to prove that it was conformable to the apostolical scheme as deduced
merely from the scriptures. A pious reverence for the sacred writings,
which they made almost their exclusive study, had degenerated into very
narrow views on the great themes of natural religion and the moral law,
as deducible from reason and sentiment. These, as most of the various
families of their descendants continue to do, they greatly slighted, or
even treated as the mere chimeras of heathen philosophy. If they looked
to the Mosaic law as the standard of criminal jurisprudence, if they
sought precedents from scripture for all matters of temporal policy,
much more would they deem the practice of the apostles an unerring and
immutable rule for the discipline of the Christian church.[355] To
encounter these adversaries, Hooker took a far more original course than
the ordinary controvertists, who fought their battle with conflicting
interpretations of scriptural texts or passages from the fathers. He
enquired into the nature and foundation of law itself as the rule of
operation to all created beings, yielding thereto obedience by
unconscious necessity, or sensitive appetite, or reasonable choice;
reviewing especially those laws that regulate human agency, as they
arise out of moral relations, common to our species, or the institutions
of politic societies, or the inter-community of independent nations; and
having thoroughly established the fundamental distinction between laws
natural and positive, eternal and temporary, immutable and variable, he
came with all this strength of moral philosophy to discriminate by the
same criterion the various rules and precepts contained in the
scriptures. It was a kind of maxim among the puritans, that scripture
was so much the exclusive rule of human actions, that whatever, in
matters at least concerning religion, could not be found to have its
authority, was unlawful. Hooker devoted the whole second book of his
work to the refutation of this principle. He proceeded afterwards to
attack its application more particularly to the episcopal scheme of
church government, and to the various ceremonies or usages which those
sectaries treated as either absolutely superstitious, or at least as
impositions without authority. It was maintained by this great writer,
not only that ritual observances are variable according to the
discretion of ecclesiastical rulers, but that no certain form of polity
is set down in scripture as generally indispensable for a Christian
church. Far, however, from conceding to his antagonists the fact which
they assumed, he contended for episcopacy as an apostolical institution,
and always preferable, when circumstances would allow its preservation,
to the more democratical model of the Calvinistic congregations. "If we
did seek," he says, "to maintain that which most advantageth our own
cause, the very best way for us and the strongest against them were to
hold, even as they do, that in scripture there must needs be found some
particular form of church polity which God hath instituted, and which
for that very cause belongeth to all churches at all times. But with any
such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those
things seem the truest, which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a
thing which we neither like nor mean to follow."
The richness of Hooker's eloquence is chiefly displayed in his first
book; beyond which perhaps few who want a taste for ecclesiastical
reading are likely to proceed. The second and third, however, though
less brilliant, are not inferior in the force and comprehensiveness of
reasoning. The eighth and last returns to the subject of civil
government, and expands, with remarkable liberality, the principles he
had laid down as to its nature in the first book. Those that intervene
are mostly confined to a more minute discussion of the questions mooted
between the church and puritans; and in these, as far as I have looked
into them, though Hooker's argument is always vigorous and logical, and
he seems to be exempt from that abusive insolence to which polemical
writers were then even more prone than at present, yet he has not
altogether the terseness or lucidity, which long habits of literary
warfare, and perhaps a natural turn of mind, have given to some expert
dialecticians. In respect of language, the three posthumous books,
partly from having never received the author's last touches, and partly,
perhaps, from his weariness of the labour, are beyond comparison less
elegantly written than the preceding.
The better parts of the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ bear a resemblance to
the philosophical writings of antiquity, in their defects as well as
their excellencies. Hooker is often too vague in the use of general
terms, too inconsiderate in the admission of principles, too apt to
acquiesce in the scholastic pseudo-philosophy, and indeed in all
received tenets; he is comprehensive rather than sagacious, and more
fitted to sift the truth from the stores of accumulated learning than to
seize it by an original impulse of his own mind; somewhat also impeded,
like many other great men of that and the succeeding century, by too
much acquaintance with books, and too much deference for their authors.
It may be justly objected to some passages, that they elevate
ecclesiastical authority, even in matters of belief, with an
exaggeration not easily reconciled to the protestant right of private
judgment, and even of dangerous consequence in those times; as when he
inclines to give a decisive voice in theological controversies to
general councils; not indeed on the principles of the church of Rome,
but on such as must end in the same conclusion, the high probability
that the aggregate judgment of many grave and learned men should be well
founded.[356] Nor would it be difficult to point out several other
subjects, such as religious toleration, as to which he did not
emancipate himself from the trammels of prejudice. But, whatever may be
the imperfections of his _Ecclesiastical Polity_, they are far more than
compensated by its eloquence and its reasoning, and above all by that
deep pervading sense of the relation between man and his Creator, as the
groundwork of all eternal law, which rendered the first book of this
work a rampart, on the one hand against the puritan school who shunned
the light of nature as a deceitful meteor; and on the other against that
immoral philosophy which, displayed in the dark precepts of Machiavel,
or lurking in the desultory sallies of Montaigne, and not always
rejected by writers of more apparent seriousness, threatened to destroy
the sense of intrinsic distinctions in the quality of actions, and to
convert the maxims of state-craft and dissembling policy into the rule
of life and manners.
Nothing perhaps is more striking to a reader of the _Ecclesiastical
Polity_ than the constant and almost excessive predilection of Hooker
for those liberal principles of civil government, which are sometimes so
just and always so attractive. Upon these subjects, his theory
absolutely coincides with that of Locke. The origin of government, both
in right and in fact, he explicitly derives from a primary contract;
"without which consent, there were no reason that one should take upon
him to be lord or judge over another; because, although there be,
according to the opinion of some very great and judicious men, a kind of
natural right in the noble, wise, and virtuous, to govern them which are
of servile disposition; nevertheless, for manifestation of this their
right, and men's more peaceable contentment on both sides, the assent of
them who are to be governed seemeth necessary." "The lawful power," he
observes elsewhere, "of making laws to command whole politic societies
of men, belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for
any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the
same of himself, and not either by express commission immediately and
personally received from God, or else by authority received at first
from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better
than mere tyranny. Laws they are not, therefore, which public
approbation hath not made so. But approbation not only they give, who
personally declare their assent by voice, sign, or act; but also when
others do it in their names, by right originally, at the least, derived
from them. As in parliaments, councils, and the like assemblies,
although we be not personally ourselves present, notwithstanding our
assent is by reason of other agents there in our behalf. And what we do
by others, no reason but that it should stand as our deed, no less
effectually to bind us, than if ourselves had done it in person." And in
another place still more peremptorily: "Of this thing no man doubteth,
namely, that in all societies, companies, and corporations, what
severally each shall be bound unto, it must be with all their assents
ratified. Against all equity it were that a man should suffer detriment
at the hands of men, for not observing that which he never did either by
himself or others mediately or immediately agree unto."
These notions respecting the basis of political society, so far unlike
what prevailed among the next generation of churchmen, are chiefly
developed and dwelt upon in Hooker's concluding book, the eighth; and
gave rise to a rumour, very sedulously propagated soon after the time of
its publication, and still sometimes repeated, that the posthumous
portion of his work had been interpolated or altered by the
puritans.[357] For this surmise, however, I am persuaded that there is
no foundation. The three latter books are doubtless imperfect, and it is
possible that verbal changes may have been made by their transcribers or
editors; but the testimony that has been brought forward to throw a
doubt over their authenticity consists in those vague and
self-contradictory stories, which gossiping compilers of literary
anecdote can easily accumulate; while the intrinsic evidence arising
from the work itself, on which, in this branch of criticism, I am apt
chiefly to rely, seems altogether to repel every suspicion. For not only
the principles of civil government, presented in a more expanded form by
Hooker in the eighth book, are precisely what he laid down in the first;
but there is a peculiar chain of consecutive reasoning running through
it, wherein it would be difficult to point out any passages that could
be rejected without dismembering the context. It was his business in
this part of the _Ecclesiastical Polity_, to vindicate the queen's
supremacy over the church: and this he has done by identifying the
church with the commonwealth; no one, according to him, being a member
of the one who was not also a member of the other. But as the
constitution of the Christian church, so far as the laity partook in its
government, by choice of pastors or otherwise, was undeniably
democratical, he laboured to show, through the medium of the original
compact of civil society, that the sovereign had received this, as well
as all other powers, at the hands of the people. "Laws being made among
us," he affirms, "are not by any of us so taken or interpreted, as if
they did receive their force from power which the prince doth
communicate unto the parliament, or unto any other court under him, but
from power which the whole body of the realm being naturally possessed
with, hath by free and deliberate assent derived unto him that ruleth
over them so far forth as hath been declared; so that our laws made
concerning religion do take originally their essence from the power of
the whole realm and church of England."
