bishop to enforce the laws which were everywhere persistently broken. Even the surplice had been discarded in the administration of the Holy Communion, and some received kneeling, some standing, some sitting. The superficial reader will be struck with the triviality of the points at issue, the use of a dress, the sign of the Cross, the outward reverence at the Sacred Name; but the discerner of the times knows that in the greatest struggles the immediate battle is often fought over apparent trifles, and sees here that the conflict was in reality between antiquity and novelty, between the voice of the Church and private judgment, between Catholic truth and sectarian error.

London

The result of the first attempt to enforce Uniformity proves how necessary an appeal to force had become. When the London clergy were summoned The before the Primate and the Bishop of London, no Clergy. less than thirty-seven out of ninety-eight, more than one-third, refused compliance, and their livings were sequestrated.

of the Uni

Of the Universities, the natural feeders of the The state Ministry, Oxford, after the suppression of the Roman versities. influence, to which it yielded itself up in Queen Mary's reign, became "Calvinistic in the extreme." Sampson, Dean of Christ Church, and Humphrys,

the President of Magdalene, came back from exile, and soon succeeded in creating a reaction. Their party was reinforced shortly after by the institution of a new Divinity Professorship, to which the Secretary of State appointed Dr. Rainolds, "a learned and rigorous Puritan."1

Cambridge too, though traditionally less liable to fluctuations than the sister University, passed rapidly from Roman under Puritan influence, and fanatical preachers excited the undergraduates to rise in rebellion against the operation of the Act for Uniformity of worship. Many of the Heads of Houses took an active part in the "Vestiarian controversy," and gained the nickname of "cap and surplice fanatics."2 Others vented their Protestant spleen in stripping their Chapels of every vestige of beauty and ornament, and many fine paintings and stained glass windows fell victims to their iconoclastic zeal. Then came the libellous acts of Martin Mar-prelate, which fostered the spirit of insubordin

3

1 Cf. MOZLEY'S Essays, Archbp, Laud, i. 112.

2 Fanatici superpelliceani et galeriani. This was the designation by which Bartholomew Clerk, a Doctor of Laws, who took a strong part in the Controversy, characterised the Nonconformists. COLLIER, vi. 421.

3 This was a violent attack upon the organisation and ritual of the Church. A series of scurrilous libels were published in 1588 A.D., anonymously assailing the Queen and Bishops with every kind of abuse. Cf. MASKELL'S History of the Controversy.

influence of

ation to the last degree, and the evil genius of the University, Thomas Cartwright, appeared to add to The evil the confusion.1 It would be impossible to name Cartwright. any one who did more to impregnate that generation with an uncatholic system of Theology, and to stereotype in the Schools of the clergy principles which aimed at divesting the Worship of the Church of all that was attractive and beautiful. His Lectureroom was thronged by admiring students, and his sermons were so popular that "the very windows were taken out of Great St. Mary's Church that the multitudes might come within reach of his voice."

But amidst so much that was sad and discouraging there was a gleam of sunshine and it must have gladdened the heart of the Queen before she died with at least the prospect of a brighter future for the Church which she loved.

The Protestant invasion had stifled the " new learning" which was born when the century began. It breathed again in the immortal pages of Hooker The opporwhen the century closed.

tuneness of Hooker's

The Puritan rested the authority for the doctrines writings. and worship of the Church upon the narrow ground of express Scripture direction. Nothing whatever,

1 Hook considers him to have been the first organiser of Protestant Dissent in England: Life of Parker, 406.

he said, in faith or practice may claim our acceptance, or has even any right to receive it, unless it is clearly laid down in GOD's written Word. Hooker1 showed that this narrow ground must be abandoned, and that " a divine order exists, not in written revelation only, but in the moral relations, the historical development, and the social and political institutions of men," and he claimed for human reason the province of determining the laws of this order.

"The Ecclesiastical Polity" was exactly what was wanted in the crisis, and though the impression which it made was not immediately felt, it was deep and lasting.

It informed the minds of men like Overall, and Andrewes, and Laud, and Cosin, and a great host of others who drew from its pages the spirit which gave them courage to meet the onslaught of the Commonwealth, and enabled them to raise the Church from her temporary overthrow, and place her securely in that position from which every effort has been powerless to dislodge her.

1 Cf. GREEN'S Hist. of the English People, iii. 30.

CHAPTER IV.

The Caroline Settlement.

HE Parish Churches of England experienced a

Tecond revolution in their worship at the
THE

beginning of the Long Parliament: but of a very
different nature from that which ensued upon the
accession of Queen Mary.

The bitter hostility to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church which had been gathering for many years culminated in 1645 A.D., when a vote of the House established the Directory "for the public worship of GOD in the three kingdoms,"1 and proscribed by fine and imprisonment the use of the Prayer-book, not only in Divine Service in Churches, but even in private dwellings.

Church- Men's feelings during greatly the pro

Henceforward the attachment of devout men to the forbidden Liturgy became strengthened, and was regarded "with a degree of the Prayer

veneration such as is felt for a saint who has suffered

1 On the very day of Laud's attainder, Jan. 6th, 1645, £5 for the first offence; £10 for the second; a year's imprisonment without bail or mainprise for the third. COLLIER, viii. 296. For an account of the Directory, cf. Appendix v.

scription of

book.