bounds, and grow to be matters of faction, lose their nature: and that sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish their practices and contempt, though coloured with the pretense of conscience and religion.

"According to these principles her majesty behaved towards the papists with great mildness, not liking to make a window into their hearts, except the abundance of them overflowed into overt acts of disobedience, in impugning her supremacy.

..

"For the other party, which have been offensive to the state, though in another degree, and which call themselves Reformers, and we commonly call Puritans, this hath been the proceeding towards them: a great while, when they inveighed against such abuses in the Church as pluralities, non-residents, and the like, their zeal was not condemned, only their violence was sometimes censured. When they refused the use of some ceremonies and rites as superstitions, they were tolerated with much connivance and gentleness; yea, when they called in question the superiority of bishops, and pretended to a democracy in the Church, their propositions were considered, and by contrary writings debated and discussed; yet all this while it was perceived that their course was dangerous and very popular; as because papistry was odious, therefore it was ever in their mouths, that they sought to purge the Church from the relics of papistry, a thing acceptable to the people who love ever to run from one extreme to another.

"Because multitudes of rogues and poverty was an eyesore, and a dislike to every man, therefore they put into people's heads that, if discipline were planted, there would be no vagabonds, no beggars, a thing very plausible; . . . . besides they opened to the people a way to government by their consistories and presbyteries, a thing though in consequence no less prejudicial to the liberties of private men than to the sovereignty of princes, yet in first show very popular; nevertheless, this, except it were in some few that entered into extreme contempt, was borne with, because they pretended in dutiful manner to make propositions, and to leave it to the providence of God and the authority of the magistrate.

"But now of late years, when there issued from them [some] that affirmed the consent of the magistrate was not to be attended; when . . . they combined themselves by classes and subscriptions; when they descended into that vile and base means of defacing the church by ridiculous pasquils; when they began to make many subjects in doubt to take oaths, which is one of the fundamental parts of justice in this land and in all places; when they began to vaunt of their strength, and number of their partisans and followers, and to use comminations, that their cause would prevail through uproar and violence, then it appeared to be no more zeal, no more conscience, but mere faction and division; and, therefore, though the state were compelled to hold somewhat a harder hand to restrain them than before, yet was it with as great

moderation as the peace of the Church could permit. Thus her majesty has always observed the two rules before mentioned, in dealing tenderly with consciences, and yet in discovering faction from conscience, and softness from singularity." 30

This letter though unfair to the Puritans, shows the political wisdom of the government. The Puritan church system was unsuited to English society, and the principle of constraining all things to precepts forced from the word of God was impracticable. With all its strength and narrow sincerity, the Puritan temper and the rigid restraint it would set on life, could not reach even a temporary dominance until the time's abounding energies had had their fling. Moreover, a certain intellectual improvement now occurring in the Church was more in harmony with these energies of life, and tended to disparage Puritanism.

30 Letter given in Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, bk. I, ch. VIII, taken from Burnet, Hist. Ref., Vol. III, p. 419. It was written to M. Cretoy, the French minister.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE ANGLICAN VIA MEDIA: RICHARD HOOKER

THE revolutions of reform and change in England lowered the morale of the clergy and wasted the revenues of the schools and universities where the clergy should have been educated. These untoward conditions appearing in the time of Henry VIII, did not improve in the short reforming reign of the boy Edward. The Marian reaction or subversion had no sound restorative effect; and accounts agree as to the dearth of educated and decently behaving clergy in the time of Elizabeth. Seemliness overspread the Church under Whitgift's rule, while a certain Anglican intellectual revival was effected by Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.

Political and religious exigencies in the early years of Elizabeth had demanded a defense of the Church as against Roman Catholic recusants: the need was met by the excellent Apology of Bishop Jewel. Twenty-five years later a work of genius justified the doctrines, liturgy, and ceremonials of the Church as against the Puritan attack.

