were supposed to represent principles of which, it was said, they formed an integral and inseparable part.' Hence the opposition they encountered, an opposition that was encouraged by the last words of Cranmer, Latimer, and Taylor, as much as by the hostility of Hooper. It is now fashionable, with certain parties, to refer sneeringly to the scruples of the early Puritans, as though they were mean and trifling, unworthy of grave attention from the statesmen of Edward and Elizabeth. It may suit a modern purpose so to represent them, but such was not the judgment of the most illustrious men of that day. The objections entertained, as they were urged with sincerity, so they were listened to with profound respect.' Around the fires of Smithfield, and in the strange lands whither they fled, the more earnest reformers denounced the Babylonish garments,' and pleadedpartially enlightened only as they were-for liberty of conscience in matters of indifference. Their hearers saw the force of their objections in the living scene before them, and were in consequence compelled to do justice to their sagacity, even where their prayer was refused. The iron will of Elizabeth, however, refused to yield what her pride and state policy alike sought to retain. Her inclinations were Popish, her position Protestant. She loved the show and splendour of the old hierarchy, and was confirmed in her preferences by the injudicious zeal of some of the malcontents. The bishops yielded to her pleasure, a part with great reluctance, and others apparently without much concern. Grindal and Horn, the bishops of London and Winchester, protested to their continental correspondents that it was not owing to them that vestments of this kind had not altogether been done away with;' while Jewel, writing to Peter Martyr, styles the garments' relics of the Amorites,' and adds, I wish that some time or other they may be taken away, and extirpated even to the lowest roots; neither my voice nor my exertions shall be wanted to effect that object.' The sentiments thus expressed by Grindal, Horn, and Jewel, were shared by many of their brethren, so that even Parker is represented as having no overfondness for the cap and surplice, and wafer bread for the communion, and such like injunctions. It would have pleased him well enough,' says the too favourable Strype, if some toleration had been given in these matters.'* The bishops yielded in fact to the queen, who from the first was determined to retain as much of the exterior of Popery as consisted with the Protestantism of which she was the political head. They dealt with her,' Grindal tells us, ' to let the matter of the habits fall... but she continued still inflexible.'

6

* Life of Parker, vol. i. p. 452.

This fact must be borne in mind in justice to the prelates of Elizabeth. They submitted with reluctance to what they deemed the least of two evils, lest the queen should throw herself into the arms of the Catholics, or into those of the Lutherans which they dreaded scarcely less. Upon this ground, their policy has been vindicated by the calmest and most intelligent of their advocates. Mr. Marsden reduces the matter very much to this point, though he refrains from expressing a decided opinion. Calmly viewed,' he says, 'the whole question hinges upon this: when men cannot do what they would, shall they do what they can; or, rigidly adhering to an abstract notion of that which in itself is best, shall they abandon their posts, and risk the consequences? The fathers of the Church of England were at length unanimous "to do what they could;" they received the vestments themselves, and though with very different degrees of rigour, enforced them on their clergy.' If by these words he means to express an approval of the course adopted, we need scarcely say that we differ widely from him. The fears of the bishops were to a great extent visionary, while their obligation to uphold what they deemed most scriptural was direct and obvious. It was for them to maintain the right, come what would, and had they done so, firmly yet temperately, even the Tudor spirit of Elizabeth would, in the end, have yielded. But they were apprehensive of her power, and in their dread of relighting the fires of Smithfield, they made an unworthy and pernicious compromise. It is a strong presumption against their course, that the ceremonies to which they submitted with reluctance, have come to be regarded by their disciples as parts of a system too perfect to be improved, and too sacred to be touched without profanity. The rites,' says a modern historian of Nonconformity, which Grindal and his brethren admitted as objectionable, on the ground of necessity simply, and with the hope of their speedy removal, have since been magnified as of apostolic origin, and of almost magic virtue. The sanction which they gave them by their practice has been remembered, while their protests have been forgotten or neglected. What the early reformers mourned over, their followers have gloried in. What the former esteemed the blemish of their Church, the latter have defended as its beauty.'* The conduct of the queen, as Mr. Marsden remarks, admits of less excuse than that of the bishops. It committed her to a course of policy which embarrassed her through life, led her into many acts of injustice, and not a few of cruelty, and continues to this day to be the greatest blot on her otherwise glorious reign. . . . Her

• Price's History of Nonconformity, vol. i. p. 149.

accession afforded an opportunity, such as rarely presents itself, for an oblivion of the past, and a firm union for the future. Unhappily the golden opportunity was lost. Scarcely an attempt was made to conciliate prejudice, or disarm suspicion.' But other topics crowd upon us, to some of which attention must be given. The Act of Uniformity, passed in the first year of Elizabeth, was an open declaration of the policy of the Church; and its enactment may be regarded as the period when the Prelatic and Puritan parties took up their respective positions, and pledged themselves publicly to the struggle which, after many fluctuations, and mutual reverses, is bequeathed for settlement to our own day. Before the passing and enforcement of this act a few concessions would have satisfied, but the case rapidly became otherwise. Cartwright succeeded to Jewel and Foxe, and the question of vestments and genuflexions was merged in that of the constitutions of the Church. Persecuted from city to city, the Puritans at length turned to bay, and denounced, in words which men of strong nerve and desperate resolution alone could use, the dignities and wealth of the hierarchy that spurned them from its bosom. Every disposi tion was shown to enforce the Act of Uniformity. There was no relenting. The queen was rigorous from the first, and Parker and his brethren speedily became her active and willing tools. The Convocation of 1562 confirmed, by the smallest possible majority, the measures of the prelate. Of the clergy present forty-three voted in favor of relaxation and indulgence, and only thirty-five against them. But proxies were admitted, and these gave to Parker a miserable majority of one, on the strength of which he proceeded to enforce his intolerant mea sures. He knew that he was backed by the queen, and it little mattered to his narrow soul that Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter in Edward's reign, was in neglect and poverty, or that John Foxe, the martyrologist, had to complain in his old age of the want of clothes. They scrupled the habits,' and this was an offence which no virtues or past services could expiate. Parker was not indisposed to wield despotic power,' and abundant opportunities for doing so were now afforded him.

