tion of the Church property in England. He would have the ruined monasteries once more tenanted by the monks. That is to say, he was resolved to annul the condition on which alone Parliament had consented to restore the papal supremacy. Moreover, England was brought, through Philip, to take part in the war of Spain against France, which gave the victory of St. Quentin to the Spanish king, but made the English smart under the loss of Calais. The Queen, whose whole soul was bound up with the cause of the Catholic Church and who looked upon Philip as its champion, was forced to witness the hostility of the Pope to her husband, and to see Pole, who belonged to that section of the Catholics which was inclined to Protestant views of justification, and for this reason was disliked by Paul IV., deprived of the legatine office. To add to the perils of the situation, France was in alliance with Scotland. Mary died on the 17th of November, 1558. The next night, Cardinal Pole died. It is remarkable that within a short time before or after the Queen's death, not less than thirteen of her bishops died also.

The nation welcomed Elizabeth to the throne. Her bias, which resulted from her education and her native habit of feeling, was towards a highly conservative Protestantism. The point to which she was irrevocably attached was that of the sovereign's supremacy. Her own legitimacy and title to the throne depended on it, and her natural love of power confirmed her attachment to it. She did not reject the Protestant doctrines respecting gratuitous salvation and the supreme authority of the Scriptures, but she was disposed to retain as much as possible of the ancient ritual. She had a decided repugnance to the marriage of the clergy, and was with difficulty dissuaded from absolutely forbidding it. She kept on the altar of her own private chapel a crucifix and a burning candle. On her accession, she is said to have notified Paul IV. of the fact; but this fanatical prelate haughtily

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replied that she must submit her claims to his decision. At a later day, when Pius IV. offered to make important concessions, such as the granting of the cup to the laity and the use of the English Liturgy, the proposal was refused. In the revision of the Liturgy, the passage in the Litany relative to the "tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities" was omitted, as well as the explanation of the rubric that by kneeling in the Sacrament no adoration is intended for any corporal presence of Christ. The Forty-two Articles were reduced to Thirty-nine, in the revision by Convocation in 1563; and its act was confirmed by Parliament in 1571. The Act of Supremacy placed ecclesiastical power in the hands of the Queen, and the Act of Uniformity made dissent in public teaching and in the ceremonies of worship, unlawful. A Court of High Commission was established and furnished with ample powers for enforcing uniformity, and suppressing and punishing heresy and dissent.

The two classes of subjects against whom these powers were to be exerted were the Catholics, and the party which was growing up under the name of Puritans. That the persecution to which Catholics were subject during this reign was palliated, and that the severe proceedings against them were in some cases justified, by the political hostility which was often inseparably mingled with their religious faith, is true. When the Protestantism of the Queen was made the ground of attack upon her on the part of foreign powers, and of conspiracies against her life; when at length she was deposed by a bull of Pius V., and her subjects released from their allegiance, it was natural that severity should be used towards that portion of her subjects who were looked upon as the natural allies of her enemies. Yet it is likewise true that repressive measures were adopted against the Catholics in many cases where justice as well as sound policy would have dictated a different course.

A consideration of the general character of the Anglican Church, as that was determined after the accession of Elizabeth, will qualify us to understand the Puritan controversy. The feature that distinguished the English Church from the reformed churches on the Continent, was the retention in its polity and worship of so much that had belonged to the Catholic system. The first step in the English Reformation was the assertion of the Royal Supremacy. At the beginning this meant a declaration of the nation's independence of Rome. But the positive character of this supremacy was not clearly defined. In the time of Henry VIII., and in the beginning of Edward's reign, Cranmer and the bishops, like civil officers, held their commissions at the King's pleasure. On the death of Henry, Cranmer considered the archbishopric of Canterbury vacant until he should be supplied with a new appointment. As the head of the Church, the King could make and deprive bishops, as he could appoint and degrade all other officers in the kingdom. The episcopal polity was retained, partly because the bishops generally fell in with the proceedings of Henry VIII. and Edward for the reform of the Church, and on account of the compact organization of the monarchy, in consequence of which the nation acted as one body. But in the first age of the Reformation, and until the rise of Puritanism as a distinct party, there was little controversy among Protestants in relation to episcopacy. Not only was Melancthon willing to allow bishops with a jure humano authority, but Luther and Calvin were also of the same mind. The episcopal constitution of the English Church for a long period put no barrier in the way of the most free and fraternal relations between that body and the Protestant churches on the continent. As we have seen, Cranmer placed foreign divines in very responsible places in the English Church. Ministers who had received Presbyterian ordination were admitted to

