centuries or more. Taking to herself an arm of flesh, contrary to the spirit and to the letter of her Charter, the Church had marred her own visage and tainted her own blood. The legitimate power of princes, too, by the same alliance had been spoiled. Within the sphere of spirituals, for which it had no fitness, and lording it over conscience, for which it had no sufficiency, it had degenerated to a ruthless tyranny, and thus had begun to undermine its own foundations. To arrest the deplorable degeneracy of each, to dissolve their incestuous union, to restore both Church and State to their proper provinces and works, God chose as his instruments a people pre-eminent among the nations for true and vigorous manhood a people, therefore, peculiarly fitted to his work. Neither in Germany nor in Switzerland had ecclesiastical and religious reform been adapted to results so large, so grand, so vital to all the interests of men, as were inwrapped in the movement to which his providence led the sturdy minds of Englishmen. Nowhere else had the first step been taken tending towards the severance of ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction. Nor was this grand result, as yet, within the purpose of the English Presbyterians. They were indeed cherishing its germ; but its development was in the distant future, so far as they were concerned. It was planned by God, but not by themselves. We have traced only their initial steps. Originally, they who wished for reform in the Reformed Church of England had no conception of the work in which they were engaged. In their own minds, contending only against the old idolatry fostered by a genuflection, an airy cross, a linen stole, Hooper and Knox, Fox and Coverdale, had unwittingly struck at the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown, and planted the mattock where foundations were to be laid for another and a better structure. Their disciples, goaded by the magistracy whose domination they had aroused, wrought as God's workmen to undermine and to build, not yet understanding the character and magnitude of their work. Like the carriers of wood and mortar, of brick and stone, each one bore his burden hither or yon, and made his contribution to a great plan which only the architect himself had yet conceived. The plaints and remonstrances of the laborers had but increased the demands of the masters; until a conflict of opinions sprung up, and the ecclesiastical pressure of the State had forced to the birth, and had fostered, principles which might otherwise have remained in embryo. To her astonishment, Despotism found that her own vassals, under her own orders, were rearing a citadel adverse to her own; and the oppressed, to their astonishment, had now a dim perception of that civil franchisement to which they were tending, and which might be the fruit of their irksome education. Notwithstanding the hearty and even chivalrous loyalty which was the glory of Elizabeth's reign, her will, enforced by all the machinery of her eccle. siastical establishment and by all the servility of her civil courts, was impotent against the progressive energy of that religious and political liberty which her own coercion had evoked. The Puritans had been pushed from point to point until they had come, as we have shown, to plant themselves upon the broad platform of the English constitution, and to claim their rights boldly as English freemen. In this position we shall henceforth find them. But Puritanism had not only taken higher ground, proclaimed indefeasible doctrine, and appealed to law for protection from law, but it had made rapid progress through the land. So early as 1573, it had acquired such strength in the diocese of Londonthe headquarters of loyalty that Bishop Sandys had confessed to an utter inability on the part of himself and his brethren to withstand it. Nor were his antagonists the Puritan clergy only; for he distinctly avowed that, "in the eyes of the basest sort of the people," the prelates had "become contemptible, their estimation little, their authority less."1 We have also seen how, in the year 1581, in the single county of Suffolk, Puritanism had made such progress not among "the basest sort of people only, but among the gentry and the magistrates that prelatic authority was baffled and almost neutralized.2 But the increase of Puritanism, both in its relig ious and in its political forms, its increase among the electors throughout the realm, is most distinctly indicated by the spirit of the popular branch of the Parliament. In the year 1575, the Commons, though respectful, had been distinctly restive under the arbitrary pretensions of the Crown; and “for five years afterwards the queen did not convoke Ante, Vol. II. 282, 283, 291. 1 Ante, Vol. I. 455. 2 Parliament, of which her dislike to their Puritanical temper might in all probability be the chief reason";1 and after the session of the year 1580-1, it was dissolved. Yet the new Parliament of 1584-5 had, in its House of Commons, a more resolute, manly, and daring Puritan representation than any previous one; not excepting that of the year 1566. Of this, we think our sketch of its proceedings is sufficient proof. But this is not all. While the character of this House indicates fairly the growing prevalence and intensity of "the Puritanical temper," the same fact is avowed - inadvertently, we think in the answer of the bishops to the eleventh article of the Petition for reformation in the Church. We say so, because in that answer it is distinctly stated that the people- gentry as well as "the basest sort" must have been included, to make the point good-had become so infused with the Puritan element that they would not complain of their ministers, "although they clean alter the order of service and administration of the sacraments." From this admitted fact, the prelates emphatically argued the necessity of enforcing the oath ex officio mero, as the only means, in most cases, of detecting nonconformity.2 As it was no part of Archbishop Whitgift's policy to concede anything to those who struggled for ecclesiastical reform, so it was no part of his policy to mingle forbearance with a mild exercise of authority in his dealings with those who swerved 1 Hallam, 127. Ante, Vol. II. 2 Ante, Vol. II. 472, 473. 179. from the prescript forms of the Church, or who contravened his discipline. This he had distinctly avowed in a letter to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh,"a mild kind of proceeding with them doth them rather harm than good." The late action of the House of Commons had roused his apprehensions; for the ecclesiastical courts had been attacked, and the bishops, particularly, had been charged with violating the common law of England. In such bold and public proceedings he saw the rising of that tide of manly thought which he had impotently striven to suppress. Unless he had a larger measure of meekness than we can credit him with, he was not only roused, but irritated by such attacks; and the more, because conscious of their justness. Under this excitement, and true to his contempt of lenity, he summoned anew the power of the Church, not only for discipline, but for retaliation. It has been generously said that "Whitgift, though severe, was not vindictive."2 Possibly; yet his first action after the dispersion of the last Parliament has at least a vindictive aspect. The Primate had His controversy with Robert Beal, Clerk of the Privy Council, will be remembered. It had been personal, sharp. The Puritan had been bold, unsparing, perhaps disrespectful. been stung, and out of temper. Mr. Beal had afterwards taken his seat in the House of Commons, had served on the committee to arrange the Petition for ecclesiastical reform, and had distinguished himself by discussing, in the House, and in 1 Strype's Whitgift, 155. Marsden, 169. 3 Ante, Vol. II. Chap. XV. |