Bishop of St. Asaph's in 1535. The slight importance Barlow was disposed to attach to ordination, episcopal or otherwise, may be gathered from his own words

'If the King's grace, being supreme head of the Church of England, did choose, denominate, and elect any layman (being learned) to be a bishop, that he so chosen (without mention being made of any orders) should be as good a bishop as he is, or the best in England. Wheresoever two or three simple persons, as cobblers or weavers, are in company and elected in the name of God, there is the true Church of God." We may imagine, indeed, Barlow's hearty approval of Lacordaire's great saying: "Where there is the love of God, there is Jesus Christ; and where Jesus Christ is, there is the Church with Him." All probable sources of information as to the consecration of Barlow have been searched, but searched in vain. Now, it was through Barlow, in point of law, that Parker received his consecration, and through him it passed to the succeeding line of bishops in the Church of England. Here, then, is a missing link in the chain of apostolical succession-missing, at anyrate, so far as the absence of documentary evidence can show it.

The Queen selected Matthew Parker, who had been her mother's chaplain, to be head of the new Establishment; but as none of the bishops in any of the existing sees would take part in consecrating the new Protestant primate, recourse had to be had to four deprived bishops of Edward VI.'s time, and accordingly Parker was inducted by William Barlow, John Scory, John Hodgkins, and Miles Coverdale, the last of whom had been an elder

in Knox's church in Geneva, and is said to have officiated on this occasion in his Genevan gown.

Elizabeth and the Puritans.-It was about the

1

year 1556 the Puritans rose into power and became recognised as a separate party in the State. Long prior to this, the leaven of Puritan influence had been silently working in the heart of the best part of the nation,-conspicuously so since the days of Wyclif, who was himself a Puritan of the Puritans,-but as yet it had found no concerted, no organised, expression. It was driven to find this at length by the relentless fury of persecution. Mary was on the throne, and her reign was signalised by that series of unparalleled atrocities, so vividly depicted in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which has loaded her memory with execration, and gained for her the soubriquet of Bloody Mary.

Only by flight could the obnoxious Protestants (and of these the Puritan section was the most obnoxious) escape the violence of the storm which now burst upon them. It is estimated that the refugees numbered about eight hundred. Some found an asylum in France, some in Switzerland, some in Holland, some in Germany. They were most numerous in Frankfort; and here, after con

1 Fuller dates the use of the term Puritan, as a nickname for the English Nonconformists generally, from the year 1564. Mr. Froude, however, does not find any mention of the name before the year 1585. He quotes from a document drawn up by a “distinguished Jesuit" three years before the Armada, as follows:-"The only party that would fight to death for the Queen, the only real friends she had, were the Puritans (it is the first mention of the name which I have found), the Puritans of London, the Puritans of the sea towns."-English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century, p. 6.

siderable discussion as to what form of service they should adopt, it was agreed to use the service book of Edward VI., subject to certain changes and modifications. This was no sooner agreed to than it was departed from at the instance of a Dr. Cox, who refused to dispense with the portions which had been objected to. This led to a secession, and part of the congregation withdrew to Geneva, where they discarded the service book entirely, and substituted in its place the Genevan form of worship and discipline. The two parties became known as Conformists and Puritans. The death of Mary, the accession of Elizabeth, and her supposed sympathy with the work of the Reformation, induced the exiles to return to their native land. "They came home threadbare," says Strype, "bringing nothing with them, but much experience as well as learning."

Elizabeth was not slow to take advantage of her position by asserting her absolute authority. The ecclesiastical edifice reared by Elizabeth rested mainly upon two pillars, the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity. These continued in force for more than a century, and the system built upon them, setting aside the period of the Long Parliament and that of the Commonwealth, existed unchanged till the passing of the Toleration Act in 1689.

The Act of Supremacy was entitled, An Act restoring to the Crown the ancient jurisdiction over the State, ecclesiastical and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign power repugnant to the same.

All jurisdiction was to be vested in the Queen and her This simply meant the transference of

successors.

authority from the Pope to the Crown, and just as little secured the rights of conscience and the liberty of the people. Elizabeth Elizabeth was the supreme head, or, as she preferred to style herself, the supreme governor, of the Church. The extent of the authority of the Crown may be gathered from the following terms of the Act of Supremacy:-"That the King has power to redress and amend all errors and heresies; he might enjoin what doctrines he would should be preached, not repugnant to the laws of the land. And if any should preach contrary, he was for the third offence to be judged a heretic, and suffer death." His Majesty claimed a right to forbid all preaching for the time, as did Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth,1 or, as did Charles I., to limit the clergy's preaching to certain of the Thirty-nine Articles.

The Act of Uniformity was entitled, An Act for the uniformity of Common Prayer and Divine Service in the Church, and the Administration of the Sacraments.

This forbade the use of any but the second PrayerBook of Edward VI. A fine of one shilling, nearly equal to ten shillings at the present time, was imposed on all who absented themselves from divine worship, "having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent." This was the beginning of sorrows. "Upon the fatal rock of uniformity was the peace of the Church of England split. The rigorous pressing of this Act was the occasion of all the mischiefs that befell the Church

1 Zurich Letters. Jewel, in letter to Peter Martyr, January 26, 1559, says: "The Queen has forbidden any person, whether Papist or Gospeller, to preach to the people."

for above eighty years." "What good," asks Neal pertinently, "could it answer to press men's bodies into the public service without convincing their minds?” Let those who wish to see how complete the absolutism of the Crown was, and the power which they put into the hands of the bishops and their officers, read the provisions of these two Acts, the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity.1

The Vestments Controversy.-We have seen how Hooper" scrupled the vestments," and consented to wear them at his consecration to the see of Gloucester, only on condition that he might dispense with them on other occasions. This was really the beginning of the "Vestiarian Controversy," "a dispute which raged apparently round outward symbols, but which really turned on grave differences of opinion." It is no

uncommon thing to hear the Puritans sneered at on account of their scrupulosity in regard to the wearing of vestments prescribed and commanded to be worn. Hume's contemptuous reference to their hatred of " surplices and tippets and church millinery" is well known. Canon Curteis speaks of it as a prejudice due to their morbid want of imagination," magnifying mere "trifling matters. . . into matters of morbid scruple and obstinate antipathy." 2

1 They may be conveniently consulted in Professor Prothero's work, Statutes and Constitutional Documents illustrative of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I., edited by G. W. Prothero, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in which they are printed in full.

Curteis' Bampton Lecture on Dissent in its Relation to the Church of England, p. 54.