyranny and of superstition which made him the colleague of Raleigh in urging a policy of war with Spain, prevented him from seeing anything in Arminianism except treachery to the Protestant cause. The sincere but narrow piety with which he is credited by friend and foe alike, made him readily burn Wightman and Legate for heresy at James's instance, in the spirit in which Samuel hewed Agag in pieces at Gilgal. Yet it would seem that even his Calvinism was not made of that stern stuff" which a few years later was to characterise the Scotch Cove- nanter. Perhaps his academic training had taught him the limits of conscientious opposition. He was content during the later years of his life to drop into compara- tive seclusion, while Charles, Buckingham, and Laud ruled England. He even gave his imprimatur to a sermon by Bishop Goodman on the Eucharist, which contained doctrine which must have appeared to him to come little short of idolatry, although he refused to licence the printing of Sibthorpe's assize sermon on passive obedience. The twenty years during which Abbot ruled over! the Church of England were critical years in her history. ' It was during that time that the Puritan opposition to the Church became identified with the Parliamentary i 96 The Church and the Puritans opposition to the Crown, and that the Catholic revival in the Church became identified with prerogative His failure government. It was this merging into one sfastiwiT^^ another of interests not necessarily identical statesmaa ^hich caused the Revolution. Abbot seemed by his position and opinions to be singularly fitted to play the part of mediator between the opposing factions, at a time when mediation was still possible. Attached to Parliamentary Puritanism by his religious convic- tions, and his steady advocacy of a Protestant policy abroad ; attached to the court by his official position, and his deference to the personal authority of the Crown, he might, had he had the requisite sympathy and poli- tical insight, have successfully played the part of peace- maker between the King and the nation, which was afterwards so unsuccessfully attempted by the vain and shifty Williams. But such a part was far beyond his capacity, he never seems to have had the slightest ap- preciation of the gravity of the crisis through which England was passing. During his long primacy the only important action affecting the Church which can be directly ascribed to his counsel was the sending of English ambassadors to the Calvinistic Synod of Dort in 1619. During the last ten years of his life he was content to stand aside, and let the chief part in direct- ing the affairs of the Church be assumed by a younger man, and his own bitter opponent. The same year that saw Abbot Archbishop of Canterbury saw Laud President of St. John's College, Early train- Oxford. The two men had been rivals in ing of Laud ^^ theoloofical controversies of the university, j ust as they were afterwards to be rivals at the council- William Laud 97 table of the king. Laud, wlio was sprung from a merchant family at Reading, had been admitted as a member of St. John's College in 1589, obtained a scholarship in the following year, and became a Fellow of the College in 1593. From the first he seems to have imbibed from his tutor. Dr. Buckeridge, afterwards President of the College, and Bishop of Rochester, a ' strong conviction of the justice of the claim of the Church of England to be part of the Catholic Church of Christ. That conviction, developed by the uncom- promising logic of Laud's mind, and deepened by a wide and intelligent study of the Fathers, necessarily drew him on to a position, which, although logically unassailable, was startling to men who had been brought up in unreasoning submission to the authority of Calvin, and had been taught to look on the Pope as Antichrist, and on Protestantism abroad as merely the continental form of their own religion. Laud saw that the same reasoning which proved the Church of England to be the Catholic Church in this country, proved the Church of Rome to be, although corrupt, yet a true Church in Italy. Further, since Bishops had always been a necessary part of Church organisation since the times of the Apostles, the non-episcopal bodies of Germany and of Switzerland had forfeited their claim to be considered as parts of the true Church. In his public utterances before the University he maintained these two positions, and accordingly brought Attacks clown upon his head the bitter hostility of the the unive? Calviuistic party led by Abbot, then the Master "^^^ of University College. He was openly de- nounced in the University pulpit as a Papist, and, as c.H. ^ 98 The Church and the Puritans his biographer tells us, it was almost an heresy to be seen in his company and a misprision of heresy to give him a civil salutation in the street. Nevertheless, the younger members of the University, those who had been bred under the rule of Whitgift and of Bancroft, and had been trained under the influence of Hooker and of Andrewes, were on his side. In 1603 he was elected Proctor. Two years later, he took his first step on the ladder of preferment by ms early being appointed chaplain to Mountjoy, lately preferments ^^j^ j^^^| ^f Devonshire, and it was in that capacity that he allowed himself to read the marriage service over Devonshire and his paramour Lady Bich, who had lately been divorced from her husband. The breach of discipline he thus committed weighed heavily on his mind, and he did penance for it all the rest of his life by observing St. Stephen's Day, the anniversary of the ceremony, as a fast. In 1608 he became Chaplain to Neile, then Bishop of Rochester and a great favourite with the king. In 1611, after a patient investigation of the circumstances, he was declared by James to have been duly elected President of St. John's College, on the promotion of Buckeridge to the see of Rochester in the place of Neile, who had been promoted to Lincoln. From this time honours flowed fast upon him. In the autumn of 1611 he was appointed Chaplain to the King. In 1615 he received from Neile the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, and in 1616 he was made Dean of Glou- cester. From that time until his imprisonment in 1640, he was the most influential man in the Church of England, and his personal history becomes that of the larger movement with which his name is associated. William Laud 99 That movement, as we have seen, had for its end the vindication of the Catholic character of the Church of Lanri's con- England, and for its means the enforcement of Giou?er <^f the law as it stood. At Gloucester, Laud *^^ found plenty of opportunity for testing his powers as a disciplinarian. The bishop, Miles Smith, was an accomplished Hebrew scholar, but neither un- derstood nor cared for the ceremonial of the Church or even the decencies of worship. The fabric was in decay, the furniture but slovenly appointed, and the Altar — differing in this from most other Cathedrals — stood in the middle of the Choir. ' Scarce ever a Church in England,' said James when he offered Laud the Deanery, ' is so ill-governed and so much out of order.' Laud did not need the spur. He hastened to Gloucester, summoned the Chapter, procured from them orders for the repair of the building and the removal of the Altar y to the east end, and, not content with that, ordered the Cathedral officials to make ^ a humble reverence to Almighty God,' in the direction of the Altar when they entered the Church. The Puritan susceptibilities of the city of Gloucester were at once aroused. Meetings of the citizens were held to denounce the insidious advance of Popery in their midst. The Bishop declared he would not enter the Cathedral as long as the Altar remained where it was. One of his chaplains, named White, wrote a letter, quickly circulated through the city, in which he urged the Prebendaries to revive in themselves the spirit of Elijah, and speak a word on God's behalf against the prophets of Baal. Laud, unmoved by the storm he had raised, unable to see either the necessity or the expediency of conciliating H 2 100 The Church and the Puritans opponents, merely wrote a letter to the Bishop, threaten- ing him with the King's displeasure if the tumults were not quickly put down, and placed the whole matter in the hands of the High Commission. Such conduct is characteristic of the man. Con- vinced that the object he was aiming at was for the good of the Church — as indeed it was, — unable to realise that any man well affected to the Church could think other- wise, he treated opposition, not as opinion to be con- vinced, but as rebellion to be crushed, and unhesitatingly summoned the royal power to his aid without a thought of the consequences. Just as James would never sur- mount a difficulty if he could circumvent it. Laud would never convince an opponent if he could suppress him. For a time, at any rate, this policy was successful at Gloucester. Laud was summoned by the King to attend him on his journey to Scotland in 1617 ; and on his return in the summer of that year, he heard that, owing to the prom|)t measures of the magistrates, order had been restored, and the services of the Cathedral were being performed according to the rubrics of the Prayer Book. Four years elapsed before Laud received the reward of his success in beiug appointed to the Bishopric of His inti- St. David's, but during that time his influence macy with , n , i ti • • • n Buckingham at uourt was steadiiy increasing, especiaiiy with the King's new favourite, Buckingham. ' That unhappy vapour,' as he is quaintly described by the his- torian of the Long Parliament, ' exhaled from the earth to such a height as to cloud not only the setting but the rising sun,' was as yet fairly free from the poison of the Court. Like a spoilt child, vain, gallant, arrogant, and Wjlliam Laud ioi imdisciplineclj he had a better side to his character, and it was that better side that he showed to Laud. His gene- rous transparent nature was open to reHgious impres- sions, though his selfishness usually made them pass away almost as easily as they came. His quick inquiring mind made him anxious to know the truths of theology, while his indolence disinclined him from the trouble of study- ing them. In Laud — grave, prim, patient, and dogma- tical — he found the teacher and the adviser whom in his better moments he felt himself impelled to seek. In 1622 Laud, at the command of the King, under- took the management of a controversy in which Buck- The confer- ingliam was closely interested. His mother. ! Fisher a worldly, self-seeking woman, had in her old : age lent her ear to the arguments of a Jesuit bearing! the name of Fisher, who urged her to seek for the safety she demanded in the bosom of the only Church which claimed infallibility. James, anxious to avoid the scan- dal of a conversion in the Villiers family, and perhaps doubtful about the steadfastness of Buckingham himself, commissioned Laud to conduct a disputation with Fisher in the presence of the King and the favourite. The result was in every way creditable to Laud. Taking his stand on the authority of Scripture, as interpreted by the tradition of the primitive Church, and witnessed to by the practice and belief of the Church in all ages, he did not hesitate to appeal also to reason for the justification to man of the faith which he accepts upon the combined authority of his conscience and of the Church. Here