Parliament was prorogued before there appeared in pamphlet form THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN MANIFESTO, drawn up by John Field, Minister of Aldermary, London (died 1588), assisted by Thomas Wilcox or Wilcocks (died 1608) and others, in name of their brethren. This was the famous first part of an "AdMONITION TO THE PARLIAMENT," in twenty-three sections, and with Beza's letter to the Earl of Leicester and Gualter's to Bishop Parkhurst, for reformation of Church discipline, annexed.1

Blame has often most mistakenly been cast on the very title to this document: ADMONITION TO THE PARLIAMENT, as if savouring of presumption. But this is to misapprehend the meaning of the word-what was submitted to Parliament under the name of "Admonitions" being simply what the term originally implies a series of suggestions, or advertisements.

Censure has also been needlessly cast on the Admonitions for not advocating the right of all men to worship God in their own way. This is, however, to forget what was really the position taken up by these Presbytero-Puritans.

The ecclesiastical system of the English Church rested on these two assumptions. 1st, That there ought to be one uniform style of religious profession for the nation; and, 2nd, That the settlement already effected was not to be disturbed without the strongest reasons. The former of these positions the Church Puritans held as tenaciously as their opponents.

1 The occasion of these letters was the increasing severity of the Bishops' courts, the enforcing the Queen's Injunctions, and the severe action of Archbishop Parker in June 1571, against such leading Puritans as Lever, Goodman, Sampson, Deering, Field, Walker, Percival, and Johnson. Beza entreats the Bishops not to lend themselves as instruments to such procedure, and implores them to aim at a higher discipline.

2 Even Fuller says, "For seeing admonition is the lowest of ecclesiastical censures, and a preparative, if neglected, to suspension and excommunication, such suggested that if the Parliament complied not with this admonitor's desires, his party would proceed to higher and louder fulminations." All this, however, proceeds on a mistake. The word "admonition" is often used in old English as in Latin for "suggestion," or "advertisement." An "admonition to the gentle reader," as it occurs in early books, conveys no idea of reproach or blame, but is simply an intimation or notice. That it involves no suggestion of offensive imperiousness may be understood from the "Advertisements" of Archbishop Parker being called in the Canons of 1571 Libellus Admonitionum, where the latter word no more means admonitions than its predecessor means a libel.

This was the root of all ecclesiastical intolerance, no party as yet recognising that religious unity cannot be achieved by force. As to the second position, these Church Puritans were persuaded they had a much more excellent way, demonstrable from God's own Word. It was in holding firm and fast by this conviction, and in suffering for it, that there was struck out from time to time the ever-brightening spark of civil and religious liberty; and it must be confessed that the Presbyterians were the anvil on which the hammering process at first proceeded. This enduring persistence was one of their many valuable services toward working out the great problem of combining the tolerant aspect of Christianity with its aggressive and uncompromising nature.

Returning to the "Admonition," we see that it is an indictment against many things in the Church, when tried by the standard of the Divine Word.

Of the twenty-three sections or chapters which compose it, the first eight have reference to the clergy; the second eight to the Liturgy; and the last seven to the government or polity of the Church. Without going into detail, we may briefly note some salient points under each set.

I. THE CLERGY.-In all offices of Christ's Church, Christ Himself is the fount of authority, and His word is law. While He rules over the Church, He has appointed a Government to be exercised within it. He requires certain qualifications of those who minister the Word: preaching gifts, especially, and godly conversation. Formerly each Church chose freely its pastor from among those found qualified; now Episcopal or other authority thrusts one upon it who too often owes the benefice to money favour or simonaical importunity. Pluralities and non-residence are strongly denounced. Formerly the ministry was "painful, but now gainful;" raising men to "livings and offices, by anti-Christ devised, but in Christ's Word forbidden, as Metropolitan, Archbishop, Lord's Grace, Lord Bishop, Suffragan, Dean, Archdeacon, Prelate of the Garter, Earl, Count Palatine, Honour, High Commissioner, Justice of the Peace," all which is drawn, not out of Scripture, but "out of the Pope's shop."

II. THE PRAYER BOOK AND LITURGY.-Imposing and requir ing written trammels always for ministerial and public devotion is a tyranny and innovation. No measured terms are used in speaking of saints' days, sponsors, and the sign of the cross in baptism, which is declared a "superstitious and wicked institution of a new Sacrament," with wafer-cakes and kneeling, contrary to the Lord's own example in the Communion.

III. GOVERNMENT AND POLITY.-In every congregation there should be "a lawful and godly seigniory," and that order which Christ left by His Apostles, and which the Primitive Church used, "the regiment of ministers, seniors, and deacons jointly." Complaints are also urged against the use of the term priest, Sunday amusements, and unreformed cathedral establishments, "the dens of all loitering lubbers."

