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and the measures adopted for its repression were designed as well for the safety of the state, as for the discouragement of an obnoxious faith.1

Popish re

2

To punish Popish recusants, penalties for non-attendance upon the services of the church were multiplied, cusants. and enforced with merciless rigor. The Catholic religion was utterly proscribed its priests were banished, or hiding as traitors: its adherents constrained to attend the services of a church which they spurned as schismatic and heretical.

Doctrinal moderation of the Reformation.

While Catholics were thus proscribed, the ritual and polity of the Reformed church were narrowing the foundations of the Protestant establishment. The doctrinal modifications of the Roman creed were cautious and moderate. The new ritual, founded on that of the Catholic church,5 was simple, eloquent, and devotional. The patent errors and superstitions of Rome were renounced; but otherwise her doctrines and ceremonies were respected. The extreme tenets of Rome, on the one side, and of Geneva on the other, were avoided. The design of Reformers was to restore the primitive church, rather than to settle controversies already arising among Protestants. Such moderation, due rather to the predilections of Lutheran Reformers, and the leaning of some of them to the Roman faith, than to a profound policy, was calculated to secure a wide conformity. The respect shown to the ritual, and many of the observances of the Church of Rome, made

1 13 Eliz. c. 2; Burnet's Hist., ii. 354; Short's Hist. of the Church, 273. 2 23 Eliz. c. 1; 29 Eliz. c. 6; 33 Eliz. c. 2; 35 Eliz. c. 1; Strype's Life f Whitgift, 95; Collier's Eccl. Hist., ii. 637; Warner, ii. 287; Kennet's Hist., ii. 497.

8 Lingard, note u, viii. 356; Dodd's Church Hist., iii. 75; and Butler's Hist. Mem. of the Catholics, 230.

4 27 Eliz. C. 2.

5 Cardwell's Hist. of the Book of Common Prayer.

Bishop Jewel's Apology, ch. vii., Div. 3, c. x., Div. 1, &c.; Short's

Hist. of the Church, 238; Mant's Notes to Articles.

7 Lawrence's Bampton Lectures, 237; Short's Hist., 199.

the change of religion less abrupt and violent to the great body of the people. But extreme parties were not to be reconciled. The more faithful Catholics refused to renounce the supremacy of the Pope and other cherished doctrines and traditions of their church. Neither conciliated by concessions, nor coerced by intimidation, they remained true to the ancient faith.

On the other hand, these very concessions to Romanism repelled the Calvinistic Reformers, who spurned The Puevery vestige of the Romish ritual, and repudiated ritans. the form of church government, which, with the exception of the Papal supremacy, was maintained in its ancient integrity. They condemned every ceremony of the church of Rome as idolatrous and superstitious; they abhorred episcopacy, and favored the Presbyterian form of government in the church. Toleration might have softened the asperities of theological controversy, until time had reconciled many of the differences springing from the Reformation. A few enlightened statesmen would gladly have practised it; but the imperious temper of the queen, and the bigoted zeal enforcement of her ruling churchmen, would not suffer the least liberty of conscience. Not even waiting for outward signs of departure from the standard of the church, they jealously enforced subscription to the articles of religion; and addressed searching interrogatories to the clergy, in order to extort confessions of doubt or nonconformity. Even the oath of supremacy, designed to discover Catholics, was also a stum

2

Rigorous

of conformity.

1 In matters of ceremonial they objected to the wearing of the surplice, the sign of the cross, and the office of sponsors in baptism; the use of the ring in the marriage ceremony, kneeling at the sacrament, the bowing at the name of Jesus, and music in the services of the church. They also objected to the ordination of priests without a call by their flocks. - Heylyn's Hist. of the Presbyterians, 259.

2 Strype's Life of Whitgift, i. 431.

8 Elizabeth's policy may be described in her own words: -" She would suppress the papistical religion, that it should not grow: but would root out puritanism, and the favorers thereof." — Strype's Eccl. Annals, iv. 242. 4 Strype's Eccl. Annals, iii. 81; Strype's Life of Whitgift, iii. 106; Ful. ler's Church Hist., ix. 156; Sparrow, 123.

bling-block to many Puritans. The former denied the queen's supremacy, because they still owned that of the Pope; many of the latter hesitated to acknowledge it, as irreconcilable with their own church polity. One party were known to be disloyal the other were faithful subjects of the crown. But conformity with the reformed ritual, and attendance upon the services of the church, were enforced against both with indiscriminating rigor. In aiming at unity, the church fostered dissent.