the teaching of Hooker and Andrewes is un- mistakable. In Laud's view, Scripture is the only 102 The Church and the Puritans infallible guide of faith. He adopts and defends Hooker's own statement, tliat ' Scripture is tlie ground of our Laud's doc- belief.' He lays it down in tlie strono-est pos- triue that . -' & r Scripture is sible wav that Scripture, beino^ the word of the ground ^ , . . ^ of belief God, coutains in itself all things necessary to salvation. The confirmation of this proposition is found in many quarters j but two lines of argument in parti- cular converge to bring conviction. One is that of tradition, which points to the Church as the living continuous organisation in which Scriptural Witnessed trutli is oushrined. The belief of the Apostles, I toby tra- . . /, ' /\J'KJ\ ^^*^°^ ^^® writmgs of the Fathers, the decisions of Councils, all combine to make the inference of the infal- libility of Scripture irresistible. ' Tradition and Scrip- ture do mutually, yet do they not equally, confirm the authority either of other. For Scripture doth in- fallibly confirm the authority of Church tradition truly so called. But Tradition doth but morally and pro- bably confirm the authority of Scripture.' ^ — ' A beginner in the faith or a weakling or a doubter about it begins at tradition and proves Scripture by the Church. But a man strong and grown up in the Faith and under- j standingly conversant in the word of God proves the Church by the Scripture. And then, upon the matter we have a double Divine testimony altogether infallible to confirm unto us that Scripture is the word of God. The first is the tradition, of the Church of the Apostles themselves, who delivered immediately to the world the word of Christ. The other the Scripture itself, but after it hath received this testimony. And into this we do and may safely resolve our faith.' ' Laud against Fisher, p. 53, fourth edition, 1686. WiLLJAM Laud 103 The second argument is that of conscience and reason, which both suggest and justify the decision And justi- which tradition formulates. ^ As all sciences ficd by reason suppose somo principles, without proving, so have they, i.e. the theologians, almost all some text, some authority upon which they rely in some measure, and it is reason they should. For though these sciences make not their texts infallible as Divinity doth, yet fnll consent and prudent examination and long continuance have won reputation to them and have settled reputa- tion upon them very deservedly. And were those texts more void of truth than they are, yet it were fit and reasonable to uphold their credit, that novices and young beginners in a science which are not able to work strongly upon reason, nor reason upon them, may have authority to believe till they can learn to conclude from principles, and so to know. Is this also reasonable in other sciences, and shall it not be so in theology ? to have a text, a scripture, a rule, which novices may be taught to believe that so they may after come to the knowledge of those things which out of this rich prin- ciple and treasure are deducible. I yet see not how right reason can deny these grounds, and if it cannot, then is a mere natural man maybe thus far convinced that the text of God is a very credible text." ' It is reason, therefore, that suggests to an unin- structed mind the likelihood that there should be an And proved inspired and Divine guide. It is tradition by faith which poiuts to Scripturc as that guide. But neither reason nor tradition is j^owerful enough to make a man embrace that teaching and bend his will in sub- ' Laud against Fisher, p. 51. 104 'The Church and the Puritans mission to that guide. It is faith alone which can do this, which can minister the balm of certainty to a distracted soul. ' So then,' says Laud, in concluding the main part of his argument, ' the way lies thus. The credit of Scripture to be Divine resolves itself finally into that faith which we have concerning God himself and in the same order. For as that, so this, hath three main grounds to which all other are redu- cible. The first is the tradition of the Church, and /this leads us to a reverent persuasion of it. The second is the light of nature — and this shows how necessary revealed learning is, and that no other way can it be had. The third is the light of the text itself, in conversing wherewith we meet with the spirit of God inwardly inclining our hearts and sealing the full assurance of the sufficiency of all three into us. And then and not before we are certain that the Scripture is the word of God both by divine and by infallible proof. But our certainty is by faith, and so voluntary, and not by knowledge of such principles as in the light of nature can enforce assent whether we will or no.' ^ It was not perhaps of much avail to point Lady Buckingham to a certainty alone obtainable through Value of faith working" by reason, when she required a Laud's I . 1 . T 1 (^ position religion which promised her safety at the cost of the least possible intellectual and spiritual effort. All the arguments of Laud were thrown away upon her; but it was at least something that a teacher should have arisen in the days of the narrow dogmatism of the exponents of Papal authority, and of the narrower assumptions of Calvinistic infallibility, who, speaking * Laud against Fislier, p. 74. William Laud 105 in the name and b}^ the commission of the Church of England, should have put forward on her behalf a scheme of religion, which, while enjoying by the right of inheritance the transmitted traditions of the Apostolic Church, did not hesitate to justify them by the argu- ments of Reason. It is true that the religious position taken up by Laud was too intellectual in character to impress itself deeply upon the nation or stir deeply the springs of human nature. Nevertheless it was all im- portant for the Church, forced as she was daily into controversy on account of her middle position between Rome and Geneva, that she should, just at the time when she was beginning to shake off the trammels of the Calvinism which had for a few years oppressed her, be able to assume a controversial position on the great question of the day morally and intellectually defensible. The Laudian movement was less successful in the domain of action than it was in the domain of thought. It was always stronger among the Clergy than among the laity, among the thoughtful than among the thought- less. The noise which it made in the world was made more by the reverence of its worship and its teaching of Sacramental grace, than by its conception of the origin and nature of Church authority ; yet by the fact that it had moved out of the barren region of mere rival assertions of the infallibility of either Scripture or tradition, and had attempted to harmonise both by the action of reason inspired by faith, it had widened the intellectual vision of mankind and reached a land- mark in the progress of thought. To one of his hearers, at any rate, the arguments of io6/ The Church and the Puritans Laud liad appeared convincing, and his earnestness attractive. Buckingham not only gave up all idea, if Growth of -^® ®^^^ \isA any, of joining the Church of e^nce^at"^^"' I^ome, but entered into the closest of all re- '^"'*^ lations to Laud. In the summer of 1622 he chose Laud as his spiritual adviser, and having made his confession to him, received the Holy Communion on Whitsunday. It is evident from the simple earnest- ness of the prayers for Buckingham, set out by Laud in his diary, how near to his heart was the welfare of his powerful penitent ; but there is no reason to think that Laud was ever guilty of degrading the confessional by attempting to use its influence in the sphere of politics. At the same time the firm friendship thus established with one whose ascendency over the Prince of Wales was so assured, was certain very largely to increase Laud's reputation at Court. As Buckingham advanced in the favour of his master, and absorbed one after another in quick succession all the chief offices of the government. Laud could not fail to find the details of the ecclesiastical business of the country falling daily more and more into his hands. As Laud looked out upon the condition of the Church of England, he found two special dangers Nature of threatening her very existence. One arose affecS°the ^^^^^ ^^® dccay into which Church discipline churcii jj^ad fallen both over clergy and laity, the other from the determined efforts still being made by the Puritan party in the Church to establish their own services and obtain the teaching thej^ desired under cover of the Church organisation. Laud was a man who believed implicitly in a system, who sought William Laud 107 to influence men by ^e encourrc>"mg tlie formation of habit far more tlian by the inculcation of dogma. To him the secret of ecclesiastical power lay in the organisation of the Society far-reaching and wide-em- character of ^raciug ; uot in the irresistible conviction effinSto brought to the individual soul by a few meet them (Nearly clicrished truths. He realised more than any one of his time, that the only way in which the Church could hope to resume her dominion over the hearts of Englishmen was by forming in them the habits of obedience, by training them in habits of reverence, by reviving in them the habits of worship. Uniformity was not merely an end to be aimed at in order to avoid political difficulties, it was the means to be pursued in order to make men good Christians. The law of the Church was in truth to be the school- master to bring England to Christ. By teaching men the comeliness of ecclesiastical order, by attracting them with the solemnity of ecclesiastical ceremony, above all by impressing them with the reverence due to the worship of God, he would lead them to prefer the broad, philosophical theology of the Fathers, to the crude and narrow conceptions of the dominant Calvi- nism. It was inevitable, therefore, that Laud should appear at the bar of history as essentially a disciplinarian ; but The real ^® ^^^ ^ disciplinarian, not because his nature nature of Ms ^^^ ^^^^ mcrelv of a martinet, but because entorcement J ' of discipline diseipline was at the time the most necessary and the most effective weapon to use. It is a mistaken view of Laud's character that would stamp him as con- sciously the leader of a party, much less the apostle of a io8 The Church and the Puritans religion winning converts by the sword. In his own eyes he appears but the enforcer of a system, a system prescribed to them by the Church, which he is not at liberty to disregard or to alter. Being placed in the position of an officer of the Church, he has no option but to enforce her commands upon all ; and in the obedience which he exacts, the people will find their true happiness, did they but know it. And through all the actions of his public life runs a strange vein of pathos. Long ago he has given up all His high effort, perhaps even all desire for popularity, of duty He knows, whatever he does, that he will be the victim of misrepresentation and calumny. He does not shrink from it, he does not even use the ordinary artifices of society to conciliate opposition. ' He did court persons too little,' says Clarendon, ^ nor cared to make his designs and purposes appear as caudidas they were.' He seems to have a presage of coming failure, a conviction that his enemies were too strong for him. ^ Truly, my lord,' he writes