Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/397

Rh CHURCH.] ENGLAND 377 ing the laws and still keeping their benefices. The ministers who acted thus were strongly supported by a numerous party in the House of Commons, and only the untiring vigour and courage and the unfailing popularity of the queen saved the church from disruption. On the one hand Elizabeth constrained the bishops, often with the roughest menaces, to act. On the other she exercised a most dictatorial authority over parliament, and prevented its in terference. Yet all this time the chief supporters of the Puritans were among her own favourites and ministers, Lord Leicester and secretary Walsingham being the most conspicuous. So imperiously did the queen treat the chief ministers of the church, that at her demand the Star Chamber suspended the primate Grindal from the exercise of his office, and kept him in this enforced inaction till near his death. His offence was that he refused to obey the queen s orders to put down certain meetings and exer cises of clergy and laity which were called prophesyings, and which were judged by the queen to have a tendency to encourage Puritanism. In the next primate, Archbishop Whitgift (1583), the queen found a man after her own mind an unsparing disciplinarian, without the least tendency to undervalue the requirements of his position. Under Whitgift the subscription test was applied much more thoroughly than before, and in consequence the number of dissenters increased, while a complete conformity was pro duced in the church. The Puritans, despairing of obtain ing legislative relief, and soured and embittered by the harsh treatment which they often experienced from the courts of ecclesiastical commission, allowed themselves to fall into the unjustifiable practica of v/riting railing libels against the bishops and clergy. These, which were known by the name of the Mar-Prelate libels, from a nom de plume assumed by one of the writers, became most bitter and fierce about the time of the great danger of the country from the Spanish Armada (1588). They were at length put down, and the writers of them punished with much severity ; and by a law passed in 1593, which, making Puritanism an offence against the statute law, put the punishment of dissenters into the hands of the common law judges, the resistance to the church was well-nigh over come. Tha chief of the Puritans now quitted England. The last ten years of Elizabeth s reign were comparatively free from religious contentions, and the church grew and flourished. In 1563 a review of the 42 articles agreed upon under Edward VI. had issued in the number being reduced to 39, the introduction of some new matter, and the exclusion of some previously adopted. The amended articles were accepted by the convocation of Canterbury and representatives of that of York, and, being ratified by the queen, were ordered to be subscribed by the whole of the clergy. An Act of Parliament making this compulsory was passed 1571. A second book of homilies was also now sent out by the convocation for the use of the clergy, and continual efforts were made to improve the learning of the parochial clergy, and to provide a larger supply of ministers competent to preach. During the reign of Elizabeth the theology of the church of England in its re formed state acquired form and substance. Jewel s great work (The Apology] stated its case as against the Romanists. Whitgift, Bancroft, Hooker, and Bilson defended its teach ing and discipline against the Puritans. The ground taken by this latter class of writers became gradually higher, until at length a divine right and claim were demanded for episcopacy. These higher views were readily accepted by the new sovereign James I., who, himself a theological writer, and thoroughly alienated from the Presbyterians by the rough treatment he had received at their hands, was ready to accord high authority to the church as he demanded it for the throne. His absolutist views of &quot;overmnent soon embroiled him with the parliament, and the church shared in the unpopularity of the monarch. At the commencement of the reign of James, the Puritans entertained great expec tations of obtaining changes favourable to their views. A petition, signed by nearly a thousand ministers who held with them, had been presented to the king, and a conference was arranged to be held at Hampton Court (January 1604) to consider the points in dispute. Very small changes were the issue of this conference. It afforded an opportunity for the king to exhibit his theological skill, and to threaten the Puritans that they must expect rough treatment if they did not conform. Severe measures followed. Bancroft, the new primate (December 1604), demanded not only the act of subscription to the formularies, but a declaration from the clergy that they made it ex animo. Through this many wero deprived. Under Abbot, who succeeded him (1610), Calvinistic opinions were much favoured in the church, and the king, who at that time appeared to hold these views, sent four English divines to represent him at the synod of Dort (1618). But towards the latter part of the reign a change both in politics and in the theology which found favour is very apparent. Arminian opinions began now to be freely advocated by divines, and the parliament, which was strongly opposed to these opinions and to the milder treatment of Romanists with which they were accompanied, began to make fierce personal assaults on the chief main- tainers of them. Thus Bishops Neile and Harsnet, and Mr Montagu, one of the king s chaplains, were attacked by the House of Commons. The accession of Charles, who was more strongly imbued with the opinions so distasteful to parliament than even his father, while it encouraged the court divines to bolder flights, made the temper of parlia ment more hostile both to them and the king. The angry dissolution of the parliament in 1629 was followed by an organized attempt on the part of the clmrch rulers to preach up absolutist doctrines and the divine right of kings. The king s trusted adviser, Laud, was at the same time the auto cratic ruler of the church, having, through the courts of High Commission and Star Chamber, an absolute power over both clergy and laity. Laud aspired not only to exact conformity, but to regulate the opinions and teaching of the whole body of clergy after the court pattern. He at the same time sought to improve the solemnity and decency of public worship, and to introduce many much-needed reforms into the church. But his measures were often taken with out regard either to policy or justice, and, in consequence, a vast store of unpopularity was accumulated against him, which found vent when, early in 1640, during the sit ting of the Short Parliament, a convocation met, and pro ceeded under royal licence to make canons. An unfortun ate mistake in the hasty wording of a canon, which, leaving an &quot; &c.&quot; in the list of church officers to whom obedience was to be sworn, seemed to suggest the possibility of a trap laid for the unwary, caused a general ferment throughout the country. The unwise policy of continuing the convocation after the dissolution of parliament, in order that it might grant the king a benevolence, added fuel to the fire, and when, in November 1640, the Long Parliament met, a most violent attack was at once made on Archbishop Laud and the clergy generally. Laud and two other bishops were committed to the Tower, awaiting articles of impeachment ; the bishops were expelled from the House of Lords, the court of High Commission was taken away, and committees were appointed both in parliament and in the country to deal with the numerous petitions presented against the clergy. Soon the king and parliament were at open war, and the severest measures were directed against the clergy, who were mostly loyal to the king. In 1643 met an assembly of divines at Westminster, to which was committed the task of recasting the whole of the formularies and constitution of VIII. 48