The people manifested their sympathy with the sufferers, and the governmont perceiving that such barbarous exhibitions could be no longer politic, abstained from executing a similar sentence passed on two other persons charged with similar offences. It was not, however, until after the Restoration that the law which doomed heretics to be burnt was erased from our statute-book*.

From this period the conduct of the government in relation to the Church presents little worthy of notice, except the proclamation of the monarch as to the observance of the Lord's day; and the ecclesiastical regulations subsequently issued with respect to the tenets of Arminius and the king's prerogative.

The puritan clergy, and such of the magistrates as were attached to The Book of their doctrine, had employed themselves for some time in Sports. enforcing a more religious observance of the sabbath. Their success over a great part of the kingdom was such as to attract the notice of the court; and on the pretence that the Catholics had taken occasion from such conduct to censure the reformed faith as being gloomy and unsocial; and that the people might not be deprived of their proper season for recreation, James announced by proclamation, that when divine service had closed, persons should not "be disturbed, letted, or disMay 24, 1618. couraged from any lawful recreations, such as dancing, either of men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any such harmless recreations, nor having of May games, Whitsun-ales, or morrisdances, or setting up of Maypoles, or other sports therewith used, so as the same may be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or let of divine service; and that women should have leave to carry rushes to the church, for the decorating of it according to old custom."

These sports are enumerated as lawful;-among the unlawful were bear-baiting and bull-baiting, and interludes and bowling are noticed as to be at no time the exercise of "the meanest sort." No man was to be admitted to these sports in the evening, who had not attended the whole service at his parish church in the morning. The effect of this royal licence was to render the king still more unpopular, and to extend and embitter the existing dissensions on the matters of religion generally†.

A True Relation, &c. at the end of Truth brought to Light. The memorable John Hales of Eton, in a sermon delivered at St. Paul's cross during this reign, observed, "I could wish that it might be said of the Church, as was sometimes observed of Augustus, He had been angry with, and severely punished many of his kin, but he could never endure to cut any of them off by death." And he adds-" The crown of martyrdom sets not only on the head of those who have lost their lives, rather than they would cease to profess the name of Christ, but on the head of every one who suffers for a good conscience".-Works, i. 71, 98.

+ Collier, Eccles. Hist. ii. 711. 712. So far were the gloomy excesses, as they were called, of the Puritans from being lessened by this proceeding, that in the parliament assembled two years later, a member who presumed to vindicate these sabbath sports was expelled the lower house, his offence being described as "exorbitant and unparalleled." The lords did not sympathize with the commons on this matter, and pro

ence inculcated by the Univer sity of Oxford and by the

The same may be said of those new ecclesiastical regulations to which reference has been made. A puritan divine had ventured Passive obedito affirm before the university of Oxford, that resistance to a sovereign should not be indiscriminately branded as necessarily unlawful, particularly if the power of the monarch should be employed so as to endanger the property or the king, 1622. lives of subjects, to deprive them of liberty of conscience, to lay on them intolerable burdens, to oblige their assent to blasphemous opinions, or their concurrence with idolatrous practices. These statements were pronounced highly dangerous, and the preacher was commanded to state on what authority he had dared to give publicity to such tenets. His answer was that such were the statements of the celebrated divine Pareus in his commentary on the epistle to the Romans; but that his chief authority was derived from the conduct of the king of England himself, who had not scrupled to aid the people of Rochelle in opposing the tyrannical measures to which their prince would have subjected them. This attempt of the preacher to vindicate himself, by an impeachment of the monarch, was deemed an aggravation of his offence. He was accordingly thrown into prison; the commentary of Pareus was publicly burnt in London, and Oxford; and the University, in full convocation, vindicated its purity by declaring it to be unlawful for subjects to take arms against their prince under any pretence whatsoever. Every graduate was called upon to swear assent to this doctrine, and not only so, but to swear that this should be his politcal creed to the end of his days. By a royal edict, preachers of every degree were interdicted from attempting "to declare, limit, or set bounds to the prerogative, power, or jurisdiction of princes*." In connexion with this article of instruction was another which betrayed the entire change that a few years had produced in the Calvinistic mind of the English monarch on some important topics of tenets discounChristian theology. It now became manifest that James tenanced at was no longer a Calvinist, and the theological creed of the Genevan reformer was, from this time, a mark of puritanism, hardly less obnoxious to the court than the old objections with regard to discipline and modes of worship.

court.