to Wentworth in 1633, ' I look for neither many nor happy days ; not for many, for I am in years ; nor for happy, because I have no hope to do the good I desire — I have had a heaviness hang upon me ever since I was nominated to this place (i.e. the Archbishopric of Canterbury), and I can give myself no account of it unless it proceed from an appre- hension that there is more expected from me than the craziness of these times will give me leave to do.' And yet, the man outwardly so stubborn in pursuing his will, so unyielding in his sense of duty, seemingly to his enemies ' of a disposition too fierce and cruel for his coat/ was inwardly as sensitive as a woman. He Will/ AM Laud 109 is at pains to justify himself in the Star Chamber even to so virulent an opponent as Burton. At his trial he writhes visibly under the envenomed shafts of so prac- tised a debater as Say. His diary is full of entries showing how he shrank from the gaze and the comments of the populace. He turns continually to the Psalms for comfort when the wicked are oppressing him. His prayer is the outpouring of a mind that can hardly bear the intensity of the struggle. Nevertheless, through all this mental despondency, with the sense of probable failure ever present to him, The policy Laud weut boldly on with unfaltering steps ofLaud jj^ ^YiQ simple strength of conviction, at ihQ simple dictates of duty, bringing the light of Church discipline to bear upon every nook and cranny of English ecclesiastical life. He was no respecter of persons. ^ We must not,' said he, when ordering the prosecution of Prynne in the High Commission Court, ' sit here to punish poor snakes and let him go free.' Indeed, ' the poor snakes ' were more likely to fare well at his hands than those who ought to know better. * He intended the discipline of the Church,' as Clarendon says, ' should be felt as well as spoken of, and that it should be applied to the greatest and most splendid transgressors as well as to the punishment of smaller offences and meaner offenders.' His first duty was to put a check on the flood of Calvinistic teaching, which was being poured forth The siienc- ^^^^ *^® Auglicau pulpits cvcry week, chielly j^^fo/*'lvith regard in spite of the duplicity which marked his Church political conduct, there runs ' from first td last a vein of sincerity on one point which does much to The Triumph of Puritanism 169 relieve liis character from the stain of bad faith which rests upon it. If a martyr in no other sense, he was certainly a martyr in this sense, that almost up to the very last he might have saved his life and preserved something of his dignity if he would have consented to the abolition of the Church, and this he steadily refused to do. That was the grain of incense which he was called upon to throw on the Puritan altar. At New- castle, just after his surre*nder to the Scots, all the most powerful influences which could affect such a man in that position were brought to bear upon him. The French ambassador counselled him to surrender the point, the commissioners from the Parliament urged it, the Scottish deputies went on their knees to him to give way, the Queen wrote from France imploring him to accept the terms ; yet he was proof against all solicita- tions or threats. ' I cannot plead in a bad cause,' he is reported once to.- have said of himself, ' nor yield in a good one.' Certainly he proved himself a good prophet as far as the latter part of the sentence went. But though he might have saved his life by consenting to the abolition of the Church, it was not his determina- tion to preserve the Church that really brought about his death. The leaders of the army, fully recognising his posi- tion, ofiered .him toleration for the Church in the ulti- Thearmy matum they put before him in 1647. He hifdiath'"'' refused the ultimatum — not on that ground, but because he thought at the moment that he could get better terms on most points from the Parliament, though probably worse ones on the Church question. He was mistaken, and had thrown away his I'iist chance. I70 The Church and the Puritans The army leaders in despair determined to have no more dealings with him. Daily they began to incline more and more to the policy of the Adjutators and the more fanatical of the Independents. The alliance of the King with the Scots, and the consequent revival of the war in 1648, they looked upon as a wilful plunging of the nation again into trouble and disorder. The speedy suppression of their enemies was the witness of God in their favour, and called upon them to execute His vengeance upon the man of blood. So the Parlia- ment was overawed by force, the high court of justice formed, the mock trial held, the sentence given ; and on the memorable 30th of January 1649, monarchy went forth from the window at Whitehall on the path the Church had trod a few years before, out into the darkness of exile and of suffering. CHAPTER IX. RELIGIOUS ANARCHY. From the death of Charles to the Restoration re- ligious anarchy prevailed in England. The establish- Weaknessof nieut of the Presbyterian form of Church pSb>? government in 1645 had been the necessary eriam^m result of the political alliance of the Parlia- ment with the Scotch. It had never commended it- self to the religious instincts of Englishmen. It was equally disliked by the religious fanatic, by the worldly / Religious Anarchy • 171 man of pleasure, and by the Erastian lawyer. Itself but an exoticj transplanted from Scotland into England, the emblem of the alliance between the two nations, it ought logically to have been plucked up by the roots ^hen that alliance came to an end in 1648. It was saved by its weakness. Had it been more successful, undoubtedly it would never have survived the triumph of the Independents. As it was, it was not worth their while to interfere with a system under the cover of which they could get all that they wanted. In the autumn of 1645 the instinct of self-preserva- tion had led them even to negotiate with the King for Presby- ^ Combination of forces against the Presby- nD'hrJ""™" terians; but by the end of 1648 they had independ- learned their own strength, and could afford - ^'^^y to be generous. Besides, there was much in the work of the Westminster Assembly which they could readily accept. The Westminster Confession of Faith contained a ^ statement of Calvinistic doctrine / to which they had little objection to make. The two '/ Catechisms, though more argumentative, and therefore offering a wider field for controversy, had been sub- jected to a thorough sifting by their own divines before they had received the sanction of Parliament. The Directory was as well adapted to the Independent as to the Presbyterian form of worship. The question which really divided the two Puritan parties was one | of Church government, not of faith or of worship. On the one side, Presbyterian discipline, on the other side, liberty for tender consciences, were ihQ opposing cries. All that the Independents cared for was to obtain an ecclesiastical administration which would permit them 172 The Church and the Puritans to worship God in their own way without interference. A state of affairs in which the Government never inter- fered was one which suited them exactly; and they did not care to inquire whether the legal government of religion was by presbyteries or not, as long as the presbyteries, if they existed, did not attempt to make their existence felt. But such a state of affairs was, in fact, nothing less than anarchy. For five years after the death of the King Total abey- all ecclcsiastical discipline in Ena^land was ance of all . . . . discipline m suspensiou. From time to time, when something exceptional happened. Parliament stepped in and decided the particular case. When movements like those of the Levellers, which were partly religious and partly political, occurred, the army interfered promptly and rigorously in the interests of civil order. In ordinary matters all government was in abeyance. There was no authority to decide on the qualifications of candidates for the ministry, or on the titles by which men held benefices. There was no power to enforce a common order of worship, much less to suggest an agreement in faith. Each congregation took the law into its own hands, and every man did what was right in his own eyes. It is not to be wondered at that in times like these, when the bonds of coercive discipline were suddenly Outbreak of I'sl^xed, mcu's miuds should be thrown off the fanaticism ]3alance under the influence of strong religious and political excitement. The wildest fanaticism dis- played itself all over the country. In some places poor wretches persuaded themselves they w^re witches, =and concocted elaborate stories of the visits of the evil one Religious Anarchy ^71 to their doors. At St. George's Hill, in Surrey, a number of men went out and ' digged the ground and planted roots and beans, saying that God was now going to bring His people out of the slavery ' under which they had lived since William the Conqueror — ' they were bidden to dig and plough the earth and receive the fruits thereof, for God had promised to make the barren land fruitful.' In 1650, four Somersetshire men sold all their property and embarked at London for Palestine, believing they had a call from God to preach the gospel in Galilee. In some quarters a spirit of Antinomianism displayed itself, and men claimed to be above the ordinary rules of the moral law. At the door of the Parliament House a Quaker suddenly fell to slashing at all near him, saying he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to kill every man there. As, however, the restraint of religious rule and habit became feebler and feebler, the necessity of restraint of some sort became more and more apparent, and the State stepped in to fill the gap caused by the enforced abdication of the Church. Under the Commonwealth the State became the guardian and the censor of public and private morals, state en- as wcll as the protector of society against the of morality immoral. In 1647 an ordinance passed both Houses, totally prohibiting all stage plays as dangerous to the public morals, and ordering players to be pro- ceeded against as vagabonds. In July 1650 an Act was passed ' for preventing and suppressing the detestable sin of profane cursing and swearing,' by levying fines upon oaths according to a scale laid down in the Act, from which it appears that the oath of a Peer was con- sidered to be no less than nine times as valuable as that 174 The Church and the Puritans of an ordinary person. In tlie same year sins of impurity and the profanation of tlie Sabbath were made criminal offences, and the publishing of books and pamphlets was put under careful State supervision. In the army the strictest discipline was uniformly eu forced, and all offences against morals, such as drunkenness or unchastityj rigorously punished. By these provisions an attempt was made by Parliament to undertake the inquisitorial work which was intended to be done by the presbyteries ; but the more zealous of the strict upholders of morality even among the Independents w^ere by no means satis- fied with the results attained, and the army in par- ticular, perhaps on account of the severity of its own discipline, was continually petitioning for stronger measures. The problem which the Parliament undertook to solve on the death of Charles I. was indeed one which Thediffi- would havo taxed its powers to the utmost culties of . ^ „ . . , _ tlie Pariia- m the iirst days oi its vigorous youth, when ment, . -, . 