Page images
PDF
EPUB

rant from a justice of peace; but the bill was opposed, because there was a severe law already against recusants, of twenty pounds per month; and because, if this bill should pass, a justice of peace's house would, like a quarter-sessions, be crowded with a multitude of informers: It was likewise against magna charta, which entitles every man to be tried by his peers, whereas by this act, two witnesses before a justice of peace were sufficient. The bill however was engrossed, and being put to the question, the Noes carried it by a single voice; upon which the Yeas said the speaker was with them, which made the number even. The question was then put whether the speaker had a voice, which being carried in the negative, the bill miscarried.

The convocation did nothing but give the Queen four subsidies to be collected in four years, and receive an exhortation from the archbishop to observe the canons passed in the last convocation. They met October the 18th, and were dissolved with the parliament December 19th following.

This year [1602] died the rev'd and learned Mr. Wm. Perkins, born at Marston in Warwickshire in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, and educated in Christ's college, Cambridge, of which he was fellow: He was one of the most famous practical writers and preachers of his age; and being a strict Calvinist, he published several treatises in favor of those doctrines, which involved him in a controversy with Arminius then professor of divinity at Leyden, that continued to his death. He was a puritan non-conformist, and a favorer of the discipline, for which he was once or twice before the high commission; but his peaceable behavior, and great fame in the learned world, procured him a dispensation from the persecutions of his brethren. Mr. Perkins was a little man, and wrote with his left hand, being lame of his right. His works, which were printed in three vols. fol. shew him to have been a most pious, holy, and industrious divine, considering he lived only 44 years.†

*Collier's Eccl. Hist. p. 667.

+ Many of his works were translated into Dutch, Spanish, French, and Italian, and are still in estimation in Germany. Mr. Orton, who by his mother's side descended in a direct line from Mr. Perkins' elder brother, speaks of him as an excellent writer, clear and judicious; and re

To sum up the state of religion throughout this long reign. It is evident that the parliament, the people, and great num. bers of the inferior clergy, were for carrying the reformation further than the present establishment. The first bishops came into it with this view; they declared against the popish habits and ceremonies, and promised to use all their interest with the Queen for their removal; but how soon they forgot themselves, when they were warm in their chairs, the foregoing history has discovered.* Most of the first reformers were of Erastian principles, looking upon the church as a mere creature of the state: They gave up every thing to the crown, and yielded to the supreme magistrate the absolute direction of the consciences, or at least of the religious profession of all his subjects. They acknowledged only two orders of clergy of divine institution, viz. bishops or priests, and deacons. They admitted the ordinations of foreign churches by mere presbyters, till towards the middle of this reign, when their validity began to be disputed and denied. Whitgift was the first who defended the hierarchy, from the practice of the third, fourth and fifth centuries, when the Roman empire became christian; but Bancroft divided off the bishops from the priesthood, and advanced them into a superior order by divine right, with the sole power of ordination, and the keys of discipline; so that from his time there were reckoned three orders of clergy in the English hierarchy, viz. bishops, priests, and deacons. Thus the church advanced in her claims, and removed by degrees to a greater distance from the foreign protestants.

The controversy with the puritans had only a small beginning, viz. the imposing of the popish habits and a few indifferent ceremonies; but it opened by degrees into a reformation of discipline, which all confessed was wanting; and

commends his works to all ministers,especially young ones, as affording large materials for composition. Orton's Letters to a Young Clergyman, p. 39, 40. ED.

* Bishop Warburton informs us, from Selden de Synedriis, that Erastus' famous book de Excommunicatione was purchased by Whitgift of Erastus' widow in Germany, and put by him to the press in London, under fictitious names of the place and printer.

Supplemental Volume to Warburton's Works, p. 473. ED.

at last the doctrinal articles were debated. The Queen and the later bishops would not part with a pin out of the hierarchy, nor leave a latitude in the most trifling ceremonies, but insisted upon an exact uniformity both in doctrine and ceremonies, that all might unite in the public standard. The puritans, in their writings and conferences, attempted to shew the defects of the establishment from scripture, and from the earliest ages of the church; and what they suffered for it has been in part related; the suspensions and deprivations of this long reign amounting to several thousands; but when it appeared that nothing would be abated, and that penal laws were multiplied and rigorously executed, they endeavored to erect a sort of voluntary discipline within the church, for the ease and satisfaction of their own consciences, being unwilling to separate; till at length the violence of persecution drove some of them into the extremes of brownism, which divided the puritans, and gave rise to a new controversy, concerning the necessity of a separation from the established church, of which we shall hear more hereafter; but under all their hardships their loyalty to the Queen was untainted, and their behavior peaceable; they addressed the Queen and parliament, and bishops for relief, at sundry times; and remonstrated against the arbitrary proceedings of the spiritual courts, making use of no other weapons but prayers and tears, attended with scripture and argument.

