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Cartwright and his followers opposed all separatism, the Presbyterians were charged with causing the divisions and extravagances of the various sects; and on this ground all further reform was resisted.3

1 Cartwright, while contending against Prelatic corruptions and impositions on the one hand, argued vigorously against the spirit of separationism on the other. A letter of his remains, dated Warwick, 30 Aug., 1590, and addressed to his "Sisterin-law" (Mrs. Stubbe), "to persuade her from Brownism." (Harl. MS. 7581.) See Presbyterian Review, vol. vi., p. 109, and Briggs' American Presbyterianism, p. 44. He distinguishes between a Church with a pure discipline; and the unattainable notion of an absolutely purist Church, without a false or hypocritical member in it. * Lord Bacon (who was himself no Puritan, however much his mother inclined that way), with his prescient eye, foresaw the mischief of this policy of resistance, and warned against it. He holds the balance carefully between both sides in his early tract (written about 1590, but not published till 1657), "AN ADVERTISEMENT TOUCHING THE CONTROVERSIES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND." Hallam thus gives his idea of Bacon's views (Note in ch. vi. of Const. Hist.), "How desirous men not at all connected in faction with the Puritans, were of amendments in the Church appears by a Tract of Bacon, written, it seems, about the end of 1603 (vol. i. p. 387). He excepts to several matters of ceremony, the cap and surplice, the ring in marriage, the use of organs, the form of absolution, lay-baptism, etc.; and he inveighs against the abuse of excommunication, against non-residence and pluralities, the oath er officio THE SOLE EXERCISE OF ORDINATION AND JURISDICTION BY THE BISHOP, Conceiving that the Dean and Chapter should always assent. And in his predominant spirit of improvement he asks, Why the Civil State should be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws made every three or four years in Parliament assembled, which deviseth remedies as fast as time breedeth mischiefs; and contrariwise the Ecclesiastical State should still continue upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration now for these forty-five years or more?'" See also Spedding's Bacon, vol. iii., p. 105.

III.

THE MAR-PRELATE CONTROVERSY AND TRACTS,' 1588-1590.

We must now look into a controversy which has been much misunderstood, and whose bearings have been sadly misrepresented. There can be little doubt that the appearance of the Mar-prelate Tracts did serious injury to the Presbyterian party and their cause. For although these famous tracts were not of Presbyterian authorship, and their spirit and tone were positively disallowed by the Presbyterian leaders, yet, as the controversy turned chiefly on their proceedings, it brought down on the heads of many innocent persons among them the vengeance of a Government ready enough to charge them with whatever might bring discredit on the party at large. The Bishops who were assailed in these tracts, were disposed to strike blindly, and with random fury at all on whom they could fasten odium; and, although earnest Presbyterian writers, like John Udall and others, who were examined on suspicion of being concerned with the so-called "libels," did openly and distinctly disavow all complicity with them, there have never

The authorities are, THE TRACTS THEMSELVES, so far as they have come down to us, and have escaped the destructive hand of the Episcopal and civil authorities. In the extreme scarcity of those that are extant, we are deeply indebted to the reprints of a few by John Petheram (the Chancery-lane bookseller), under the title, "Puritan Discipline Tracts," with notes and introductions, 1842-1847. Among these are Martin Mar-prelate's EPISTLE to the right puissante and terrible Priests, etc. the EPITOME: and HA'Y' ANY WORK FOR COOPER. This last refers to COOPER, Bishop of Winchester's Admonition to the People of England, etc., which is also among the reprints, with two anti-Puritan squibs, "Pappe with an Hatchet," and "Cuthbert Curry Knave. An Almond for a Parrot."

Still more valuable are the recent reproductions and reprints of parts of this controversy in the "English Scholars' Library of Old and Modern Works," by Professor Edward Arber, 1880. We specially acknowledge obligations to Mr. Arber's valuable INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE MARTIN MAR-PRELATE CONTROVERSY, 1588-90," though not acquiescing in all of his views. Other special works are, "A History of the Martin Mar-Prelate Controversy in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth," by Rev. William Maskell, M.A. (1845). JOHN PENRY, the Pilgrim Martyr, 1559-1593, by Rev. John Waddington, D.D. (1854). And still more valuable, the studies on the subject in "Congregationalism," by Henry M. Dexter, D,D. who has given it much attention.

been wanting partisans, who (like Bancroft at the time) have been willing to attribute to the Presbyterian Puritans as a whole the spirit and genius of these fierce and mocking satires, which are all designed to "'pistle the Prelates." Undoubtedly the deep-seated causes of the Presbyterian revolt in the Church were the very same which operated in the production of these Mar-prelate Tracts. To this extent, there was an affinity between the Presbyterian contention, and the Mar-prelate controversy. To these deep-seated causes, and they were very terrible ones, we must now advert; for otherwise it is impossible to understand the position. And, indeed, it is difficult for modern readers to realize the enormities of mis-rule which then gathered round the Bishops and their style of Church-administration. There are two evils especially, which the reader must bear in mind. The first is-Bishops in those days had not only spiritual or Ecclesiastical Courts of a very SECULAR kind; but they had actually PRISONS of their own, to which they could directly send recalcitrants. The second anomaly to be noted is--Bishops had entire control over all printing-presses, and supreme power to determine the publications that should be issued.