1G49-53 it presented to its opponents a compact and united phalanx marshalled under men like Pym and Hampden. It was far beyond the capacities of the disunited and discredited remnant of an assembly which, though thinned by the civil wars, torn by dis- sension, and flouted by the army, still, under the leadership of Marten and Vane, arrogated to itself the name and dressed itself in the robes of the Long Parliament. The appearance, the gait, even the roar of the lion were still there, but under that fierce ex- terior was the heart of the jackass. To conquer Ireland for the Puritan Commonwealth, to crush the Scotch Presbyterians and their covenanted King, to struggle Religious Anarchy 175 for the supremacy of the sea with the pushing Dutch republic, were objects of policy more than sufficient to absorb all the energies of the Council of State and the Parliament. But behind the Council of State and the Parliament ever loomed the ominous figure of the general whose skill was enabling them to win the victory, and by whose permission they still continued to sit, and no one knew how soon the day would come when he would have no further need of them. There was accordingly no serious attempt made by the Long Parliament after 1649 to deal with the The Engage- rcligious difficulties which surrounded it, but ment substi- i • i i • i i tutedfor the chaugcs which were made m the law nant wore in the direction of Independency. An oath called the Engagement, ' to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords,' was substituted for the Presbyterian Covenant of 1644, and was even subscribed by many Eoyalists, on the ground that it merely recognised a de facto government. In the same year provision was made for sending preachers and schoolmasters into Wales, which was especially the work of the Independents in the House, and was urged by Cromwell himself against all the efforts of the Presbyterian party. It must have been some satisfaction to him to learn from the letters received two years later by the Parliament that the experiment had so far succeeded that there were by that time 150 good preachers in Wales, most of whom preached three or four times a week. A few days before their dissolution in April 1653, Parliament agreed to nominate a com- mittee to ' examine and approve all such persons as shall 176 The Church and the Puritans be called to preach tlie Gospel ' — an attempt, no doubt, to propitiate Cromwell by adopting bis policy of a corn- Appoint- niittee of triers ; but beyond these fitful efforts committee ^^i^ro was little or nothing done to supply the of examiners ^y^xit of govcmment, wliicli was rapidly de- generating into mere licence. It was this abdication of the functions of government by the Parliament more than anything else that deter- Expulsion of mined Cromwell to get rid of it in April 1653. ment by ' They Were come to an utter inability of work- 1653 ' ing reformation,' he says, in justifying the dissolution to the Little Parliament a few weeks later. ' We know that many months together were not enough for the settling of one word. The government of the nation being in such condition as we saw, we desired they would devolve the trust over to some well-affected men, such as had an interest in the nation and were known to be of good affection to the Commonwealth.' The Little Parliament, which met in July 1653, was the embodiment of these hopes, and certainly Tiie Little could uot be accuscd of want of vigour. It Parliament ^^g (3]2iefly ^u Independent body, and included many of the fanatics. Chosen by Cromwell to assist him in the work of ' Healing and Settling,' it^made con- fusion worse confounded. One of its first actions was to render any religious ceremony unnecessary for the validity of marriages. It rejected, only by the narrow majority of two, a proposal to give the parishioners the right of electing their minister. It discussed at great length the desirability of abolishing the payment of tithes, and a considerable minority of the Hous^ showed them- selves prepared to vote for the abolition, in spite of the Religious Anarchy lyy well-known opinions of the general. Such measures as these were very far from the healing and settling which was uppermost in the mind of Cromwell. In December, doubtless at his instigation, the members surrendered their |)ower back to him who had given it them. Before another Parliament met, Cromwell, taught by experience, had traced for himself in firm lines the policy which he had determined to adopt, and which he called upon his Parliament to advance. From December 1653 to September 1658 Cromwell was the governor of England in a sense far more Principles of absolute than had been either Charles I. ecciesias- or Elizabeth, and the arbiter of religion in ment England far more autocratic and irresponsible than had been either Whitgift or Laud. During that time he twice voluntarily accepted the limitation upon his power of a written constitution, and in both those constitutions the religious ideal at which he aimed is set forth in very similar words. In the Instrument of Government, under which he first exercised the office of Protector, this ideal was laid down very clearly. ' That the Christian religion contained in the Scriptures be held forth and recommended as the public profession of these nations ; and that as soon as may be a provision less subject to scruple and contention, and more certain than the present, be made for the encouragement and maintenance of able and painful teachers for instructing the people, and for discovery and confutation of error, heresy, and whatever is contrary to sound doctrine; and that until such provision is made the present maintenance shall not be taken away or impeached. ' That to the public profession held forth none shall C.H. N 178 The Church and the Puritans be compelled by penalties or otherwise, but that en- deavours be used to win them by sound doctrine and the example of a good conversation. ' That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ (though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship, or discipline ]3ublicly held forth) shall not be restrained from, but shall be protected in the profession of the faith and the exercise of their religion, so that they abuse not this liberty to the civil injury of others and the actual disturbance of the public peace on their parts : provided that this liberty be not extended to Popery or Prelacy, nor to such as under the profession of Christ hold forth and practise licentiousness.' In the Humble Petition and Advice, by which the Protectorate was intended to be made permanent and hereditary in the year 1657, these provisions were in substance reaffirmed, with the caution ' that such as did not agree in matters of faith with the public profession thereof should not be capable of receiving the public maintenance appointed for the ministry ; ' and ' that nothing in the Act should be construed as in any way repealing the Act for disenabling all persons in holy orders to exercise any temporal jurisdiction or authority.' In this constitution Independency is acknowledged as the religion of England. There is no recognition of His belief any church, there is no enforcement of any in Independ- „-,..,. , . ^m ency systcm of discipline or worship. The whole idea of a religious society, the root idea of a church, is entirely put on one side. It is true that a public pro- fession which is to contain a confession of faith, ^s con- templated by the Humble Petition and Advice \ but it Religious Anarchy 179 is clear that it is to be couched in the most general / terms, and is intended more as a guide to perfection ; than as a standard of orthodoxy. As a matter of fact : the confession never saw the light. The attitude of thl Government is to be negative rather than positive. Its duty is no longer to teach positive truth, much less to enforce it. To ward off the most dangerous forms of error is the utmost that can be permitted with due regard to the rights of individual consciences. Toleration from all who will abstain from inter- ference with the civil government, unless they are His theory either the slaves of Popish or Episcopal super- of toleration gtition, or are the acknowledged enemies of the moral law, is loudly proclaimed. It was but a ) limited toleration, yet a toleration which was far in ad- / vance of any previous policy of the kind, because it; proceeded, as far as it went, on the true principle of^ toleration, i.e. that the State, as such, has nothing to do with a man's religious opinions, except so far as they may issue in political action. The toleration of Crom- well's government was not the mere relieving of certain classes of the community from legal disabilities, such as was the toleration of the Eoman Catholics by James I. and James 11., and that of some Nonconformists by the Toleration Act of 1689. It was the distinct assertion that all good citizens have a right to decide their own religious affairs for themselves ; in Independent phrase ^ it was a public acknowledgment of ' liberty for tender consciences,' which had been the watchword of the Independents in their struggle with the Presbyterians ever since 1644. True, it was limited by the exclusion of Papists, Episcopalians, and the licentious, but that N 2 i8o The Church and the Puritans was because they could never become good citizens. In Cromwell's eyes it was as impossible for an Episco- palian, as it is now to a number of minds for a pro- fessed atlieist, to be a good citizen. He recognised tliat the Ej)iscopalian had no place in the Puritan Common- wealth, just as Laud recognised that the Puritan had no place in his system of hierarchical and prerogative government. To extend toleration to the Prelatist would be for the State to put a dagger into its enemy's hand, and to abdicate its primary function of protector of society. But Cromwell was not content with merely an- nouncing this policy of toleration for all peaceable and The Com- wcll-conducted Protestants. He set to work mittee of . . ^ p • i t^ Triers to make it a reality by reiormmg the Protest- ant and getting rid of the Episcopal clergy. By an ordinance issued in March 1654 a committee was formed called the Committee of Triers, to inquire into the qualifications of every one who was'presented as a can- didate for ecclesiastical preferment. No presentee was entitled to enter upon his benefice until he had received the certificate of the committee, but at least nine mem- bers of the committee must be present if the certificate was refused. This body, unlike its predecessor which had been appointed by the Westminster Assembly, had no elaborate code of instructions or formularies of faith by which to guide its actions. Subject to occasional interference on the part of the Protector and his coun- cil, it was absolute in the authority it wielded, and irresponsible in its exercise of it. In the autumn of the same year 'another ordinance called into being the no less famous Committees of Religious Anarchy i8i Scandalous Ministers. To them was intrusted the busi- ness of making the vacancies which the Triers were The Com- ^^ ^' ^^ ®^^^ couuty a sub-committee was scamMo^us^ formed, which had the power of summoning Ministers evcry incumbeut to appear before it, and satisfy it of his learning, good conduct, and general sufficiency. Among the scandals