The issue of such a manifesto as the ADMONITION marks an epoch, not only in the Presbyterian cause, but in English Constitutionalism. The right of approach and appeal to Parliament on Church affairs was asserted; and ELIZABETH was furious at this matter being addressed to it, and not to her. Treating the publication as a seditious and revolutionary libel, a high insult to herself and an encroachment on her prerogative, she speedily sent the two divines, Field and Wilcox, who were chiefly concerned in drawing it up, to Newgate; and after lying there for four months, they were sentenced to a year's further imprisonment, every effort being made meanwhile to suppress the pamphlet. All this seemed to give only fresh impetus to

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It made a most important epoch in the contest," says Hallam. And as another has pointed out, "The publication of this treatise may be regarded as one. of the earliest steps towards the union of THE PURITANS and THE PATRIOTS, the advocates of Spiritual freedom and the defenders of Civil liberty."-Price's Hist. of Prot. Nonconformity, vol. i. p. 227. Lond. 1836.

2 Three or four editions were printed during the next two years, and were eagerly read by multitudes. The Bishops failed to discover where they were being printed, and they tried in vain to call in the copies. Archbishop PARKER, in a letter to Lord Burghley, 25 Aug., 1572, indicates the opposition of the City and corporation of London to the vehement procedure of the Bishops in prosecuting the writers.

Sir, for all the deuises that we can make to the Contrarie, yet sum good fellowes still labor to printe owte the vaine admonition to the Parliament. Since the first printing it hath been twise printed, and now with addicions. We wrote lettres to the Maior and sum aldermen of London to laie in waite for the Charectes [type], printer, and corrector, but I feare they deceaue us; they are not willing to disclose this matter."-Lansd. MS. 15, fol. 75.

And although, on the 11th June, 1573, the Queen issued a Proclamation against

their cause, the sufferers being waited on by such leaders of the party as Humphrey, Fulke, Wyburn, and Cartwright. From Newgate the prisoners addressed a spirited petition and apology in admirable Latin1 to Lord Burghley on September 3, 1572; but he did not see his way to interfere, being afraid of the Queen. They also represented to their friend the Earl of Leicester, that besides having lain in a common gaol for a year, they had been illegally confined four months prior to their conviction, and were now in a loathsome condition from the foulness of their prison. They entreated their freedom now, as they did also in another petition to the Lords of the Privy Council. But above all, just before their release was due by law, they wrote a "CONFESSION OF THEIR FAITH," dated from Newgate, December 4, 1572, to prove their doctrinal orthodoxy, and remove some false and injurious impressions.

the Admonition and all other books in its defence, calling them in; yet the Bishop of LONDON, writing from Fulham to Lord BURGHLEY, has to report in July, that "the whole Cittie of London (where no dowt is greate plentie) hath NOT brought ONE to my handes."--Lansd. MS. 17, Art. 37.

And writing again on 5 Aug. to Burghley and Leicester, Bishop Sandys says: "Her Majesty's Proclamation took none effect, not one Book brought in. Mr. Cartwright is said to lie hid in London with great resort to him." (Strype's Whitgift, Appendix xvi. p. 20.) Two pamphlets (anonymous of course) were issued at this time, "An Exhortation to the Bishops to deal brotherly with their Brethren; "An Exhortation to the Bishops and Clergy to answer the little book that was published last Parliament; and an Exhortation to other Brethren, to judge of it by God's Word."

1 Now, Lansdowne MS. 15, Art. 73.

and

2 This interesting and important paper is given in full by Neal, Puritans, i. pp. 192-194.

V.

THE FIRST PRESBYTERY, ERECTED AT WANDSWORTH, 1572. WE must further fix our attention on this year 1572, a critical and memorable year for Protestantism in general and for Presbyterian history in particular. That year stands forth with marked significance in the Presbyterian annals of England and of several other lands besides, specially Holland, France, and Scotland.

In HOLLAND, the spring of 1872 was signalized by the widespread and enthusiastic celebration of the Ter-centenary of the beginning, in 1572, of the Dutch struggle for independence, that issued also in their own Presbyterian Church.

In FRANCE, the year 1572 was signalized in a very different way, by the perpetrating of that frightful carnival of blood, the St. Bartholomew massacre. It is two o'clock of a Sunday morning, 24 August, 1572. In the Palace of the Louvre are found three persons, the Duke of Guise, Catherine de Medici, and her royal son, Charles IX., who is being urged to give orders for the massacre of the Huguenots-the Presbyterian Protestants of France, with Admiral Coligny at their head. This great crime sent a thrill of horror and indignation through the heart of Protestant Europe; 1 and never, perhaps, did Queen Elizabeth act the part of a Protestant Queen more nobly than when she put her Court in mourning for the horrible massacre, and received the French Ambassador amid that sombre pageant of grief, to which she also gave expression in a few pointed and eloquent words.

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1 Singular to say, the two buildings in which it was plotted and first put in execution, the Tuileries and the Hôtel de Ville, lay sacked and ruined on its tercentenary day in 1872, by that fiery Communism which was but the ghost of the old bloodfiend that has never been laid. The crimes of the past were thus linked with the tragedies of the present. The Paris of 1572 and the Paris of 1872 afforded a new illustration of that retributive economy under which, as individuals and nations, we are living.