The tyrannical exercise and abuse of these amazing functions; the direct committal to prison of merely spiritual offenders; the consequent sufferings of many of the best and worthiest men, and the violent suppression of their able and intelligent writings; these were the real causes of the restless vehemence of pulpit and press that blazed forth in defiant utterance and secret publications throughout the latter part of Elizabeth's reign. Let us look more closely into these two points-2

1 Most people will acquiesce in the following statement :

"Whatever frenzies, or narrow-mindedness may be chargeable to the Puritans, they were undoubtedly the founders of our present freedom; while the Bishops and their entourage, with all their patristic learning and general culture, were the supporters of arbitrary power and the active instruments of the peoples' oppression. No amount of historical research can obliterate this distinction."-ARBER, Introduction to Mar-prelate Controversy, p. 9.

Undue stress has been laid on the coincidence between the appearance of these tracts and the danger from the Spanish Armada, as if the Puritans deliberately seized this crisis for making their violent assaults, regardless of the country's peril.

1. BISHOPS, AND THEIR IMPRISONING POWER.-The temporal authority and the secular offices of the Bishops had come down from medieval times. They were portions of papal and prelatic policy, against which the Presbyterian Puritans protested and struggled with all their might. It was because of these unpruned episcopal prerogatives the Presbyterians had attacked the whole principle of Temporal and Baronial Bishops, against which they made their appeal to the authority of Scripture and the very nature of a spiritual Church discipline.1

2. THE BISHOPS AND THEIR POWER OVER THE PRESS.-The censorship of the press, and absolute control of all publications, was lodged in the hands of the Bishops, by Article 51 of Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions, 1559,—

"No manner of person shall print any manner of boke or paper of what sorte, nature, or in what language soever it be, excepte the same be first licensed by her Majestie by expresse words in writing, or by six of her

"Neither can they be acquitted," it has been said, "of the crime of taking advantage of England's supreme danger from the Spaniards, in the year 1588, to increase the virulence of their attacks while the Church was offering up solemn prayers to God to avert the threatened danger." That the Puritans were not as loyally zealous against the Armada, and all it represented, as at least any other party in Church or State, may be dismissed like others of Camden's and Heylin's groundless insinuations.

It is difficult for us to realize the extent to which this secular jurisdiction of the Bishops was carried, and the amount of use they made of the "Gate-house," the "Clink," the "Bocardo " (the old North Gate of Oxford, whence Latimer was led to the stake), and other prisons. The following extract will suffice (Harleian MSS. fol. 7, no. 6848), bearing date 18 July, 1588,

"The true Copye of a lamentable petition deliuered to ye Queenes Maiestye the 13 of March, 1588.

"The LORD of heaven and earthe that hathe so wonderfully hitherto preserued and established your Maiesty in your earthly kingdome, enclyne your Royall harte . . to some christian consideration, and speedy redresse of the outragious wronges and most extreame iniuryes, wherewith sundrye of your most faithfull and true-barted subiectes have bin a longe tyme, and are at this present especially oppressed in all places by the BB. of this lande, but principally by the BB. of CANTERBURY and LONDON. Dayly spoilinge, vesing (vexing), molestinge, hurtinge, pursuyinge, yea barringe, and locking them up close prisoners in the most vn [w]holsome and vyle prysones, and there deteyninge them, without bringinge them to their answeres. Some they haue Cast into the Little Ease': some they haue put into the Myll,' Causinge them to be beaten with cudgels in their prysones."

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Censorship of the Press by ecclesiastical authorities was coeval with the introduction of printing. A Bull of Leo X., so early as 1515, required all Bishops and Inquisitors to examine all books before they could be set up in type, or issued from the press. At the Reformation in England, this was claimed as a prerogative of the Crown, and was delegated to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London,

Privy Counsel, or be perused and licensed by the Archbishops of Cantorbury and Yorke, the Bishop of London, the Chancellours of both Universities, THE BISHOP BEING ORDINARY, and the Archdeacon also of the place where any suche shall be printed, or by two of them, whereof the Ordinary of the place to be alwaies one."

These powers did not lie unused. In September, 1576, the Stationers' Company had been stirred up to begin a regular weekly search of all printing places in London, so that every printer might be known; the number of presses and workmen and apprentices he employed, the kinds of type he could use, the quantity of paper he had on hand, and how he accounted for the sheets he threw off. Seven years afterwards, it is on record, that there were only twenty-three printers in London, with fifty-three hand-presses; and only two others were allowed in the kingdom, one at Oxford, and one at Cambridge, for University use.

1

On 23 June, 1586 (apparently at the instigation of WHITGIFT, who had become Archbishop of Canterbury little more than two years before), there issued the great STAR CHAMBER DECREE on printing, which regulated the press so long afterwards, and by which the whole power was yet more effectually concentrated in the hands of the Archbishop and the Bishop of London, and whomsoever they might appoint.

No wonder a contemporary petition complains that,—

"The followers of Reformation lacke libertie to answere in their own cause. If they speake, they be silenced; if they write, they wante Printers. They be shut up in close prisons, their handes, as it were bounde and then buffeted."3

The Episcopal licensers, however lax in matters of moral decency, were very lynx-eyed when passing anything for publication, that seemed to reflect on matters ecclesiastical. Hence the controversial treatises on the Presbyterian side, the books of Cartwright or Travers, had to be printed secretly or abroad at Antwerp or elsewhere, and were surreptitiously introduced into

1 Arber's Introductory sketch to Mar-prelate Controversy, p. 50.

2 Transcript, etc., 11, 810, ed. 1875.

3 A petition directed to her most excellent Majestie. Secretly printed. Brit. Mus. p.m. 108. 62. See Arber, ut supra, p. 52,

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