Notwithstanding his severities, and in some measure as the consequence of them, Puritanism continued to increase. The surplice question was revived at Cambridge, while at Oxford, the students and fellows generally laid aside their hoods and surplices. Cecil, the Chancellor of Oxford, admonished them in no measured terms to resume the habits, to whom the university returned a letter of remonstrance. To those who are concerned to trace the history of men who acted a prominent part in the proceedings of their day, it will be interesting

to note that this reply was signed, amongst others, by John Whitgift, then Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, but afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and a bitter persecutor of those whose scruples he now defended. What may have been the secret history of his conversion we know not. But its circumstances are suspicious, and the subsequent consistency of which Mr. Marsden speaks, was nothing more than a continuance in the uncharitableness, wrath, and bitter persecution, to which he had pledged himself.

The name of Whitgift naturally recalls that of Cartwright, 'one of the few men,' as our author rightly says, 'whose life and personal character still interest posterity after a lapse of nearly three hundred years.' His position in Puritan history is both prominent and influential. He led on the most advanced section of Church reformers, and awakened the fears as well as the animosity of opponents, by assailing the constitution and whole frame-work of the English hierarchy. His appearance betokens an important and most significant era in the ecclesiastical history of the country. It proclaimed the termination of the first epoch of Puritanism, and the commencement of another and vastly different one. The time for concession had now passed. The severities of Parker had driven the Puritans further from the pale of the Church, and had grafted on their objections to the clerical habits and to a few rites, a strong sense of injustice, and personal dislike of the men by whom it had been perpetrated. At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth some minor alterations would have sufficed to calm, if not to satisfy, the inquiring mind. But it was different now. The outworks were disregarded, and a threatening assault was directed against the citadel itself. The episcopate was denounced as a despotism, forms of prayer were deemed a restraining of the Spirit, all pomp and outward show were reprobated as mere will-worship, and simplicity, verging on rudeness, was regarded as alone compatible with the spirituality of religion. Cartwright was at the head of this movement, and his attainments, ability, and virtues, eminently fitted him for the post. From the time of his appearance as a controversialist, we may date the existence of a Presbyterian party in this country. John Cartwright was a diligent and successful scholar of St. John's, Cambridge, when the accession of Mary scattered that learned body. He retired into obscurity, and commenced the study of law. On the death of the queen he returned to St. John's, was speedily elected fellow, and subsequently removed to the magnificent foundation of Trinity College, where he was chosen senior fellow.

We are glad to find Mr. Marsden rejecting, with merited contempt, the solution of Cartwright's Puritanism early pro

pounded by some of his adversaries. In 1564 Elizabeth visited the university, when, after the fashion of the times, she was entertained with scholastic exercises, and with comedies and plays. On this occasion, it was alleged, that Dr. Preston had been most distinguished by the royal approval, and the scruples of Cartwright were referred-in total ignorance of his character -to the envy and mortification supposed to be then induced. Such a calumny would be unworthy of notice, did it not show to what miserable lengths party spleen can go in impugning the motives of an opponent. It would,' says Mr. Marsden, be an amusing, were it not a painful, instance of the asperity of Cartwright's opponents, that to this trivial circumstance (and yet one so natural to a young and accomplished lady), they have ascribed, without pretending further evidence, his estrangement for the remainder of his life from the Church party. He became a Puritan to avenge himself on Dr. Preston! Five years afterwards Cartwright was chosen Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, and his lectures were attended by vast crowds, and were listened to with deep attention.

The University of Cambridge,' says our author, must have been strangely unlike itself, if such a reputation could be made, much less sustained, by one who possessed none but superficial acquirements. The taste of the age was, it is true, theological. Divinity was a science in which all endeavoured to excel; among courtiers and gentlemen it was an accomplishment; with divines a profession; at the bar a collateral branch of law. This may explain the extent and enthusiasm of Cartwright's triumph; but it suggests too the difficulty of achieving it.

His sentiments as a Puritan were not concealed in his divinity lectures and sermons. The opposition which he must have foreseen, even if he did not court it, soon arose; and Whitgift was his earliest antagonist. What Cartwright preached before the university on one Sunday, Whitgift from the same pulpit refuted on the next. Each of them is said to have been listened to with vast applause; if so, we can easily infer the tumult and insubordination which prevailed at Cambridge; and the uneasiness of those in power.'—P. 72.

The natural consequence soon followed. Cartwright was deprived of his professorship, and forbidden to preach in the university; nor do we see that any valid objection can be urged against such a proceeding. Whitgift was at the time Vicechancellor, and whatever may be alleged respecting his unseemly haste and superfluous bitterness,' he was free, in our judgment, from blameworthiness, in silencing a man who availed himself of his position in the university, to damage the system of which that establishment formed part. Mr. Marsden's remarks on this point have our entire concurrence, though he does not