must yield up to her Highness all authority which he had received at her hand." But the bishop never ceased to persecute Mr. Carew until he had driven him out of his diocese. To conclude: The clergyman who had been sent to Hatfield in Mr. Carew's place was soon found guilty of adultery, and when Bishop Aylmer was entreated by the parishioners that for this crime he might be removed, and that then their former minister might be restored, his lordship replied, that "for all the livings he had, he would not deprive a poor man of his living for the fact of adultery." So much more unclerical and criminal did the Precisians of the day consider the breach of ecclesiastical forms than the breach of the seventh commandment of the decalogue!

In the year 1586, John Gardiner, minister of Malden in Essex, was deprived by Bishop Aylmer and committed to Newgate, where he sickened of the jail fever, - for matters falsely laid to his charge seven years before, and of which he had been acquitted by a regular course of law. So that Bishop Aylmer proceeded in open contempt of the decisions of the civil courts, and of that provision in the Act of Uniformity which limited prosecution for offences committed or alleged to a certain time.1

4

We turn to one case more. In this same year, Thomas Settle, minister of Boxford in Suffolk, was cited before Archbishop Whitgift and his colleagues in Commission, to answer to the following articles: That he did not observe the order in the Book

1 Strype's Aylmer, 122.

2 Brook, II. 166.

VOL. III.

cr

4

3 Brook, I. 316, 317.

1 Eliz., Cap. II. Sec. VIII.

of Common Prayer: That in baptism he did not use the sign of the cross, nor admit the promise and vow That he did not marry with the ring: That he frequented conventicles: That he denied the lawfulness of private baptism by women, and of baptism by ministers who could not preach : and, That he denied that the soul of our Saviour went to the regions of the damned. This last charge was the only one upon which he was examined; and the examination was as characteristic as brief.

"I confess it to be my opinion," said he, "that Christ did not descend locally into hell, and in this opinion I am supported by Calvin, Beza, and other learned men."1

"You are an ass, a dolt, a fool; and they are liars," replied the Archbishop.

1 " About this time, the profoundly learned Hugh Broughton wrote his book on Christ's descent into Hades, to prove that Hades was a general term for the world of souls, and not to be confounded with Gehenna, or Hell, the place of punishment.” (Collier, VII. 43, note. Strype's Whitgift, 482.) That the soul of our Saviour, after his crucifixion, went to the world of woe, was the generally received doctrine of the Church of England. (Brook, II. 222.) Except Bishop Aylmer, who was a tolerable Hebraist, I find none but Puritans who at this time held to the true Scriptural meaning of that Article in the Creed, "He descended into hell." Dr. Bancroft, Dr. Cooper, Dr. Bilson, Archbishop Whitgift, a man of "bare Latin studies" (Biog. Britannica, II. 610),

and other prominent Church

men, held to the false interpreta

tion. But "at length, and after much strife, Broughton accounted the very rabbi of the age - brought off the Archbishop." (Strype's Aylmer, 246, 247.)

From Dr. Cooper's "Admonition to the People of England," printed in 1589, I give the following extracts. "He" — Archbishop Whitgift-"firmly believeth that Christ in soul descended into hell. All the Martinists” Puritans "in Christendom are not able to prove the contrary: and they that endeavor it do abuse the Scriptures, and fall into many absurdities." (p. 33.) "The Article of the Common Creed touching Christ's descension into hell, contrary to the sense of all ancient writers, hath been strangely interpreted, and by some with unreverent speeches flatly rejected." (p. 103.)

"Your lordship ought not to rail at me, being a minister of the Gospel."

"What! dost thou think it much to be called 'ass' and 'dolt'? I have called many of thy betters so." "True," and in that word was a world of meaning, "but the question is, How lawfully?" "Thou shalt preach no more in my Province." "I am called to preach the Gospel, and I will not cease to preach it."

"Neither you nor any one in England shall preach without my leave"; and the Archbishop immediately commanded him to be taken close prisoner to the Gate-house.

"Have you subscribed?" asked the Dean of Westminster.

"Yes; I have subscribed, and am ready to subscribe again, to the doctrine of faith and the sacraments, being as much as the law requires. But to other rites and ceremonies, I neither can nor will subscribe."

"Then," said the Archbishop, "thou shalt be subject to the ecclesiastical authority."

"I thank God," replied Mr. Settle, "you can use violence only on my poor body"; a noble reply and worthy of any Christian martyr.

The Archbishop then committed him close prisoner to the Gate-house, where he was confined about six years.1 His tendencies to "Independency" are manifest in the bold and decisive manner in which he met the threats of the Primate, particularly in his round assertion that "preach the Gospel of Christ he would." Those tendencies were but de

1 Brook, II. 46, 47.

veloped by the imperious and insulting words which we have recited, and by "the Ecclesiastical authority" which followed. Mr. Settle went to the Gatehouse a non-conforming Puritan only. He came out utterly alienated from the Established Church.1 Archbishop Whitgift certainly made one Brownist; and we have a grave suspicion that he made thousands.

We turn aside a moment to notice two statements which concern the Puritans about this time. It is said, that Lord Burleigh made a sagacious experiment, having the aspect of a conciliatory overture, to demonstrate the impossibility of accommodating the differences in the Church. It is stated that he requested the Presbyterians to frame such a liturgy as they desired to have in lieu of the one authorized by law; that some of them did so; that others of them dissented from this draft, and framed another; that still a third party dissented from these two; that a fourth party dissented from all the others, and that his lordship hereupon "smoothly" "put them off until they should present him a pattern with perfect consent." A "somewhat amusing manoeuvre," says one, "in which his lordship's sagacity and charity are equally conspicuous." Unfortunately for the story-which is cited to prove a want of unanimity among the Presbyterians of which we have no intimation elsewhere-it is supported by no authority whatever. "It be fathered rather on public report, than fixed on any particular author in those days avowing the same." 2

1 Brook, II. 47.

"2

2 Fuller, Book IX. p. 178. Col

It is also stated that Mr. Secretary Walsingham made a generous offer to meet the scruples of the Puritans. "He offered," it is said, "in the queen's name, that the three ceremonies at which they seemed most to boggle-kneeling at the communion, wearing the surplice, and making the sign of the cross in baptism -should be expunged from the Book of Common Prayer, if that would content them. They replied, that "they would not leave so much as a hoof behind," "meaning that they would have the Church liturgy wholly laid aside, and not be obliged to use any office in it."2 All this wears the appearance of improbability. "It is by no means agreeable to the queen's general conduct"; it is unaccountable that such overtures should have been scornfully rejected; and the pedigree of the story is too sorry and suspicious to sustain its legitimacy.

3

The facts presented in this chapter might have been suppressed, and would have been, had we heeded only the suggestions of Christian charity. We certainly find no gratification in recording them. But as they show clearly the temper of the two principal members of the Ecclesiastical Commission, and thus indicate the temper of the whole Court,

lier, VII. 16, and note. Collier recites this tradition with much zest as a fact; not noticing the important clause which I here quote from Fuller. Collier gives it under date of 1583; Fuller, under date of 1585.

3 Hallam, 135, note.

* Dr. Heylin says, that Dr. Burgess told him that Mr. Knewstubbs told him that Secretary Walsingham told him. (Collier, VII. 16.) This is a sort of testimony certainly unreliable in any case; and much

1 Heylin's Presbyterians, Book more suspicious when conflicting

VII. Sec. 42.

2 Collier, VII. 16.

with probabilities.