during the process of change." The immediate effect of the Reformation in England, as Macaulay has pointed out, was by no means favourable to political liberty. It only deposed the papal system to set up its worst tyranny afresh in the person of King and Prelate. The yoke of Protestantism promised to be just as intolerable as that of the Church of Rome, nay, as being nearer the base of its operations, more galling and inimical to individual freedom. The system of Henry VIII. has been described as Popery without the Pope; and had the Reformation stopped at the point to which it was carried by means of the breach with Rome, it would have been, not a forward, but a retrograde movement. But it could not stop at that point. It is the inevitable result of any great disruption such as that which had taken place in England and Europe, that forces and influences are let loose and brought into play which those who are responsible for its initiation are unable to guide and powerless to control. It is like a landslip, the effects of which are seen, not only in the immediate dislodgment of a vast quantity of earth, but in a loosening of the soil which extends far beyond the scene of the primal catastrophe. The earthquake which releases Paul and Silas, throws down for others besides apostles the walls of the prisonhouse. Religious freedom is never long divorced from civil and political liberty. It was the stirring of men's minds under the preaching of Wyclif that was the real if not the proximate cause of the peasants' outbreak in 1381 and the insurrection under Wat Tyler. Wyclif

1 "Oh, if we could but exercise wisdom to gain civil libertyreligion would follow!"-Cromwell's Letters and Speeches.

himself was as guiltless of the revolt of the peasantry as was Luther of the Peasant War in Germany, or of the reign of the Anabaptists. Nevertheless, neither of these Reformers could screen themselves from the responsibility which, indirectly at least, attached to their own acts and teaching. They both of them raised a spirit they were not able to lay, and the people who imbibed their doctrines insisted on carrying them to their extreme, and, as they deemed, their only logical conclusion. The same thing

The

is illustrated in the progress of the Reformation. genius of liberty--if we may use the impersonation— outran the zeal of its defenders, even its most strenuous upholders, and chiding their lagging pace seemed to mock their timorous mistrust. Not even the most advanced and intrepid Reformers, in England at least, realised the full consequences of their own action. Terrified by their own boldness, they were ever harking back like men venturing on quicksands or skating on thin ice, and only by feeling their way gradually could they gain confidence to proceed. In our age, experience of the value of liberty has to a large extent conquered the instinct of conservatism, but in the age of the Reformation men had no such experience. It is not surprising, therefore, that even the most ardent lovers of liberty should sometimes falter in their testimony for it. In the course of our inquiry we shall see how far the Puritans themselves fell short of acting with perfect loyalty to their own principles, and how long it took them to learn the lesson of religious toleration. Like the disciples of old, "as they followed they were afraid"; but they followed nevertheless, and they came out at length into a wealthy land.

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, "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.

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." 1 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 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 of papistical corruption still untaken away. The temper 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.