Democracy the outcome of Puritanism.-If the newly awakened spirit of freedom contributed, as undoubtedly it did, to the rise and growth of Puritanism, Puritanism in its turn led to the establishment of Democracy, and this not by a series of successive steps, but as it were, per saltum, by a single bound. "The principle of the sovereignty of the people," says Dr. Borgeaud in his admirable book, The Rise of Modern Democracy in Old and New England,1 "inalienable and imprescriptible, and its realisation in the modern State, belong peculiarly to the Reformation." "Calvinism, in spite of the aristocratic character which it temporarily assumed, meant democracy in Church government. It meant more than that, for its aim was to make society in all its parts conform to a religious ideal." 2 This was inevitable on the part of men adopting the Bible as their statutebook, and rejecting all authority which threatened to come into collision with this.

We believe the word of God contained in the Old and New Testaments to be a perfect rule of faith and manners; that it ought to be read and known by all people; and that the authority of it exceeds all authority, not of the Pope only, but of the Church also, and of Councils, Fathers, men, and angels.

"We condemn as a tyrannous yoke whatsoever men have set up of their own invention, to make articles of faith, and the binding of men's consciences by their laws and institutions." 3

1 P. 7.

2 Preface of same work, ix.

3 Confession of Faith signed by those taking part in the Prophesyings in 1571. See Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 223.

"1

It does not follow that either Reformers or Puritans bent their energies consciously and of set purpose to the setting up of Democracy. In respect of this they were at first blind and unconscious instruments. "The early Puritans had no political views; they were completely absorbed by religious feeling.' It was this religious feeling and principle which drove them into constitution-making on popular democratic lines. The Church covenant which they formed among themselves strictly for a religious purpose, became the basis of the political society which they founded. Hence, as Dr. Borgeaud has it—“ Modern Democracy is the child of the Reformation, not of the Reformers." "Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of Democracy." 2

The necessity of separation from the Church as by law established. The revolt against the papal power led naturally to revolt against popery in Priest or King, in other words, to the creation of what we now call Protestantism. Protestantism advanced to Puritanism, and Puritanism advanced to Separatism. The process by which this was brought about forms the subject of this work, and to a large extent constitutes its raison d'être; but it will not be inappropriate at this point just to indicate in a few words how these three things came into line, and became related as cause and effect. The Protestant refugees who 1 The Rise of Modern Democracy, p. 12.

2 J. Russell Lowell's Among my Books: New England Two Centuries Ago, p. 227.

had been driven from this country by the relentless cruelty of Mary had found a home in Germany and Switzerland, and there they had learnt to prize the simple worship and the free democratic polity which prevailed and found doughty champions and eloquent expounders in Geneva, Zurich, and Strasburg. They returned home after the accession of Elizabeth, to find their hopes in regard to the Reformation violently frustrated. The lump was still unleavened—the old leaven The temper

of papistical corruption still untaken away. of Elizabeth, if not as violent as that of her sister, was as unyielding. She was determined to make her profit out of the Reformation by resisting all further changes, and by making it subordinate to her own views and her own personal authority. Like her father before her, her aim was to establish Popery without the Pope. She agreed with Henry IV. that a kingdom was well worth a Mass. Against the protests of her bishops she retained an altar, crucifix, and lighted candles in her own private chapel.1 With the zeal of the Reformers she had no sympathy whatever, and never lost an opportunity of pouring cold water upon it. The bigotry of the Protestant as much as the superstition of the Romanist excited her ridicule and her scorn. She interrupted the preacher who spoke disparagingly of the sign of the cross, disapproved of the marriage of the clergy, and threatened to unfrock the prelates that dared to resist her imperious demands. Elizabeth did nothing to further the reformation of the

1 It was owing to her influence that the words, "From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities," were struck out of the Litany.

English Church, rather did everything to retard it. It' is not a little remarkable that that reformation reached. its highest point, not during her reign, but at the close of the reign of Edward VI., and more remarkable still, it has never since advanced beyond this point. There is abundant evidence to show that it stopped at this point, not because in the judgment of the Reformers it had gone far enough, but because their efforts were unavailing in the face of the opposition which they provoked.

Of that opposition Elizabeth was the heart and soul. Her attitude in regard to the warring religious. factions, her determination to side neither with Catholics nor with Protestants (though her attitude in regard to the former can hardly be called neutral), and not to allow the peace of the nation to be broken up by either, this is often pointed to as a striking proof of her astuteness and far-sightedness. Mr. Gladstone 1 says: 'Apart from any ritualistic and theological leanings of the Queen, she did what the national safety and unity evidently required. Elizabeth admitted the Protestant claim in the gross, but admitted it with serious discounts. Yet these discounts were adjusted with extraordinary skill."

1

Mr. Green2 says she forced on the warring religions a sort of armed truce, and though "no woman' ever lived who was so totally destitute of the sentiment of religion," this only qualified her the better-if we understand him

1

1 Contemporary Review, November 1888, p. 767.

2 Green's History of the English People, vol. ii. pp. 395, 397.

aright—for reducing and guarding against the ill effects and danger arising from the religious zeal of others. We confess we have no faith in this sinister explanation of the cleverness of Elizabeth. As an attempt to exalt her intellect at the expense of her principles, it is a failure. Her policy, we hold, was shaped partly by the exigencies of her position, but mainly by her ungovernable aversion to all forms of religious zeal, and by her determination to resist at all cost any further changes in the constitution and ritual of the Church. By putting down her foot firmly at this juncture, she found it possible to reduce all the warring religious elements to a more or less passive condition. It was a rough and ready way of "settling" without "healing" the differences of the nation, but it was effectual for the time, and the success which attended it (not at all surprising under the circumstances) has led historians to ascribe to the self-willed and irreligious Queen a judgment and sagacity far beyond her desert.1

Her policy towards the Puritans was from first to last a huge blunder, and for the future of the nation was rife with disastrous consequences. It created and aggravated the evil it was intended to arrest. "One thing was evident, that the Puritan malcontents were growing every day more numerous, more determined, and more likely to win over the generality of those who sincerely favoured the Protestant cause.” 2 Any casual observer might have seen that between their growing numbers and strength,

1 Not all historians, however. See Hallam's Constitutional History in loco.

2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 242.