THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. 299 VIII. The environs of the court displayed no resistance to CHAP. the capricious monarch; a subservient parliament yielded him absolute authority in religion; but the public mind was roused to independence. Jan. 28. The accession of Edward VI. led the way to the 1547. establishment of protestantism in England, and, at the same time, gave life to the germs of the difference, which was eventually to divide the English. A change in the reformation had already been effected among the Swiss, and especially at Geneva. Luther had based his reform upon the sublime but simple truth, which lies at the basis of morals; the paramount value of character and purity of conscience; the superiority of right dispositions over ceremonial exactness; or, as he expressed it, justification by faith alone. But he hesitated to deny the real presence, and was indifferent to the observance of external ceremonies. Calvin, with sterner dialectics, sanctioned by the influence of the purest life, and by his power as the ablest writer of his age, attacked the Roman doctrines respecting the communion, and esteemed as a commemoration the rite, which the catholics reverenced as a sacrifice. Luther acknowledged princes as his protectors, and, in the ceremonies of worship, favored magnificence as an aid to devotion; Calvin was the guide of Swiss republics, and avoided, in their churches, all appeals to the senses as a crime against religion. Luther resisted the Roman church for its immorality; Calvin for its idolatry. Luther exposed the folly of 1 37. Henry VIII. c. xvii. Statutes, v. iii. p. 1009. CHAP. superstition; Calvin shrunk from its criminality with VIII. impatient horror. Luther permitted the cross and the taper, pictures and images, as things of indifference; Calvin demanded a spiritual worship in its utmost purity. The reign of Edward, giving safety to protestants, soon brought to light, that both sects of the reformed church existed in England. The one party, sustained by Cranmer, desired moderate reforms; the other, countenanced by the protector, were the implacable adversaries of the ceremonies of the Roman 1549, church. It was still attempted to enforce1 uniformity 1552. by menaces of persecution; but the most offensive and of the Roman doctrines were expunged from the liturgy. The tendency of the public mind favored a greater simplicity in the forms of devotion; the spirit of inquiry was active; not a rite of established worship, not a point in church government, escaped unexamined; not a vestment nor a ceremony remained, of which the propriety had not been denied. A more complete reform was demanded; and the friends of the established liturgy expressed in the prayer-book itself a wish for its furtherance. The party, strongest in numbers, pleaded expediency for retaining much that had been sanctioned by ancient usage; while abhorrence of superstition excited the other party to demand the boldest innovations. The austere principle was now announced, that not even a 1 Lingard, v. vii. p. 286, 287; 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. i. Statutes, v. iv. 36-39; Rymer, v. xv. 181183, and 250-252. 2 Neal's Puritans, v. i. p. 121; Neal's History of New-England, v. i. p. 51. ORIGIN OF PURITANISM. 301 VIII. ceremony should be tolerated, unless it was enjoined CHAP. by the word of God. And this was puritanism. The church of England, at least, in its ceremonial part, was established by an act of parliament, or a royal ordinance; puritanism, zealous for independence, admitted no voucher but the bible; a fixed rule, which they would allow neither parliament, nor hierarchy, nor king to interpret. The puritans adhered to the established church as far as their interpretations of the bible seemed to warrant; but no farther, not even in things of indifference. They would yield nothing in religion to the temporal sovereign; they would retain nothing, that seemed a relic of the religion, which they had renounced. In these views they were sustained by the reformers of the continent. Bucer and Peter Martyr both complained of the backwardness of the reformation in England; Calvin wrote in the same strain. When Hooper, who had gone into exile in the latter years of Henry VIII., was appointed bishop of Gloucester, 1550. July. he, for a time, refused to be consecrated in the vestments, which the law required; and his refusal marks the era, when the puritans first existed as a separate party. They demanded a thorough reform; the established church desired to check the propensity to 1 So Cartwright, a few years later, in his Reply to Whitgift, p. 27: "En matters of the church, there may be nothing done but by the word of God." In his Sec. Reply, 1675, p. 81: “Et is not enough, that the Scripture speaketh not against them, unless it speak for them.” 2 Strype's Memo. v. ii. c. xxviii. 3 Hallam's England, v. i. p. 140. 4 Strype's Memorials, v. ii. p. 226, and Repository, v. ii. p. 118 -132; Hallam's England, v. i. p. 141; Neal's Puritans, v. i. p. 108— 113; Prince, p. 282–307. Prince has written with great diligence and distinctness. CHAP. change. The strict party repelled all union with VIII. the catholics; the politic party aimed at conciliating their compliance. The churchmen, with, perhaps, a wise moderation, differed from the ancient forms as little as possible, and readily adopted the use of things indifferent; the puritans could not sever themselves too widely from the Roman usages, and sought glaring occasions to display their antipathy. The surplice and the square cap, for several generations, remained things of importance; for they became the badges of a party. They were rejected as the livery of superstition. The unwilling use of them was evidence of religious servitude. 1553, The reign of Mary involved both parties in dan1558. ger; but they, whose principles wholly refused to communion with Rome, were placed in the greatest peril. Rogers and Hooper, the first martyrs of protestant England, were puritans; and it may be remarked, that, while Cranmer, the head and founder of the English church, desired, almost to the last, by delays, recantations and entreaties, to save himself from the horrid death to which he was doomed, the puritan martyrs never sought, by concessions, to escape the flames. For them, compromise was itself apostacy. The offer of pardon could not induce Hooper to waver; nor the pains of a lingering death impair his fortitude. He suffered by a very slow fire; at length, says the faithful narrator, he died as quietly as a child in his bed. A large part of the English clergy returned to their submission to the see of Rome; others firmly adhered THE PURITANS IN EXILE. 303 VIII. to the reformation, which they had adopted from con- CHAP. viction; and very many, who had taken advantage of the laws of Edward, sanctioning the marriage of the clergy, had, in their wives and children, given hostages for their fidelity to the protestant cause. Multitudes, therefore, hurried into exile to escape the grasp of vindictive bigotry; but even in foreign lands, two parties among the emigrants were visible; and the sympathies of a common exile could not immediately eradicate the rancor of religious divisions. The one party aimed at renewing abroad the forms of discipline, which had been sanctioned by the English parliaments in the reign of Edward; the puritans, on the contrary, endeavored to sweeten exile. by a complete emancipation from the ceremonies, which they had reluctantly observed. The sojourning in Frankfort was embittered by the anger of consequent divisions; but Time, the great calmer of the human passions, softened the asperities of controversy; and a reconciliation of the two parties was prepared by concessions to the puritans. For the circumstances of their abode on the continent were well adapted to strengthen the influence of the stricter sect. While the companions of their exile had, with the most bitter intolerance, been rejected by Denmark and Northern Germany, the English emi 1 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. xxi., 5 and 6 Edward VI. c. xii. in Statutes, v. iv. p. 67, and 146, 147; Strype's Memorials, v. iii. p. 108. 2 Discourse of the Troubles in Frankfort. 3 Ibid, edition of 1642, p. 160, 161, 162, 163. "We will joyne 4 with you to be suitors for the 4 Planck's Geschichte des Pro |