In this system of Hooker and Locke, for it will be obvious to the reader
that their principles were the same, there is much, if I am not
mistaken, to disapprove. That no man can be justly bound by laws which
his own assent has not ratified, appears to me a position incompatible
with the existence of society in its literal sense, or illusory in the
sophistical interpretations by which it is usual to evade its meaning.
It will be more satisfactory and important to remark the views which
this great writer entertained of our own constitution, to which he
frequently and fearlessly appeals, as the standing illustration of a
government restrained by law. "I cannot choose," he says, "but commend
highly their wisdom, by whom the foundation of the commonwealth hath
been laid; wherein though no manner of person or cause be unsubject unto
the king's power, yet so is the power of the king over all, and in all
limited, that unto all his proceedings the law itself is a rule. The
axioms of our regal government are these: 'Lex facit regem'--the king's
grant of any favour made contrary to the law is void;-'Rex nihil potest
nisi quod jure potest'--what power the king hath, he hath it by law: the
bounds and limits of it are known, the entire community giveth general
order by law, how all things publicly are to be done; and the king, as
the head thereof, the highest in authority over all, causeth, according
to the same law, every particular to be framed and ordered thereby. The
whole body politic maketh laws, which laws give power unto the king; and
the king having bound himself to use according to law that power, it so
falleth out, that the execution of the one is accomplished by the
other." These doctrines of limited monarchy recur perpetually in the
eighth book; and though Hooker, as may be supposed, does not enter upon
the perilous question of resistance, and even intimates that he does not
see how the people can limit the extent of power once granted, unless
where it escheats to them, yet he positively lays it down, that usurpers
of power, that is, lawful rulers arrogating more than the law gives to
them, cannot in conscience bind any man to obedience.
It would perhaps have been a deviation from my subject to enlarge so
much on these political principles in a writer of any later age, when
they had been openly sustained in the councils of the nation. But as the
reigns of the Tudor family were so inauspicious to liberty that some
have been apt to imagine its recollection to have been almost effaced,
it becomes of more importance to show that absolute monarchy was, in the
eyes of so eminent an author as Hooker, both pernicious in itself, and
contrary to the fundamental laws of the English commonwealth. Nor would
such sentiments, we may surely presume, have been avowed by a man of
singular humility, and whom we might charge with somewhat of an
excessive deference to authority, unless they had obtained more
currency, both among divines and lawyers, than the complaisance of
courtiers in these two professions might lead us to conclude; Hooker
being not prone to deal in paradoxes, nor to borrow from his adversaries
that sturdy republicanism of the school of Geneva which had been their
scandal. I cannot indeed but suspect that his whig principles, in the
last book, are announced with a temerity that would have startled his
superiors; and that its authenticity, however called in question, has
been better preserved by the circumstance of a posthumous publication
than if he had lived to give it to the world. Whitgift would probably
have induced him to suppress a few passages incompatible with the
servile theories already in vogue. It is far more usual that an author's
genuine sentiments are perverted by means of his friends and patrons
than of his adversaries.
_Spoliation of church revenues._--The prelates of the English church,
while they inflicted so many severities on others, had not always cause
to exult in their own condition. From the time when Henry taught his
courtiers to revel in the spoil of monasteries, there had been a
perpetual appetite for ecclesiastical possessions. Endowed by a prodigal
superstition with pomp and wealth beyond all reasonable measure, and far
beyond what the new system of religion appeared to prescribe, the church
of England still excited the covetousness of the powerful, and the
scandal of the austere.[358] I have mentioned in another place how the
bishoprics were impoverished in the first reformation under Edward VI.
The catholic bishops who followed made haste to plunder, from a
consciousness that the goods of their church were speedily to pass into
the hands of heretics.[359] Hence the alienation of their estates had
gone so far that in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign statutes were
made, disabling ecclesiastical proprietors from granting away their
lands, except on leases for three lives, or twenty-one years.[360] But
an unfortunate reservation was introduced in favour of the Crown. The
queen, therefore, and her courtiers, who obtained grants from her,
continued to prey upon their succulent victim. Few of her council
imitated the noble disinterestedness of Walsingham, who spent his own
estate in her service, and left not sufficient to pay his debts. The
documents of that age contain ample proofs of their rapacity. Thus Cecil
surrounded his mansion-house at Burleigh with estates, once belonging to
the see of Peterborough. Thus Hatton built his house in Holborn on the
Bishop of Ely's garden. Cox, on making resistance to this spoliation,
received a singular epistle from the queen.[361] This bishop, in
consequence of such vexations, was desirous of retiring from the see
before his death. After that event, Elizabeth kept it vacant eighteen
years. During this period we have a petition to her from Lord Keeper
Puckering, that she would confer it on Scambler, Bishop of Norwich, then
eighty-eight years old, and notorious for simony, in order that he might
give him a lease of part of the lands.[362] These transactions denote
the mercenary and rapacious spirit which leavened almost all Elizabeth's
courtiers.
The bishops of this reign do not appear, with some distinguished
exceptions, to have reflected so much honour on the established church
as those who attach a superstitious reverence to the age of the
reformation are apt to conceive. In the plunder that went forward, they
took good care of themselves. Charges against them of simony,
corruption, covetousness, and especially destruction of their church
estates for the benefit of their families, are very common--sometimes no
doubt unjust, but too frequent to be absolutely without foundation.[363]
The council often wrote to them, as well as concerning them, with a sort
of asperity which would astonish one of their successors. And the queen
never restrained herself in treating them on any provocation with a good
deal of rudeness, of which I have just mentioned an egregious
example.[364] In her speech to parliament on closing the session of
1584, when many complaints against the rulers of the church had rung in
her ears, she told the bishops that if they did not amend what was
wrong, she meant to depose them.[365] For there seems to have been no
question in that age but that this might be done by virtue of the
Crown's supremacy.
The church of England was not left by Elizabeth in circumstances that
demanded applause for the policy of her rulers. After forty years of
constantly aggravated molestation of the nonconforming clergy, their
numbers were become greater, their popularity more deeply rooted, their
enmity to the established order more irreconcilable. It was doubtless a
problem of no slight difficulty, by what means so obstinate and
opinionated a class of sectaries could have been managed; nor are we
perhaps, at this distance of time, altogether competent to decide upon
the fittest course of policy in that respect.[366] But it is manifest
that the obstinacy of bold and sincere men is not to be quelled by any
punishments that do not exterminate them, and that they were not likely
to entertain a less conceit of their own reason when they found no
arguments so much relied on to refute it as that of force. Statesmen
invariably take a better view of such questions than churchmen; and we
may well believe that Cecil and Walsingham judged more sagaciously than
Whitgift and Aylmer. The best apology that can be made for Elizabeth's
tenaciousness of those ceremonies which produced this fatal contention I
have already suggested, without much express authority from the records
of that age; namely, the justice and expediency of winning over the
catholics to conformity, by retaining as much as possible of their
accustomed rites. But in the latter period of the queen's reign, this
policy had lost a great deal of its application; or rather the same
principle of policy would have dictated numerous concessions in order to
satisfy the people. It appears by no means unlikely that, by reforming
the abuses and corruption of the spiritual courts, by abandoning a part
of their jurisdiction, so heterogeneous and so unduly obtained, by
abrogating obnoxious and at best frivolous ceremonies, by restraining
pluralities of benefices, by ceasing to discountenance the most diligent
ministers, and by more temper and disinterestedness in their own
behaviour, the bishops would have palliated, to an indefinite degree,
that dissatisfaction with the established scheme of polity, which its
want of resemblance to that of other protestant churches must more or
less have produced. Such a reformation would at least have contented
those reasonable and moderate persons who occupy sometimes a more
extensive ground between contending factions than the zealots of either
are willing to believe or acknowledge.
