idea of the mass, he had better not | press upon the bishops the propriety of sanction what was wrong by his ex- charitable concession, as far as it would ample and that at all events he should continue to speak and teach against the use of the habits. In a letter to Bullinger, 1566, he adds, that when the bishops who had been exiles in Germany could not persuade the queen and parliament to remove these habits out of the church, though they had long endeavoured it, by common consent they thought it best not to leave the church for some rites, which were not many, nor in themselves wicked; especially since the purity of the Gospel remained safe and free to them. be admitted by the government. The church of Scotland went so far as to address an epistle to their brethren in England," in which, perhaps, they press the matter more strongly than it deserves; but these concurrent testimonies demonstrate one thing at least, that a great stress was laid upon the question, while the event proved that many ministers of God's word were silenced in consequence of the dresses enjoined; and it may be remarked, that England never became convinced of the propriety of her ecclesiastical habits, till It may fairly be presumed, that Par- the opponents of her decent forms had ker himself entertained some doubts power enough to cast them out of the concerning the points which were after-church, and to substitute their own more wards disputed between the puritans superstitious simplicity." and the high church party; for in the questions prepared to be submitted to Convocation in 1563, probably under his own direction, and certainly examined by himself, there are several which manifestly imply that such a difference of opinion might prevail. They refer to the abolition of the use of the vestments, of private baptism administered by lay persons, of organs and curious singing, of the answers of sponsors, &c. And Whitgift was one of a number of heads of houses in Cambridge who petitioned for a greater license about the dresses. 2 And $420. Elizabeth herself was very peremptory on the question." She could little brook resistance on any point; but when the scruple seemed so trifling, as on this subject it must have appeared to any one who was not under the influence of prejudice or passion, resistance to her mandates assumed the semblance of personal opposition. when Parker and the other bishops had begun to execute the laws against nonconformists, they must have been more than men, if they could divest their own minds of that personality which every one must feel when engaged in a § 419. The sentiments of foreign di- controversy, in which the question really vines may seem to deserve less atten- is, whether he shall be able to succeed tion, inasmuch as they derived the great in carrying his plans into execution. mass of their information from persons The archbishop, indeed, who was first who were suffering in the cause of non-employed in this unpleasant task, seems conformity; yet surely, whatever may to have experienced more of this feeling have been the bias of the accounts than perhaps beseemed his high station; which they received, they were less yet the situation in which he was placed likely to be prejudiced on this side than renders him an object of our pity rather the bishops were on that in which their than our blame. He probably foresaw personal authority was concerned, which the ill effects which nonconformity seemed to be resisted by all who re- would bring upon the church, and prefused to comply with the injunctions of pared to resist the torrent with the bulthe court. These foreigners, in conjunc-warks of severity and law. In this he tion with the judicious advice which they invariably give, viz., that any thing was better than that the church should be left destitute of pastors, in consequence of their scruples, frequently 5 Strype's Parker, iii. 150, No. 51. Clerk, writing on the question of the habits, speaks, de fanaticis nostris Superpellicianis et Galerianis," and adds, "ut quod temporis antehac artibus et scientiis solet attribui, id nunc futilissimis de lana caprina altercationibus fallitur et con sumitur." Strype's Parker, iii, 133, No. 43. See Strype's Parker, i. 317, 389. of thinking for themselves, which they had just acquired. This exercise of their new right was highly unacceptable to the queen, and the government in some points tried to restrain it so much, that the struggle by degrees became one for civil as well as for religious liberty. found himself hardly supported as he to attach importance to ceremonies, and could wish by the court, where there though ignorant of principles, were existed a strong party favourable to the overjoyed in exercising the privilege puritans. He perceived, perhaps, that the odium of the measures which he was forced to adopt was thrown on the bishops, who were becoming more and more the objects of general dislike; and lamented, with prophetic boding, the conduct of some of the nobility, whose favour was raising up a party against the hierarchy, which would ulti- § 422. It appears, then, that neither mately destroy every distinction of rank. the government in enforcing conformity § 421. Little can be said in favour of as it did, nor the puritans in resisting it, the puritans, and those who rejected the can well be justified by any sound princeremonies of the church, but that they ciples of Christian charity; the one were sincere in the objections which imposed a yoke when it was hardly they raised against the use of rites cor- necessary, the other rejected it when it rupted in the church of Rome. Their might