WHILE IN SCOTLAND. HIS PRIVATE NOTES OF WHAT HE HEARD - HIMSELF IMPRISONED. - HIS LETTERS TO HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN. HIS EXAMINATION. HIS MEMORIAL TO THE GOVERNMENT. HIS DECLARATION AGAINST PROSECUTION FOR HIS BOOKS. — IS INDICTED, CONVICTED, AND SENTÈNCED TO DEATH FOR PRIVATE WRITINGS. HIS EXECUTION. ELIZABETHAN JURIES. PEN- RY'S STEADFASTNESS. HIS FAREWELL LETTERS TO THE CHURCH, TO DEATH OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HATTON. — THE GREAT SEAL COM- MITTED TO SIR JOHN PUCKERING AS "LORD KEEPER." PARLIAMENT. OPENING SPEECH OF THE Lord KEEPER. TO THE PETITIONS OF THE SPEAKER.-PETER WENTWORTH. OTHERS IMPRISONED. — JAMES MORRICE; HIS TREATISE AGAINST THE HIGH COURT OF COMMISSION. INTRODUCES THE SAME SUBJECT TO THE CONSIDERATION OF THE COMMONS. DEBATE UPON IT. THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE CONCERNING IT.— MORRICE COMMITTED TO PRISON. -MOTION TO PETITION FOR RELEASE OF IMPRISONED MEMBERS. BILL FOR REDUCING DISLOYAL SUBJECTS TO THEIR DUE OBEDIENCE. DE- BATE UPON IT. PASSED WITH AMENDMENTS. AN ABSTRACT OF THE BILL. A BILL AGAINST POPISH RECUSANTS. — THE QUEEN'S SPEECH AT THE CLOSE OF PARLIAMENT. - MR. CARTWRIGHT RELEASED FROM PRISON. - No MORE SEPARATISTS EXECUTED. THE QUEEN ORDERS THEIR DELIVERANCE FROM PRISON. NEW IMPRISONMENTS. BANISH- MENT AND VOLUNTARY EXILE. INDECENT VIOLENCE OF CHIEF JUS- TICE ANDERSON. THE LULL OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. - PURITAN- OPINIONS OF CRANMER, COVERDALE, BULLINGER, CALVIN, AND QUEEN ELIZABETH RESPECTING THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. THE QUEEN'S EXAMPLE. THE HABITS OF THE PEOPLE ON SUNDAYS. THE CATAS- TROPHE AT SOUTHWARK. — ITS MORAL EFFECT UPON THE PEOPLE. ACTION IN PARLIAMENT FOR THE BETTER OBSERVANCE OF THE SAB- BATH DAY.-THE EFFORTS OF SMITH AND OF GREENHAM FOR THE SAME OBJECT. DR. BOUND'S BOOK UPON THE SABBATH. THE NEW DOCTRINE GENERALLY RECEIVED BY THE PEOPLE. OPPOSITION OF THE PRELATES. LORD BURLEIGH'S BODILY INFIRMITIES. HIS LAST SICK- THE DISCONTENTED HUMOR OF THE COMMONS AT THEIR ASSEMBLING. AGGRAVATED BY THEIR EXCLUSION FROM THE UPPER HOUSE AT THE OPENING OF THE PARLIAMENT. A NEW OFFENCE. THE SPEAKER'S PETITIONS AND THE LORD KEEPER'S ANSWER. - IRREVERENCE OF THE COMMONS TOWARDS THE QUEEN. THE TRUE REASON FOR THEIR Ex- CLUSION. MONOPOLIES, THE REASON OF THEIR INCREASE. EXTOR- TIONS UNDER THEM. — A BILL INTRODUCED AGAINST THEM. DEBATE UPON IT. IT IS COMMITTED. A NEW DISCUSSION. THE SUBJECT POSTPONED. A NEW BILL INTRODUCED. - ANOTHER DEBATE. THE SUBJECT RECOMMITTED. BOLD PROPOSAL IN COMMITTEE. THE HOUSE AGAIN EXCITED.- THEIR BOLD AND NOVEL COURSE. MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN. CECIL'S EXULTANT COMMENTS UPON IT. — REJOIC- ING OF THE HOUSE. THEY TENDER THEIR THANKS TO THE QUEEN IN A BODY. HER MAJESTY'S REPLY.- BILLS FOR THE SUPPRESSING of FALSE STATEMENTS RESPECTING THE PRINCIPLES AND BEHAVIOR OF THE THE PURITANS. CHAPTER I. THE TEMPER OF THE PRELATES. THE PROGRESS OF PURITANISM. · ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S APPREHENSIONS. - HIS CARE OF ROBERT BEAL, CLERK OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL. — HIS DECREE AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. THE CASE OF EUSEBIUS PAGET, ARRAIGNED FOR HIS OPINIONS. THE ARGUMENT IN HIS CASE. THE CASE OF THOMAS CAREW. - THE ACTION OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL IN HIS BEHALF.- BISHOP AYLMER RESENTS IT. THE CONTEMPT OF THE BISHOPS FOR LAW AND FOR HUMANITY, IN THE CASE OF JOHN GARDINER. THE CASE OF THOMAS SETTLE. THE FABLES ABOUT THE ATTEMPTS OF LORD BURLEIGH AND SECRETARY WALSINGHAM AT RECONCILIATION. 1585, 1586. THE administration under which the Puritans had been so severely educated was not that of Episcopacy. No form of ecclesiasticism ever wrought, of itself, by such measures, ever so defeated its own aims, or ever so effectually and rapidly moulded the manhood of a nation into another form than its own. Pure ecclesiasticism-in distinction from pure religion—has no such power. Had the English Church been framed after any other model, the struggle and the result would have been the same. There was no inherent vice in Presbyterianism. There was none in Episcopacy. But in the covenant between Church and State, there was. With only here and there an exception, this bond had been the canker-vice of Christendom for eleven 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 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 |