III

DECLARATION OF 1628

35

our realm have always most willingly subscribed to the Articles established; which is an argument that they all agree in the true, usual, literal meaning of the said Articles; and that even in those curious points, in which the present differences lie, men of all sorts take the Articles of the Church of England to be for them; which is an argument again, that none of them intend any desertion of the Articles established. That therefore in these both curious and unhappy differences, which have for so many hundred years, in different times and places, exercised the Church of Christ, We will, that all further curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set forth to us in the Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them. And that no man hereafter shall either print, or preach, to draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof: and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense."

"Predestination is the root of all Puritanism, and Puritanism the root of all rebellion and disobedient intractableness." Only in the plain teaching of the English Church, apart from Rome's hyperdefinite decisions, and Calvin's desperate ventures of distorted logic, did Laud look to find "articles of peace." It was in this hope that in September, 1633, he took up the work of Primate of All England, when Charles called him to Canterbury on the death of Abbot.

AUTHORITIES.-Hacket, Scrinia Reserata; Laud, Works; and the State Papers, Domestic, are the chief authorities for this chapter. Archbishop Abbot wrote a vindication of his action, which was published in Rushworth's Historical Collections, i. 435 sqq. (ed. 1659). The works of Sibthorpe and Mountague give their views: Laud's Letters to Wentworth, in Strafford Papers, 1739, give occasional illustrations: and the lives of Sibthorpe, Manwaring, and Mountague, in the Dictionary of National Biography, add details and refer

ences.

CHAPTER IV

OPPOSITION, PURITAN AND ROMANIST

LAUD as archbishop was confronted by two obvious dangers, the opposition of Puritans and the opposition of Romanists. When these have been considered, it will be well to sketch the work which he actually accomplished and the position of the Church of England during his primacy. Puritanism in 1633 was practically an organised party, though it had somewhat indefinite limits. It traced all its "schism and sauciness" back to the days when Cartwright was confronted by Hooker, and when the Martin Marprelate tracts made vulgar mock of Church institutions. To destroy the episcopal constitution of the Church, as it had been destroyed under John Knox in Scotland, was the aim of the leaders of English Puritanism in 1633, as of their predecessors eighty years earlier. In the eyes of the State the position had little changed.

Puritanism as a party.

The policy of the Stewarts in the treatment of the Puritans was simply a continuance of that of Elizabeth. James had an almost insane dread of political plotters and anarchists, and he had a very deep-seated belief in the wisdom of the of his mighty predecessor. His terrors too were relation to encouraged by the creatures of the court; and he

The policy

Stewarts in

theirs. fell readily into the policy, which commended itself also to his theological sympathies, of setting a watch on the nonconformists' agencies by the State. It was not the Church that was anxious to persecute. There is proof that every stir of episcopal activity had its origin in the court. It was James, not the bishops, who originated the maxim,

CHAP. IV

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

37

"No Bishop no King," and proceeded to draw from it a very definite course of action which was intended to defend the monarchy through an assertion of inquisitorial powers on behalf of the Church. Charles held the same opinions on the politics of Puritanism as his father, and he showed from the beginning of his reign that he was in favour of no tolerance.

Perhaps the best example that can be given of the views of the majority of the Puritans and of their consequent divergence from the National Church is to be found in the history of those who left England for conscience sake, and after settling temporarily in Amsterdam and Leiden eventually sailed for Virginia. With the action of these men may be compared the speeches of Lord Saye and Sele, concerning the Liturgy of the Church and upon the bishops' power in civil affairs, both of which were answered by Laud.

The Pilgrim

With regard to the "Pilgrim fathers" it is not very easy to speak. They have been dealt with in their place in an earlier volume of this history of the English Church. Of the theological opinions of the more distinguished fathers. members two very different views might be obtained. We might hold that their objection to the Church was, like that of the Millenary Petitioners, a sincere and earnest repulsion from all that belonged to the historic and continuous Christian society. Bastwick blames their moderation. He writes in

1646: "The extremist extent of their desires reached but to the removal of all the Ceremonies and Innovations; the taking away of the service book [Book of Common Prayer]: and the pulling down of the High Commission Court (which was called the Court Christian, though it was rather Pagan), and the removal of the Hierarchy, root and branch; and the setting up and establishing of a godly Presbytery throughout the kingdom." And with this may be compared the declaration written at Leiden early in 1618, that "we do wholly and in all points agree with the French Reformed churches, according to their public 'Confession of Faith.'"