Bishop Jewel of Salisbury took counsel with other divines in the composition of his Apology, which was published in 1562 as the authoritative defense of the Church of England against the Romanists. It was soon translated into many tongues, an excellent and also authoritative English version coming from the pen of Lady Anne Bacon, wife of Sir Nicholas and mother of the great Francis. Everywhere it was accepted as the sufficient confession and defense of the Catholic and Christian faith of the English Church. So it remained. "Three great princes successively, viz. Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles, and four archbishops. were so satisfied with the truth and learning contained

in it, that they enjoined it to be chained up and read in all parish churches throughout England and Wales." 1

The Romanists cry out, declares the text,

"that we are all heretics and have forsaken the faith, and have with new persuasions and wicked learning utterly dissolved the concord of the Church; that we renew, and as it were, fetch again from hell the old and many-a-day condemned heresies; that we sow abroad new sects, and such broils as never erst were heard of; also that we are already divided into contrary parts and opinions. . . . That we have seditiously fallen from the Catholic Church and by a wicked schism and division have shaken the whole world. . . . That we set nought by the authority of the ancient fathers and councils of old time; that we have ... disannulled the old ceremonies,"

and that we are clean given over to all wickedness.

In reply to all such allegations, the Apology sought to establish the legitimacy of the Church of England as a true and ancient church, neither a heresy, an innovation, nor a schism. Its office was to show

"that God's holy gospel, the ancient bishops, and the primitive. church do make on our side, and that we have not without just cause left these men, and rather have returned to the apostles and old catholic fathers . . . not colourably or craftily, but in good faith before God . . . and if they themselves which fly our doctrine, and would be called catholics, shall manifestly see how all those titles of antiquity, whereof they boast so much, are quite shaken out of their hands,"

then they may bethink themselves indeed as to which side they might better join.

Jewel's Apology remains the classic statement of the Anglican as against the Roman position. There is no need to follow its proofs of its main theses, nor its presentation of the sacraments, the ministry, scripture, and ceremonies; its counter attack upon the abuses and innovations of the Roman Church, or its consideration of councils and papal supremacy. Nor need we notice the abundant replies by Roman Catholics, or Jewel's further

1 Strype, Annals, II, 1, p. 147. The Apology and Lady Bacon's translation are printed in Vol. III of Jewel's Works, Parker Society (1848). With Jewel's Apology compare his letter to one Scipio, as to the Council of Trent.- Strype, Annals, 1, II, pp. 60–68,

Defense of his Apology. Rather we turn at once to his protégé, the Judicious Hooker, the only man of the English Reform whose repute has fixed a title to his name, even as Aquinas was termed Doctor Angelicus (for his marvellous and holy intellect, rather than for his disposition, of which less is known) or Duns Scotus, Doctor Subtilissimus.2

Isaac Walton's lovely and précieux "Life" of this jewel of the English Church has fixed in our minds. the impression of a sensitive intellectual nature, a being of precocious and extraordinary scholarship, an ecclesiastical philosopher with a beautiful reasoning and constructive mind: a man diffident, modest, with a "dovelike " disposition; a sweet and holy man, who most fittingly should meditate upon his deathbed on the nature and number of the angels, their blessed obedience and order, praying that it might be reflected among men. This impression is borne out by whatever else is known of Hooker and above all by the quality of his works. Their style is winning in spite of its inversions; "long and pithy," says the genial Fuller, "driving on a whole flock of clauses before he comes to the close of a sentence." Whether we search the ranks of the English Church of the sixteenth century, or look among objecting Puritans or Catholic recusants, Hooker seems the one unquestionable intellectual person whose delight is to reason on the things of God and man with sweetness and persuasion. For his all considering method, he may be likened to Aquinas, whom he had studied well. In England he had one intellectual predecessor, the Welshman Reginald Pecock, who had Hooker's reasoning mind, but lacked his judiciousness.3

Hooker was born in Exeter in 1554, of unemphatic parents, but under the auspices of a notable uncle, John Hooker, public official, antiquary, historian, and writer of good English. The worthy man recommended his nephew Richard to the patronage of Bishop Jewel, through whose assistance doubtless the studious lad found

2 The term "Judicious Hooker" is in Cowper's epitaph on Hooker. 3 Ante chap. XX,