hastened by others, than easily consented unto by her Grace."1 And finally, witness the lament of Elizabeth herself, when coolly told by her stern Primate that some of her subjects who had swung from the gibbet were the servants of God: "Alas! shall we put the servants of God to death?"

1 Waddington's Penry, 258, note, 268; Memorial of the Church to the Lord Mayor.

CHAPTER XIX.

PRINCIPLES AND LEGISLATION.

FALSE STATEMENTS RESPECTING THE PRINCIPLES AND BEHAVIOR OF THE PURITANS. - THEIR DOINGS IN PARLIAMENT. - THEIR PROGRESS TOWARD CIVIL LIBERTY.

To specify in detail the false statements which have obtained in history respecting the principles, purposes, and behavior of the Elizabethan Puritans, and to show the utter groundlessness of those statements, would be a protracted, but not difficult task. We give them only a passing notice, but sufficient for our purpose.

1

During this reign the Puritans were publicly charged with holding "that the people might lawfully resist the prince by force of arms if he hinder the building of the Church, i. e. their Presbyteries." 1 And even to the present generation it has been reiterated, not only that they held this doctrine, but that they did also plot and endeavor to carry it into practice. We have already produced evidence which, we think, will have convinced the reader to the contrary. Yet we will add the following solemn declaration, made in the year 1592, by the imprisoned Puritan ministers in a letter to her Majesty. "In all simplicity and purity of heart we declare, in the presence of Almighty God, to whom all secrets are

1 Hicks, 297.

known, that, for procuring reformation of any thing that we desire to be redressed in the state of our Church, we judge it most unlawful and damnable by the word of God to rebel, and by force of arms or any violent means to seek redress thereof; and, moreover, that we never intended to use or procure any other for the furtherance of such reformation than only prayer to Almighty God, and most humble suit to your excellent Majesty, and others in authority, with such like dutiful and peaceful means as might give information of this our suit, and of the reasons moving us thereunto." An asseveration so explicit and so solemn is sufficient evidence, we think, of their innocence in the premises.

It has been constantly asserted, that, had the Puritans but behaved themselves peaceably, they would have suffered no molestation. On this point also we refer to the many proofs of the contrary which we have already presented; to the many instances in which peaceable non-conformists, and even conformists themselves holding Puritan opinions, were molested, prosecuted, suspended, and deprived. Particularly would we refer to the declaration made by the doctors of the University of Cambridge, that "divers of the friends and lovers of the Gospel, though carrying themselves in dutiful and peaceable sort, had tasted in some measure of more hard severity than many known Papists."2 With still more emphasis do we cite the fact, that Archbishop Whitgift himself confessed that he put men to the oath ex officio, and to his interrogations that he might understand whether they were peaceable, as they pre

1

1 Neal, II. 446.

Ante, p. 400.

tended, or not.1 Nor was this all of his testimony in the case; for when a Puritan declared to him, in 1593, "I conduct myself peaceably," his Grace replied: "That is not enough. It is not sufficient that you do not preach against the bishops: you do not preach for them." 2

Another grave accusation has been perpetuated against the Puritans. "The chiefest pillars of these platforms the Presbyterian -"stiffly maintain that, if princes do hinder them that seek for this discipline, they are tyrants both to the Church and ministers; and being tyrants, they may be deposed by their subjects." "This was the Consistorian doctrine, that in this very case subjects might withstand their prince; that the ministers, after due admonition, might excommunicate him as an enemy against the kingdom of Christ; that, being so excommunicated, the people might punish him; and that thereby he ceased to be their king." In reply to these statements, it is sufficient to quote from the prominent Puritan clergymen of the day, who doubtless knew their own sentiments better than did the writers whose words we have given. "We profess that excommunication depriveth a man only of spiritual comforts, without taking away either liberty, goods, lands, government, private or public whatsoever, or any other civil or earthly commodity of this life. Wherefore from our hearts we detest and abhor the intolerable presumption of the Bishop of Rome, taking upon him in such cases to depose sovereign

1 Ante, Vol. II. p. 424.

2 Brook, II. 116.

Dr. Bancroft, in Hicks, 297. VOL. III.

82

Whitgift or some of his chaplains; Strype's Whitgift, 264.

princes from their highest seats of supreme government, and discharging their subjects from that dutiful obedience that by the law of God they ought to perform." 1

The doings of the Puritans in Parliament require a more extended notice, more extended indeed than our limits allow. Their repeated contests with the Lords in defence of their own Parliamentary rights; their wariness in the framing of statutes, by which they baffled the covert purposes of the prelacy and of the temporal lords; their uniform exercise of freedom of debate, even ignoring in the Commons' house the strait and even the special inhibitions of the queen; their persistent though cautious conflict with the arbitrary pretensions of the Crown, — a conflict so sturdy and ominous as twice to extort concessions, all these things command our exami

or a magistrate, and is so to be held and obeyed of all faithful Christians who are his subjects." (Waddington's MS.)

On page 163 of this volume I have signified my purpose to examine at large the whole subject of the Puritan theory of the relation of the prince to the Church. But I now find that a full exhibition of the subject would occupy too much space. I must therefore pass it over thus slightly.

* For example, their careful qualification of 13 Eliz. Cap. XII, by limiting subscription to the Articles of Faith. Ante, Vol. I. p. 398. See also Vol. II. p. 194; Vol. III. pp. 561, 562.