It is to this course of affairs that we must trace the rise of the party bearing the name of doctrina! Puritans-men_who were Rise of the distinguished from the court clergy principally as being doctrinal Calvinists. About three years since, the synod of Dort had

Puritans.

posed that the day should not henceforth be called the sabbath, as among the ancient Jews, but the Lord's day.-Journals, Feb. 15, 16,1620. May 28, 1621. Kennet, 709. The spirit of the Puritans in relation to this matter may have needed some correction, but the good resulting from it was assuredly far greater than the evil, and there can be but one opinion as to the manner of opposing it which their enemies were pleased to adopt.

*Neal, ii. 115-118.

been convened, and James instructed his delegates in that assembly to confirm its decrees in all points, as far as they were condemnatory of the creed of Arminius. But zeal against the doctrine as well as the discipline of Calvin now became an indispensable preliminary to preferment in the Anglican church. It was this change which made way for the elevation of such men as Neile and Laud.

Origin of the
Brownists.

It has been intimated that besides the Puritans, whose object was the reformation of the church, rather than separation from it, there were persons, both in this and the preceding reign, who were opposed to the principles from which every statechurch must derive its existence. In fact, this extreme religious party, as it was then considered, which became known during the reign of Elizabeth by the name of Brownists, had made its appearance so early as the time of Edward VI., though we possess little information respecting it until some twenty or thirty years later. It was not until toward the middle of the reign of Elizabeth that the principles of these people became defined and understood*.

Their tenets

The leading doctrine of this sect was, that every properly-constituted church is a strictly voluntary association, instituted for with regard to purely religious purposes, and regulated by laws and sancchurch polity. tions altogether religious. Its members should be limited, it was maintained, to persons making a credible profession of the christian faith, while its proceedings, as being moral and religious only, should be exempt from any control of the civil magistrate on the one hand, or of the secular power committed to the ruling clergy on the other. To the magistrate these persons professed to look for security from any civil wrong on account of their religious opinions and practices, so long as these were not maintained in a manner inconsistent with what was incumbent upon them with regard to civil society. From the bearer of the civil sword they sought nothing beyond this amount of protection, and to be freed from all subjection to the jurisdiction of the prelates was their great solicitude. The persons who officiated as their teachers and pastors were chosen from among themselves, as were the deacons or elders who were intrusted with the management of the small pecuniary affairs of their little commonwealth. They abandoned the use of forms of prayer. Brotherly reproof, or exclusion from communion in the case of the irreclaimable, were their only church censures. The sacred scriptures were their sufficient rule of faith or practice, and they professed themselves always ready to show that their peculiarities were those which had distinguished the early disciples of the gospel, that they were adapted to every conceivable state of the church on earth, and sanctioned in all material points by the recorded example of inspired men, by their direct statements, or by the manifest genius of christianity.

Wilson's History of Dissenting Churches, vol. i. passim, and Neal, i. passim.

Their opinion

Church of

England.

Such were the general principles of the Brownists-principles which taught them to affirm, that the connexion of the ecclesiastical hierarchy with the state, and the many laws and respecting the usages which gave to it so much of a secular character, were contrary to holy scripture. But in describing the established church as removed in many respects from the standard of a pure christianity, these injured sectaries were far from meaning to say-as their enemies were pleased to represent-that the members of that church were not to be regarded as Christians*.

