ORIGIN OF PURITANISM. 279 VIII. reform was demanded; and the friends of the estab- CHAP., lished liturgy expressed in the prayer-book itself a wish for its furtherance.1 The party strongest in numbers pleaded expediency for retaining much that had been sanctioned by ancient usage; while abhorrence of superstition excited the other party to demand the boldest innovations. The austere principle was now announced, that not even a ceremony should be tolerated, unless it was enjoined by the word of God.2 And this was Puritanism. The church of England, at least in its ceremonial part, was established by an act of parliament, or a royal ordinance; Puritanism, zealous for independence, admitted no voucher but the Bible-a fixed rule, which they would allow neither parliament, nor hierarchy, nor king, to interpret. The Puritans adhered to the established church as far as their interpretations of the Bible seemed to warrant ; but no further, not even in things of indifference. They would yield nothing in religion to the temporal sovereign; they would retain nothing that seemed a relic of the religion which they had renounced. They asserted the equality of the plebeian clergy, and directed their fiercest attacks against the divine right of bishops, as the only remaining strong-hold of superstition. In most of these views they were sustained by the reformers of the continent. Bucer and Peter Martyr both complained of the backwardness of the reformation in England; Calvin wrote in the same strain. When Hooper, who had gone into exile in 1 Neal's Puritans, i. 121. Neal's New England, i. 51. 2 So Cartwright, a few years later, in his Reply to Whitgift, 27: En matters of the church, there may be nothing done but by the word of God." In his Sec. Reply, 1575, p. 81: “Et is not enough, that the Scripture speaketh not against them, unless it speak for them." 3 Strype's Memorials, ii. C. xxviii. 4 Hallam's England, i. 140. 280 THE PURITANS IN EXILE. CHAP. the latter years of Henry VIII., was appointed bishop VIII. of Gloucester, he, for a time, refused1 to be consecrated 1550. in the vestments which the law required; and his reJuly. fusal marks the era when the Puritans first existed as a separate party. They demanded a thorough reform · the established church desired to check the propensity to change. The strict party repelled all union with the Catholics; the politic party aimed at conciliating their compliance. The Churchmen, with, perhaps, a wise moderation, differed from the ancient forms as little as possible, and readily adopted the use of things indifferent; the Puritans could not sever themselves too widely from the Roman usages, and sought glaring occasions to display their antipathy. The surplice and the square cap, for several generations, remained things of importance; for they became the badges of a party. They were rejected as the livery of superstition-the outward sign, that prescription was to prevail over reason, and authority to control inquiry. The unwilling use of them was evidence of religious servitude. 1553 to 1558. The reign of Mary involved both parties in danger; but they whose principles wholly refused communion with Rome, were placed in the greatest peril. Rogers and Hooper, the first martyrs of Protestant England, were Puritans; and it may be remarked, that, while Cranmer, the head and founder of the English church, desired, almost to the last, by delays, recantations, and entreaties, to save himself from the horrid death to which he was doomed, the Puritan martyrs never sought, by concessions, to escape the flames. 1 Strype's Memorials, ii. 226, and Repository, ii. 118-132. Hallam, i. 141. Neal's Puritans, i. 108 For THE PURITANS IN EXILE. 281 The offer of CHAP. them, compromise was itself apostasy. A large part of the English clergy returned to their submission to the see of Rome; others firmly adhered to the reformation, which they had adopted from conviction; and very many, who had taken advantage of the laws1 of Edward, sanctioning the marriage of the clergy, had, in their wives and children, given hostages for their fidelity to the Protestant cause. Multitudes, therefore, hurried into exile to escape the grasp of vindictive bigotry; but even in foreign lands, two parties among the emigrants were visible; and the sympathies of a common exile could not immediately eradicate the rancor of religious divisions. The one party 2 aimed at renewing abroad the forms of discipline which had been sanctioned by the English parliaments in the reign of Edward; the Puritans, on the contrary, endeavored to sweeten exile by a complete emancipation from ceremonies which they had reluctantly observed. The sojourning in Frankfort was imbittered by the anger of consequent divisions; but Time, the great calmer of the human passions, softened the asperities of controversy; and a reconciliation of the two parties was prepared by concessions to the Puritans. For the circumstances of their abode on the continent were well adapted to strengthen the influence of the 3 161, 162, 163. "We will joyne VII. 282 ELIZABETH AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. CHAP. stricter sect. While the companions of their exile VIII. had, with the most bitter intolerance, been rejected 1558. by Denmark and Northern Germany,' the English emigrants received in Switzerland the kindest welcome; their love for the rigorous austerity of a spiritual worship was confirmed by the stern simplicity of the republic; and some of them had enjoyed in Geneva the instructions and the friendship of Calvin. On the death of Mary, the Puritans returned to England, with still stronger antipathies to the forms of worship and the vestures, which they now repelled as associated with the cruelties of Roman intolerance at home, and which they had seen so successfully rejected by the churches of Switzerland. The pledges which had been given at Frankfort and Geneva, to promote further reforms, were redeemed.* But the controversy did not remain a dispute about ceremonies; it was modified by the personal character of the English sovereign, and became identified with the political parties in the state. The first act of parliament in the reign of Elizabeth declared the supremacy of the crown in the state ecclesiastical; and the uniformity of common prayer was soon established under the severest penalties. In these enactments, the common zeal to assert the Protestant ascendency left out of sight the scruples of the Puritans. 3 The early associations of the younger daughter of Henry VIII. led her to respect the faith of the Catholics, and to love the magnificence of their worship. She publicly thanked one of her chaplains, who had 1 Planck's Geschichte des Protestantischen Lehrbegriffs, b. v. t. ii. p. 35-45, and 69. 2 Prince, 288. 3 1 Elizabeth, c. i. Statutes, iv. 350-355. Hallam, i. 152. Mackintosh, iii. 45, 46. 4 1 Elizabeth, c. ii. Hallam, i. 153. Mackintosh, iii. 46, 47. ELIZABETH AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 283 VIII. asserted the real presence; and, on a revision of the CHAP. creed of the English church, the tenet of transubstantiation was no longer expressly rejected. To calm the fury of religious intolerance, let it be forever remembered, that the doctrine of the real presence, which, by the statutes of the realm in the reign of Edward VI., Englishmen were punished for believing, and in that of Henry VIII. were burned at the stake for denying, was, in the reign of Elizabeth, left undecided, as a question of national indifference. She long struggled to retain images, the crucifix, and tapers, in her private chapel; she was inclined to offer prayers to the Virgin; she favored the invocation of saints.1 She insisted upon the continuance of the celibacy of the clergy, and, during her reign, their marriages took place only by connivance. For several years, she desired and was able to conciliate the Catholics into a partial conformity. The Puritans denounced concession to the Papists, even in things indifferent; but during the reign of her sister, Elizabeth had conformed in all things, and she still retained an attachment for many tenets that were deemed the most objectionable. Could she, then, favor the party of rigid reform? 3 Besides the influence of early education, the love of authority would not permit Elizabeth to cherish the new sect among Protestants-a sect which had risen in defiance of all ordinary powers of the world, and which could justify its existence only on a strong claim to natural liberty. The Catholics were friends to monarchy, if not to the monarch; they upheld the forms of regal government, if they were not friends to 1 Burnett, part ii. b. iii. No. 6. Heylin, 124. Neal's Puritans, i. 191, 192. Mackintosh, iii. 161. Hume, c. xlv. Hallam, i. 124. 2 Neal's Puritans, i. 205, 206. Strype's Parker, 107. 3 Southey's Book of the Church, i. 257,258. |