and overwhelmed by the odium which he did not atteinpt to stave off from them. He was a better Churchman than Elizabeth, but by no means so valuable a support. The queen seemed to regard the Church as a department of the State, and bishops as State officers. She viewed the Puritans simply as rebellious subjects, and would no more have admitted a conference with them, than she would have consulted with rogues as to the laws for petty larceny. James disliked Puritans probably as much, but he looked at them from the point of view of a polemical divine, even more than from that of a ruler of the State. Thus he complains not so much of their insubordination as of their bad arguments,1 and would treat them as schismatics rather than as traitors.

§ 15. And the difference of the opinions of the rulers marks the essential difference between the Reformation period under Elizabeth, and the Anglo-Catholic period now commencing. authority of the magistrate, the support of foreign reformers, were no longer relied upon by English divines as the great arguments in their controversies; but now, fathers, councils, and the primitive church were regarded as the main stay of doctrine, while the divine authority, handed down from the first by the succession of bishops, furnished the Church with a paramount claim to obedience. The king in his speech to Parliament owns the Roman communion as his mother Church,2 though defiled with blemishes and corruptions. The Puritans he describes as novelists, and a sect rather than a society of Christians.

16. The Church might now not unreasonably anticipate a fairer treatment of her property than had prevailed in the late reign. In the first Parliament of James was passed an Act to restrain bishops or ecclesiastical corporations from granting manors to the Crown, except on leases of three lives or twenty-one years.3 Whether this Act was due to the king's consideration, or, as Heylin says, was contrived by Bishop Bancroft "to prevent the begging of the Scots," it was a very salutary protection to the Church. Parliament, however, renewed its attack upon the ecclesiastical courts; and, by way of disparaging Church jurisdiction, it was enacted that all processes, citations, and judgments in any ecclesiastical courts should be issued in the king's name and under the king's seal.5

1 King James to Mr. Blake (Lord Northampton); Strype's Whitgift, Appendix iv. 46.

2 The Romanists had conceived the highest hopes of him at the beginning of his reign. Father Persons writes to N. T. his hopes that the king may become a Catholic. In another letter to the Romish bishops it is asserted that the king is a Catholic.-State Papers of James I. (Domestic) i. 84, 117. 118. 31 Jac. I. c. 3. 4 Presbyterians, p. 375. This was disused by order of King Charles I. in 1638.

§ 17. On March 20 met the Convocation of Canterbury. Bancroft, Bishop of London, presided, the primacy being vacant. On the fifth session (April 13) he exhibited the king's license to the synod to make canons. Petitions were made to the House by the Puritans for relaxation of the terms of conformity, but they were merely admonished to conform. On May 18 the Thirty-nine Articles were again approved and subscribed by the synod. Between the beginning of May and the beginning of July the whole of the Book of Canons brought in by Bishop Bancroft was considered and adopted. A great part of these had been approved by previous Convocations,1 but there was much new matter introduced. A lively debate took place as to the use of the symbol of the cross in baptism, which gave offence to many Puritans. The effect of this debate may be seen in Canon 30, which is a long argumentative defence of that ancient custom. The other canons appear to have passed without much opposition, and thus an important code of laws for the guidance of the Church was properly passed and ratified. It has been held by various judges that these canons do not bind the laity proprio vigore, but only so far as they recite older canons which had received parliamentary sanction. There can, however, be no question that they bind the clergy, and may be enforced in ecclesiastical courts by ecclesiastical penalties.2

§ 18. The whole body of canons, numbering 161, is divided into thirteen chapters or heads. The first chapter was directed against the Puritans. It declared that those who impugned the true and apostolical character of the Church of England, or any part of its authorised worship or ceremonies, or who separated from her communion, were ipso facto excommunicated, and were not to be restored but by the archbishop, after repentance and revocation of these wicked errors.3 Chapter 2 treats of Divine Worship, and contains sixteen canons, regulating the use of all parts of the service of the Church of England. Besides the services to be said on Sundays and holidays, the Litany is to be said on Wednesdays and Fridays; due reverence and devotion during service time is commanded; all are to make lowly reverence at the name of Jesus; holy communion to be received thrice a year "at the least ;" copes to be used in cathedral churches; the use of the cross at baptism defended at length. Chapter 3, of Ministers, containe forty-six canons. Canon 36 orders that Whitgift's three

1 The canons passed during Elizabeth's reign had only been ratified by the queen for her life, so that they would have fallen had they not been thus renewed. 2 See Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 625 sq.

3 Ipso facto excommunication was a convenient weapon to use, but it is very doubtful whether such excommunications have any validity, and it is certain they were not generally recognised.

articles of subscription shall be willingly and ex animo subscribed by all who are ordained, admitted, or licensed. A strict oath against simony is introduced; a form of bidding prayer given; ministers are to catechise every Sunday, and confirmation is to be performed by the bishops once in three years. The restrictions as to marriage are inserted; clergymen are to visit the sick, and not to delay baptism or burial, and duly to keep their registers. Chapter 4 treats of Schoolmasters. Chapter 5 of The decent Fittings and Ornaments of Churches, and their repair. Chapter 6 of Churchwardens and Parish Clerks. Chapters 7 to 12 of Ecclesiastical Courts. And chapter 13 of Synods.

