superiority of bishops, and pretended to bring a democracy into the Church, yet their propositions were heard, considered, and by contrary writings debated and discussed. Yet all this while it was perceived that their course was dangerous and very popular. As because Papistry was odious, therefore it was ever in their mouths that they sought to purge the Church from the relics of Popery; a thing acceptable to the people, who love ever to run from one extreme to another. Because multitudes of rogues and poverty were an eyesore and dislike to every man, therefore they put it into the people's head that if discipline were planted there should be no beggars nor vagabonds; a thing very plausible. And in like manner they promised the people may [? many] other impossible wonders of their discipline. Besides, they opened the people a way to government by their consistory and presbytery: a thing though in consequence no less prejudicial to the liberties of private men than to the sovereignty of princes, yet in the first show very popular. Nethertheless this (except it were in some few that entered into extreme contempt) was borne with, because they pretended but in dutiful manner to make propositions, and to leave it to the providence of God and the authority of the magistrate. But now of late years, when there issued from them a colony of those that affirmed the assent of the magistrate was not to be attended; when, under pretence of a concession to avoid slanders and imputations, they combined themselves by classes and subscriptions; when they descended into that vile and base means of defacing the government of the Church by ridiculous pasquils; when they began to make many subjects in doubt to take an oath, which is one of the fundamental parts of justice in this land and in all places; when they began both to vaunt of the strength and number of their partisans and followers, and to use

comminations that their cause would prevail though with uproar and violence; then it appeared to be no more zeal, no more conscience, but mere faction and division; and therefore, though the State was compelled to hold somewhat a harder hand to restrain them than before, yet it was with as great moderation as the peace of the Church and State could permit. And therefore, Sir, to conclude, consider uprightly of these matters, and you shall see her Majesty is no temporiser in religion. It is not the success abroad, nor the change of servants here at home, can alter her; only as the things themselves alter, so she applieth her religious wisdom to methods correspondent unto them; still retaining the two rules. before mentioned, in dealing tenderly with consciences and yet in discovering faction from conscience, and softness from singularity.'

The date of this luminous survey of the ecclesiastical position in England is not given, but it was certainly after 1588, for the Spanish Armada is mentioned in the historical tone of an event that had been some time past. The complete discomfiture of that iniquitous invasion destroyed once for all the dreams of the Papal Court that England could be coerced into an acceptance of Papal supremacy, with all its extortions and abuses. The Seminarists, who had been for years engaged in secretly fomenting sedition among the Roman Catholics of England, had translated their own hopes into assurances to the Roman Curia that the apparition of the Armada in British waters would be the signal for an insurrection on the part of avowed Roman Catholics, who

'Bacon's Works, viii. 98-101.

would be joined by a host of crypto-Papists, who were fain to bow in the house of Rimmon till the banner of deliverance appeared in sight. The event falsified these anticipations. There were no cryptoPapists, and Roman Catholics distinguished themselves in defence of their country's freedom and rights.

I

CHAPTER IV

THE TESTIMONY OF ANGLICAN DIVINES

POPERY having thus ceased to be a political danger, the reaction against the violence and excesses of the Puritans naturally increased, and the accession of James gave it a fresh impulse. That astute sovereign, with all his pedantry, was a man of great ability, solid learning-befitting the pupil of George Buchanan--and much political sagacity. Equally opposed to the excesses and anarchical doctrines of the Puritans and to the usurpations of the Papacy, he sought out for the highest offices in the Church men remarkable for learning, ability, integrity, and sobriety of character: a policy which was continued by his son and successor,' and which gave us the

He

Charles I. had great faults; but he had great virtues also. was a munificent patron of art and literature, and did much to elevate the national character in both departments. The purity of his life and the sincerity of his religious profession are beyond dispute. And his love for the Church of England was that of a devout Christian, not of a politician who desired to use the Church as an instrument of statecraft. The following letter to Alexander Henderson, written on May 29, 1646, explains his reasons for rejecting a proposal to abolish Episcopacy in England, and bears the

great divines of the seventeenth century, who are par excellence the representative theologians of the stamp of genuine sincerity. Compliance would probably have saved his life and crown:

'No one thing made me more reverence the Reformation of my Mother, the Church of England, than that it was done according to the Apostle's defence, Acts xxiv. 18-neither with multitude nor with tumult, legally and orderly; and by those whom I conceive to have only the reforming power, which, with many other inducements, made me always confident that the work was very perfect as to essentials; of which Church government being undoubtedly one, I put no question but that would have been likewise altered if there had been cause; which opinion of mine was soon turned into more than a confidence, when I perceived that in this particular, as I must say of all the rest, we retained nothing but according as it was deduced from the Apostles to be the constant universal custom of the primitive Church; and that it was of such consequence as by the alteration of it we should deprive ourselves of a lawful priesthood; and then how the Sacraments can be duly administered is easy to judge. These are the principal reasons, which make me believe that Bishops are necessary for a Church; and I think sufficient for me, if I had no more, not to give my consent for their expulsion out of England; but I have another obligation that to my particular is a no less tie of conscience, which is my Coronation Oath. Now if, as St. Paul saith-Rom. xiv. 23-he that doubteth is damned if he eat, what can I expect, if I should not only give way knowingly to my people's sinning, but likewise be perjured myself?

Now consider, ought I not to keep myself from presumptuous sins? and you know who says, "What doth it profit a man though he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Wherefore my constant maintenance of Episcopacy in England, where there was never any other government [of the Church] since Christianity was in this kingdom, methinks should be rather commended than wondered at.'

Hallam, the historian, writes: No candid reader, I think, can doubt that a serious sense of obligation was predominant in Charles's persevering fidelity to the English Church.' In the same chapter he gives his judgment concerning those who took away his life :

'It was, as we all know, the act of a bold but very small minority. who, having forcibly expelled their colleagues from Parliament, had