particularly enumerated as proper causes of ejectment, besides moral offences such as drunkenness, profanity, gambling, and the like, came also the using of the Book of Common Prayer, scoffing at those of strict profession, and the encouragement ot morris-dances or stage plays. These committees, like the Triers, were practically irresponsible in their action ; and as the composition of the sub-committees varied very much in the different counties, the decisions given by them were often dictated by bigotry and party-spirit. The case of Dr. Edmund Pococke, the most learned of the Oriental scholars of his day, who was condemned by the Berkshire committee for insufficiency, is by no means an isolated one. His real offence was that he had used part of the Prayer Book in the public service. By the action of these committees much un- doubtedly was done to reform the irregularities which Failure of ^^^ occurred in the times of past confusion, Cromwell to ^^^ ^q introduce some sort of order into the bring about Sentfof^the I'sligious auarchy which prevailed. No longer nation under the Protector's government would it be necessary, as in 1652, to take measures for preventing the stealing of lead from St. Paul's Cathedral. No committee of the Commons was likely again seriously to discuss ' What cathedrals are fit to stand, and what to be pulled down ? ' yet anything like a solution of the 1 82 The Church and the Puritans religious difficulty was as far off as ever. Cromwell had taken as his motto the words ' Healing and Settling.' He had dismissed the Long Parliament, because ' they were come to an utter inability of working reformation.' He had got rid of the Little Parliament, because there , was ' nothing in the hearts and minds of men but over- turn, overturn, overturn.' He dissolved the first Pro- tectorate Parliament, because ' instead of peace and settlement, instead of mercy and truth being brought together and righteousness and peace kissing each other, dissettlement and division, discontent and dissatisfac- tion have been more multiplied within these five months than in some years before.' He summoned the second Protectorate Parliament, in order that ' all things may be done that ought to be done towards security and reformation.' He dissolved the same Parliament, be- cause of their ' not assenting to what might prove the settlement of the nation.' No more than Charles would he endure a Parliament of control ; no more than Charles was he likely to find a Parliament content merely to counsel. And if Englishmen were not going to tolerate for long the establishment of military power, veiled under j civil forms, in the hands of Cromwell; still less were they likely to endure the permanence of religious I caprice, veiled under Independent forms, in the hands { of irres^Donsible committees. Whatever the merit of the i committees may have been, they certainly were very ! far from healing and settling. Their chief work was I to get rid of those of the Episcopalian Clergy who still retained their benefices, and to take care that no Epis- copal Clergy managed to creep back after they had once been ejected. Religious Anarchy 183 Many were the shifts to which the Episcopalians ( were pnt in order not to be divided from their flocks. \ Persecution Sometimes they were appointed by the county of the clergy gentry to be tutors to their sons, and so re- 1 tained their right to live in their old parishes. Some- times they would try as schoolmasters to keep together the boys they once had instructed as Clergy. But in 1655, after the Royalist conspiracy in the west, an edict was issued by the Protector forbidding any ejected or sequestered minister from keeping a school, acting as tutor, or performing any rite of the Church, or using the Book of Common Prayer, and the major- generals then in power were ordered to see it duly en- forced. This, in fact, amounted to a complete proscrip- tion of the Church. The dispossessed Clergy were reduced in many cases to absolute want. Those that had hitherto conformed to the Government now joined the ranks of their brethren and of the Presbyterians, in looking to a restoration of the monarchy as the only chance of putting an end to anarchy. Day by day the fact impressed itself clearer and clearer on the mind of the nation, and especially of Growth of a *^^^^ P^^^ °^ ^^^ nation which had anything to desire for a J^gg ^\^qJ^ ^]^q q-^^ clioice UOW left WaS OUO j iiestoratiou ' 'J I iu the in- bctwecu auarchv or a Eestoration. As long terests of •/ *-" order 1658 ^g Cromwoll Hved, men felt that the main- tenance of civil order was at any rate safe in his hands ; but after his death who could say the same of Richard or of Lambert ? Parliament was too weak, the army too strong and too self-seeking, to be safely intrusted with the liberties and the property of Englishmen. Yet for two years it was uncertain how the Restoration tS4 TV//? Church a:^d the Puritans would bo brought about. It was certiiiu tluit it wouUl be the work of the party of onlor, not of tho party merely of the King ; but in the party of order wei-e found numy who had taken difterent sides in the earlier struggles — Hollis, the rresbyterian, who had carried the inipeachuient of Laud to the Teers, Manchester, the general of the Eastern Association Arniv, who had visited and reformed the Univei*sity of Cambridge in 1643, Monk, the Cromwellian, who had kept Scotland so quiet under the l\otector, were all gatheivd under the ivgis of the party of order. What guarantee was there that the Church would come back with the monarchy if these were the friends of monarchy ? Monk was sharp-sighted eiiough to see that to try atid exact terms from the ivturnini? Kiuix was to bind Samson with given withes. The Church and the Crown had been united toi^ether in their fall, thev had sutVered together in their exile, it was idle to suppose that they could be dissevered in their triumph. The day that saw Charles II. cn^wned King of all England saw Juxon, as Primate of all England, officiate at the coronation. CHAFrHR X. TUE KKS^rOKATlOX. The Ivestoration was the work of the whole nation, not of a party. It was the victory of peace, not of loyalty. Character Aleu, wcaritxl witli coufusiou, exhausted by of the •£•£•• 1 11 •!• 1 • • 1 Kostoratiou strite, irigiitened by nulitary xiesjK»tism, ^ck- ened by anarchy, turned to the throne and to the The Restoration 185 Church, because in them they saw, not only a protection against disorder, but also a guarantee for law. They were time-honoured institutions, which had grown with the growth of England, had incorporated themselves into the tissue of the national life, looked to the law for protection, appealed to the law for assistance, were recognised, and therefore were limited, by the law in the exercise of their authority. Englishmen had had enough of a liberty which depended entirely upon the caprice of the Government of the day. They preferred the known procedure of the Bishops' Court and the canon law to the irresponsible decisions of a committee. They preferred the authoritative proclamations of a Bang in council to the irresponsible edict of a major- general. With the monarchy and with the Church returned the sense of security and the duty of responsi- bility. But the task put before the King and his advisers in Church and State was all the harder on that very Difficulties account. If Charles had owed his crown to a of the King j{,Qyalist victory, it would have been compara- tively easy to have secured the ascendency of his own supporters without undue pressure upon his opponents. When he owed it to a combination of all parties, except the compromised and the fanatics, how was it possible to restore the dispossessed Cavalier to his land, with- out disturbing the Cromwellian who had bought it? How was it possible to recognise the title of the Crom- wellian without behaving unjustly, let alone ungene- rously, to the man who had sacrificed his all for the King ? The question of the Church was even more difficult 1 86 The Church and the Puritans than that of the land. The absence of any definite government of religion, the fitful and partial character of the persecution to which the Episcopal Clergy had been subjected, made the problem all the harder. Nearly every religious division in the country was re- presented among the incumbents of parishes. The majority of the Episcopal Clergy had been ejected either by the committees appointed by the Long The ejected Parliament in 1640 and 1642, or by the Episco- T-» T • ' ' ^ ' '^ i paiians Parliamentarian armies m the civil war, or by the Committee of Scandalous Ministers appointed by Cromwell. But it appears that some had been able to continue their ministrations unmolested until the ap- pearance of Cromwell's proclamation of 1655. We learn from Evelyn's Diary that even in London Dr. Wild preached openly and celebrated the Holy Commu- nion at St. Peter's, Paul's Wharf, in December 1655. More usually the services were held in private rooms, and often the words were recited from memory, in order to avoid the actual user of the prescribed Prayer Book. Some of the Bishops went abroad with the King to France, and formed part of the congregation which met at the Ambassadors' Chapel at Paris ; but most of them, including Juxon, Skinner, and Duppa, lived on quietly and unobtrusively in England, meeting together from time to time apparently without concealment at Juxon's house at Richmond to talk over the affairs of the Church, and occasionally holding ordinations. This they con- tinued to do even after 1655, but then of course with greater precautions of secrecy. But besides the Episcopal Clergy who remained true to their ordination vow, and continued to use the service The Restoration 187 of the Chnrcli and none other (of whom there mnst have been very few left after 1655), there was a large TheEpisco- number of men who had been Episcopally palian con- ^ . l i j formists ordamed, but had made terms with the de facto government. These men had taken the Engagement even if they had refused the Covenant, had given up the use of the Prayer Book if they had not adopted that of the Directory, and were apparently accustomed to use a service of their own arrangement, which included as much of the Prayer Book as they dared to insert. These conforming Episcopalians had the high authority of Dr. Sanderson, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, for their conduct, who actually drew up a liturgy for their use, which contained as much of the Prayer Book as he thought was consistent with the conscientious declara- tion that the book which he was using was not the Prayer Book. The Committees of Scandalous Ministers no doubt managed to get rid of a good ma^y of this class of Clergy ; still there must have been numbers who eluded their vigilance, and continued comfortably in their benefices, until the Restoration enabled them to ; hoist their true colours once again. A larger class still were to be found among the \ Episcopally ordained Clergy, who had honestly and con- Theor- scioutiously embraced Puritan doctrines, and ministers had becomo Presbyterians or Independents under the pressure of the times, just as their flocks were becoming Presbyterian or Independent. Such men had merely stayed on in the benefices to which they had been legally instituted, and if it was desired to get rid of them, nothing less than a convidion for heresy or Nonconformity could legally do it. 1 88 The Church and the