_General remarks._--I am very sensible that such freedom as I have used
in this chapter cannot be pleasing to such as have sworn allegiance to
either the Anglican or the puritan party; and that even candid and
liberal minds may be inclined to suspect that I have not sufficiently
admitted the excesses of one side to furnish an excuse for those of the
other. Such readers I would gladly refer to Lord Bacon's "Advertisement
touching the Controversies of the Church of England;" a treatise written
under Elizabeth, in that tone of dispassionate philosophy which the
precepts of Burleigh sown in his own deep and fertile mind had taught
him to apply. This treatise, to which I did not turn my attention in
writing the present chapter, appears to coincide in every respect with
the views it displays. If he censures the pride and obstinacy of the
puritan teachers, their indecent and libellous style of writing, their
affected imitation of foreign churches, their extravagance of receding
from everything formerly practised, he animadverts with no less
plainness on the faults of the episcopal party, on the bad example of
some prelates, on their peevish opposition to every improvement, their
unjust accusations, their contempt of foreign churches, their
persecuting spirit.[367]
_Letter of Walsingham in defence of the queen's government._--Yet that
we may not deprive this great queen's administration, in what concerned
her dealings with the two religious parties opposed to the established
church, of what vindication may best be offered for it, I will refer the
reader to a letter of Sir Francis Walsingham, written to a person in
France, after the year 1580.[368] It is a very able apology for her
government; and if the reader should detect, as he doubtless may,
somewhat of sophistry in reasoning, and of mis-statement in matter of
fact, he will ascribe both one and the other to the narrow spirit of the
age with respect to civil and religious freedom, or to the circumstances
of the writer, an advocate whose sovereign was his client.
FOOTNOTES:
[266] Sleidan, _Hist. de la Reformation_ (par Courayer), ii. 74.
[267] Strype's _Cranmer_, 354.
[268] These transactions have been perpetuated by a tract, entitled
"Discourse of the Troubles at Frankfort," first published in 1575, and
reprinted in the well-known collection entitled _The Phoenix_. It is
fairly and temperately written, though with an avowed bias towards the
puritan party. Whatever we read in any historian on the subject, is
derived from this authority; but the refraction is of course very
different through the pages of Collier and of Neal.
[269] Strype, ii. 1. There was a Lutheran party at the beginning of her
reign, to which the queen may be said to have inclined, not altogether
from religion, but from policy. _Id._ i. 53. Her situation was very
hazardous; and in order to connect herself with sincere allies, she had
thoughts of joining the Smalcaldic league of the German princes, whose
bigotry would admit none but members of the Augsburg confession. Jewel's
letters to Peter Martyr, in the appendix to Burnet's third volume, throw
considerable light on the first two years of Elizabeth's reign; and show
that famous prelate to have been what afterwards would have been called
a precisian or puritan. He even approved a scruple Elizabeth entertained
about her title of head of the church, as appertaining only to Christ.
But the unreasonableness of the discontented party, and the natural
tendency of a man who has joined the side of power to deal severely with
those he has left, made him afterwards their enemy.
[270] Roods and relics accordingly were broken to pieces and burned
throughout the kingdom, of which Collier makes loud complaint. This,
Strype says, gave much offence to the catholics; and it was not the most
obvious method of inducing them to conform.
[271] Burnet, iii. Appendix, 290; Strype's _Parker_, 46.
[272] Quantum auguror, non scribam ad te posthac episcopus. Eo enim jam
res pervenit, ut aut cruces argenteae et stanneae, quas nos ubique
confregimus, restituendae sint, aut episcopatus relinquendi. Burnet, 294.
Sandys writes, that he had nearly been deprived for expressing himself
warmly against images. _Id._ 296. Other proofs of the text may be found
in the same collection, as well as in Strype's _Annals_, and his _Life
of Parker_. Even Parker seems, on one occasion, to have expected the
queen to make such a retrograde movement in religion as would compel
them all to disobey her. _Life of Parker_, Appendix, 29; a very
remarkable letter.
[273] Strype's _Parker_, 310. The archbishop seems to disapprove this as
inexpedient, but rather coldly; he was far from sharing the usual
opinions on this subject. A puritan pamphleteer took the liberty to name
the queen's chapel as "the pattern and precedent of all superstition."
Strype's _Annals_, i. 471.
[274] Burnet, ii. 395.
[275] One of the injunctions to the visitors of 1559, reciting the
offence and slander to the church that had arisen by lack of discreet
and sober behaviour in many ministers, both in choosing of their wives,
and in living with them, directs that no priest or deacon shall marry
without the allowance of the bishops, and two justices of the peace,
dwelling near the woman's abode, nor without the consent of her parents
or kinsfolk, or, for want of these, of her master or mistress, on pain
of not being permitted to exercise the ministry, or hold any benefice;
and that the marriages of bishops should be approved by the
metropolitan, and also by commissioners appointed by the queen. _Somers
Tracts_, i. 65; Burnet, ii. 398. It is reasonable to suppose, that when
a host of low-bred and illiterate priests were at once released from the
obligation to celibacy, many of them would abuse their liberty
improvidently, or even scandalously; and this probably had increased
Elizabeth's prejudice against clerical matrimony. But I do not suppose
that this injunction was ever much regarded. Some time afterwards (Aug.
1561) she put forth another extraordinary injunction, that no member of
a college or cathedral should have his wife living within its precincts,
under pain of forfeiting all his preferments. Cecil sent this to Parker,
telling him at the same time that it was with great difficulty he had
prevented the queen from altogether forbidding the marriage of priests.
_Life of P._ 107. And the archbishop himself says, in the letter above
mentioned, "I was in a horror to hear such words to come from her mild
nature and Christianly learned conscience, as she spake concerning God's
holy ordinance and institution of matrimony."
[276] Sandys writes to Parker, April 1559, "The queen's majesty will
wink at it, but not stablish it by law, which is nothing else but to
bastard our children." And decisive proofs are brought by Strype, that
the marriages of the clergy were not held legal, in the first part at
least of the queen's reign. Elizabeth herself, after having been
sumptuously entertained by the archbishop at Lambeth, took leave of Mrs.
Parker with the following courtesy: "_Madam_ (the style of a married
lady) I may not call you; _mistress_ (the appellation at that time of an
unmarried woman) I am loth to call you; but, however, I thank you for
your good cheer." The lady is styled, in deeds made while her husband
was archbishop, _Parker_, alias _Harleston_; which was her maiden name.
And she dying before her husband, her brother is called her heir-at-law,
though she left children. But the archbishop procured letters of
legitimation, in order to render them capable of inheritance. _Life of
Parker_, 511. Others did the same. _Annals_, i. 8. Yet such letters
were, I conceive, beyond the queen's power to grant, and could not have
obtained any regard in a court of law.
In the diocese of Bangor, it was usual for the clergy, some years after
Elizabeth's accession, to pay the bishop for a licence to keep a
concubine. Strype's _Parker_, 203.
[277] Burnet, iii. 305.
[278] Jewel's letters to Bullinger, in Burnet, are full of proofs of his
dissatisfaction; and those who feel any doubts may easily satisfy
themselves from the same collection, and from Strype as to the others.
The current opinion, that these scruples were imbibed during the
banishment of our reformers, must be received with great allowance. The
dislike to some parts of the Anglican ritual had begun at home; it had
broken out at Frankfort; it is displayed in all the early documents of
Elizabeth's reign by the English divines, far more warmly than by their
Swiss correspondents. Grindal, when first named to the see of London,
had his scruples about wearing the episcopal habits removed by Peter
Martyr. Strype's _Grindal_, 29.
