Its teaching and its reception.

anti-Christ, he said. "That the pope is magnus ille antiChristus is neither determined by the public doctrine of the Church nor proved by any good argument of private men. . The matter of the great anti-Christ fits the Turkish tyranny every way as well as the рарасу." As to images, we reject the popish doctrine and practice both, concerning adoration; but the Church of England does not condemn the historical use of images. We hold a doctrine of Absolution and of the Real Presence. "The difference between us and popish writers is only about the modus, the manner of Christ's presence in the Blessed Sacrament." It was not likely that these sentiments would commend themselves to a Puritan House of Commons, though a modern writer, of whose impartiality there can be no doubt, considers that Mountague was one who gave "a temperate exposition of the reasons which were leading an increasing body of scholars to reject the doctrines of Rome and of Geneva alike." Nor was the matter improved, in the eyes of Calvinists, by the fact that Mountague had also published a treatise on the Invocation of Saints, called "Immediate Address unto God alone," in which he asserted that it might be reasonable, though not necessary, to ask the angel-keeper ever by each man's side to "pray for me," and concluded with a prayer that God, "Glorious in His Holy saints now and ever, grant us of His grace, through their intercession for His Church in Christ, that we may so pass through things temporal that finally we lose not things eternal, but together with all the saints departed may rise again to immortal life."

Such doctrines as these were more than a Puritan House of Commons could endure. A committee reported strongly

Intervention

against Mountague on July 7, 1625, and it was deof the House cided to proceed against him, not on directly theoof Commons. logical grounds, but for dishonouring the late king, for disturbing Church and State, and for treating the rights and privileges of Parliament with contempt. He was committed to the custody of the serjeant-at-arms. The House of Commons thus entered on the extra-legal course which was to be carried so far by both parties in the struggle that was to come. Charles was equally determined and at least as injudicious.

II HOUSE OF COMMONS AND MOUNTAGUE

19

While Mountague was still in prison he made him his chaplain, and on July 9 intimated to the House of Commons that "what had been there said and resolved without consulting him in the case was not pleasing to him." On the 11th Parliament was prorogued. The action of the king seemed more magnanimous than safe, for, says Heylin, "There was much magnaminity in preferring the man whom he beheld as well in his personal sufferings as in his great abilities, yet was it not held safe for the king, as his case then stood, to give such matter of exasperation to the House of Commons." On August 2, when the Parliament was sitting at Oxford, Mountague was too ill to attend, and after a hot discussion, in which Coke and Heath spoke with great bitterness, proceedings were laid aside for the moment, though with a threat of impeachment.

of the bishops.

Shortly afterwards conferences were held on the doctrinal questions involved. Early in the year the Bishops of London (Mountain or Montaigne), Durham (Neile), Winchester (Andrewes), Rochester (Buckeridge), and St. David's (Laud) were consulted by the king's command and reported in The opinion Mountague's favour. Already three of the bishops, while the House of Commons was sitting, had written to Buckingham in support of the opinions Mountague had expressed. The Church of England, they maintained, was in her Reformation never "busy with every particular schoolpoint. The cause why she held this moderation was, because she could not be able to preserve any unity amongst Christians, if men were forced to subscribe to curious particulars disputed in schools." The points with which Mountague dealt, they declared, were partly the "resolved doctrine of the Church of England," partly those "fit only for schools, and to be left at more liberty for learned men to expound in their own sense, so they keep themselves peaceable and distract not the Church." To this plea for tolerance the three bishops added a dignified protest of constitutional rights. The clergy's submission under Henry VIII. was not in any matter to Parliament, but that "if any difference, doctrine or other, fell in the Church, the king and the bishops were to be judges of it in a National Synod or Convocation; the king first giving leave, under his broad seal, to handle the points in difference. But the Church never submitted to any other judge, neither, indeed,