Growth of

The early Puritans had no desire to separate from the national church; but were deprived of their benenonconform fices, and cast forth by persecution. They sought ity further to reform her polity and ceremonies, upon the Calvinistic model; and claimed greater latitude in their own conformity. They objected to clerical vestments and other forms, rather than to matters of faith and doctrine; and were slow to form a distinct communion They met secretly for prayer and worship, hoping that truth and pure religion would ultimately prevail in the church, according to their cherished principles, as Protestantism had prevailed over the errors of Rome. The ideal of the Presbyterians was a national church, to which they clung through all their sufferings: but they were driven out, with stripes, from the church of England. The Indepen dents, claiming self-government for each congregation, repelling an ecclesiastical polity, and renouncing all connection with the state, naturally favored secession from the establishment. Separation and isolation were the very foundation of their creed; and before the death of Elizabeth they had spread hemselves widely through the country, being chiefly known

2

1 Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation, iii. 587; 306; Strype's Eccl. Annals, iv. 93, et seq.; Strype's Grindal, 99.

Short's Hist. of the Church,
Strype's Parker, 155, 225;

2 Heylyn's Hist. of the Presbyterians, lib. vi.-x.; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, i. ch. iv., &c.; Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of Dissenters, Intr. 5865; i. 109–140; Price's Hist. of Nonconformity; Conder's View of all Religions.

as Brownists. Protestant nonconformity had taken root in the land; and its growth was momentous to the future destinies of church and state.

While the Reformed church lost from her fold considera

ble numbers of the people, her connection with Close con

Reformed

the state.

the state was far more intimate than that of the nection of the church of Rome. There was no longer a divided church with authority. The crown was supreme in church and state alike. The Reformed church was the creation of Parliament: her polity and ritual, and even her doctrines, were prescribed by statutes. She could lay no claim to ecclesiastical independence. Convocation was restrained from exercising any of its functions without the king's license.2 No canons had force without his assent; and even the subsidies granted by the clergy, in convocation, were henceforward confirmed by Parliament. Bishops, dignitaries and clergy looked up to the crown, as the only source of power within the realm. Laymen administered justice in the ecclesiastical courts; and expounded the doctrines of the church. Lay patronage placed the greater part of the benefices at the disposal of the crown, the barons, and the landowners. The constitution of the church was identified with that of the state; and their union was political as well as religious. The church leaned to the government, rather than to the people; and, on her side, became a powerful auxiliary in maintaining the ascendency of the crown, and the aristocracy. The union of ecclesiastical supremacy with prerogatives, already excessive, dangerously enlarged the power of the crown over the civil and religious liberties of the people. Authority had too strong a fulcrum; and threatened the realm with absolute subjection; but the wrongs of Puritans provoked a spirit of resistance, which eventually won for Englishmen a surer freedom.

Meanwhile, the Reformation had taken a different course

1 The act 35 Eliz. c. 1, was passed to suppress them.

2 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19; Froude's Hist., ii. 193-198, 325, iv. 479.

in Scotland.

in Scotland. The Calvinists had triumphed. They had Reformation overthrown episcopacy, and established a Presbyterian church upon their own cherished model.1 Their creed and polity suited the tastes of the people, and were accepted with enthusiasm. The Catholic faith was renounced everywhere but in some parts of the Highlands; and the Reformed establishment at once assumed the comprehensive character of a national church. But while supported by the people, it was in constant antagonism to the state. Its rulers repudiated the supremacy of the crown: 2 resisted the jurisdiction of the civil courts; and set up pretensions to spiritual authority and independence, not unworthy of the church they had lately overthrown.* They would not suffer temporal power to intrude upon the spiritual church of Christ."

The constitution of the Scottish church was republican; The church her power at once spiritual and popular. Instead of Scotland. of being governed by courtly prelates and an impotent convocation, she was represented by the general assembly, an ecclesiastical parliament of wide jurisdiction, little controlled by the civil power. The leaders of that

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1 1560-1592. The events of this period are amply illustrated in Spottiswood's Hist. of the Church of Scotland; M'Crie's Lives of Knox and Melville; Knox's Hist. of the Reformation; Robertson's Hist. of Scotland; Tytler's Hist. of Scotland; Cook's Hist. of the Reformation in Scotland; Cunningham's Church Hist., i. 351; Row's Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland; Stephen's Hist. of the Church of Scotland; Buckle's Hist., ii. ch. 3.

2 In the Book of Polity, it is laid down that "the power ecclesiastical flows immediately from God and the Mediator Jesus Christ, and is spiritual, not having a temporal head on earth, but only Christ, the only spiritual governor and head of his kirk."

3 Cunningham's Church Hist., 535; Calderwood's Hist., v. 457-460, 475; Spottiswood's Hist., iii. 21; Tytler's Hist., vii. 326.

4 Mr. Cunningham, comparing the churches of Rome and Scotland, says: "With both there has been the same union and energy of action, the same assumption of spiritual supremacy, the same defiance of law courts, parliaments, and kings."— Pref. to Church Hist. of Scotland.

5 "When the church was Roman, it was the duty of the magistrate to reform it. When the church was Protestant, it was impiety in the magis trate to touch it.". Cunningham's Church Hist., i. 537.

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