and ought to have been borne. scruples will in these days appear tri- Nothing, therefore, could be more disvial, but they were not then esteemed tressing than the situation of a conso; as party feeling began to operate scientious bishop at such a period. It on both sides, each became anxious to must have required a patience truly enforce their own opinions, and in the Christian not to have been irritated at warmth of controversy the nonconfor- the conduct of the nonconformists, and mists seem to have forgotten that they perhaps still more of Christian courage were disobeying the civil magistrate, to enforce laws, when hinderances were and not to have considered that the thrown in the way by the powers above, bishops were only enforcing that which and insults heaped on those in authority by law they were bound to enforce. by the party against whom the severity The authority which the puritans with- was directed. Parker, the first metropostood was not the mere spiritual author- litan of this reign, was in many respects ity which the episcopal function had calculated to shine with splendour in the bestowed on their judges; it was an situation in which he was placed: he indefinite and ample power conferred was liberal, and ever ready to advance on the ecclesiastical commissioners, the interests of learning or of talent; he from the supremacy vested by the par- was himself learned and studious, but liament in the queen. It was a power his peculiar qualification seems to have which the puritans may have deemed been a desire and faculty of systematizunnecessary, oppressive, and little suit- ing and improving every establishment ed to the character of Christian bishops; to which he belonged, a talent which but they must have known that it was was extremely required at this period; one which had been conferred on the but perhaps he was not well calculated hierarchy by the law of the land, and by to hold that even balance between conthe persons in whose hands the exe- tending errors, which the difficulties of cutive was placed. But there are many the times placed more immediately in considerations which should prevent us from passing any severe censure on either party: the new standard of opinion to which the disputants referred, was one to which they had never been accustomed; the New Testament itself is very indistinct in settling such points, and to reason by analogy is a task which requires much temper and experience. The people, too, had been long trained 'Strype's Parker, ü. 323. 2 It should be remembered, that most of the regulations with regard to the distinctive dress of the clergy have gradually been given up, excepting, indeed, the surplice, and the square cap in forgotten; albes are confounded with surplices; the universities. Copes and tunicles are almost and the gown and cassock, with the square cap and hood, are used according to the discretion of tioned whether this has not gone too far. Perhaps the clergyman himself. It may indeed be questhe interests of the church would be best consulted, if, without adopting any distinctive habits, we all dressed so that the world might from our appearance presume that we belonged to the minisi try. his hands. Before the heat of contro- | The Book of Common Praye. generally attacked; many of its monies, especially in Baptism, an Churching of Women, were rejected, and organs and church music were⚫ considered as unchristian. The discipline of the church, too, was impugned. Objections were raised against episcopacy itself, as well as against the lordly and temporal authority possessed by the bishops; while the ordination of ministers, without their being elected by their flocks, was accounted antiscriptural, and the whole was summed up in the want of a presbytery. versy had begun, concession was comparatively easy; without giving up the ordinances of the church, a latitude of practice might have been tolerated which became inadmissible when the question was brought to an issue. The remonstrances too of Parker might have had more influence on the queen than those of any other person, and it was her majesty who was most strenuous in insisting on conformity; but he seems hardly to have wished that his weak brethren should be dealt with more gently, for he was very peremptory in his proceedings with Sampson, though he afterwards kindly wrote in his favour when ejected from the deanery; and in this conduct was strikingly opposed to Grindal, who entreated the dean, even with tears in his eyes, to comply in the use of the habits. So again, when thirty-seven of the London clergy refused compliance with the ecclesiastical dresses, and of these some of the best ministers, by the acknowledgment of the archbishop himself, he does not appear to have adopted any conciliatory steps, or to have treated them as brethren in Christ. There is no reason to question the sincerity of his motives, and his judgment was approved by many persons, (especially by Cox, bishop of Ely,) who hoped that, by reducing the clergy of the metropolis. all difficulty would be obviated elsewhere. But where severity is used in cases of conscience, Christian charity is often lost sight of, and the omission never takes place but at the certain loss § 421. In the Baptismal Service it of the party who neglect it. The suf- was objected, that the use of the sign ferers were deemed confessors by their of the cross was superstitious, and borfriends, and the party of the puritans rowed from the church of Rome as if was strengthened by their punishment. any misuse of a custom derived from § 423. It must not be supposed that the primitive church could render its all the objections of the nonconform- nature sinful, or that the danger of misists were confined to the ecclesiastical dresses, or that the cap and surplice were the only points against which their animadversions were directed. 