[279] It was proposed on this occasion to abolish all saints' days, to
omit the cross in baptism, to leave kneeling at the communion to the
ordinary's discretion, to take away organs, and one or two more of the
ceremonies then chiefly in dispute. Burnet, iii. 303 and Append. 319;
Strype, i. 297, 299. Nowell voted in the minority. It can hardly be
going too far to suppose that some of the majority were attached to the
old religion.
[280] Jewel, one of these visitors, writes afterwards to Martyr:
"Invenimus ubique animos multitudinis satis propensos ad religionem; ibi
etiam, ubi omnia putabantur fore difficillima.... Si quid erat obstinatae
malitiae, id totum erat in presbyteris, illis praesertim, qui aliquando
stetissent a nostra sententia." Burnet, iii. Append. 289. The common
people in London and elsewhere, Strype says, took an active part in
demolishing images; the pleasure of destruction, I suppose, mingling
with their abhorrence of idolatry. And during the conferences held in
Westminster Abbey, Jan. 1559, between the catholic and protestant
divines, the populace who had been admitted as spectators, testified
such disapprobation of the former, that they made it a pretext for
breaking off the argument. There was indeed such a tendency to
anticipate the government in reformation, as necessitated a
proclamation, Dec. 28, 1558, silencing preachers on both sides.
Mr. Butler says, from several circumstances it is evident that a great
majority of the nation then inclined to the Roman catholic religion.
_Mem. of Eng. Catholics_, i. 146. But his proofs of this are extremely
weak. The attachment he supposes to have existed in the laity towards
their pastors may well be doubted; it could not be founded on the
natural grounds of esteem; and if Rishton, the continuator of Sanders de
Schismate, whom he quotes, says that one-third of the nation was
protestant, we may surely double the calculation of so determined a
papist. As to the influence which Mr. B. alleges the court to have
employed in elections for Elizabeth's first parliament, the argument
would equally prove that the majority was protestant under Mary, since
she had recourse to the same means. The whole tenor of historical
documents in Elizabeth's reign proves that the catholics soon became a
minority, and still more among the common people than the gentry. The
north of England, where their strength lay, was in every respect the
least important part of the kingdom. Even according to Dr. Lingard, who
thinks fit to claim half the nation as catholic in the middle of this
reign, the number of recusants certified to the council under 23 Eliz.
c. 1, amounted only to fifty thousand; and, if we can trust the
authority of other lists, they were much fewer before the accession of
James. This writer, I may observe in passing, has, through haste and
thoughtlessness, misstated a passage he cites from Murden's _State
Papers_, p. 605, and confounded the persons suspected for religion in
the city of London, about the time of the Armada, with the whole number
of men fit for arms; thus making the former amount to seventeen thousand
and eighty-three.
Mr. Butler has taken up so paradoxical a notion on this subject, that he
literally maintains the catholics to have been at least one half of the
people at the epoch of the gunpowder plot. Vol. i. p. 295. We should be
glad to know at what time he supposes the grand apostasy to have been
consummated. Cardinal Bentivoglio gives a very different account;
reckoning the real catholics, such as did not make profession of heresy,
at only a thirtieth part of the whole; though he supposes that
four-fifths might become such, from secret inclination or general
indifference, if it were once established. _Opere di Bentivoglio_, p.
83, edit. Paris, 1645. But I presume neither Mr. Butler nor Dr. Lingard
would own these _adiaphorists_.
The latter writer, on the other hand, reckons the Hugonots of France,
soon after 1560, at only one-hundredth part of the nation, quoting for
this Castelnau, a useful memoir writer, but no authority on a matter of
calculation. The stern spirit of Coligni, _atrox animus Catonis_, rising
above all misfortune, and unconquerable, except by the darkest
treachery, is sufficiently admirable without reducing his party to so
miserable a fraction. The Calvinists at this time are reckoned by some
at one-fourth, but more frequently at one-tenth, of the French nation.
Even in the beginning of the next century, when proscription and
massacre, lukewarmness and self-interest, had thinned their ranks, they
are estimated by Bentivoglio (_ubi supra_) at one-fifteenth.
[281] Strype's _Parker_, 152, 153; Collier, 508. In the Lansdowne
Collection, vol. viii. 47, is a letter from Parker, Apr. 1565,
complaining of Turner, dean of Wells, for having made a man do penance
for adultery in a square cap.
[282] Strype's _Parker_, 157, 173.
[283] This apprehension of Elizabeth's taking a disgust to protestantism
is intimated in a letter of Bishop Cox. Strype's _Parker_, 229.
[284] Parker sometimes declares himself willing to see some indulgence
as to the habits and other matters; but, the queen's commands being
peremptory, he had thought it his duty to obey them, though forewarning
her that the puritan ministers would not give way (225, 227). This,
however, is not consistent with other passages, where he appears to
importune the queen to proceed. Her wavering conduct, partly owing to
caprice, partly to insincerity, was naturally vexatious to a man of his
firm and ardent temper. Possibly he might dissemble a little in writing
to Cecil, who was against driving the puritans to extremities. But, on
the review of his whole behaviour, he must be reckoned, and always has
been reckoned, the most severe disciplinarian of Elizabeth's first
hierarchy; though more violent men came afterwards.
[285] Strype's _Annals_, 416; _Parker_, 159. Some years after, these
advertisements obtained the queen's sanction, and got the name of
Articles and Ordinances. _Id._ 160.
[286] Strype's _Annals_, 416, 430; _Life of Parker_, 184. Sampson had
refused a bishopric on account of these ceremonies. Burnet, iii. 292.
[287] _Life of Parker_, 214. Strype says (p. 223) that the suspended
ministers preached again after a little time by connivance.
[288] Jewel is said to have become strict in enforcing the use of the
surplice. _Annals_, 421.
[289] Strype's _Annals_, i. 423, ii. 316; _Life of Parker_, 243, 348;
Burnet, iii. 310, 325, 337. Bishops Grindal and Horn wrote to Zurich,
saying plainly, it was not their fault that the habits were not laid
aside, with the cross in baptism, the use of organs, baptism by women,
etc. P. 314. This last usage was much inveighed against by the
Calvinists, because it involved a theological tenet differing from their
own, as to the necessity of baptism. In Strype's _Annals_, 501, we have
the form of an oath taken by all mid-wives, to exercise their calling
without sorcery or superstition, and to baptize with the proper words.
It was abolished by James I.
Beza was more dissatisfied than the Helvetic divines with the state of
the English church (_Annals_, i. 452; Collier, 503); but dissuaded the
puritans from separation, and advised them rather to comply with the
ceremonies. _Id._ 511.
[290] Strype's _Life of Parker_, 242; _Life of Grindal_, 114.
[291] Burnet, iii. 316; Strype's _Parker_, 155 _et alibi_.
[292] _Id._ 226. The church had but two or three friends, Strype says,
in the council about 1572, of whom Cecil was the chief. _Id._ 388.
[293] Burnet says, on the authority of the visitors' reports, that out
of 9400 beneficed clergymen, not more than about 200 refused to conform.
This caused for some years just apprehensions of the danger into which
religion was brought by their retaining their affections to the old
superstition; "so that," he proceeds, "if Queen Elizabeth had not lived
so long as she did, till all that generation was dead, and a new set of
men better educated and principled were grown up and put in their rooms;
and if a prince of another religion had succeeded before that time, they
had probably turned about again to the old superstition as nimbly as
they had done before in Queen Mary's days." Vol. ii. p. 401. It would be
easy to multiply testimonies out of Strype, to the papist inclinations
of a great part of the clergy in the first part of this reign. They are
said to have been sunk in superstition and looseness of living.
_Annals_, i. 166.
[294] Strype's _Annals_, 138, 177; Collier, 436, 465. This seems to show
that more churches were empty by the desertion of popish incumbents than
the foregoing note would lead us to suppose. I believe that many went
off to foreign parts from time to time, who had complied in 1559; and
others were put out of their livings. The Roman catholic writers make
out a longer list than Burnet's calculation allows.
