for Liberty, where she may reveal her true life, unfold her power, and achieve for the world a new and nobler civilization? In the midst of our anxious inquiries, we examine history in the light of true Christianity, and begin to receive our answer. God is yet the sovereign of nations. In the mean time, he is preparing a new development of the feeling of personal rights and responsibility. Let us look at this new development from our Christian stand-point. PURITANISM IN ENGLAND. The contest between radicalism and conservatism appears in every age, and in Church as well as State. When the Reformation extended to England, the questions, as to how much that was peculiar to the Roman-Catholic Church should be saved, and what should take the place of that which was destroyed, were not easily nor soon answered. Henry VIII. could see distinctly that his own independent sovereignty, and his purposes of divorce and marriage, would not permit the supreme ecclesiastical power claimed by the Roman pontiff within his realm; and he therefore summarily set it aside. But he by no means intended general liberty of religious faith and observances. It will not be forgotten, that, in his reign, men were burned at the stake for denying the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation; and the superstitious ritualism of the Catholic Church was to constitute, to a great extent, the State religion of England. Elizabeth had been a thorough conformist during the reign of "bloody Mary," and was strongly inclined to continue it when she became the head of the kingdom and the Church. She believed in the real presence, and long struggled to retain images, the crucifix, and tapers in her private chapel. She was inclined to offer prayers to the Virgin, favored the invocation of saints, and insisted upon "the celibacy of the clergy." She was too fond of absolute authority, and had too high an appreciation of the absolutism of the Romish Church, to make her a willing radical Protestant. But her problem was difficult. She was obliged and disposed to carry the movement commenced by Henry VIII. forward to its legitimate results. He had released the kingdom from the political domination of Rome: she must sever it from the spiritual domination. She must show that the Church of England, under the supreme control of the British sovereign, was as verily the true Catholic Church as when under the control of the Roman pontiff. She was Protestant as against the assumptions of the pope, rather than as against the superstitious rites and heretical dogmas of the Church of Rome. She expected, therefore, and not wholly without reason, to be able, by queenly grace and authority, to induce Catholic conformity to the rule of the new virtual pontiff, and substantially the old Catholic Church. Cranmer had done much to prepare the way for this result. In many respects a very great and good man, he was yet a temporizer. With his conscience roused, and his heart essentially Protestant, he deprecated persecution, and devoutly wished for the growth of true spiritual Christianity. But, as a distinguished leader of the English hierarchy, he founded the Church of England with high notions of priestly authority and political expediency. It is, therefore, not a reason for surprise that he ultimately forfeited the confidence of both parties, and fell a victim to his own inconsistencies. But Elizabeth must persist in her efforts at conformity to the divine right of prelacy and the State religion. Romanists, accustomed to the art of dissimulation, would to some extent seem to conform, but finally show that the supreme headship of the pontiff at Rome was essential to Romanism; and the Virgin Queen would feel the blow of excommunication, while her subjects were absolved from their allegiance by a power that sovereigns had not ceased to dread. But Elizabeth must grapple with another formidable power. The Reformation was not a mere effort at political emancipation. "Luther had based his reform upon the sublime but simple truth which lies at the basis of morals, the paramount value of character, and purity of conscience; the superiority of right dispositions over ceremonial exactions;" and against all papal and prelatical pretensions, implying the confessional, indulgences, and priestly absolution, had insisted upon "justification by faith alone." It was only necessary for these grand doctrines to gain a clearer utterance to insure their propagation and spiritual power. They were essentially true, and hence immortal, and destined to win their way to the ends of the earth. England had long since received the evangelical leaven. Wickliffe and his Bible, and a host of illustrious confessors and martyrs, had sent these great truths down deep into the religious consciousness of the nation; and they were destined to survive all persecution, and work their way up to the surface, and all the more promptly and powerfully, now that papal authority was renounced by the head of the realm. Freedom of thought precedes freedom of expression, and leads directly to it. "The spirit of inquiry rebelled against proscription." Conformity to Romish superstitions and pompous ceremonies, as a matter of "expediency," was denounced as a crime; and it soon began to be evident that multitudes of the English people did not allow that they had escaped from one form of ecclesiastical despotism to be immediately involved in another. In other words, the spirit of true piety would assert its right to worship God according to the dictates of its own conscience. "The austere principle was now announced, that not even a ceremony should be tolerated, unless it was enjoined by the word of God. And this was Puritanism. The Church of England, at least in its ceremonial part, was established by an act of parliament or a royal ordinance. Puritanism, zealous for independence, admitted no voucher but the Bible, a fixed rule which it would allow neither parliament nor hierarchy nor king to interpret. The Puritans adhered to the Established Church as far as their interpretations of the Bible seemed to warrant, but no farther, not even in things of indifference. They would yield nothing in religion to the temporal sovereign; they would retain nothing that seemed a relic of the religion which they had renounced. They asserted the equality of the plebeian clergy, and directed their fiercest attacks against the divine right of bishops, as the only remaining stronghold of superstition. In most of these views, they were sustained by the reformers of the continent."* Here was a revolt from authority that was no sudden impulse, no transient passion. It was Conscience rising up to assert her rights; it was deep-seated conviction; it was true manhood, under the inspirations of a new life,the life of the age, the life of the Reformation,-gradually becoming" the life of God in the soul of man." What would temporal and spiritual sovereignty do with it? Why, rise up and crush it. Its most numerous representatives were "plebeians," common people. What right had they to "prophesy" or to find fault with "the Church"? How could they expect consideration or mercy? It was of no use to parley with such obstinate heretics. Down with them! No, your Majesty: you do not understand these people. Some of your wisest counsellors see the roots of this "evil" striking deeper down than you think. This is a new England coming up which you have not known before it is not merely Brown and "the conventicles;" it is the spirit of the age. Be careful how you treat it. It will rock the throne of England, and conduct royalty itself to the block, if you don't take your foot off of it. But power enthroned is blind, and the terrible contest will go on. In 1571, the Thirty-nine Articles become the law of the land. Parliament exacts belief, at first, only in those which relate to the confession and the sacraments. But even this show of toleration will soon disappear. The order for absolute conformity is promulgated, and Protestant Popery shows its persecuting, murderous spirit. * Bancroft, i. 279. |