Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/594

580 and godmothers, the rite of confirmation, the observance of Lent and holidays, the cathedral worship, the use of the organ, the retention of the reading of apocryphal books in the church, pluralities, non-residence, the presentation of livings by the Crown, or any other patron, or by any mode but the free election of the people.



But in that age no conception of religious liberty was entertained. The Puritans were as resolute in their ideas of conformity to their notions as Elizabeth was to hers; and had they had the power, would have used the same compulsion. Knox exhibited that spirit of exclusiveness to the extreme in Scotland, even calling for the deposition of the queen as a "Jezebel" and "an idolatress," because she would not adopt his peculiar tenets and view of things. The Puritans exhibited the same spirit long after in America, where they put to death the Quakers for the exercise of their faith. In fact, the great and divine principle of the entire liberty of the gospel was too elevated to be arrived at suddenly after so many ages of spiritual despotism, and required long and earnest study of the spirit and example of Christ; severe struggles, and bloody deaths, and incredible sufferings in those who came to see the sublime truth, before the battle of religious freedom was fought out, and all parties could admit the plain fact which had revealed itself to Charles V. after his abdication of the throne, when he amused himself with clock-making: that as no two clocks can be made to go precisely alike, it is folly to expect all men to think precisely alike. "Both parties," says Neal, in his "History of the Puritans," speaking of these times, "agreed too well in asserting the necessity of a uniformity of public worship, and in using the sword of the magistrate for the support and defence of their respective principles, which they made an ill use of in their turns whenever they could grasp the power in 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 civil Government he lives under."

Elizabeth, having the power, compelled all those clergymen who conformed sufficiently to accept livings and bishoprics, not only to conform, but more or less to persecute their brethren. Even men like Parker and Grindal, naturally averse to compulsion, were obliged to do her bidding, till Grindal rebelled and was set aside; but their places were supplied by Sandys, who had himself fled from Popish compulsion, and by Whitgift, who rigorously enforced the laws. Sandys actually sentenced the anabaptists who, in 1575, were burnt at the stake by order of the queen—for to this pass it came: Hammond, a ploughman, being burnt at Norwich in 1579, and Kett, a member of one of the universities, in the same place, ten years afterwards, under Elizabeth.



Such was the state of the Protestant Church at the termination of the period we are now reviewing. The queen discouraged preaching and instruction of the people, allowing many bishoprics, prebends, and livings to be vacant, and receiving their incomes. She declared that one or two preachers in a county was enough, probably fearing the prevalence of the more advanced opinions. Parker in his time had been ordered to enforce strict compliance with the rubric, and numbers of the most eminent and eloquent clergymen resigned their livings and travelled over the country, and preached where they could, "as if," says Bishop Jewell, "they were apostles; and so they were with regard to their poverty, for silver and gold they had none." Being, however, continually brought before the authorities and fined and otherwise punished, they determined to break off all connection with the public churches, and form themselves into an avowed separate communion, worshipping God in their own way, and being ready to