can she, though she would." To do other would be to "depart from the ordinances of Christ, and the continual course and practice of the Church." A shrewd hint was added that the opinions which Mountague had attacked were subversive also of the government, and that the countenance of the Synod of Dort to such teaching was of no avail-" and our hope is that the Church of England will be well advised, and more than once over, before she admit a foreign synod, especially of such a church as condemneth her discipline and manner of government, to say no more." This was on August 2, 1625, and the hands subscribed were those of Buckeridge and Howson as well as of him whose mind spoke most clearly in the words, Laud, Bishop of St. David's

cate of Moun

The later report was signed on January 16, 1626. Its imimportant words were these: "We have met and considered, and for our particulars do think that Mr. Mountague, Their certifi- in his book, hath not affirmed anything to be the tague's doctrine of the Church of England but that which in orthodoxy. our opinion is the doctrine of the Church of England, or agreeable thereunto. And for the preservation of the peace of the Church we in humility do conceive that his Majesty shall do most graciously to prohibit all parties, members of the Church of England, any further controverting of these questions by public preaching or writing, or any other way, for the disturbance of the peace of this Church for the time to come."

The advice was followed. Already Charles was in a position of grave political distress. The Commons were high in opposition, Eliot was rousing enthusiasm as the leader of a constitutional party, foreign relations were in disorder to the point of disgrace, and Buckingham was dismissed. By the summer of 1626 the king seemed face to face with war at home and abroad. In the Church only he hoped to find peace.

The

But the Church was no more quiet than the State. Pamphlets against Mountague still poured from the press. "A Dangerous Plot Discovered: by a discourse pamphlet wherein is proved that Mr. Richard Mountague in his two books, the one called A New Gag, the other A Just Appeal, laboureth to bring in the faith of Rome and

warfare.

II

KING'S DECLARATION, 1626

21

Arminius under the name and pretence of the doctrine and faith of the Church of England" (London, printed for Nicholas Bourne at the Exchange, 1626), was addressed "to the High and Honourable Court of Parliament, praying that you will (1) take this cause into your consideration; (2) preserve the faith of our Church in the purity it hath had hitherto; (3) endeavour to prevent the corrupting of it in time to come." A good example of the feeling which was now readily finding expression, it protested against all the points on which Mountague had controverted the Puritan view, as on the authority of the Church, the efficacy of baptism, and the real presence. A "second parallel" tried to convict Mountague of Arminianism, and "Pelagius Redivivus" compared "the new to the old error." Charles determined to silence the disputants. Parliament was dissolved on June 15. On the following day was issued a proclamation to enforce silence on controverted points. Who was the gainer by these disputes but only the Church of Rome? Let men be silent on the deep points which had "given much offence to the sober and well grounded readers and hearers of these late written books on both sides."

"The

Declaration

of the

king.

The two parties.

Did men think then that Reason would suggest articles of peace? If they did they must have known little of the history of mankind. It was no day in which the voice of wise moderation could be heard. bishops were more liberal than the House of Commons," says a great modern authority. Students understood their subject as amateurs could not; and with the students was the knowledge and the temper which alone, and in the future, should make settlement possible. Charles, with real delicacy of insight, looked beyond the petty disputes to larger and more statesmanlike issues for the Church. At his back stood a man of clear vision and determined will, who would not palter with his conscience. Unity was the passion of their lives, and for nothing was the age, in England or abroad, less prepared. The king's declaration, and many a wise saying of wise men, fell on empty ears.

AUTHORITIES. Besides those given for Chap. I., Hacket, Scrinia Reserata; Fuller, Church History; the works of the chief divines, most of which are reprinted in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology. The pamph

let literature is voluminous and important. There are many contemporary diaries, the most notable of which is Laud's. The State Papers, Domestic,

are full of details of importance. Among modern writers, S. R. Gardiner, History of England; G. G. Perry, History of the Church of England; and the lives of the prominent persons of the day in the Dictionary of National Biography. An excellent new edition of Laud's Controversy with Fisher, by C. H. Simpkinson, 1901.