Puritans And lastly, there were those who had never received Episcopal ordination at all, but had been either set Theunor- apart for the ministry by the Westminster ministers Assembly, or more often had been called to the pulpit by the congregation and confirmed in the benefice by the Committee of Triers. These formed the bulk of the Puritan ministers, who looked upon the Church as corrupt, and would have nothing to do with her discipline or worship. With so many rival claims and conflicting interests to adjust, Charles and his chief adviser Clarendon may Attempt of ^^ \2NQ despaired of finding a way out of ?ecurr*° their difiiculties which should do justice to toleration ^ ^^a^ties ; yet at first they seem honestly to have done their best. In the Declaration from Breda, the Great Charter of the restored monarchy, Charles promised on the word of a king ' a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted, or called in question, for differences of opinion in matters of re- ligion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom, and that we shall be ready to consent to such an act of Parliament as upon mature deliberation shall be offered to us for the full granting that indulgence.' These words clearly contemplated a policy of toleration, not of comprehension, but a toleration wider and more generous than that of Cromwell. The Protectorate, supported only by a minority of the nation, could not afford to tolerate the religious opinions of Churchmen, because among Churchmen were found its most dangerous political opponents. The monarchy, welcomed back by the ardent loyalty of the vast majority of the nation, had no reason to be afraid of the few discontented The Restoration 189 fanatics who stood apart and scowled at the general enthusiasm. From the first the restoration of the Church, subject to a policy of liberty to tender con- sciences, was just as much a condition of Charles' return as was the restoration of the monarchy, subject to an indemnity for all except the regicides. Accordingly the Church came back to her lands and her dignities with as little question as did the ?rthe''*'°^ Crown. Directly Charles was firmly seated Church on the throne, the Episcopalian Clergy, who had been ejected from their benefices, began to try and oust in their turn the intruders who had taken posses- sion. At the Universities and at the Cathedrals many of the dispossessed Fellows and Canons returned to their stalls without difficulty. The Prayer Book was again used. New Bishops were appointed to the vacant sees. Everything seemed gradually to be resuming its old appearance, and the Convention Parliament, finding that some regulation was necessary, passed an Act which confirmed for the present the titles of holders of benefices which were undisputed, but authorised the replacement of the Clergy who had been ejected under the Commonwealth. In reality the more quickly the Church was return- ing to her honours and emoluments, the more necessary The uestion ^^ becamo to define the limits of membership. ^rehens^ouof '^^^ cxisteuce of a permanent body of Non- | Puritanism conformists had for the first time in the ) history of the Church of England been clearly recog- ; nised in the promise of the Declaration of Breda of liberty to tender consciences. As the machinery of' the Church gradually got into working order again it 1 90 The Church and the Puritans became all-important to decide what classes of men were thus permanently to take up their position outside the pale of the national Church. For the last hundred years the question which had agitated the English Church had been whether Puritanism could or could not find a place within her borders. That question was now ripe for settlement. Puritanism had claimed supre- macy within the Church in vain. It had exercised supremacy over the Church by force. It had failed to win England to its side in its hour of triumph. Now in the hour of its defeat was it strong enough to main- tain the rights of an equal, or must it accept the tole- ration of an inferior ? The question fortunately did not present itself as a practical matter in so broad an aspect. The larger and Impossibility the more uncompromising part of the Puritans of making • -^ n . , . , . terms with were independents, auQ it was obviously im- thelnde- . ^ ' r>. i pendents possible that Independency and the Church could ever amalgamate, unless one side or the other gave up its distinctive opinions ; but this, though not less true, was far less obvious in the case of the Presbyterians. Many of the Presbyterian clergy, such as Baxter and Reynolds, had received their early training from the Negotiations Churcli before the days of Laud. They did Presby^-^ uot attach the same magic virtue to the terians government of presbyters and presbyteries as did the Scots. They were quite ready to accept the government of Bishops, provided the Bishops were subject to the control of their Clergy, and held the doc- trines of orthodox Calvinism. For some months ^ifter th.e Restoration long conferences were held between The Restoration 191 Clarendon and the leaders of the moderate Presbyterians — sometimes in the presence of Charles himself — at which efforts were made to negotiate terms of reunion, and which were so far attended with success that Reynolds accepted the Bishopric of Norwich, and Baxter thought seriously of accepting that of Hereford. But the more the matters at issue were discussed, the more it became increasingly evident that the division Funda- between the two parties was based on a dif- fereuces'^of' fe^^^^^® of religious principle, which it was principle equally impossible to bridge over and to ig- nore. In all attempts to bring about union between different parties there must be a point at which com- promise sinks into hypocrisy, and that point was very quickly reached in the discussions between Baxter and the Bishops. Baxter and his Presbyterian friends were in the same position with regard to the Prayer Book and the Church system as Jewel and his Zurich friends had been in the early days of Elizabeth. They did not be- lieve in the Catholic Church. They did not believe in the Apostolic succession. They did not believe in the reality of the sacramental Presence. They did not be- lieve in baptismal regeneration. They desired, natur- ally enough, that as ministers of the Church they should not be compelled to use ceremonies which implied doc- trines which they did not hold. The use of the surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, the posture of kneeling at the reception of the Holy Communion — all to their minds were intended to teach the existence of the Divine Society and the mysterious nature of the Sacraments, just as the use of the cope, the surplice, and the square cap had seemed to teach the same to Jewel and to Parkhurst a 192 The Church and the Puritans hundred years before. But Jewel and Parkhurst had been able to accept a system which they disliked, and had brought themselves to use ceremonies which they consi- dered superstitious, because they looked confidently for- ward to the day when their conformity would place them in a position which would enable them to destroy all of which they disapproved at a blow. Elizabeth and Parker, in the face of the danger from Philip II. and the Roman Catholics, had not dared to dispense with the assistance of men who, if not good Churchmen, were at least good Protestants. Neither plea was now available to Baxter or to Charles. The principles of the Reformation had worked themselves out. The religious thought, of which it had been the source, had by this time carved out for itself the channels in which it was to run. The settle- ment now to be made would be final. There was no likelihood that the Church would in a few years' time alter its character. Unless it became decidedly Pro- testant now, it was not in the least probable that it would become more Protestant as time went on. On the other hand, there was no political reason why Charles and Clarendon should exert any strong pressure No political on the Bishops, to make them admit into the necessity for ^-j, . i»i terms with Church system practices which were founded on terians a totally different conception of religion from that of the Church. There was no hope of including all the religious thought of England within the limits of the national Church, however widely they were stretched. It was impossible to conceive any organisation worth the name which could include the man who believed in baptismal regeneration, and the man who refused to baptize infants \ or which could combine in a healthy The Restoration 193 unity the man who believed in the Divine nature of Episcopal rule, and the man who maintained that each separate congregation had by God's ordinance the right of self-government. And if (putting out of the question the smaller sects, such as the Familists, the Levellers, the Fifth Monarchy men, and the Quakers) it was hopeless to try and bring the important bodies of Baptists and Independents into communion with members of the Church, there was no political reason whatever for altering the traditional character of the Church, and doing violence to the religious opinions of Churchmen, in order to obtain the co-operation of the Presbyterians. Presbyterianism, as we have seen, was an exotic which never took strong root on English soil. Most Political ^^ *-^® \^\\^j who embraced it, embraced it prSb't^^"^ because it seemed to them to be a system terianism which guarded against the advent of another Laud, and was a guarantee against disorder. In the troubles which had come upon them since the fall of Laud, they had found that there were worse things to endure than even sacerdotal and prerogative govern- ment. Like Manchester and Hollis, they were quite willing to return to the bosom of the Church, to accept its discipline, and to take their chance of another Laud. From all parts of the country came evidence to show that no one cared for Presbyterianism. Even Sharpe, the agent of the Scotch divines in England, was con- strained to admit that he knew 'few or none who desire Presbyterianism, much less appear for it. I find the Presbyterian cause wholly given up and lost. Lauderdale, one of those politicians who are useful C,H, O 194 'I' HE Church and the Puritans gauges of public opinion, because like the rats they ever quit a sinking ship, was soon found attending the King's private Chapel and listening to the preaching of the Bishops. Baillie, heart-broken at the ruin which is im- pending over Presbyterianism, pours out his 'exceeding grief of mind.' 