With this charge of uncharitableness, that of disloyalty was commonly associated, and on a ground partaking of the same disinge- Their loyalty. nuousness. This latter charge, however, was one frequently

preferred in these times, not only against the Catholics, and against the sectaries, but against every class of Puritans; the occasion of which was, that both Elizabeth and James regarded the ecclesiastical power of the crown as the most important branch of their authority-and both accordingly were used to insist on obedience to their ecclesiastical regulations, no less than to the statutes of the realm; the man who should refuse to acknowledge the king as the head of the church being in truth as much a traitor as the man who would depose him from the sovereignty of the state. But to this ecclesiastical treason, if we may use the expression, the tenets of all the parties now mentioned constantly led them, for a principle of divided allegiance had its place in them all. Each party in its own form and measure gave " to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's;" obeying the king in civil matters, but having their own views as to the extent in which his authority should be acknowledged with respect to matters of religion. The Catholic spoke of a power distinct from that of the monarch, and superior to it, as residing in the pontiff, or in the Catholic church; while the Puritan and the Brownist recognized their supreme authority in the scriptures. But this partial allegiance to the ecclesiastical sovereignty, which the crown had assumed, was deemed as much a delinquency as a partial obedience to its civil authority would have been. It was, in the language of James, to give the body only to the prince, the soul to another. It was

On this point, one of their leaders in replying to an opponent says, "The next calumny whereby Mr. Gifford endeavoureth to bring us into hatred with the whole land is that we condemn all the persons, both men and women of England, which are not of our mind, and pluck them up as tares. Wherein, methinks, he doth us open wrong, if not against his own conscience, yet against our express writings everywhere. Have we not commended the faith of the English martyrs, and deemed them saved, notwithstanding the false offices and great corruptions in the worship they exercised; not doubting but the mercy of God, through their sincere faith in Jesus Christ, extended and superabounded above all their sins seen and unseen? And what now should let that we should not have the same hope, when the same precious faith in sincerity and simplicity is found." This is the language of Barrow, who was so much a leader among these people that during the age of Elizabeth they were called indifferently Barrowists and Brownists.-See An Apologie and Defense of such true Christians as are commonly, but unjustly, called Brownists. 1604. p. 96.

in vain therefore that the Brownist and the Puritan repeated their elaborate professions of submission to the throne in all civil affairs ;—not to profess the creed or to observe the discipline enjoined by the law, or, in many cases, by the clergy, or the ecclesiastical commissioners only, was to proclaim hostility to the most favoured branch of the king's prerogative, and to incur the reproach of disloyalty. It is in this ambition to rule the minds, no less than the bodies of men, that we have the secret of the zeal so often manifested in favour of the most trivial things connected with religion. It is not in reality about such things, considered in themselves, that the solicitude evinced is cherished, but about the right to give law on the momentous class of matters to which such things belong.

On this subject, a clear view of which is strictly necessary to a just conception of English history during this period, the Brownists, writing from their place of exile in the Netherlands, express themselves in terms the most distinct. But their professions were of small effect in lessening their sufferings; and the facts just now adverted to make us acquainted with the circumstances and feelings which led to their being treated with so much severity *.

Robert Brown.

The small religious societies who separated themselves from the established church in the reign of Mary, and during the Notice of early part of the reign of Elizabeth, appear to have existed without bearing any peculiar designation. It was in 1580 that the zeal of Robert Brown served to place him so prominently in connexion with these separatists, as to confer on them the name by which they were generally known for some time afterwards. Brown was descended from an old and respectable family in Rutlandshire, and was nearly related to Cecil, the lord treasurer. In Cambridge, where he received his education, he became popular as a preacher, and still more so in Norwich, to which place he removed in 1581. Here his invectives against the established church made it expedient that he should consult his safety by leaving the country. In Zealand, his place of exile, where he not only obtained disciples, but formed them into a church, Brown published a treatise on Reformation, which called upon the dissatisfied religionists of England to act on their own prin

"First," they say, "we desire thee, good reader, to understand and mind that we have not in any dislike of the civil estate in that commonwealth England, which we much like and love, separated ourselves from that church. Neither have we shaken off our allegiance and dutiful obedience to our sovereign princess Elizabeth, her honourable counsellors, and other magistrates set over us, but have always, and still do reverence, love, and obey them every one in the Lord, opposing ourselves against all enemies foreign or domestic, against all invasions, insurrections, treasons, or conspiracies, by whomsoever intended against her majesty and the state, and are ready to adventure our lives in their defence, if need require. Neither have our greatest adversaries ever been able to attaint us of the least disloyalty in this regard. And although now we be exiled, yet do we daily pray, and will, for the preservation, peace, and prosperity of her majesty and all her dominions." Apologie and Defense. Pref. vii.