1 Strype's Parker, i. 327. The objections of which the heads are here set down may be seen in Burnet's Reformation, iii. No. 79. Append.; Neal's Puritans. i. 192: but many are of course omitted, and a full reference to them would exceed the prescribed limits of this work, as they lie scattered in various places. At the same time they brought forward many real abuses, which the church could more easily deplore than remedy. With regard to the scarcity of preaching ministers, the blame seems to belong exclusively to neither party; for though the hierarchy undoubtedly silenced many who would have laboured in this service, yet the nonconformist might have easily obviated the difficulty by accepting the ecclesiastical dresses: thus Withers, at Bury, conformed, because he found his congregation much less offended at the use of the cap than at his own silence. The non-residence, too, which was licensed by authority, could form no just ground of separation from the church, as not being essential to the establishment; and the religious conformist must have viewed the neglect of a parish in the same light in which it appeared to his dissenting brethren. conception were not sufficiently guarded against, in the words of the prayer which accompanies that part of the service:-that the answers were made in the name of the child, and not in that of the sponsors; a difference which at all events is not very important, since the very act of bringing the infant to the font implies all that the words can convey, viz., that the persons so admit Strype's Parker, i. 374. ted would become the servants of that church of a species of service which, Lord into whose faith they were bap- to those who are accustomed to it, is tized. Lay baptism, too, fell under the most elevating and delightful in the their censure; but it has been ques- world. tioned whether it were ever authorized by our church. It had formerly been the custom for midwives to administer this sacrament in cases of necessity; and as this was not distinctly forbidden, the custom was continued, and thus tacitly sanctioned.1 In the Churching of Women, they liked not that she should be veiled of necessity, on her first appearance in the congregation, or that she should always be seated in the same place; customs which it is ridiculous to discuss; and which, in the process of time, have been disused in most parishes, and only partially retained in others. § 425. In point of discipline, the differences of opinion were so numerous, that it will be enough if we confine ourselves to the prominent features of the objections, without entering on the degrees in which they were held, or the alterations which at different periods grew into vogue with the nonconformists. The chief stumbling-block was episcopacy, as a distinct order in the church, and the authority over the rest of the ministry which this distinction produced in the body corporate of the establishment. Those who maintained this objection might be again divided into two parties; the one was dissatisThe offence which was taken at or- fied with episcopacy in the abstract; gans and church music, as practised in the dissatisfaction of the other was concathedrals, was rather general; and the fined to the temporal state and civil question of rejecting them was agitated functions of the bishops; but among in the convocation of 1562. But if the mass of the nonconformists and these churches were served in those their followers, who were often very days with as little reverence among the ignorant on such subjects, such a dissubordinate members as is sometimes tinction was little attended to. They now apt to be the case, it is no wonder hated the bishops, from being taught that sober-minded Christians should be that their office was unscriptural, and offended and yet to correct such neg-their proceedings unchristian; and they ligence seems a more reasonable and troubled not themselves to mark the obvious remedy, than to deprive our difference between the office itself and the temporal authority vested in the bishops of the church of England. ! Archbishop Sandys says, in his will," for the private baptism to be ministered by women, I take neither to be prescribed nor permitted." (Strype's Whitgift, i. 548.) But in the oath administered in the diocese of Canterbury, in 1567, to Eleanor Pead, a midwife, is the following clause, "Also, that in the ministration of the sacrament of baptism in the time of necessity, I will use apt and accustomed words of the same sacrament, that is to say, these words following, or the tike in effect: I christen thee in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and none other profare words." (Strype's Annals, I. ii. 243.) The oath in such a case may have been borrowed from the old formulary, and have been continued, withou being particularly attended to, for the sake of a fee paid to some ecclesiastical officer. The questions asked according to the Prayer Book of 1549 1552, and 1560, seem to leave little doubt that the By whom was the child baptized? Who was present when the child was baptized? Whether they called upon God for grace and succour in that necessity? With what thing or what matter they did baptize the child? Whether they think the child to be law fully and perfectly baptized?" expressions which hardly agree with the idea of the child's having been baptized by a minister, and which questions are for that reason generally omitted at present. though they have been considerably altered in point of words. custom was sanctioned. 