It appears from an account sent in to the privy council by Parkhurst,
Bishop of Norwich, in 1562, that in his diocese more than one-third of
the benefices were vacant. _Annals_, i. 323. But in Ely, out of 152
cures only 52 were served in 1560. _L. of Parker_, 72.
[295] Parker wrote in 1561 to the bishops of his province, enjoining
them to send him certificates of the names and qualities of all their
clergy; one column, in the form of certificate, was for learning: "And
this," Strype says, "was commonly set down; Latine aliqua verba
intelligit, Latine utcunque intelligit; Latine pauca intelligit," etc.
Sometimes, however, we find doctus. _L. of Parker_, 95. But if the
clergy could not read the language in which their very prayers were
composed, what other learning or knowledge could they have? Certainly
none; and even those who had gone far enough to study the school logic
and divinity, do not deserve a much higher place than the wholly
uninstructed. The Greek tongue was never _generally_ taught in the
universities or public schools till the Reformation, and perhaps not so
soon.
Since this note was written, a letter of Gibson has been published in
Pepys's _Memoirs_, vol. ii. p. 154, mentioning a catalogue he had found
of the clergy in the archdeaconry of Middlesex, A.D. 1563, with their
qualifications annexed. Three only are described as docti Latine et
Graece; twelve are called docti simply; nine, Latine docti; thirty-one,
Latine mediocriter intelligentes; forty-two, Latine perperam, utcunque
aliquid, pauca verba, etc., intelligentes; seventeen are non docti or
indocti. If this was the case in London, what can we think of more
remote parts?
[296] In the struggle made for popery at the queen's accession, the
lower house of convocation sent up to the bishops five articles of
faith, all strongly catholic. These had previously been transmitted to
the two universities, and returned with the hands of the greater part of
the doctors to the first four. The fifth they scrupled, as trenching too
much on the queen's temporal power. Burnet, ii. 388, iii. 269.
Strype says, the universities were so addicted to popery that for some
years few educated in them were ordained. _Life of Grindal_, p. 50. And
Wood's _Antiquities of the University of Oxford_ contain many proofs of
its attachment to the old religion. In Exeter College, as late as 1578,
there were not above four protestants out of eighty, "all the rest
secret or open Roman affectionaries." These chiefly came from the west,
"where popery greatly prevailed, and the gentry were bred up in that
religion." Strype's _Annals_, ii. 539. But afterwards, Wood complains,
"through the influence of Humphrey and Reynolds (the latter of whom
became divinity lecturer on Secretary Walsingham's foundation in 1586),
the disposition of the times, and the long continuance of the Earl of
Leicester, the principal patron of the puritanical faction, in the place
of Chancellor of Oxford, the face of the university was so much altered
that there was little to be seen in it of the church of England,
according to the principles and positions upon which it was first
reformed." _Hist. of Oxford_, vol. ii. p. 228. Previously, however, to
this change towards puritanism, the university had not been Anglican,
but popish; which Wood liked much better than the first, and nearly as
well as the second.
A letter from the University of Oxford to Elizabeth on her accession
(Hearne's edition of Roper's _Life of More_, p. 173) shows the
accommodating character of these academies. They extol Mary as an
excellent queen, but are consoled by the thought of her excellent
successor. One sentence is curious: "Cum _patri_, _fratri_, _sorori_,
nihil fuerit republica carius, _religione optatius_, vera gloria
dulcius; cum in hac familia hae laudes floruerint, vehementer confidimus,
etc., quae ejusdem stirpis sis, easdem cupidissime prosecuturam." It was
a singular strain of complaisance to praise Henry's, Edward's, and
Mary's religious sentiments in the same breath; but the queen might at
least learn this from it, that whether she fixed on one of their creeds,
or devised a new one for herself, she was sure of the acquiescence of
this ancient and learned body. A preceding letter to Cardinal Pole, in
which the times of Henry and Edward are treated more cavalierly, seems
by the style, which is very elegant, to have been the production of the
same pen.
[297] The fellows and scholars of St. John's College, to the number of
three hundred, threw off their hoods and surplices, in 1565, without any
opposition from the master, till Cecil, as chancellor of the university,
took up the matter, and insisted on their conformity to the established
regulations. This gave much dissatisfaction to the university; not only
the more intemperate party, but many heads of colleges and grave men,
among whom we are rather surprised to find the name of Whitgift,
interceding with their chancellor for some mitigation as to these
unpalatable observances. Strype's _Annals_, i. 441; _Life of Parker_,
194. Cambridge had, however, her catholics, as Oxford had her puritans,
of whom Dr. Caius, founder of the college that bears his name, was among
the most remarkable. _Id._ 200. The Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge,
Leicester and Cecil, kept a very strict hand over them, especially the
latter, who seems to have acted as paramount visitor over every college,
making them reverse any act which he disapproved. Strype, _passim_.
[298] Strype's _Annals_, i. 583; _Life of Parker_, 312, 347; _Life of
Whitgift_, 27.
[299] Cartwright's _Admonition_, quoted in Neal's _Hist. of Puritans_,
i. 88.
[300] Madox's _Vindication of Church of England against Neal_, p. 122.
This writer quotes several very extravagant passages from Cartwright,
which go to prove irresistibly that he would have made no compromise
short of the overthrow of the established church. P. 111, etc. "As to
you, dear brethren," is said in a puritan tract of 1570, "whom God hath
called into the brunt of the battle, the Lord keep you constant, that ye
yield neither to toleration, neither to any other subtle persuasions of
dispensations and licences, which were to fortify their Romish
practices; but, as you fight the Lord's fight, be valiant." Madox, p.
287.
[301] These principles had already been broached by those who called
Calvin master; he had himself become a sort of prophet-king at Geneva.
And Collier quotes passages from Knox's _Second Blast_, inconsistent
with any government, except one slavishly subservient to the church. P.
444. The nonjuring historian holds out the hand of fellowship to the
puritans he abhors, when they preach up ecclesiastical independence.
Collier liked the royal supremacy as little as Cartwright; and in giving
an account of Bancroft's attack on the nonconformists for denying it,
enters upon a long discussion in favour of an absolute emancipation from
the control of laymen. P. 610. He does not even approve the
determination of the judges in Cawdrey's case (5 Coke's Reports), though
against the nonconformists, as proceeding on a wrong principle of
setting up the state above the church. P. 634.
[302] The school of Cartwright were as little disposed as the
episcopalians to see the laity fatten on church property. Bancroft, in
his famous sermon preached at Paul's Cross in 1588 (p. 24), divides the
puritans into the clergy factious, and the lay factious. The former, he
says, contend and lay it down in their supplication to parliament in
1585, that things once dedicated to a sacred use ought so to remain for
ever, and not to be converted to any private use. The lay, on the
contrary, think it enough for the clergy to fare as the apostles did.
Cartwright did not spare those who longed to pull down bishoprics for
the sake of plundering them, and charged those who held impropriations
with sin. Bancroft takes delight in quoting his bitter phrases from the
ecclesiastical discipline.
[303] The old friends and protectors of our reformers at Zurich,
Bullinger and Gualter, however they had favoured the principles of the
first nonconformists, write in strong disapprobation of the innovators
of 1574. Strype's _Annals_, ii. 316. And Fox, the martyrologist, a
refuser to conform, speaks, in a remarkable letter quoted by Fuller in
his _Church History_, p. 107, of factiosa illa Puritanorum capita,
saying that he is totus ab iis alienus, and unwilling perbacchari in
episcopos. The same is true of Bernard Gilpin, who disliked some of the
ceremonies, and had subscribed the articles with a reservation, "so far
as agreeable to the word of God;" but was wholly opposed to the new
reform of church discipline. _Carleton's Life of Gilpin_, and
Wordsworth's _Ecclesiastical Biography_, vol. iv. Neal has not reported
the matter faithfully.
