Just three hundred years ago, when the exiled Hooper was recalled, and appointed 1550Bishop of Gloucester, the Puritans had their birth as a distinct and separate religious body. Henry VIII. quarreled with Pope Julius III. because he would not grant that licentious monarch a divorce from Catharine of Aragon, to allow him to marry the beautiful Anne Boleyn. Henry professed Protestantism, abolished the pope's authority in England, and assumed to be himself the head of the Church. He retained the title, "Defender of the Faith," which the pope had previously bestowed upon him in gratitude for his championship of Rome, for he had even written a book against Luther. Thus, in seeking the gratification of his own unhallowed appetites, that monster in wickedness planted the seeds of the English Reformation. The accession of Edward VI., a son of Henry by Jane Seymour, one of his six wives, led the way to the firm establishment of Protestantism in England. The purity of life which the disciples of both Luther and Calvin exhibited won for them the esteem of the virtuous and good. Yet the followers of these two reformers differed materially in the matter of rituals, and somewhat in doctrine. Luther permitted the cross and taper, pictures and images, as things of indifference; Calvin demanded the purest spiritual worship. The reform having begun by decided opposition to the ceremonials as well as dogmas of the Papal Church, Calvin and his friends deemed it essential to the full completion of the work to make no concessions to papacy, even in non-essential matters. The austere principle was announced; and Puritanism, which then had birth, declared that not even a ceremony should be allowed, unless it was enjoined by the Word of God. Hooper, imbued with this spirit, refused a 1550 for a time to be consecrated in the vestments required by law, (a) and the Reformed Church of England was shaken to its center by conflicting views respecting ceremonials. Churchmen, or the Protestants who adhered to much of the Romish ceremonials, and the Puritans (first so called in derision) became bitter opponents. During the reign of 1553-8Mary, a violent and bigoted papist, both parties were involved in danger. The Puritans were placed in the greatest peril, because they were most opposed to papacy, and Hooper and Rogers, both Puritans, were the first martyrs of Protestant England.
Elizabeth, the youngest daughter of Henry VIII., succeeded Mary, and, though she professed Protestantism, long endeavored to retain in the Church of England the magnificent rituals of the Romish Liturgy. She had in her private chapel images, the crucifix, and tapers; she offered prayers to the Virgin; insisted upon the celibacy of the clergy; invoked the aid of saints, but left the doctrine of the real presence in the Eucharist, which some had been burned for denying, and some for asserting, as a question of national indifference. With such views, Elizabeth regarded the Puritans with little favor, while they, having nothing to fear from earthly power, valuing, as they did, their lives as nothing in comparison with the maintenance of their principles, were bold in the annunciation of their views. They claimed the right to worship according to the dictates of their own consciences, and denied the prerogative of the sovereign to interfere in matters of religious faith and practice. They claimed the free exercise of private judgment in such matters; and the Puritan preachers also promulgated the doctrine of civil liberty, that the sovereign was amenable to the tribunal of public opinion, and ought to conform in practice to the expressed will of the majority of the people. By degrees their pulpits became the tribunes of the common people, and their discourses assumed a latitude in discussion and rebuke which alarmed the queen and the great body of Churchmen, who saw therein elements of revolution that might overturn the throne and bury the favored hierarchy in its ruins. On all occasions the Puritan ministers were the bold asserters of that freedom which the American Revolution established.
Position of Elizabeth.—The Separatists.—Persecutions.—Puritans in Parliament.—James L—Robinson
Elizabeth had endeavored firmly to seat the national religion midway between the supremacy of Rome and the independence of Puritanism. She thus lost the confidence of both, and also soon learned herself to look upon both as enemies. Roman Catholic princes conspired against England, while Puritan divines were sapping the foundations of the royal prerogatives, and questioning the divine right of monarchs to govern. A convocation of the clergy was held; the "Thirty-nine Articles," which constitute the rule of faith of the English Church, were formed, and other methods were adopted, to give stability to the hierarchy; but nearly nine years elapsed before Parliament confirmed the Articles by act, and then not without some limitations, which the Puritans regarded as concessions to them.
Rigorous orders for conformity were now issued. The Puritans, thoroughly imbued with an independent spirit, assumed an air of defiance. Thirty London ministers refused subscription to the Articles, and some talked openly of secession. A separate congregation was at length actually formed. The government was alarmed, and several of the leading men and women were imprisoned for a year. Persecution begat zeal, and a party of Independents, or Separatists, appeared, under a zealous but shallow advocate named Brown. The great body of the Puritans desired reform, but were unwilling to leave the Church. The Independents denounced the Church as idolatrous, and false to Christianity and truth. Bitter enmity soon grew up between them, the Puritans reproaching the Separatists with unwise precipitancy, and they in return were censured for cowardice and want of faith.
Persecution now began in earnest. A court of high commission was established, for the detection and punishment of Non-conformists. Its powers were almost as absolute as those of the Inquisition. Parliament, particularly the House of Commons, in which was the leaven of Puritanism, disapproved of the commission, and a feeling of general dissatisfaction prevailed. Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury, a man sincerely, but bigotedly, attached to the English Reformed Church, was at the head of the hierarchy, and assumed to control the entire body of the English Church. Conventicles were prohibited, yet, in a few years, it was asserted in Parliament that twenty thousand persons in England attended conventicles. Some were banished, others imprisoned, a few were hanged. The Separatists were nearly extinguished, while the more loyal branch of the Puritans still suffered contumely and persecution.
Elizabeth died, and the Puritans hailed the accession of James of Scotland, where independence of thought and action had taken deepest root, as a favorable event. It was thought that his education, the restraints from profligacy which the public morals of Scotland imposed, and his apparently sincere attachment to Protestantism, would guaranty to them fair toleration, if not actual power. But they were in error. He was thirty-six years old when he ascended the throne, and, in the freedom of self-indulgence which his new position afforded, exulted in gluttony, idleness, and licentiousness. Incapable of being a statesman, he aimed to be thought a scholar, and wrote books which courtiers lauded greatly, while wise men smiled and pitied. Bacon pronounced him incomparable for learning among kings; and Sully of France, who knew his worth, esteemed him "the wisest fool in Europe." A profligate dissembler and imbecile coward, he was governed entirely by self-interest, vanity, and artful men. He loved flattery and personal ease, and he had no fixed principles of conduct or belief. Such was the man upon whom the Puritans, for a moment, relied for countenance; but he had scarcely reached Loudon before his conduct blighted their hopes. "No bishop, no king," was his favorite maxim; and in 1604 he said of the Puritans, "I will make them conform, or I will harrie them out of the land, or else worse; only hang them, that's all." During that year three hundred Puritan ministers were silenced, imprisoned, or exiled.
Among the exiled ministers at this period was John Robinson. Eminent for piety and courage, his congregation was greatly attached to him, and they contrived to have secret meetings every Sunday. But the pressure of persecution finally determined them to seek an asylum in Holland, "where, they heard, was freedom of religion for all men." Thither Mr. Robinson and his little flock, among whom was William Brewster (who afterward became a ruling elder in the Church), went into voluntary exile in 1608 They landed at Amster-
Character of the Puritan Pilgrims.—Preparations to sail for America.—Departure from Delfthaven.—The May Flower
dam, and then journeyed to Leyden, feeling that they were but Pilgrims, with no particular abiding-place on earth. They were joined by others who fled from persecution in England, and finally they established a prosperous church at Leyden.