46 2 Burnet, iii. vi. No. 74. The alleged want of an efficient presbytery was closely connected with this question, and with the circumstance that all ecclesiastical power was given exclusively to the bishops, who were appointed by the crown. Most of the exiles for religion, who on their return formed the influential part of the church of England, had been familiar with establishments abroad, in which the individual pastors were possessed of considerable weight in the government of the church and its concerns: on their arrival in the land of promised rest, they found that this spiritual power was in no degree conferred on themselves, but that they were subjected to a very peremptory method of treatment before the ecclesiastical commission, the proceedings of which were quite unsupported by the general tenor of the law of the land. The seeds of civil liberty, were throughout the whole struggle closely mixed up with the complaints of combination, with which the diffusion of the puritans; and the same men who of power under that system invested had learnt to search for the truth on the ministerial body. But it may fairly religious subjects, and to pursue it in be questioned whether this species of spite of the powers of this world which authority be not in its nature wrong. were arrayed against it, were little likely, There are but two principles on which from human motives, to submit to in- punishment can ever be administered junctions, however reasonable, which with advantage: first, when severity is were arbitrarily imposed. used for the sake of the person punished; and, secondly, when it is done for the sake of civil society: when the penalty inflicted may reform the aggressor, or prevent the recommission of the crime in others, by the force of terror, and the influence of example. The latter of these may be fully exercised by lay courts; and though on many occasions ecclesiastical discipline may further the former object, yet the authority with which it invests the pastor, makes him as it were a judge over his brethren; and wherever temporal disability is connected with ecclesiastical censure, it gives the minister of the gospel a character which will probably injure the state of his own mind, and perhaps alienate the affections of his flock; while it cannot fail to make both parties refer their conduct to the laws and institutions of men, rather than to the commandments of God. But it was the want of power vested in the subordinate ministry, which was the real cause of the present dissatisfaction; and neither the policy of the queen, nor the general state of the clergy, gave any great probability that this would be granted. §426. The dispute as to the calling of ministers chiefly owes its origin to the same source. The warm upholders of this opinion would have said that ordination consisted virtually in the elective call of the flock; that this formed the essence of the appointment to the ministry; and that without it, all ordination was the invention of man, and not the institution of God. Its more moderate friends would have maintained that the laying on of the hands of the presbytery was sufficient without the presence of a bishop, provided the ministry of the person admitted were not unacceptable to the parish. Between these extremes there exist many smaller varieties, many plausible errors, into which all men are apt to run, when they set up their own opinions as the test of right and wrong. The absence of spiritual discipline was a source of complaint with all parties; and the nonconformists lamented, with some show of reason, that the only exercise of it which remained was confined to non-essentials in religion, of which they themselves were the unfortunate victims: and it was the observation of one of the best wishers to the church,' that ecclesiastical offices were now misused to private gain, rather than public benefit. The country had been used, under the auspices of the court of Rome, to a strict inspection as to some particulars relating to morals, at least to the idea of it. In the presbyterian churches, a great deal of real discipline was preserved, and much actual superintendence exercised; but the power of the church, as it now existed in England, was inadequate to keep up the old episcopal jurisdiction which had been carried on in former days; and from her adopting little of the presbyterian government, she wanted the discipline Burleigh's Letter to Aylmer, 1579. Strype's Aylmer, 188. § 427. The most obvious evil which existed at this time was the want of an effective ministry; and for the sake of improving the clergy, exercises were established in most of the dioceses, which were called prophesyings, from an expression used by St. Paul. The manner of carrying them on varied in different places, but was generally as follows. The diocese was divided into 2 In our own church, temporal pains are attached to spiritual punishments; (a man, for instance, who is excommunicated, cannot perform any legal act ;) and that proper jealousy which the civil courts have always exercised, lest the rights of the subject should be in any way infringed, has by degrees driven churchmen from attempting to put ecclesiastical censures in force, except on very flagrant occasions; so that even a clergyman must have been guilty of excessive misconduct, and have disgraced the church, before the bishops' court can interfere for his correction. 31 Cor. xiv. 4 Strype's Ann. iii. 325, 472, 481. 5 Grindal, 260. |