The Rise of the Presbyterians in the Reformed Church of England (Continued). FORMATIVE PERIOD. INTRODUCTORY.-QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HER ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY 1559-61. I.-DEVELOPMENT OF A PRESBYTERIAN PARTY, 1562-1569. II. THE PRESBYTERIAN LEADER. 1570. III. AN EARLY PRESBYTERIANIZING EXPERIMENT. 1571. IV.-PARLIAMENT AND THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN MANIFESTO. 1572. V. THE FIRST PRESBYTERY OF WANDSWORTH. 1572. VI. THE PRESBYTERIANS FORMULATING THEIR CHURCH PRINCIPLES. 1573-1583. APPENDIX.-PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED UNDER ELIZABETH IN JERSEY AND GUERNSEY, 1576. The Rise of the Presbyterians in the Reformed Church of England (Continued). FORMATIVE PERIOD. INTRODUCTORY.-QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HER ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY. THE Accession of Elizabeth, November 17th, 1558, which delivered the nation from Mary's unpopular reign, was hailed with special hope by the Reforming party, for it assured them of at least some welcome religious changes. Among other displays of popular rejoicing which London witnessed, as the coronation pageant passed along the streets, was the incident, arranged with dramatic effect, of Father Time leading his daughter, clad in white silk, and bearing a Bible marked in great letters, "THE WORD OF TRUTH," for presentation to the new Queen. Elizabeth graciously received the gift; and she pressed it to her heart, "declaring that this should be the rule of her government." No doubt Elizabeth was favourable to certain aspects of the Reformation, especially in its political bearings, the child as she was of that famous marriage of Henry VIII. with Anne Boleyn, which had delivered England from the insufferable pretensions of the Papal See. She had conformed, however, to her sister's creed and worship during the late reign. To what extent, and on what lines she would promote ecclesiastical change, remained to be seen. At her accession, those Roman Catholics who considered her illegitimate, as she had been at one time declared, were rendered helpless by the country being at war with France at the very moment; and her only possible rival being Mary of Scotland, the Dauphiness. Elizabeth's position was, however, a difficult one, the relative strength of parties, old and new, Romish and Protestant, being doubtful. Already a mistress of dissimulation at the age of twenty-five, highly capable, thoroughly trained and accomplished, with her self-will under the control of a politic mind, she readily yielded from the very first to the temptation to temporize, and act diplomatically in both home and foreign affairs. Her ecclesiastical doings were regulated less by personal religious conviction than by capricious likings, and at the outset largely by prudential consideration for her own safety and her crown. She went to Mass to gratify the Papists; she forbad the elevation of the host, as a sop to Protestants. And this spirit continued to animate her throughout, though expressing itself in less pronounced forms as the Romish party began steadily to give way. Elizabeth's Anglicanism was emphatically a compromise; and the Church which she ruled was forced by her into a similar position. For above all others, Queen Elizabeth has left the impress of her powerful will on the Anglican Establishment. Had she got her own way entirely, what would have best pleased her, would have been the Church as her father had left it, rather than either her brother's very Protestant or her sister's very Papal arrangements. If Paul IV. had not insulted and menaced her when she sent him a respectful intimation of her accession,1 she could have willingly deferred to the Pope as Chief Bishop of Christendom; and her ideal would have been a semi-reformed English Institution, with a partially Romish ritual and doctrine, subject to herself. She was a thorough Tudor, and loved authority; no Pope must dictate to her. Her tastes, too, were towards a splendid worship, with plenty of show, and gorgeous ceremonial.2 Elizabeth would have had roods and crucifixes, altars and candles, a celibate clergy and priestly vestments in the Church, as she continued to insist on them for her own private chapel. It was a knowledge of this 1 His Holiness averred "that she could not succeed, being illegitimate; and that, the Crown of England being a fief of the Popedom, she had been guilty of great presumption in assuming it without his consent." 2 In fact, many royal heads of the English Church seem not to have known what to make of religion. With Elizabeth it was too much a pageant; with James I. it was a traffic; with Charles I. a political engine; with Charles II. a farce; and with James II. a sheer fetish. The crucifix was removed for a time from her private chapel by the persuasion of her Bishops, but it was restored about 1570. She was not unaccustomed to address prayer to the Virgin.-Strype, ii. 1. that bred suspicion and afterwards disappointment in many a loyal-hearted Puritan. And unfortunately it committed her to a line of religious policy which brought discredit on herself, serious embarrassment on her Bishops and Council, suffering and persecution on some of her best and ablest subjects, and often much bewilderment on foreigners, who could not understand how she, who so championed the Reformation in other countries, should harass those of her own people who were in fullest accord with the Reformed Churches abroad. This was the great blot on her otherwise glorious reign; and she would have avoided it had she deferred to her wiser councillors in ecclesiastical affairs. The Parliament which met on her accession was much more Protestant than the Queen, just as those that followed it were more favourable to Puritanism than ever she was. Strong reaction had set in against the recent Romish mis-rule, and there was an immense uprising and revolt, besides, of the laity against the clergy, and the horrors they had promoted. In making a new religious settlement, there was no idea therefore of taking council with the Church. Convocation had shown itself painfully and bigotedly averse to any re-arrangement. The English Church had as a Church little hand in the Elizabethan settlement. For as a Church, its clergy were vehemently opposed to alterations again. In the beginning of Mary's reign (though the whole of these clergy had professed the Reformation just before) only fire divines had the moral courage to stand up in the lower House of Convocation for the English Prayer Book and its formularies. And now, on Elizabeth's accession, the whole lower Convocation were of the same temper, and voted unanimously for the old superstitions, as well as for the divine authority and supremacy of the Pope. Had the question of religious reform depended on the ecclesiastical dignitaries or clergy, nothing would have been done. It was the political hand of Elizabeth and her advisers that effected the change, the Parliament entirely ignoring the Church's voice in the matter.1 It is this fact that utterly demolishes any High Church theory of the case that has ever been attempted; and that justifies the religious party which struggled for a more popular, less Erastian, and truly consistent Reformation, as both the easiest |