§ 19. These canons, passed only by the Synod of Canterbury, were confirmed by the king's letters-patent, without any reference to York. But York, in order to save its independence, desired the king's license to make canons, and having obtained it, accepted and passed the canons which had been before agreed upon by Canterbury.1

§ 20. The Convocation of Canterbury was prorogued July 9, and on the 16th came forth a proclamation warning all to be ready to conform before the last day of November, or to take the consequences.2 Ancroft Shecards § 21. On December 4 (1604), Bancroft, Bishop of London, was appointed to the primacy in succession to Whitgift. Some had Colulisut. thought that Toby Matthews, Archbishop of York, would be selected, but Bancroft was avowedly chosen as the most ready and able to enforce that vigorous discipline against the Puritans which had been determined on.3

§ 22. For this work, so far as vigour and courage went, Bancroft was eminently suited, but it may well be doubted whether the policy now adopted and zealously carried out, were justifiable, or whether it was not stretching the requirements of conformity beyond all measure. For now it was determined not to be content with Whitgift's test of the subscription to the three articles, but to exact of the clergy a declaration that they made the subscription willingly and ex animo. Many men who did not altogether like the Prayer-book, nor the subscription test, might yet be willing to accept it for the sake of peace, and in order that they might not be parted from their flocks. All such men were met by this new device, which obliged them to say that they took the test willingly and with full approval of it. This was hard measure.

Again, those who had previously subscribed, and who were living in peace in their parishes, were to be called upon to subscribe again in this more pronounced sense, and this offended many. For it was argued that the intention of the Church in exacting subscription 1 Wake, State of the Church of England, p. 507.

2

O Cardwell, Doc. Annals, ii. 63.

8 Sir J. Harrington's Brief Survey of the Church of England, p. 11.

must be regarded. "I have four times subscribed," writes a Puritan divine, "to the Book of Common Prayer, with limitation and reference of all things therein contained to the purpose and doctrine of the Church of England; but I cannot again subscribe, inasmuch as the purpose, if not the doctrine, of our Church seems to be varied by the late proceedings from what I had taken it to be."1

"His

§ 23. The archbishop, immediately after his confirmation, sent orders to his suffragans to enforce the new subscription test. Majesty expecteth," he said, "where advice prevaileth not, authority shall compel, and that the laws shall be put into execution where admonition taketh not effect." He instructs the bishops that, with regard to the ministers who were already placed, who were to be called upon to subscribe, those who utterly refused were to be at once silenced and deprived under the Act of Uniformity. Those who were willing to promise conformity, but were unwilling to subscribe again, were to be "respited for some short time." But all were ultimately to subscribe, or be compelled to quit their benefices, two or three months' grace being given to them in order that they might find another house.3

§ 24. As some doubt was felt as to the power of thus summarily depriving men of their freeholds, the judges were consulted. They reported that the king had power without Parliament to make orders and constitutions for the government of the clergy, and to deprive them if they obeyed not, and that he had also the power to delegate this ecclesiastical prerogative to commissioners. Being also asked whether it was an offence to petition the king against the use of this power, they declared that it was an offence, "fineable at discretion, and very near treason and felony." The ecclesiastical supremacy, supported by the Court of High Commission, could thus be worked so as to put the clergy completely in the king's hand, without any rights or means of redress.5

§ 25. Happily the judges were soon of another mind, but a large number of deprivations took place through the exercise of this arbitrary power. The number is estimated by the Puritans as 300. The archbishop only acknowledged 49. It is difficult to account for this great discrepancy.

1 Rogers On the Articles, preface, p. 29 (ed. Parker Soc.)

2 It does not appear how this Act authorised immediate deprivation, but Bancroft says that the Lord Chief-Justice and Attorney-General declare that it does. That this law, however, was not good, may be inferred from the consultation of the judges which took place.

3 Cardwell's Doc. Annals, ii. 69 sq.

4 State Papers of James I. (Domestic), iii. 82.

5 The three articles of subscription were all supported by statute law. But the ex-animo test was only grounded on the canons.

"Heylin's Presbyterians, p. 376.

B

§ 26. Vigorous protests were naturally forthcoming against this increased strictness. The Abridgment of the Lincolnshire Ministers, published early in 1605, took a stronger line against the ceremonies than had been taken by the earlier Puritans, and even by the Millenary Petition. It is contended that they are unlawful and sinful, and that, above all, they are dangerous. The ministers desire to have the ceremonies abolished because the people attach so much value to them. "Many of the people in all parts of the land are known to be of this mind, that the sacraments are not duly administered without them, and such as omit them are called Schismatics and Puritans." "The surplice is known to be esteemed by many in all parts of the land so holy a thing, as that they will not receive the sacrament from any but such as wear it." Of the cross they say :-" The common people in many parts of the land are known not only to maintain the superstitious use of it (blessing themselves, their breasts, their foreheads, and everything they take in hand by it), but also to hold that their children are not rightly baptized without it." This is a remarkable testimony, the truth of which cannot be disputed, of the growth of Church feeling among the laity. The ministers argue further against the threatened conformity:-" As there is danger in the use of these ceremonies in all congregations, so specially if they shall be brought back again into these when they have been long out of use, and received by such ministers as are known to have received them heretofore. For this cause great divines have judged that the receiving of them again into such congregations can with no colour of reason be received as an indifferent thing, but must needs be held wicked and unlawful." To the Abridgment is appended a table of such things as were considered unlawful by the Puritans, which is a much longer catalogue than that which appears in the Millenary Petition.

§ 27. Morton, afterwards Bishop of Chester, answered the Abridgment in a treatise called A Defence of the Three Ceremonies. He assumes that the objections of the Puritans are mainly on three ceremonies-viz. kneeling at the holy communion, the cross in baptism, and the surplice. To their argument that everything not expressly commanded in God's Word is forbidden, he answers :"Some ceremonies are meræ, merely ceremonies; some mixta, mixed. They that are merely ceremonies need no special warrant from Scripture, but are sufficiently warranted by the general approbation of God's Word, which giveth a permission and liberty to all the churches to make their own choice of ceremonies according to the rules of order and decency; but the mixed ceremonies, whereunto the imposers, or the generality of observers of them, annex some superstitious and erroneous opinion (whether it be of merit