This is a very superficial judgment, and no more explains the dislike which the enforced wearing of the habits inspired in the Puritans than it explains the tenacity with which modern Ritualists cling to their distinctive habits and ceremonies. If alb and stole, and chasuble and cope and rochet had no underlying meaning and symbolism, they would soon cease to be things to wrangle about, and would neither find favour on the one hand nor stir up opposition on the other. Sacerdotal and non-sacerdotal conceptions of the Christian ministry were struggling for supremacy in the English Establishment. No one can look into the Zurich Letters and read carefully the correspondence between Sampson, dean of Christ Church; Humphreys, president of Magdalen; and Bullinger, Peter Martyr, and Gualter, at Zurich, without realising, not only the unfairness, but the absurdity of describing the Puritan revolt against the vestments as arising from mere faddiness or narrow bigotry-mere hatred of "surplices and tippets and church millinery." Rightly or wrongly, the Protestant Puritans saw in them only a relic of the Babylonish garments which pertained to the Church of Rome; and because they symbolised, and were, as they held, intended to symbolise, 1 It is true that the continental Reformers counselled a less hostile attitude than their friends in England were disposed to take up. Bullinger thought it would not be "unlawful to use, in common with Papists, a vestment not superstitious." Peter Martyr wrote to Sampson: "You may therefore use those habits either in preaching or in the administration of the Lord's Supper, provided, however, you persist in speaking and teaching against the use of them."--See Zurich Letters; Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. pp. 237-8. that in which they did not believe, they refused to wear them. Many of the bishops sympathised with them, and did their utmost to prevent the use of the prescribed vestments being made compulsory; and, indeed, "the number of the clergy who participated in the scruples of Sampson and Humphreys must have been considerable. When Parker summoned to Lambeth a hundred clergymen, and exhibited one Thomas Cole canonically robed, with a square cap, a scholar's gown priestlike, tippet, and, in the church, a linen surplice,' only sixty-one out of the hundred were willing to be robed after the fashion of Thomas Cole.1 They wrote their names with a Nolo, and preferred losing their benefices to wearing a surplice." Speaking of the ferment which the vestments controversy produced in Cambridge, Strype relates how "the fellows and scholars in St. John's College there, chiefly the younger sort (to the number of nearly three hundred, some said), about the beginning of December 1565, or sooner, threw off the surplice with one consent, however they had worn it before in the chapel; as in Trinity College about the same time, all except three, by T. Cartwright's instigation." 2 The Queen was highly incensed on hearing of this contumacious behaviour. In reply to a communication from Cecil, who was at that time Chancellor of the university, it was averred by the heads of colleges "that a great many persons in the university, of piety and learning, were fully persuaded of the unlawfulness of the habits; and therefore, if conformity were urged, they would be 1 Hunt's Religious Thought in England, vol. i. pp. 47, 48. 2 Strype's Annals of the Reformation, vol. i. part ii. pp. 153, 154. forced to desert their stations, and thus the university would be stripped of its ornaments. They therefore gave it as their humble opinion that indulgence in this matter would be attended with no inconveniences; but, on the other hand, they were afraid religion and learning would suffer very much by rigour and imposition."1 Incredible as it may appear, among the signatories attached to this statement was the name of John Whitgift, Master of Trinity, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and in that position the relentless oppressor of the Puritans. How divided opinion and feeling were, may be gathered from what took place in the Convocation of 1563. The Puritan demands that the habits, all but the surplice, should be done away, also the use of organs, the sign of the cross in baptism, enforced kneeling at the communion, were defeated by a majority of one (fifty-eight for, fiftynine against). "It would have been interesting to see how such proposals would have been received by Elizabeth had this trifling majority been reversed." It is clear that at that time no appeal in favour of the habits on the ground of order and comeliness could avail in the face of their dubious origin and their Romish associations. Everything that savoured of Rome was, for that reason, specially repugnant to Protestant feeling. "I wish," said Jewel, "that all, even the slightest, vestiges of Popery might be removed from our churches, and, above all, from our minds. But the Queen at this time is unable to endure the least alteration in matters of religion." Elizabeth had fully made up her mind that no latitude was to be allowed the clergy in regard to the 1 Strype's Life of Parker, bk. iii. p. 125, and also Appendix. wearing of the prescribed vestments. In this, as in all other respects, the requirements of the Act of Uniformity must be rigorously carried out. In Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, the Queen found an ally and supporter after her own mind, and, needless to say, the power which they wielded bore down all opposition. Humphrey, president of Magdalen, was admonished, and Sampson was deprived of his deanery. Out of ninety-eight ministers in London, thirty-seven refused to comply with the prescribed ceremonies, and were, in consequence, suspended from their ministry, and their livings sequestrated.1 Many will concur in the very moderate judgment of Hallam: "I am far from being convinced that it would not have been practicable, by receding a little from that uniformity which governors delight to prescribe, to have palliated in a great measure, if not put an end for a time to, the discontent that so soon endangered the new Establishment. The frivolous usages, to which so many frivolous objections were raised, such as the tippet and surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, the ring in matrimony, the posture of kneeling at the communion, might have been left to private discretion, not possibly without some inconvenience, but with less, as I conceive, than resulted from rendering their observance indispensable.” 2 1 The Advertisements, as the articles drawn up by Archbishop Parker were called, may be consulted in Professor Prothero's work, pp. 191-4. They are styled Parker's Advertisements, 1565, and prescribe the conditions to be observed in connection with doctrine and preaching, the administration of prayers and sacraments, certain orders in ecclesiastical policy, and the kind of apparel to be worn by all ecclesiastical persons. 2 Hallam's Constitutional History of England, vol. i. P. 241. |