[362] Strype, iv. 246. See also p. 15 of the same volume. By an act in the first year of James, c. 3, conveyances of bishops' lands to the crown are made void; a concession much to the king's honour.
[363] Harrington's "State of the Church," in Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. ii. passim; Wilkins's Concilia, iv. 256; Strype's Annals, iii. 620 et alibi; Life of Parker, 454; of Whitgift, 220; of Aylmer, passim. Observe the preamble of 13 Eliz. c. 10. It must be admitted, on the other hand, that the gentry, when popishly or puritanically affected, were apt to behave exceedingly ill towards the bishops. At Lambeth and Fulham they were pretty safe; but at a distance they found it hard to struggle with the rudeness and iniquity of the territorial aristocracy; as Sandys twice experienced.
[364] Birch's Memoirs, i. 48. Elizabeth seems to have fancied herself entitled by her supremacy to dispose of bishops as she pleased, though they did not hold commissions durante bene placito, as in her brother's time. Thus she suspended Fletcher, Bishop of London, of her own authority, only for marrying "a fine lady and a widow." Strype's Whitgift, 458. And Aylmer, having preached too vehemently against female vanity in dress, which came home to the queen's conscience, she told her ladies that if the bishop held more discourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven; but he should walk thither without a staff and leave his mantle behind him. Harrington's "State of the Church," in Nugæ Antiquæ, i. 170; see too p. 217. It will of course not appear surprising that Hutton, Archbishop of York, an exceedingly honest prelate, having preached a bold sermon before the queen, urging her to settle the succession, and pointing strongly towards Scotland, received a sharp message. P. 250.
[365] D'Ewes, 328.
[366] Collier says (p. 586) on Heylin's authority, that Walsingham offered the puritans, about 1583, in the queen's name, to give up the ceremony of kneeling at the communion, the cross in baptism, and the surplice; but that they answered, "ne ungulam quidem esse relinquendam." But I am not aware of any better testimony to the fact; and it is by no means agreeable to the queen's general conduct.
[367] Bacon, ii. 375. See also another paper concerning the pacification of the church, written under James, p. 387. "The wrongs," he says, "of those which are possessed of the government of the church towards the other, may hardly be dissembled or excused."—P. 382. Yet Bacon was never charged with affection for the puritans. In truth, Elizabeth and James were personally the great support of the high church interest; it had few real friends among their counsellors.
[368] Burnet, ii. 418; Cabala, part ii. 38 (4to edition). Walsingham grounds the queen's proceedings upon 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 persuasion;" the other, that "cases 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 coloured with the pretence of conscience and religion." Bacon has repeated the same words, as well as some more of Walsingham's letter, in his observations on the libel on Lord Burleigh, i. 522. And Mr. Southey (Book of the Church, ii. 291) seems to adopt them as his own.
Upon this it may be observed; first, that they take for granted the fundamental sophism of religious intolerance, namely, that the civil magistrate, or the church he supports, is not only in the right, but so clearly in the right, that no honest man, if he takes time and pains to consider the subject, can help acknowledging it: secondly, that, according to the principles of Christianity as admitted on each side, it does not rest in an esoteric persuasion, but requires an exterior profession, evidenced both by social worship, and by certain positive rites; and that the marks of this profession, according to the form best adapted to their respective ways of thinking, were as incumbent upon the catholic and puritan, as they had been upon the primitive church: nor were they more chargeable with faction, or with exceeding the bounds of conscience, when they persisted in the use of them, notwithstanding any prohibitory statute, than the early Christians.
The generality of statesmen, and churchmen themselves not unfrequently, have argued upon the principles of what, in the seventeenth century, was called Hobbism, towards which the Erastian system, which is that of the church of England, though excellent in some points of view, had a tendency to gravitate; namely, that civil and religious allegiance are so necessarily connected, that it is the subject's duty to follow the dictates of the magistrate in both alike. And this received some countenance from the false and mischievous position of Hooker, that the church and commonwealth are but different denominations of the same society. Warburton has sufficiently exposed the sophistry of this theory; though I do not think him equally successful in what he substitutes for it.
[369] State Trials, i. 1148.