[304] "The puritan," says Persons the jesuit, in 1594, "is more
generally favoured throughout the realm with all those which are not of
the Roman religion than is the protestant, upon a certain general
persuasion, that his profession is the more perfect, especially in great
towns, where preachers have made more impression in the artificers and
burghers than in the country people. And among the protestants
themselves, all those that were less interested in ecclesiastical
livings, or other preferments depending of the state, are more affected
commonly to the puritans, or easily are to be induced to pass that way
for the same reason." Doleman's _Conference about the next Succession to
the Crown of England_, p. 242. And again: "The puritan party at home, in
England, is thought to be most rigorous of any other, that is to say,
most ardent, quick, bold, resolute, and to have a great part of the best
captains and soldiers on their side, which is a point of no small
moment."--P. 244. I do not quote these passages out of trust in Father
Persons, but because they coincide with much besides that has occurred
to me in reading, and especially with the parliamentary proceedings of
this reign. The following observation will confirm what may startle some
readers; that the puritans, or at least those who rather favoured them,
had a majority among the protestant gentry in the queen's days. It is
agreed on all hands, and is quite manifest, that they predominated in
the House of Commons. But that house was composed, as it has ever been,
of the principal landed proprietors, and as much represented the general
wish of the community when it demanded a further reform in religious
matters, as on any other subject. One would imagine, by the manner in
which some express themselves, that the discontented were a small
faction, who by some unaccountable means, in despite of the government
and the nation, formed a majority of all parliaments under Elizabeth and
her two successors.
[305] Burnet, iii. 335. Pluralities are still the great abuse of the
church of England; and the rules on this head are so complicated and
unreasonable that scarce any one can remember them. It would be
difficult to prove that, with a view to the interests of religion among
the people, or of the clergy themselves, taken as a body, any
pluralities of benefices with cure of souls ought to remain, except of
small contiguous parishes. But with a view to the interests of some
hundred well connected ecclesiastics, the difficulty is none at all.
[306] D'Ewes, p. 156; _Parliament. Hist._ i. 733, etc.
[307] D'Ewes, p. 239; _Parl. Hist._ 790; Strype's _Life of Parker_, 394.
In a debate between Cardinal Carvajal and Rockisane, the famous Calixtin
archbishop of Prague, at the council of Basle, the former said he would
reduce the whole argument to two syllables; Crede. The latter replied he
would do the same, and confine himself to two others; Proba. Lenfant
makes a very just observation on this: "Si la gravite de l'histoire le
permettoit, on diroit avec le comique: C'est tout comme ici. Il y a long
tems que le premier de ces mots est le langage de ce qu'on appelle
_l'Eglise_, et que le second est le langage de ce qu'on appelle
_l'heresie_." _Concile de Basle_, p. 193.
[308] Several ministers were deprived, in 1572, for refusing to
subscribe the articles. Strype, ii. 186. Unless these were papists,
which indeed is possible, their objection must have been to the articles
touching discipline; for the puritans liked the rest very well.
[309] Neal, 187; Strype's _Parker_, 325. Parker wrote to Lord Burleigh
(June 1573), exciting the council to proceed against some of those men
who had been called before the star-chamber. "He knew them," he said,
"to be cowards"--a very great mistake--"and if they of the privy council
gave over, they would hinder her majesty's government more than they
were aware, and much abate the estimation of their own authorities,"
etc. _Id._ p. 421; Cartwright's _Admonition_ was now prohibited to be
sold. _Ibid._
[310] Neal, 210.
[311] Strype's _Annals_, i. 433.
[312] Strype's _Annals_, ii. 219, 232; _Life of Parker_, 461.
[313] Strype's _Life of Grindal_, 219, 230, 272. The archbishop's letter
to the queen, declaring his unwillingness to obey her requisition, is in
a far bolder strain than the prelates were wont to use in this reign,
and perhaps contributed to the severity she showed towards him. Grindal
was a very honest, conscientious man, but too little of a courtier or
statesman for the place he filled. He was on the point of resigning the
archbishopric when he died; there had at one time been some thoughts of
depriving him.
[314] Strype's _Whitgift_, 27 _et alibi_. He did not disdain to reflect
on Cartwright for his poverty, the consequence of a scrupulous adherence
to his principles. But the controversial writers of every side in the
sixteenth century display a want of decency and humanity which even our
anonymous libellers have hardly matched. Whitgift was not of much
learning, if it be true, as the editors of the _Biographia Britannica_
intimate, that he had no acquaintance with the Greek language. This must
seem strange to those who have an exaggerated notion of the scholarship
of that age.
[315] Strype's _Whitgift_, 115.
[316] Neal, 266; Birch's _Memoirs of Elizabeth_, vol. i. p. 42, 47, etc.
[317] According to a paper in the appendix to Strype's _Life of
Whitgift_, p. 60, the number of conformable ministers in eleven
dioceses, not including those of London and Norwich, the strongholds of
puritanism, was 786, that of non-compliers 49. But Neal says that 233
ministers were suspended in only six counties, 64 of whom in Norfolk, 60
in Suffolk, 38 in Essex. P. 268. The puritans formed so much the more
learned and diligent part of the clergy, that a great scarcity of
preachers was experienced throughout this reign, in consequence of
silencing so many of the former. Thus in Cornwall, about the year 1578,
out of 140 clergymen, not one was capable of preaching. Neal, p. 245.
And, in general, the number of those who could not preach, but only read
the service, was to the others nearly as four to one; the preachers
being a majority only in London. _Id_. p. 320.
This may be deemed by some an instance of Neal's prejudice. But that
historian is not so ill-informed as they suppose; and the fact is highly
probable. Let it be remembered that there existed few books of divinity
in English; that all books were, comparatively to the value of money,
far dearer than at present; that the majority of the clergy were nearly
illiterate, and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low vices;
above all, that they had no means of supplying their deficiences by
preaching the discourses of others; and we shall see little cause for
doubting Neal's statement, though founded on a puritan document.
[318] _Life of Whitgift_, 137 _et alibi pluries_; _Annals_, iii. 183.
[319] Neal, 274; Strype's _Annals_, iii. 180.
The germ of the high commission court seems to have been a commission
granted by Mary (Feb. 1557) to certain bishops and others to inquire
after all heresies, punish persons misbehaving at church, and such as
refused to come thither, either by means of presentments by witness, or
any other politic way they could devise; with full power to proceed as
their discretions and consciences should direct them; and to use all
such means as they could invent, for the searching of the premises, to
call witnesses, and force them to make oath of such things as might
discover what they sought after. Burnet, ii. 347. But the primary model
was the inquisition itself.
It was questioned whether the power of deprivation for not reading the
common prayer, granted to the high commissioners, were legal; the Act of
Uniformity having annexed a much smaller penalty. But it was held by the
judges in the case of Cawdrey (5 Coke Reports), that the act did not
take away the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and supremacy which had ever
appertained to the crown, and by virtue of which it might erect courts
with as full spiritual jurisdiction as the archbishops and bishops
exercised.
[320] Strype's _Whitgift_, 135; and Appendix, 49.
[321] _Id._ 157, 160.
[322] _Id._ 163, 166 _et alibi_; Birch's _Memoirs_, i. 62. There was
said to be a scheme on foot, about 1590, to make all persons in office
subscribe a declaration that episcopacy was lawful by the word of God,
which Burleigh prevented.
[323] Neal, 325, 385.
[324] _Id._ 290; Strype's _Life of Aylmer_, p. 59, etc. His biographer
is here, as in all his writings, too partial to condemn, but too honest
to conceal.
[325] Neal, 294.
[326] Strype's _Aylmer_, 71. When he grew old, and reflected that a
large sum of money would be due from his family, for dilapidations of
the palace at Fulham, etc., he literally proposed to sell his bishopric
to Bancroft. _Id._ 169. The other, however, waited for his death, and
had above L4000 awarded to him; but the crafty old man having laid out
his money in land, this sum was never paid. Bancroft tried to get an act
of parliament in order to render the real estate liable, but without
success. P. 194.
[327] _Somers' Tracts_, i. 166.
[328] Bacon's Works, i. 532.
