By the light of reason and in the exercise of prayer for that better illumination which cometh from above, he would commit himself to this safe guide. While he would value the protection, and conform to the regulations, and discharge the imposts, of civil government, in reference to things pertaining to its province; if for his religious profession he endured suffering or privation, whatever its garb, its nature, or its extent, he would resist with firmness; or succumb with reluctance, and complain of persecution. The absence of the faggot or the rack would not be admitted to purge away the stain of injustice. [51a] Whether debarred of personal liberty, or of some minor privilege of citizenship; subject to a legal slaughter, or to a legal tax; he would regard the champions of established catholicism as trampling upon the just liberties of a Christian man. He could give them, at best, no more that the poor praise of having learned to imitate the Italian assassins, who beat their victims with satchels of sand: no blood is spilt and no bones are broken—but the sufferer dies by the operation. [51b]
“Any sort of punishment, disproportioned to the offence, or where there is no fault at all, will always be severity, unjustifiable severity, and will be thought so by the sufferers and bystanders.” [52a] However disguised, or modified, or attenuated may be the persecution, they will regard it as persecution still, and will justly apply to its authors, with whatever communion they may be connected, or whatever pretensions they may set up, the language Milton puts into the lips of an archangel, to whom many of the episcopal edifices are dedicated:—
“What will they, then,
But force the Spirit of grace itself, and bind
His consort liberty? What, but unbuild
His living temples, built by faith to stand,
Their own faith, not another’s?—for on earth
Who, against faith and conscience, can be heard
Infallible?” [52b]
CHAPTER III.
Queen Elizabeth, an intolerant protestant; her measures—Rise of the puritans; their views and position; persecuted; instances in eastern counties—Account of the “prophesyings;” suppressed by the queen—Continued cruelty—Norfolk and Suffolk petitions—Whitgift’s articles—New commission granted—Aylmer—Puritan clergy summoned to London—William Fleming, rector of Beccles; his connexion with corporation differences; testimony to his worth arising out of them; summoned; deprived of the living—Honourable record of his interment—Justifiableness of his nonconformity.
The accession of Elizabeth, once more, revived the hearts of the reformers. Her personal character, indeed, afforded no hope of her being favourable to freedom, though her parentage and education led to the reasonable expectation that she would encourage protestantism. Of all that was safe to be believed and fit to be practised, she deemed herself the competent and supreme judge. Regarding the privilege of dissenting from the state religion as part of her prerogative, she exercised that right herself, and then sternly denied it, alike to the learned and the rude, the conscientious and the careless, among her subjects. Her proclamation prohibited all preaching, until consultation should be had by parliament. In that assembly she was no less absolute than elsewhere. The supremacy of the church of England was again vested in the crown, and a statute [54] passed which was designed to establish uniformity in religion, and required all persons, having no lawful or reasonable excuse, to resort to their parish churches, every Sunday, and on all holidays.
Under the authority of the Act of Supremacy, a court was erected, called the court of High Commission, which took cognizance of religious matters, without the aid of a jury. The liturgy was revised, and rendered more palatable to the papists. The clergy were required to comply with all the queen’s injunctions, and at their entrance on their cures, publicly to assent to a declaration of articles of religion, drawn up by the bishops.
Previously to this period, the contest between catholicism and the reformed faith had absorbed all minor differences of opinion. But the frequent changes of the national creed, induced many to consult the Bible for themselves, in order to ascertain its testimony as to faith and discipline. It was impossible the humblest capacity should not perceive that, had it been a part of Christian duty, to conform to the religion patronised and established by the state, that duty had been equally imperative in every successive reign. He whose life had been spared for half a century, must, unless there had been a strange vacillation in his opinions, or, at least, in his professions, have been very fortunate to have escaped the doom of an obstinate heretic.
The exiles of previous reigns had awaked to the perception of the great truth, that no human authority could deprive them of the right, or discharge them from the obligation, of seeking after God and his true worship. Some of them, availing themselves of the liberty they enjoyed upon the continent, had introduced what they deemed a purer, because a more scriptural, form of worship, than had yet been used in England. Returning to their native country on the accession of Elizabeth, they found her little disposed to co-operate with them in carrying on the reformation. A large portion of the clergy desired that the services of religion should be retained as near as possible to the popish form; and those who were favourable to religious liberty, or contended for further purification of the service book from the dregs of superstition, received the contemptuous but honourable name of puritans. These questioned not the propriety of a secular establishment of Christianity; but they objected to wearing the popish vestments, and to various ceremonies derived from the same source. [56] They disapproved of some things in the public liturgy, of church festivals, pluralities, non-residence, and lay patrons; they complained of the want of godly discipline, and desired to bring both the faith and polity of the state religion to the test of Scripture. [57] They were eminent for piety and devotedness to the cause of Christ. To say that their views of religious liberty were confused and inconsistent, and that they were themselves intolerant in their temper and conduct, is only to admit that they did not shake off, at the first effort, all the errors of the times in which they lived, and that their course, if it was firm and daring, was not precipitate or impetuous. They were for going fearlessly as far in the path of improvement as they could perceive that the inspired volume invited them: and with a moral magnanimity of which their persecutors dreaded the effect, they bared their souls before God, desiring to receive “ampler communications and superior light.”
Puritanism constituted a sanctuary in which the sacred rights of conscience were preserved and propagated, while the high church party had forgotten and forsaken the ground on which alone a departure from the papal authority could be maintained. The puritans occupy an intermediate position, between the first adherents to protestant popery, and the more enlightened nonconformists of the succeeding century.