by the father that noted that Christ's garment was without seam, and yet the Church's garment was of divers colours, and thereupon set down for a rule, Let there be variety in the vesture, but not a rent." "1 NOTE ON HOOKER'S THEORY OF CHURCH AND STATE The Ecclesiastical Polity contains Hooker's peculiar theory of Church and State, the false and mischievous position that the Church and commonwealth are but different denominations of the same society. "A Church and a commonwealth, we grant, are things in nature the one distinguished from the other. A Church is one way, and a commonwealth another way, defined." "We hold that, seeing there is not any man of the Church of England but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth, nor any member of the commonwealth which is not also of the Church of England; therefore, as in a figure triangle, the base doth differ from the sides thereof, and yet one and the self-same line is both a base and also a side,—a side simply, a base if it chance to be the bottom, and underlie the same,-so albeit propositions and actions of one do cause the name of a commonwealth, qualities and functions of another sort the name of the Church, to be given to a multitude, yet one and the self-same multitude may in such sort be both."Book viii. chap. i. section 2. It is obvious at a glance that such identity as this never existed in point of fact, and the comment which history writes upon the attempts which, at different times and in various ways, have been made to bring it about is instructive and tragical. Such union of Church and State is a chimera; the fact that religion and politics belong to two totally distinct and dissimilar spheres it entirely ignores. His deftly constructed theory should have dissolved under the touchstone of his own words: "A commonwealth we name it simply in regard of some regiment or policy under which men live; a Church, for the truth of that religion which they profess."-Book viii. chap. i. section 5. "To profess a religion is a personal act; must be voluntarily and 1 Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England. consciously done to be done at all." But this was precisely what could not happen, or be allowed to happen, in Hooker's theory of the Church. To him "one society is both the Church and commonwealth," and, as a necessary result, "our Church hath dependence from the chief in our commonwealth." But this was to transform the profession of religion into a matter of loyalty, and to identify Nonconformity with rebellion. Responsibility to the King supplanted responsibility to God, godliness became a species of political obedience, and the Church was emptied of its transcendental and ethical ideals that it might be organised into a system which was all the more civil that it was so intensely sacerdotal."1 1 Dr. Fairbairn on Ecclesiastical Polity and the Religion of Christ. Introductory chapter to Jubilee Lectures. See whole of Dr. Fairbairn's criticism on Hooker's "splendid idea of a Church," and the comparison between this and the ideal of Independency and the religion of Christ. MEMORABLE EVENTS AND DATES Robert Browne, born 1550, died between 1631 and 1633 Church in Norwich gathered by Robert Browne 1567 CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII Puritanism not a Church System-Independency at first not a polity-Harbingers of Independency-Puritans libelled-Begin-. nings of Separatism-Church of Richard Fitz-Robert BrowneHis relation to Independency- -Browne and the Brownists Raleigh's estimate of number of Brownists-Dissenters and Separatists-What Separatism originally implied-Separatists through force of circumstances. CHAPTER VII RISE OF INDEPENDENCY Ir should always be remembered that Puritanism at the beginning had nothing to do with any question of Church government. Neither Presbyterianism nor Independency were involved in it, and Episcopacy only because it had possession of the field, and appeared, even to the majority of the Puritans of that age, the only possible and practicable polity. What they supremely desired and vehemently contended for was to get Luther's "doctrine of Christian liberty, and of the common universal priesthood," embodied in visible form, so as to become the corner-stone of a temple in which men could worship God without the intervention of priest, altar, and sacrifice. Contemned and rejected by the Church of Rome, it was in their eyes the condemnation of the Reformed Protestant Church, that this was the stone also which the builders rejected. Independency at first not a polity. The rise of Independency must not be confounded with the rise of Separatism. This confusion is a common one, but no one who reads the history of that period with any degree of care should fall into it. Separatism led, no doubt, to |