[329] Birch's _Memoirs_, ii. 146,
[330] _Id. ibid._ Burleigh does not shine much in these memoirs; but
most of the letters they contain are from the two Bacons, then engaged
in the Essex faction, though nephews of the treasurer.
[331] The first of Martin Mar-prelate's libels were published in 1588.
In the month of November of that year the archbishop is directed by a
letter from the council to search for and commit to prison the authors
and printers. Strype's _Whitgift_, 288. These pamphlets are scarce; but
a few extracts from them may be found in Strype, and other authors. The
abusive language of the puritan pamphleteers had begun several years
before. Strype's _Annals_, ii. 193. See the trial of Sir Richard
Knightley of Northamptonshire for dispersing puritanical libels. _State
Trials_, i. 1263.
[332] 23 Eliz. c. 2.
[333] Penry's protestation at his death is in a style of the most
affecting and simple eloquence. _Life of Whitgift_, 409, and Appendix
176. It is a striking contrast to the coarse abuse for which he
suffered. The authors of Martin Mar-prelate were never fully discovered;
but Penry seems not to deny his concern in it.
[334] _State Trials_, 1271. It may be remarked on this as on other
occasions, that Udal's trial is evidently published by himself; and a
defendant, especially in a political proceeding, is apt to give a
partial colour to his own case. _Life of Whitgift_, 314; _Annals of
Reformation_, iv. 21; Fuller's _Church History_, 122; Neal, 340. This
writer says: "Among the divines who _suffered death_ for the libels
above mentioned, was the Rev. Mr. Udal." This is no doubt a splenetic
mode of speaking. But Warburton, in his short notes on Neal's history,
treats it as a wilful and audacious attempt to impose on the reader; as
if the ensuing pages did not let him into all the circumstances. I will
here observe that Warburton, in his self-conceit, has paid a much higher
compliment to Neal than he intended, speaking of his own comments as "a
full confutation (I quote from memory) of that historian's false facts
and misrepresentations." But when we look at these, we find a good deal
of wit and some pointed remarks, but hardly anything that can be deemed
a material correction of facts.
Neal's _History of the Puritans_ is almost wholly compiled, as far as
this reign is concerned, from Strype, and from a manuscript written by
some puritan about the time. It was answered by Madox, afterwards bishop
of Worcester, in a _Vindication of the Church of England_, published
anonymously in 1733. Neal replied with tolerable success; but Madox's
book is still an useful corrective. Both, however, were, like most
controversialists, prejudiced men, loving the interests of their
respective factions better than truth, and not very scrupulous about
misrepresenting an adversary. But Neal had got rid of the intolerant
spirit of the puritans, while Madox labours to justify every act of
Whitgift and Parker.
[335] _Life of Whitgift_, 328.
[336] _Id._ 336, 360, 366, Append. 142, 159.
[337] _Id._ Append. 135; _Annals_, iv. 52.
[338] This predilection for the Mosaic polity was not uncommon among the
reformers; Collier quotes passages from Martin Bucer as strong as could
well be found in the puritan writings. P. 303.
[339] _Life of Whitgift_, p. 61, 333, and Append. 138; _Annals_, iv.
140. As I have not seen the original works in which these tenets are
said to be promulgated, I cannot vouch for the fairness of the
representation made by hostile pens, though I conceive it to be not very
far from the truth.
[340] _Ibid_. Madox's _Vindication of the Ch. of Eng. against Neal_, p.
212; Strype's _Annals_, iv. 142.
[341] The large views of civil government entertained by the puritans
were sometimes imputed to them as a crime by their more courtly
adversaries, who reproached them with the writings of Buchanan and
Languet. _Life of Whitgift_, 258; _Annals_, iv. 142.
[342] See a declaration to this effect, at which no one could cavil, in
Strype's _Annals_, iv. 85. The puritans, or at least some of their
friends, retaliated this charge of denying the queen's supremacy on
their adversaries. Sir Francis Knollys strongly opposed the claims of
episcopacy, as a divine institution, which had been covertly insinuated
by Bancroft, on the ground of its incompatibility with the prerogative,
and urged Lord Burleigh to make the bishops acknowledge they had no
superiority over the clergy, except by statute, as the only means to
save her majesty from the extreme danger into which she was brought by
the machinations of the pope and King of Spain. _Life of Whitgift_, p.
350, 361, 389. He wrote afterwards to Lord Burleigh in 1591, that if he
might not speak his mind freely against the power of the bishops, and
prove it unlawful, by the laws of this realm, and not by the canon law,
he hoped to be allowed to become a private man. This bold letter he
desires to have shown to the queen. _Lansdowne Catalogue_, vol. lxviii.
84.
[343] D'Ewes, 302; Strype's _Whitgift_, 92, Append. 32.
[344] D'Ewes, 339 _et post_; Strype's _Whitgift_, 176, etc., Append. 70.
[345] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 228.
[346] Strype's _Annals_, iii. 186, 192. Compare Append. 35.
[347] Strype's _Whitgift_, 279; _Annals_, iii. 543.
[348] _Parl. Hist._ 921.
[349] Strype's _Whitgift_, 521, 537, App. 136. The archbishop could not
disguise his dislike to the lawyers. "The temporal lawyer," he says in a
letter to Cecil, "_whose learning is no learning anywhere but here at
home_, being born to nothing, doth by his labour and travel in that
barbarous knowledge purchase to himself and his heirs for ever a
thousand pounds per annum, and oftentimes much more, whereof there are
at this day many examples."--P. 215.
[350] Strype's _Whitgift_, and D'Ewes, _passim_. In a convocation held
during Grindal's sequestration (1580), proposals for reforming certain
abuses in the spiritual courts were considered; but nothing was done in
it. Strype's _Grindal_, p. 259, and Appendix, p. 97. And in 1594, a
commission to enquire into abuses in the spiritual courts was issued;
but whether this were intended _bona fide_ or not, it produced no
reformation. Strype's _Whitgift_, 419.
[351] 35 Eliz. c. 1; _Parl. Hist._ 863.
[352] Neal asserts in his summary of the controversy, as it stood in
this reign, that the puritans did not object to the office of bishop,
provided he was only the head of the presbyters, and acted in
conjunction with them. P. 398. But this was in effect to demand
everything. For if the office could be so far lowered in eminence, there
were many waiting to clip the temporal revenues and dignity in
proportion.
In another passage, Neal states clearly, if not quite fairly, the main
points of difference between the church and nonconforming parties under
Elizabeth. P. 147. He concludes with the following remark, which is very
true. "Both parties agreed too well in asserting the necessity of an
uniformity of public worship, and of calling in the sword of the
magistrates for the support and defence of the several principles, which
they made an ill use of in their turns, as they could grasp the power
into their hands. The standard of uniformity, according to the bishops,
was the queen's supremacy and the laws of the land; according to the
puritans, the decrees of provincial and national synods, allowed and
enforced by the civil magistrate; but neither party were for admitting
that liberty of conscience and freedom of profession which is every
man's right, as far as is consistent with the peace of the government he
lives under."
[353] Neal, 253, 386.
[354] Strype's _Whitgift_, 414; Neal, 373. Several years before, in
1583, two men called anabaptists, Thacker and Copping, were hanged at
the same place on the same statute for denying the queen's
ecclesiastical supremacy; the proof of which was their dispersion of
Brown's tracts, wherein that was only owned in civil cases. Strype's
_Annals_, iii. 186. This was according to the invariable practice of
Tudor times: an oppressive and sanguinary statute was first made; and
next, as occasion might serve, a construction was put on it contrary to
all common sense, in order to take away men's lives.
[355] "The discipline of Christ's church," said Cartwright, "that is
necessary for all times, is delivered by Christ, and set down in the
Holy Scriptures. Therefore the true and lawful discipline is to be
fetched from thence, and from thence alone. And that which resteth upon
any other foundation ought to be esteemed unlawful and counterfeit."
Whitgift, in his answer to Cartwright's _Admonition_, rested the
controversy in the main, as Hooker did, on the indifferency of church
discipline and ceremony. It was not till afterwards that the defenders
of the established order found out that one claim of divine right was
best met by another.