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take charge of English parishes without a question as to the validity of their orders. We find Cranmer, Melancthon, and Calvin more than once in correspondence with one another, in regard to the calling of a general Protestant Council, to counteract the influence of Trent. The great English divines were in constant correspondence with the Helvetic reformers, to whom they looked for counsel and sympathy, and whom they addressed in a deferential and affectionate style. The pastors of Zurich, Bullinger the successor, and Gualter the son-in-law of Zwingle, were their intimate and trusted advisers. It was a common opinion that there is a parity between bishops and presbyters; that the difference is one of office and not of order. This had been a prevailing view among the schoolmen in the Middle Ages. Though it belonged to bishops to ordain and (in the Latin Church) to confirm; yet the priest, not less than the bishop, performed the miracle of the Eucharist, the highest clerical act. Cranmer distinctly asserted the parity of the two classes of clergy. The same thing is found in the "Bishops' Book," or Institution of a Christian Man, which was put forth by authority in 1537.1 But Cranmer has left on record an explicit assertion of his opinion.2 Jewel,

1 Burnet i. 468 (Addenda). Burnet says that it was "the common style of that age - derived from the schoolmen -"to reckon bishops and priests as the same office." After the Tridentine Council, the doctrine of the institutio divina of bishops prevailed in the Catholic Church. See Gieseler, I. i. 2. § 30, n. i.

2 See Burnet, 1. (ii.) Collection of Records, xxi. The Resolutions of several Bishops and Divines, of some Questions Concerning the Sacraments, etc. "Question 10 Whether bishops or priests were first? and if the priests first, then the priests made the bishop." Cranmer answers: "The bishops and priests were at one time, and were no two things, but both one office in the beginning of Christ's religion." "Question 12. Whether in the New Testament be required any consecration of bishop or priests, or only appointing to the office be sufficient?" Cranmer answers: "In the New Testament, he that is appointed to be a bishop or priest, needeth no consecration by the Scripture, for election or appointing thereto is sufficient." In answer to question 14, Cranmer says that "it is not forbidden by God's law," if all the bishops and priests in a region were dead, that "the King of that region should make bishops and

one of the great lights of the English Church in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, appears to hold this view. Bancroft, the successor of Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury, is thought to have been the first to maintain the necessity of bishops, or the jure divino doctrine.1 There is no trace of such a doctrine in the "Apology for the Church of England," and in the " Defense of the Apology," by Jewel, which have been regarded by Anglicans with just pride as an able refutation of Roman Catholic accusations against their system. At a much later time, Lord Bacon, in his " Advertisement concerning Controversies of the Church of England," speaks of the stiff defenders of all the orders of the Church, as beginning to condemn their opponents as "a sect." "Yea, and some indiscreet persons have been bold in open preaching to use dishonorable and derogatory speech and censure of the churches abroad; and that so far, as some of our men, as I have heard, ordained in foreign parts, have been pronounced to be no lawful ministers. Thus we see the beginnings were modest, but the extremes were violent." 2 Near the end of Elizabeth's reign, Hooker, in his celebrated work in defense of the Church of England, fully concedes the validity of Presbyterian ordination; with tacit reference, as Keble, his modern editor, concedes, to the continental Churches.

priests to supply the same See also a Declaration signed by Cranmer and other bishops, with Cromwell. Burnet, Ibid. Addenda V. After describing in full the functions of the clergy, it is said: "This office, this power and authority, was committed and given by Christ and his Apostles unto certain persons only, that is to say, unto priests or bishops, whom they did elect, call, and admit thereunto by their prayers and imposition of hands." "The truth is, that in the New Testament there is no mention made of any degrees or distinctions in orders, but only of deacons or ministers, and of priests or bishops." Thirteen bishops, with a great number of other ecclesiastics, subscribed this proposition.

1 Hallam thinks that not even Bancroft taught this view, where it is supposed by many to be found, in his sermon at St. Paul's Cross (1588). Const. Hist., p. 226 (Harpers' Am. ed.).

2 Works (Montagu's ed.) vii. 48.