'Is the Service Book read in the King's Chappell ? Has the House of Lords past an order for the Service Book ? Oh, where are we so soon ? Is the solemne oath of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, subscrybed so oft by their hands to eradicat Bishops turned all to wind ? Why did the Parliament a few months since appoint the Covenant to be hung up in every church of England, and every year to be publickly read ? Can our gracious Prince ever forget his solemne Oath and Subscription ? Could I ever have dreamed that Bishops and Books should have been so soon restored, with so great ease and silence of the Presby- terian Covenanters in the two Houses, the Citie and Assemblie of London, of Lancashyre and of other shyres ? ' ^ Clearly it was not worth while to run the risk of impairing the Catholic character of the Church, and of damping the loyalty of Churchmen, in order to conciliate Presbyterian Covenanters, who in their strongholds of London and Lancashire had seen the restoration of the Prayer Book and of Episcopacy ' with so great ease and silence.' Yet Charles and Clarendon proceeded carefully. In (the autumn of the year 1660 a royal declaration dra"\vn Proposal for up by Clarendon was issued, in which Charles a limited • t , p e ^• • Episcopacy promiscd to couveno a conierence oi divines •in order to revise the Prayer Book.. It further sug- 1 > Baillie, iii. 405. The Restoration 195 gested that presbyters should be joined with the Bishops in the exercise of Church discipline, and offered, by way of giving liberty to tender consciences, that the cere- monies complained of should not for the present be en- forced. This declaration was probably meant as a feeler, to see what sort of reception a compromise of that kind was likely to get ; and a Bill was accordingly introduced into the Convention Parliament to give it the force of law. From the way in which this Bill was treated in Parliament, it could easily be seen how far it was likely to be palatable to the country. The moderate Presby- terians were willing to consider that it formed a possible basis of agreement. Baxter, Calamy, and Reynolds were delighted with it, but the majority of Parliament would have none of it, and it was thrown out in the Commons by a majority of twenty-six. It is true that the result was partly owing to the exertions of the court party, who used all their influence Reasons for ^gaiust the Bill, but the result was never- its faUure theless significant. If Presbyterianism was content to see itself effaced ' with so great ease and silence' in London and Lancashire, where it was strongest; if Presbyterian leaders were willing to accept the Prayer Book unaltered, and simply return unconditionally to the obedience of the Church ; if the Convention Parliament, which undoubtedly contained many more Presbyterians than any subsequent assembly was likely to do, refused to accept a compromise which had received the sanction of the chief Presbyterian clergy, on the ground that it surrendered too much of the Church's rights; if, notwithstanding the rejection of that compromise by Parliament, Reynolds, one of the o 2 196 The Church and the Puritans l ; best known of the Presbyterians, was ready to accept a Bisliopric, it would have been simply folly in Charles and in Clarendon to have pursued a policy of compre- hension further. If successful, they would but have gained Baxter and a few Presbyterian clergy, at the expense of alienating their own supporters, and there is no reason to think that they would have been suc- cessful. The compromise which was rejected by the Convention Parliament with the assistance of the court would have been rejected by the Royalist Parliament which followed, had the whole influence of the Court been on its side. So ended the last serious attempt to give to Puri- tanism a legitimate place within the system of the The Savoy Church. At the Savoy Conference, which met Conference '^^ 1661 to discuss the revisiou of the Prayer Book, it was submission that was oflered, not com- promise. The day of compromise was over. The nation had rejected it. The Church did not propose it. The Presbyterians did not demand it. The ' Reformed Liturgy,' drawn up by Baxter and put forward as an / alternative for the Prayer Book, is in no sense a com- // promise. It is a distinct breach with historical Chris- / tianity, a distinct attempt to reform the Church on new / and totally different principles. The Bishops on their side, knowing that they had the nation at their back, did not attempt to meet the dissentients on equal terms. They contented themselves with assuming a purely defensive position, and called upon their opponents to show cause why the Praj^er Book, as it stood, should not be enforced. So, gradually, the days passed 'fruit- lessly away and the conference degenerated into a school The Restoration 197 of dialectics. When the time at which their session was to conckicle arrived, the disputants had sorrowfully to tell the King that though their desire for peace and unity was unabated they could not agree as to the means to be employed. While the conference was discussing- unavailingly and unprofitably terms of comprehension, Convocation The clergy was undertakins" the revision of the Praver of the Re- . ° . '^ storation BooK in real earnest. The Bishops were almost to a man the disciples of Laud. In the Clergy of the Restoration are seen the full results of the Laudian revival. At their head stood the venerable figure of Juxojythe successor of Laud at St. John's and at the Treasury, the chosen friend of Cliarles L, and the confidant of his last hours upon earth, now sinking into an honoured grave, bowed with the weight of eighty years. Sheldon, Bishop of London, who as Warden of All Souls had himself experienced the tender mercies of Puritan persecution, and had done so much with his purse and his sympathy to lighten the trials of his brethren in distress, Duppa and Skinner, who amid many dangers had boldly found means to carry on the torch of apostolic grace, even amid the proscriptions of Cromwell, Cosin, the most learned of liturgical scholars, who as long ago as 1627 had incurred the vengeance of one House of Commons for his book of devotions, and now as Bishop of Durham was soon to see another House of Commons accept without question and with- out discussion the Prayer Book which Convocation under his guidance had done so much to enrich, Morley, the dexterous controversialist who had acted as chap- lain to Charles I. at Newmarket and Holmby House, 198 The Church and the Puritans Sanderson, the learned casuist. Bull and Pearson, the theologians ; and Gunning, the confessor — all these were members of the Convocation of 1661, and formed a body of Clergy of whom any Church might well be proud. Deeply read as they were in theology and liturgical knowledge, with the experience of the last twenty years Triumph of ffssh in their memories, they were determined cip?es^in \^he that, if possible, there should be in the future tbrprayer ^^ room for miscouception as to the nature "^°°^ and claims of the Church. Their object was to enrich the Prayer Book, not to denude it ; to make it more Catholic, not less so ; to develope its teaching, not to minimise it and explain it away. The Prayer Book of 1662 marks the close of the long liturgical struggle, just as the Savoy Conference marks the close of the long political struggle, in which ecclesiastical parties in England had been engaged since the Refor- mation. By it, in worship, just as in doctrine and in discipline, the Church definitely refused to break with historical Christianity, definitely refused to rank herself with the Protestant churches of Europe, reiterated and to the best of her power enforced her claim to be the Catholic Church of Christ in England. The assertion of these principles necessarily involved the ejectment of unordained ministers from all benefices Ejectment ^^ which they held po session. It was mani- ordSned' festly impossible that a Church which taught mmisters ^^^ ^^^ power of the pricsthood could be transmitted only by the hands of a Bishop, could allow those who had never received Episcopal ordination still to receive the emoluments of Church benefices and aSect to administer the sacraments. The revised The Restoration 199 Prayer Book, when it had received the final approval of the two Convocations, was annexed to a Bill for uniformity which had already passed the Commons and' been read a second time in the Lords. In that form it was accepted by both Houses without discussion, and | received the royal assent in May 1662. By the Act ' this Prayer Book was made the only legal service-book of the Church of England, and all ministers were com- pellable to use it and none other after St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662. On that day about two thousand Independ- ent, Baptist, and Presbyterian ministers, who were either unable in conscience to use the Prayer Book or were unwilling to submit to Episcopal ordination, were obliged to leave their benefices and go forth, as the Clergy of the Church had done twenty years before, to certain poverty and possible persecution. The period of suspense was not long. The House of Commons, Royalist to a man, was eager for retalia- Persecution tiou. The Sympathies of Clarendon were conformists wholly for a poHcy of enforced uniformity such as had marked the days of Elizabeth. Charles himself, careless and frivolous, had a hearty dislike for a Puritan. There was nothing to stand in the way of persecution except the old promise of ' liberty to tender consciences ' in the Declaration from Breda ; and that might well be considered cancelled, since it was limited by a promise to consent to such legislation on the sub- ject as Parliament should propose, and it was certain that Parliament would never agree to toleration. So the old Elizabethan policy was revived. The harsh statutes of the Long Royalist Parliament treated re- ligious Dissenters as political outcasts, guarded the State 200 The Church and the Puritans from the intrusion of Roman Catholics by the degrad- ing imposition of the sacramental test, imposed Epis- copacy upon the reluctant Scots, and so did much once more to identify the Church with the persecuting and reactionary spirit of prerogative government. To the blind Puritan poet in his retreat in Bunhill Row, ' fallen on evil days and evil tongues,' the down- Miiton's fall of Puritanism and the wreck of so many attack on I'li the Kestora- liopes Seemed to be nothing less than a great tion as reac . , P -, tionary moral fall on the part of the nation, the judg- ment of God upon a backsliding people. What more oft, in nations grown corrupt. And by their vices brought to servitude, Than to love bondage more than liberty — Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty % And to despise, or envy, or suspect, Whom God hath of His special favour raised As their deliverer % If he aught begin. How frequent to desert him, and at last To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds ! Yet it was not so. Spenser, at the beginning of the Puritan era, had complaiued of a corrupt clergy, Milton, at the end of it, complains of a corrupt Nation. Both were partly and neither wholly in the right. To Milton, the nation which had of its own accord chosen to put its neck again under the yoke of kings and priests was necessarily corrupt. It was returning like the dog to his own vomit again, and the sow which was washed to its wallowing in the mire. It loved 'bondage more than liberty, bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.' In reality the cause of ' strenuous liberty ' was better The Restoration 201 served by the restoration of the monarchy than by the continuance of the Protectorate, by the restoration of Keaiiy a step the Church than by the continuance of Inde- towards *^ civil and pendent anarchy. The Crown had defined its religious . liberty relations to the law. The monarchy, restored by the law and in the interests of the law, was subject to the law. Never again could a King of England claim in right of his crown to be supreme over the law. The nation might in the exuberance of its loyalty ap- pear for the moment to be oblivious of its responsibili- ties, but when its liberties were once again really threat- ened, it would be found that the mantle of Pym and of