Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/196

 of the service of guarding the Communion-table from profane uses by removing it from the body of the church to the east end. But it was a most undesirable extension of authority to prescribe specific acts of reverence as equally applicable to all. He was over-hasty, over-punctilious. He was proud of his prodigious activity, which sometimes degenerated into fussiness. He made men feel unquiet, because they did not know how much farther he was going. He was not content with laying down great lines which could be quietly filled in afterwards.

But more than this, he completely identified the Church with the State. He knew, to quote his own words, "that my order as a Bishop, and my power of jurisdiction, is by Divine Apostolical right, and unalterable (for aught I know) in the Church of Christ"; but he took no other view of his right to exercise his office, either of power or jurisdiction, than as derived from the Crown, and exercisable according to law. He does not seem to have thought of the paternal jurisdiction inherent in his office, and independent of anything that the State could confer. The loss of this conception did more to confuse men's minds about the nature of the Church than any of Laud's measures did to make it clear. His action did much to stereotype the view of a bishop's office as an executor of national laws, passed through motives of expediency, and founded on other than theological reasons. This was the view which rendered Episcopacy unpopular, which gave strength to Nonconformity, and involved the system of the Church in current politics. If Laud had conferred with his