Four main causes of Puritanism-The Reformation-The Bible -Tyndale's New Testament - The Great Bible - The Geneva Version-Foxe's Book of Martyrs-The spirit of freedom-Democracy-Puritanism advances to Separatism.

CHAPTER I

THE CREATIVE CAUSES OF PURITANISM

FOUR causes mainly contributed to the rise and spread of Puritanism, and ultimately of Independency

First, The influence of the Reformation.

Second, The influence of the Bible.

Third, The growth of the spirit of freedom-liberty of conscience.

Fourth, The necessity of separation from the Church as by law established.

The Re

The influence of the Reformation. formation was essentially a religious movement, a revival of apostolic Christianity. At its outset it shared the fate of all great movements, and became mixed up with mean and more inglorious issues,-civil, political, and ecclesiastical, and these tended in some measure to obscure its real character. It was so notably in England, where at first it seemed nothing better than a battle of kites and crows, a struggle between King and Pope for power and supremacy. Still the forces that directed it and bore it onward in its victorious course were moral and religious. Both Henry and Elizabeth found that they had raised a spirit which to some extent they were

able to guide and to use, but which they were powerless

to arrest. They builded better than they knew." No one understood less than Elizabeth herself the real meaning of the Reformation, or cherished a more undisguised contempt for the zeal of the Reformers and the religious temper of the nation, a force which she failed completely to estimate,-nevertheless to this more than to any other cause she owed the stability of her throne and the splendid success of her administration. It was the spirit of Puritanism which answered to her appeal when she invoked the aid of her people against Philip and Spain. The defeat of the Armada was the triumph of Protestantism, and, unwilling as she was to assume the title, Elizabeth became henceforth its recognised head. Yet Elizabeth had not only no sympathy with the doctrines of the Reformation, she resisted their introduction as tending to create dispeace in the Church and nation. In her judgment they emanated from the brain of a number of noisy and impracticable zealots.

It is sometimes said that up to the time of Elizabeth the English people as a whole were indifferent to the Reformation, and the change that came over them during her reign was due rather to the revulsion inspired by the atrocities of the previous reign than to any change of conviction in its favour. But this is an opinion that appears to rest upon no trustworthy basis. It is a saying of Burke that he did not know of any method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. It was peculiarly difficult in those days to estimate the prevalence or gauge the strength of public sentiment. The fact is, the Reformation in England languished, so far as it did

languish, for want of leaders. The people had no leaders to stir up their sympathies on its behalf, still less to kindle their enthusiasm. Imagine what would have been the fate of the Reformation in Germany without Luther, in Switzerland without Calvin, in Bohemia without Huss, in Scotland without Knox. In England, however, the Reformation had no prophet, no preacher, no herald deserving of the name. If Wyclif had been alive he might have stirred England from end to end as Luther stirred Germany with his trumpet-blast. But no Wyclif was forthcoming. Such prophet as it had was found in the person of Cranmer. He may not have been the despicable poltroon that Macaulay describes him, but he certainly had not the stuff of which heroes and Reformers are made. Hooper and Ridley, and Latimer and Taylor, and Jewel and Fisher and More were men of infinitely more grit and principle, but it was as much as they could do to resist the tyranny and encroachments of the papal power without leading a popular crusade in favour of the Reformation. It is no small proof of the growth of popular feeling in its favour, that notwithstanding Elizabeth's dislike of Protestantising zeal, and her determination, if possible, to stamp it out, yet the Reformation cóntinued to grow and strengthen its hold upon the nation.

Puritanism was its offspring, and soon Elizabeth discovered that she had to reckon, not only with Reformers, but with Puritans. She imagined that persecution would exert a salutary repressive influence upon these mutinous spirits. As might have been expected, it produced the opposite effect. It made them more unbending and

formidable than ever. It enlisted the sympathy of the people on their side. In the words of Macaulay: "It found them a sect, it made them a faction." "The power of the discontented sectaries was great. They were found in every rank, but they were strongest among the mercantile classes in the towns, and among the small proprietors in the country. Early in the reign of Elizabeth they began to return a majority of the House of Commons." "The same impulse which had carried millions away from the Church of Rome, continued to carry them forward in the same direction. As Catholics had become Protestants, Protestants became Puritans."

It was a great disappointment to Elizabeth that even her bishops could not be depended on to give effect to her policy, and their Protestant convictions were continually thwarting her. The persecutions of the previous reign had sent not a few Protestants into exile, and they had come back affected by, if not actually inoculated with, the tenets of Calvin and the Genevan form of worship. The leaven of their influence had spread among all sections of the nation. "The English Re

formers were eager to go as far as their brethren on the Continent. They unanimously condemned as antichristian numerous dogmas and practices to which Henry had stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth reluctantly abandoned."

The influence of the Bible.—It would be difficult to discover a more striking coincidence, one that answers more perfectly to the idea of special overruling providence, than the occurrence of the Reformation