The chief principles of the puritans have been already related: They were no enemies to the name or function of a bishop, provided he was no more than proestost, or a stated president of the college of presbyters in his diocese, and managed the affairs of it with their concurrence and assistance. They did not object against prescribed forms of prayer, provided a latitude was indulged the minister to alter or vary some expressions; and to make use of a prayer of his own conception before and after sermon: nor had they an aversion to any decent and distinct habits for the clergy that were not derived from popery. But upon the whole they were the most resolved protestants in the nation, zealous Calvinists, warm and affectionate preachers, and determined enemies to popery, and to every thing that had a tendency towards it.

It is not pretended, that the PURITANS were without their failings; no, they were men of like passions and infirmities with their adversaries; and while they endeavored to avoid one extreme, they might fall into another; their zeal for their platform of discipline would, I fear, have betrayed them into the imposition of it upon others, if it had been established by law. Their notions of the civil and religious rights of mankind were narrow and confused, and derived too much from the theocracy of the Jews, which was now at an end. Their behavior was severe and rigid, far removed from the fashionable freedoms and vices of the age; and possibly they might be too censorious, in not making those distinctions between youth and age, grandeur and mere decency, as the nature and circumstances of things would admit; but with all their faults, they were the most pious and devout people in the land; men of prayer, both in secret and public, as well as in their families; their manner of devotion was fervent and solemn, depending on the assistance of the divine spirit, not only to teach them how to pray, but what to pray for as they ought. They had a profound reverence for the holy name of God, and were great enemies not only to profane swearing, but to foolish talking and jesting, which are not convenient; they were strict observers of the christian sabbath or Lord's day, spending the whole of it in acts of public and private devotion and charity. It was the distinguishing mark of a puritan in these times, to see him going to church twice a day with his Bible under his arm: And while others were at plays and interludes, at revels, or walking in the fields, or at the diversions of bowling, fencing, &c. on the evening of the sabbath, these with their families were employed in reading the scriptures, singing psalms, catechising their children, repeating sermons, and prayer: Nor was this only the work of the Lord's day, but they had their hours of family devotion on the week days, esteeming it their duty to take care of the souls as well as the bodies of their servants. They were circumspect as to all the excesses of eating, drinking, apparel, and lawful diversions, being frugal in house-keeping, industrious in their particular callings, honest and exact in their dealings, and solicitous to give to every one his own. These were the

people who were branded with the name of precisians, pu ritans, schismatics, enemies to God and their country, and throughout the course of this reign underwent cruel mockings, bonds, and imprisonment.

Sir Francis Walsingham has given a summary account, of the Queen's policy towards them, in a letter to Monsieur Cretoy, which I shall transcribe in his own words.*

"I find, says Sir Francis, that the Queen's pro'ceedings both against papists and puritans are grounded 'upon these two principles :

The one, that consciences are not to be forced but to be won, and reduced by force of truth, with the aid of time and use of all good means of instruction and per 'suasion.

"The other, that causes of conscience, when they exceed their bounds, and grow to be matter of faction, lose their nature; and that sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish their practices and contempt, though colored with the pretence of conscience and religion.

"According to these principles her majesty behaved towards the papists with great mildness, not liking to make a window in their hearts, except the abundance of them "overflowed into overt-acts of disobedience, in impugning her supremacy. When the pope excommunicated her, she only defended herself against his bulls; but when she was 'threatened with an invasion, and the papists were altered 'from being papists in conscience to being papists in faction, she was then obliged to provide severer laws for the 'security of her people.

"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.

* Mr. Neal, in his Review, observes, that Sir Francis wrote this letter as secretary of state and as the Queen's servant, endeavoring to vindicate her behavior towards non-conformists to a foreign court; he must be allowed therefore to put the most favorable construction on his royal mistress' conduct, and acquit her in the best manner he is able. It also deserves to be remarked, that Sir Francis, dying April 1590, did not see the severities of the last thirteen years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, which were by much the sharpest and most cruel. Neal's Review, 4to edition, p. 875. ED. + Burnet's Hist. Ref. vol. iii. p. 419.

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »