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for their dissent? Are they to be accused of schism when they had cut themselves off from the state church? Is there an episcopalian who will enter into the prisons or approach the stake of these illustrious martyrs, and revile them as sectarians, and separatists? And yet they were such. In them, at any rate, nonconformity was a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty and why should it be for a stigma upon those who, on the same general grounds, separate from the community of which these confessors and martyrs were ministers ?

ELIZABETH was an extraordinary woman, a second, but much improved, edition of her father; yet certainly another edition of HENRY VIII., not of course in his vices, but in many of his principles, and in some of his passions. No sooner was she quietly settled upon the throne than, forgetting the sufferings through which her fellow Protestants had passed in the reign of her sister, and the dangers she herself had escaped; untaught alike by observation, reflection, or experience; equally ungrateful to God and tyrannical to man; impelled by her own intolerant disposition, and urged forward by her no less intolerant ecclesiastical guides, she passed "The Act of Uniformity," the design of which was to extinguish all liberty in matters of religious worship, and to make it as necessary, in order to officiate at the altar of the Church of England, to wear the surplice, as to be clad in the robe of righteousness and the garment of salvation; to trace the sign of the cross upon an infant's brow in baptism, as to preach the doctrine of the cross in the great congregation; and to administer the elements of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper to the people on their knees, as to observe the sacred festival at all. It is not meant that the Act of Uniformity intentionally reduced all these matters to

the same level, viewed by themselves, but that it made one as necessary as the other, in order to be a minister of the national Church. The controversy about all the disputed points was now to be settled by royal authority, and the penalties of law. Absolute, universal, unhesitating conformity was determined upon by the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer, which was passed in the first year of her reign. Then in 1559 came forth her Injunctions, consisting of upwards of fifty distinct articles on religious subjects, all intended to make the religion of the Church of England as palatable to the Roman Catholics as could be done without totally unprotestantising it. To carry out this purpose, a committee of divines was appointed to review King Edward's liturgy, to whom it was given as her Majesty's will and command that they should strike out, as far as possible, all passages offensive to the Pope, and make the people easy about the corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament. The liturgy was therefore altered as much as it could be to secure the approbation of the Papists. "To this day," says Macaulay, "the constitution, the doctrines, and the services of the Church, retain the visible marks of the compromise from which they sprang. She occupies a middle posi

tion between the churches of Rome and Geneva. Her doctrinal confessions and discourses composed by Protestants, set forth principles of theology in which Calvin or Knox would have found scarcely a word to disapprove. Her prayers and thanksgivings, derived from the ancient liturgies, are very generally such as Bishop Fisher or Cardinal Pole must have heartily joined in them. A controversialist who puts an Arminian sense on her articles and homilies, will be pronounced by candid men to be as unreasonable as a controversialist who

denies that the doctrine of baptismal regeneration can be discovered in her liturgy."*

The multitude of the clergy who had become Protestants under Henry and Edward, and had relapsed to Popery under Mary, now turned round again to Protestantism under Elizabeth. Still there were many among them who saw with concern the Popish aspect their church had assumed in its worship, and were truly anxious, and even zealous, to obtain a further reformation. Among these were some of the exiles-Fox the martyrologist, John Knox the Scottish reformer, and others who had fled to Geneva during the persecuting reign of Mary, but who had now returned to England, on her death and the accession of Elizabeth. In the year 1562 was held the famous convocation which set up "The Thirty-nine Articles" of faith which now constitute the theological basis of the Church of England. At this meeting Bishop Sandys put in a paper calling for further reformation of the church, especially touching the matters which during the reign of Edward had occasioned such division of opinion, and which were considered to savour so strongly of Popery. On this subject the convocation was much divided in opinion, but the party for retaining things as they were prevailed, and the bishops became resolute to maintain the authority of the canons, and to enforce conformity to their prescriptions in all things. Many of the clergy refused canonical obedience, and they who thus contended for greater purity in the worship of God were on this account called, in derision and sarcastic contempt, PURITANS. They had no reason to refuse the designation, nor to blush over it, any more than the followers of Jesus had when at Antioch they were first called Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. p. 52.

*

Christians.

What was intended as their reproach, was

their brightest honour.

It must be here observed that the nonconformists, were not yet separatists, and by some it will perhaps be contended that they ought either to have come out of the church, or to have conformed to its canons and the Act of Uniformity; while by others it will be thought that it was hardly worth while to make such comparatively trifling matters a subject of division and contention. In reply to the former, it must be said, that separate worship was not allowed by law; silence and the neglect to exercise their ministry, would have been incompatible with their ordination vows to labour for Christ; and the exercise of any secular calling was contrary to the laws of the church, and inconsistent with the indelibility of their clerical character. So that they were shut up to the necessity of being nonconformists, and of remaining in the church. As to the comparative unimportance of the matters with which they could not comply, this must depend upon the view that was taken of them by the persons who refused compliance, and the manner in which conformity affected their conscience. If they were matters of indifference in the view of those who imposed them, then why enforce them? Why break the unity of spirit, by an unimportant uniformity of ritual? Moreover, we see even by modern feeling and conduct, that these matters are not so indifferent as many seem to represent. What a stir and ferment are excited in many parts of the country in this day of Puseyite zeal? What commotions have been excited in our day by the wearing of this very surplice in the pulpit? Whole congregations, which could endure the linen in the desk, have been disturbed and divided when "the white-robed priest" has appeared in the pulpit. At this

very time appeals are going on from a whole district to the Primate and the Queen, against the religious fopperies of certain clergymen of the Church of England, with a Prelate at their head. Now, what has roused this spirit of opposition, and given importance to matters seemingly so unimportant? There is not in the mere garment itself any thing to call forth these expressions of impassioned zeal, for surely they who can tolerate it in the desk might be supposed to be able to endure it in the pulpit: there seems no more impropriety in wearing it in the latter than in the former. Nor is it merely that the surplice in the pulpit is an innovation upon usages long established, for this could perhaps be borne with. But this revived custom is the symbol of sentiment, the badge of a party, and part and parcel of a system of opinions. It is a thing indifferent in itself, but which is connected with, and introduces, things absolutely bad, or, it inevitably leads to them. It is a leaning towards Rome, and therefore, although at all times such things would be considered objectionable, yet at this time they are doubly so, from the zeal and success of the Church of Rome, with whose spirit they so entirely sympathise, and to whose communion they so insensibly yet so directly lead. How easy is it to learn from hence, the danger which must have been apprehended by the Puritans from all these Popish practices, when the nation had been but recently recovered from the dominion of Rome, and when there was so strong a party in it, ever ready to return to the fellowship of that apostate church. It requires no great sagacity to perceive that many things derive importance from existing circumstances, and that what may be harmless and innocuous, and therefore indifferent, at one time, may be replete with mischief, and therefore important, at another.

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