BOOK 1. deadly resolves. The Puritan gloried in a Protestant queen and in a Protestant government, and never ceased striving to bring both into a nearer conformity to his own pure Protestant convictions. His loyalty was impassioned, his repugnance to Romanism was deeply rooted, and his consciousness of spiritual security, hope, and happiness, as derived from his firm beliefs, was such as his opponents could rarely understand. Religious services, religious books, and religious companionships, all of the Puritan type, were the atmosphere in which the spiritual life of men and women, of age and youth, grew and expanded into a nameless sense of rightness and of rest. What the drama, and the common sports of the time, were to others, religious services were to such persons and more. They often travelled far in search of such pleasures, and braved the utmost rather than suffer the loss of them. All this was true of the Protestant Separatists-true of these in a still stronger sense. With them the good was realised at a greater peril, and was prized accordingly as a richer good. There are spirits whose hunger in this form is as for bread to the perishing-whose thirst is as that of David for water from the well of Bethlehem. CHAPTER IV. Religious Life in England from the Death of I his love of JAMES of Scotland, subsequently king of Eng- CHAP. IV. land, in addressing the General Assembly in James loses Edinburgh in 1590, described the service of Presbytery. 'our neighbour kirk of England' as an 'evil said mass in English.' Even the service of Geneva did not fully accord with his majesty's standard of purity. So late as 1598 the royal orator could discourse about Papistical and Anglican bishops,' as functionaries who were not likely to find favour in his eyes, pledging himself to stand by the church' and the ministry' of Scotland. But in the next year the King penned certain councils to his son, in a work entitled Basilicon Doron, which were characterized by another tone of expression concerning the Puritans of the north. Take heed, 'therefore, my son,' said the writer, to such Puritans, very pests in the church and commonwealth, whom 'no deserts can oblige, nor oaths nor promises bind, 'breathing nothing but seditions and calumnies, aspiring ' without measure, railing without reason, and making с BOOK I. 'their own imaginations, without any warrant from 'the Word, the square of their conscience. I protest before the great God, and as I am here upon my 'testament it is no place for me to lie in, that ye 'shall never find with any highland or border thieves greater ingratitude, and more lies and vile perjuries, than with these fanatic spirits. And suffer not the principal of them to brook your land, if you like to rest in it.' This book was printed in 1603, and copies of it were in the hands of persons in England before his majesty crossed the border.* Parsons, the Jesuit, writing to a friend, says the pope has seen the book, has been much delighted with it, and hopes the king may become a good Catholic.† Another Jesuit writes about the same time, expressing his surprise at the favourable tone of the publication towards the professors of his faith. His majesty's language, as above cited, will be interpreted by candid men as the language of passion more than of truth. But the English Puritans might well look with apprehension toward the accession of a monarch who had betrayed such feeling. The Puritan petition. Soon after James came into England a petition was presented to him of a large body of the Puritan clergy. The document had been circulated through about half the counties of England, and had received more than 800 clerical signatures. James received it with apparent * I know not whether you have seen the king's book before, but I send it you at all ventures, for it is new here.' Chamberlain's Letter, March 30, 1603. State Paper Office. Domestic Series, vol. i. Calderwood's Church of Scotland, 256-418. Spotswood's History, 456-468. + MS. State Paper Office. Domestic Series, vol. i. No. 84. Ibid. vol. i. No. 118. It appears also that in 1603 the king's book were translated and printed in French. No. 67. extracts from Ibid. vol. v. respect, and promised that a day should be fixed when CHAP. IV. deputations from the parties at issue on the points to which the petition referred, should be convened, and the whole subject should be considered. In this memorable paper the petitioners protest against being accounted disorderly or disloyal in what they do, and they pray that certain things connected with the worship and discipline of the church, the manner of appointing its ministers to their livings, and the qualifications of such persons, may be reformed. With regard to baptism, it was urged that it should no longer be administered in any case by women, and that the sign of the cross, and the questions usually put to the infant, should be dispensed with. It was further sought that the ring might not be used in the ceremony of marriage; that confirmation might be abolished; that the lessons from the Apocrypha in the public service might be omitted; that no ministers should be obliged to wear the cap and surplice, or to encourage the people in an observance of holidays, or in bowing at the name of Jesus; that the sanctity of the Lord's-day might be more strictly enforced, the church service abridged, and certain improvements attempted in its psalmody. It was, moreover, prayed, that all clergymen should be obliged to be resident on their cures, be capable of preaching, and be so employed at least once on the Sabbath. Finally, it was urged that subscription in future should be restricted to the doctrines of religion, and to the article of his majesty's supremacy; that it should not have respect to the offices of the church. generally; and that certain laws, and forms of proceeding, pertaining to the ecclesiastical courts should be reformed.* * Phænix Britannicus. Neal's History of the Puritans, ii. 5, 6. BOOK I. Action of the Univer sities. Hampton ference. Oxford and Cambridge rose against the petitioners. The Oxford divines declared that the proposed changes tended to anarchy, and that they were especially adverse to that supereminent authority always pertaining to the regal person of a king.' Cambridge resolved to disown any man impugning the doctrine or discipline of the church, and would deprive him of any degree he might have taken from her hands.* Somewhat more than six months had intervened since Court con- the Puritans had presented their petition, when James issued a proclamation which prohibited all writing and petitioning on the subject of reforms in religious matters, on pain of his displeasure. When the time for holding this long-expected conference arrived, the first day was occupied by the king and the prelates in discussions preliminary to their meeting with the Puritan ministers. James was scarcely more vain of being thought an absolute king than of being esteemed a profound divine. It is said, accordingly, that on this day his majesty was pleased to play the Puritan ;' and indulged so far in that humour, that the bishops, on their knees, entreated him that nothing might be altered, lest Papists and < Puritans should have occasion to insult upon them, as men who had travelled to bind them to that which, by 'their own mouths, was now confessed to be erroneous.'† Reasoning of this sort, whether avowed or not, is always potent in such cases. With the opponents of innovation, to confess error in the past, must be to lose power in the future. The king, having sufficiently alarmed the prelates, soon made them aware that nothing was further from his thoughts than to take part against them. * Strype's Annals, iv. 522, 523. Neal, ii. 6-8. |