But, on the other hand, we may form a very different conclusion, when we find a declaration from the same conscientious men that they assent wholly to the Thirty-nine Articles, and that they acknowledge the Episcopal authority.

There is a significant addition to each clause of this document which shows that the real danger to the pilgrims, and the real opposition which they were anxious to deprecate, came from the king and the State. It is indeed difficult to arrive at a clear conclusion from the evidence afforded of the somewhat elastic consciences of these good folk. We may, however, admit that they had a rooted aversion to lawn sleeves; for they were very angry with Master Blackwell because he obtained the Puritan Archbishop Abbot's blessing on his voyage.

Another aspect of the controversy with the Puritans is vividly represented by two of Laud's answers to the speeches of one of their prominent champions.

Lord Saye and Sele was an obstinate and eccentric nobleman with that curious and unwarranted confidence in his own judgment, and that ignorant contempt for the troversies opinions and the birth of other people, which sit so Saye and characteristically upon some reforming peers.

Laud's con with Lord

Sele.

Both

the speeches of his to which Laud thought fit to write answers were made after the archbishop was imprisoned, and when he was unable to answer for himself in debate in the House of Lords; and there was a special meanness in such an attack as Lord Saye's, when the object of it was standing trial for his life.

The first speech "touching the Liturgy" was divided into three parts: (1) a contemptuous account of Laud's origin and career; (2) a plea for extemporary rather than written forms of public worship; (3) a vindication of himself and his friends from the charge of separatism. To the first point the archbishop had a very dignified reply; and indeed the matter does not concern us. The birth of an archbishop neither justifies nor condemns his theology. To the two other points there was more need to reply, and it is not without interest to-day, when we have been told that there could have been no dissent but for Laud, to observe the form the reply took. First, there was a vindication of the right of the Church to ordain set forms of prayer. The apostles certainly had power, and exercised it, to enjoin doctrine, and used a form of ordination by imposition of hands, and a "form of wholesome words." And, indeed, "no question can be made but

IV

LAUD AND LORD SAYE AND SELE

(1) In its

aspect.

39

that the Church of Christ had and hath still as much power to ordain a set form of prayer as any of these things." Lord Saye and Sele said that the use of fixed forms of prayer made men preach but poorly. There have been at different times many reasons given for bad sermons: this of Lord Saye's was a strange one in a church of great preachers and of fixed forms, and Laud had no difficulty in showing its absurdity. Again, would not learned bishops be better employed in making prayers of their own than in repeating those of other people? Laud answers this too, and sums religious up by saying, "The question is not whether a negligent set form of prayer, or a good form of set prayer negligently and without devotion offered up to God (as too often they are, God help us), be better than other prayers, carefully composed and devoutly uttered; but simply whether a good set form of prayer (such as the Liturgy of the Church of England is) be made so evil, only by the enjoining of it, as that therefore the service itself ought to be refused." It was, indeed, a strange contention to which Lord Saye had brought himself—that because forms, lawful in themselves, had been enjoined by public authority, they must be rejected by the individual conscience.

The question of separatism brings us still more clearly into the region of modern controversy. Lord Saye and Sele assumed the position that by adherence to the Universal or Catholic Church was meant nothing more than the holding of the chief articles of the Christian faith, that there was no schism but in rejecting them, and that every particular church and congregation might do as it pleased in the matters of order, of liturgy, of worship. Two lines of argument may be taken. up in answer to this: (1) The lawful demand of authority upon the individual conscience; (2) the practical impossibility of differing in order and worship from the Church without also departing from the faith. Both these Laud emphasises. It is absurd to deny that you separate when history and the evidences of men's eyes and ears are against you. I humbly conceive that it is certain that he, whoever he be, that will not communicate in public prayer with a National Church which serves God as she ought, is a separatist. But the Church of England, as it stands established by law, serves