[356] "If the natural strength of men's wit may by experience and study
attain unto such ripeness in the knowledge of things human, that men in
this respect may presume to build somewhat upon their judgment; what
reason have we to think but that even in matters divine, the like wits,
furnished with necessary helps, exercised in scripture with like
diligence, and assisted with the grace of Almighty God, may grow unto so
much perfection of knowledge, that men shall have just cause, when
anything pertinent unto faith and religion is doubted of, the more
willingly to incline their minds towards that which the sentence of so
grave, wise, and learned in that faculty shall judge most sound? For the
controversy is of the weight of such men's judgment," etc. But Hooker's
mistake was to exaggerate the weight of such men's judgment; and not to
allow enough for their passions and infirmities, the imperfection of
their knowledge, their connivance with power, their attachment to names
and persons, and all the other drawbacks to ecclesiastical authority.
It is well known that the preface to the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ was one
of the two books to which James II. ascribed his return into the fold of
Rome; and it is not difficult to perceive by what course of reasoning on
the positions it contains this was effected.
[357] In the life of Hooker prefixed to the edition I use, fol. 1671, I
find an assertion of Dr. Barnard, chaplain to Usher, that he had seen a
manuscript of the last books of Hooker, containing many things omitted
in the printed volume. One passage is quoted, and seems in Hooker's
style. But the question is rather with respect to interpolations than
omissions. And of the former I see no evidence or likelihood. If it be
true, as is alleged, that different manuscripts of the three last books
did not agree, if even these disagreements were the result of fraud, why
should we conclude that they were corrupted by the puritans rather than
the church? In Zouch's edition of Walton's _Life of Hooker_, the reader
will find a long and ill digested note on this subject, the result of
which has been to convince me that there is no reason to believe any
other than verbal changes to have been made in the loose draught which
the author left, but that whatever changes were made, it does not appear
that the manuscript was ever in the hands of the puritans. The strongest
probability, however, of their authenticity is from internal evidence.
A late writer has produced a somewhat ridiculous proof of the
carelessness with which all editions of the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ have
been printed; a sentence having slipped into the text of the seventh
book, which makes nonsense, and which he very probably conjectures to
have been a marginal memorandum of the author for his own use on
revising the manuscript. M'Crie's _Life of Melvil_, vol. i. p. 471.
[358] The puritans objected to the title of lord bishops. Sampson wrote
a peevish letter to Grindal on this, and received a very good answer.
Strype's _Parker_, Append. 178. Parker, in a letter to Cecil, defends it
on the best ground; that the bishops hold their lands by barony, and
therefore the giving them the title of lords was no irregularity, and
nothing more than a consequence of the tenure. Collier, 544. This will
not cover our modern _colonial_ bishops, on whom the same title has,
without any good reason, been conferred.
[359] Strype's _Annals_, i. 159.
[360] 1 Eliz. c. 19; 13 Eliz. c. 10; Blackstone's _Commentaries_, vol.
ii. c. 28. The exception in favour of the Crown was repealed in the
first year of James.
[361] It was couched in the following terms:--
"PROUD PRELATE,--You know what you were before I made you what you are:
if you do not immediately comply with my request, by G---- I will
unfrock you.
ELIZABETH."
Poor Cox wrote a very good letter before this, printed in Strype's
_Annals_, vol. ii. Append. 84. The names of Hatton Garden and Ely Place
(Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae) still bear witness to the
encroaching lord keeper, and the elbowed bishop.
[362] Strype, iv. 246. See also p. 15 of the same volume. By an act in
the first year of James, c. 3, conveyances of bishops' lands to the
crown are made void; a concession much to the king's honour.
[363] Harrington's "State of the Church," in _Nugae Antiquae_, vol. ii.
_passim_; Wilkins's _Concilia_, iv. 256; Strype's _Annals_, iii. 620 _et
alibi_; _Life of Parker_, 454; _of Whitgift_, 220; _of Aylmer, passim_.
Observe the preamble of 13 Eliz. c. 10. It must be admitted, on the
other hand, that the gentry, when popishly or puritanically affected,
were apt to behave exceedingly ill towards the bishops. At Lambeth and
Fulham they were pretty safe; but at a distance they found it hard to
struggle with the rudeness and iniquity of the territorial aristocracy;
as Sandys twice experienced.
[364] Birch's _Memoirs_, i. 48. Elizabeth seems to have fancied herself
entitled by her supremacy to dispose of bishops as she pleased, though
they did not hold commissions _durante bene placito_, as in her
brother's time. Thus she suspended Fletcher, Bishop of London, of her
own authority, only for marrying "a fine lady and a widow." Strype's
_Whitgift_, 458. And Aylmer, having preached too vehemently against
female vanity in dress, which came home to the queen's conscience, she
told her ladies that if the bishop held more discourse on such matters,
she would fit him for heaven; but he should walk thither without a staff
and leave his mantle behind him. Harrington's "State of the Church," in
_Nugae Antiquae_, i. 170; see too p. 217. It will of course not appear
surprising that Hutton, Archbishop of York, an exceedingly honest
prelate, having preached a bold sermon before the queen, urging her to
settle the succession, and pointing strongly towards Scotland, received
a sharp message. P. 250.
[365] D'Ewes, 328.
[366] Collier says (p. 586) on Heylin's authority, that Walsingham
offered the puritans, about 1583, in the queen's name, to give up the
ceremony of kneeling at the communion, the cross in baptism, and the
surplice; but that they answered, "ne ungulam quidem esse relinquendam."
But I am not aware of any better testimony to the fact; and it is by no
means agreeable to the queen's general conduct.
[367] Bacon, ii. 375. See also another paper concerning the pacification
of the church, written under James, p. 387. "The wrongs," he says, "of
those which are possessed of the government of the church towards the
other, may hardly be dissembled or excused."--P. 382. Yet Bacon was
never charged with affection for the puritans. In truth, Elizabeth and
James were personally the great support of the high church interest; it
had few real friends among their counsellors.
[368] Burnet, ii. 418; Cabala, part ii. 38 (4to edition). Walsingham
grounds the queen's proceedings upon two principles: the one, that
"consciences are not to be forced, but to be won and reduced by force of
truth, with the aid of time, and use of all good means of instruction
and persuasion;" the other, that "cases of conscience, when they exceed
their bounds, and grow to be matter of faction, lose their nature; and
that sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish their practices and
contempt, though coloured with the pretence of conscience and religion."
Bacon has repeated the same words, as well as some more of Walsingham's
letter, in his observations on the libel on Lord Burleigh, i. 522. And
Mr. Southey (_Book of the Church_, ii. 291) seems to adopt them as his
own.
Upon this it may be observed; first, that they take for granted the
fundamental sophism of religious intolerance, namely, that the civil
magistrate, or the church he supports, is not only in the right, but so
clearly in the right, that no honest man, if he takes time and pains to
consider the subject, can help acknowledging it: secondly, that,
according to the principles of Christianity as admitted on each side, it
does not rest in an esoteric persuasion, but requires an exterior
profession, evidenced both by social worship, and by certain positive
rites; and that the marks of this profession, according to the form best
adapted to their respective ways of thinking, were as incumbent upon the
catholic and puritan, as they had been upon the primitive church: nor
were they more chargeable with faction, or with exceeding the bounds of
conscience, when they persisted in the use of them, notwithstanding any
prohibitory statute, than the early Christians.
The generality of statesmen, and churchmen themselves not unfrequently,
have argued upon the principles of what, in the seventeenth century, was
called Hobbism, towards which the Erastian system, which is that of the
church of England, though excellent in some points of view, had a
tendency to gravitate; namely, that civil and religious allegiance are
so necessarily connected, that it is the subject's duty to follow the
dictates of the magistrate in both alike. And this received some
countenance from the false and mischievous position of Hooker, that the
church and commonwealth are but different denominations of the same
society. Warburton has sufficiently exposed the sophistry of this
theory; though I do not think him equally successful in what he
substitutes for it.