Hampden had descended .to worthy successors. The Church had defined her relations to Puritanism. From henceforth they were to be two separate bodies, each administering its own discipline, each teaching what it believed to be true, each trying to justify its existence by the influence it gained over men. It is true that in the excitement of its victory the Church did for a moment forget the conditions of its new position, and returned to the persecuting policy of earlier days, but it was not for long. Before the century was out it learned to discard its theories of divine right, and renounce its doctrine of passive obedience. It contentedly acquiesced in a policy which, by granting free toleration to all religious opinion, found the only possible solution for the problem of religious division ; and which, by securing pre-eminence and security to the Church, provided the best possible safeguard for orderly government, and the surest guarantee of true religious equality. INDEX. ABBOT Abbot, Archbishop, his appoint- ment and character, 94, 05 his rivalry with Laud, 97 Advertisements, the, 39, 41 Allen, Cardinal, 23, 24, 28 Altars, removal of to the east end, 129 — attempted compromise of Williams about, 130, 159 Andrewes, Bishoj) Lancelot, his view of Church authority, 84, 85 Appello Caesarem, 114 Arminian clergy, the, self-seeking of, 89 promotion of, by Charles I., 117 attacked by Eliot, 118 Arminianism, causes of the rise of, 81-86 — its strength and weakness, 87 — its connexion with politics, 90, 116 Bacon, Francis, his opinion on the Prophesyings, 43 — his advice to James L, 70 — his plea for intellectual li- berty, 83 Baillie, Eobert, his fears of the Independents and Erastians, 155, 156 CEREMONIAL Baillie, Eobert, his distress at the restoration of the Church, 194 Bancroft, Archbishop, his policy towards the Puritans, 73-76 estimate of his success, 76 Baxter, Kichard, 190, 191 Bishops' Exclusion Bill, the, 146, 149 Browne, Eobett, 42 Buckeridge, Bishop, 97, 98, 115 Buckingham, the Duke of, his in- timacy with Laud, 100, 106 his ascendency over Charles L, 111 Calvinism, spread of, in the Church of England, 34 — reaction against, 79 CamjDion, Edmund, 23, 26 Canons, the, of 1604, 74 — of 1640, 140 Cartwright, Thomas, 45 Cathedrals, defacement of, 163- 165 Catholic spirit in the Church, strength of, 92 final supremacy of, in 1662, 198 Ceremonial observances enforced by Laud, 128 Charles I., effect of his accession, 111 204 The Church and the Puritans CHAELES Charles I., his proclamation for the peace of the Church, 111 ■ — his royal declaration prefixed to the Articles, 111 — his interference on behalf of Montague, 114 — his breach with the Commons in ecclesiastical matters, 118 — his foolish policy in 1641 and 1646, 145, 148, 168 — his refusal to surrender the Church, 169 — his death, 170 Charles II., his difficult position, 185 — his attempt at toleration, 188 — his proposal for a limited Episcopacy, 194 Church of England, the, relations of to the State under Eliza- beth, 15 popularity of, under James I., 77, 80 abolition of by law, 150- 153 restoration of, 184-189 fundamental differences of, with Presbyterianism, 191 Civil War, the, character of, 148 Clarendon, Edward Hyde, earl of, his advice to Laud, 134 — joins the King, 149 — his policy towards the Presby- terians, 192-196 Clergy, the, corruption of, under James I. and Charles I. ,■ 56-61 — persecution of, by the Long Parliament, 162 by Cromwell, 183 — of the Restoration, 186-188 Commons, the House of, insists on interfering in ecclesiastical matters, 113-119 attacks Cosin's ' Book of Devotions,' 122 ceases to represent the nation, 149 ELIZABETH Commons, the House of, attacks the Church, 149 Cosin, John, his ' Book of Devo- tions,' 120 — his part in the revision of the Prayer Book, 197 Covenant, the Solemn League and, 151 Crashaw, Eichard, 138 Cromwell, Oliver, the principles of the ecclesiastical govern- ment of, 177 — his theory of toleration, 179 — his policy of reform, 180 — his failure, 181 — his persecution of the Church, 183 Declaration, the Eoyal, of 1628, 124 Directory, the, 155 Discipline over the clergy en- forced by Laud, 107, 109, 123 — over the laity by Laud, 132 by the Commonwealth, 173 ECCLESIASTIGAI; PoLITY, Hookcr'S, the principles of, 81 Edward VI., ecclesiastical policy of, 2 Eliot, John, his attack on the Bishops, 60 — on the Arminians in 1629, 118 Elizabeth, the principles of the ecclesiastical government of, 3 — her unconstitutional action, 6 — her policy of repression to- wards the Eoman Catholics, 20-32 — her attitude towards Calvin- ism, 36, — her policy of repression to- wards the Nonconformists, 39 Index 205 ELY Ely, Cathedral of, the service stopped by Cromwell, 164 Engagement, the, 175 Episcopacy, movement against, 144, 145 — reaction in favour of, 147 — eventual abolition of, 150 EiDiscopalian Party, formation of, in the Commons in 1641, 147, 148 Family of Love, the, 49 Fanaticism, outbreak of, under the Commonwealth, 172 Feoffees for impropriations, the, 126 Ferrar, Nicholas, his community at Little Gidding, 137 Fisher, the Jesuit, his conference with Laud, 101-104 LAUD Independency, spiritual character of early, 47 — mystical developments of, 49 — its practical supremacy after 1648, 171 — its acknowledgment by Crom- well as the State religion, 178 Independents, the, origin of the party of, 42 — banishment of, by Elizabeth, 54 — growth in importance of, dur- ing the Civil War, 154 — their quarrel with the Presby- terians, 153-159 — impossibility of making terms with, at the Restoration, 190 Injunctions, the, of James I., in 1622, 110 Instructions, the, of 1630, 124 Instrument of Government, the, 177 Gidding, Little, the community of, 137 Goodman, Bishop, his sermon on the Eucharist, 95 Grindal, Archbishop, 44 Hampton Court Conference, the, 71 Henry VIII., ecclesiastical policy of, 1 Herbert, George, his Country Par- son, 58 — his view of the necessity of discij)line, 138 Heylin, Peter, 12G High Commission, origin of the Court of, 6 Hooker, Richard, his doctrine of reasonable authority, 82, 85 Humble Petition and Advice, the, 178 James I., his character and policy, 62 — his attempt to tolerate the Roman Catholics, 66 — his persecution of them after 1605, 67 — his attitude towards Puritan- ism, 73 Jesuits, the, mission of to Eng- land, 26 — exceptional legislation against, 29 Lambeth Articles, the, 50 Laud, William, his view on Church authority, 85 — his education and principles, 97 — his rivalry with Abbot, 97, 98 — made President of ISt. John's and chaplain to Lord Devon- shire, 98 2o6 The Church and the Puritans LAUD Laud, William, his action as Dean of Gloucester, 99 — his intimacy with Bucking- ham, 100, 106 — his controversy with Fisher. 101 — his views on Scripture, tradi- tion, and faith, 102-104 ; their importance, 104, 105 — real principles of his adminis- tration, 106-109, 119 — his policy of silencing his op- ponents, 109 ; and promoting his friends, 111 — mistakes of this policv, 112 ^ — his sermon in favour of the Eoyal Prerogative, 113 — his claim for freedom from ParHamentary control, 115 — made Bishop of London, 117 — his attempt to oust Calvinism from the Church, 123 — advises the Declaration of 1628 and the Instructions of 1630, 124 — forces the Lecturers to obey the Prayer Book, 125 — suppresses the feoffees for im- propriations, 126 — restores St. Paul's and conse- crates St, Catherine Cree, 127 — made Archbishop of Canter- bury, 127 — holds a metropohtical visita- tion, 128 — compels the removal of the altars to the east end, 129 — compels foreign chaplains to use the Prayer Book, 131 — enforces Church discipline upon the laity, 132 — his unpopularity, 133 — his fall, 135 — reversal of his policy by the Long Parliament, 140 NORWICH Laud, William, his trial and death, 165-168 — the eventual triumph of his principles, 136, 198 Laudian system, the, the prin- ciples of, 121-124 enforcement of, 124-134 abolition of, 140-143 Lecturers, the, 125 Lichfield Cathedral, wrecking of, 163 Mainwaeing, Eoger, his sermon on passive obedience, 116 Mary, Queen, ecclesiastical pohcy of, 2 Mennonites, the, 49 Miles Smith, Bishop, his quarrel with Laud, 99 Millenary Petition, the, 70 Milton, John, his attack on the corruption of the clergy, 59 — his view of the Eestoration, 200 Montague, Eichard, his quarrel with the Commons, 113 — made Bishop of Chichester, 117 Morals, public, low state of, under Elizabeth, 13 attempt of the State to enforce, under the Common- wealth, 173 Morton, Dr., 18 Neile, Bishop, 98, 117 New gag for an old goose, 113 Nonconformists, the, origin of 39 — persecution of, by Elizabeth, 52 by Charles II., 199 Norwich Cathedral, wrecliing of, 164 Index 207 PAEKER Parker, Archbishop, 4, 41 Parkhurst, Bishop, 14, 44 Parliament, the Little, 176 — the Long, abolishes the Laud- ian system, 141 growth of anti-episcopal party in, 143 negotiates with the Scots, 150 — — weakness of, after 1648, 174 expulsion of, by Cromwell, 176 Parsons, Father, 23, 26 Parties, ecclesiastical, in Eliza- beth's reign, 8 Passive obedience, growth of doctrine of, 68, 116 Pius v., character of, 17 — declares war against Eliza- beth, 19 Plumbers' Hall, meeting at, 41 Plundered ministers, committee of, 162 Pococke, Dr. Edmund, 181 Prayer Book, the, revision of, in 1662, 198 Presbyterians, the, origin of the party in England, 45 — their attempt to establish their system within the Church, 46 — supremacy of, over the Church under the Long Parliament, 152 — actual establishment of their system as the State religion, 158 — their rivalry with the Inde- pendents, 153-159 — uselessness of making terms with, at the Eestoration, 192 Prophesyings, the, 43 Reformation, the, character of, in England, 1 — its results, 11 TOLERATION Remonstrance against the Armi- nians of 1628, 117 of 1629, 118 Eestoration, the, character of, 184 — Milton's view of, 200 — in reality a step towards civil and religious liberty, 201 Reynolds, Dr., 190, 191 Roman Catholics, the, parties among, in Elizabeth's reign, 22 persecution of, by Eliza- beth, 24-31 plots of, against Elizabeth, 27,28 attitude of, towards James L, 65 declared incapable of offices of trust, 67 Root and Branch Bill, the, 145, 150 Royalist clergy, ejectment of, 161-163, 183 — party, growth of after Crom- well's death, 183 Saint Catherine Cree, conse- cration of, 127 Saint Paul's, restoration of, 126 Savoy Conference, the, 196 Scandalous Ministers, the Com- mittee of, 181 Sequestration of Royalist clergy, 162 Sibthorpe, Robert, his sermon on passive obedience, 116 Spenser, Edmund, his attack on the corruption of the clergy, 57-58 Supremacy, the Act of, 3, 40 Toleration, religious, James's policy of towards the Roman Catholics, 06 the true solution for the religious difficulty, 142 208 The Church and the Puritans TOLERATION Toleration, religious, Cromwell's theory of, 179 attemjDt of Charles II. to secure, 188 Triers, the Committee of, 180 Uniformity, the Act of, 39 — in ceremonial observance en- forced by Laud, 128 Visitation, the metropolitical, 128 WILLIAMS Westbiinster Assembly, the, formation of, 151 the labours of, 158 Whitgift, Archbishop, 50 his policy against the Non- conformists, 51-54 estimate of his success, 55 Williams, Archbishop, 96, 110 his compromise with re- gard to the altars, 130, 159 — • — • his endeavour to establish a limited Episcopacy, 161 / rniNTED BY SrOTTISWOODE AKD CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON \ \ ^ DATE DUE iinLr^^m^ ^P^ U14^W»"T^ aUsJ ••■(PP^STi V CAVLORO rRINTEOINU.S A.