ning of the seventeenth century, we must not wholly pass by. Afterwards it became a fruitful source of contention between the Church and the Nonconformists. This is the question of the amount of observance due to the Lord's Day. The controversy appears to have been first started in print by Dr. Bound, a Puritan writer, towards the end of the century, who is said by Heylin to have written his book by way of indirectly disparaging and condemning the other festival days used by the Church.* The earlier foreign reformers claimed for the Church a complete authority in the matter of the observance of the Lord's Day; debated whether they should change the weekly festival to Thursday, and asserted that it was within the power of the Church to appoint either one day in six or one in eight. Thus, too, Tindal in England. "As for the Sabbath," he says, "a great matter! We be lords over the Sabbath, and may yet change it into the Monday or any other day, as we see need, or may make every tenth day holy only if we see a cause why." These views, however, were soon abandoned by the party which looked with especial reverence to the foreign theologians. A Judaical strictness of observance began The *Heylin, Presbyterians, book x., sec. I. Fuller, Church History, book ix. See Disraeli's Charles I., ii., 17 sq. work, published in 1595, was suppressed and called in, but continued to be read in MS. An enlarged edition was published in 1606. For some time, Fuller says, "Not so much as the feather of a quill in print did wag against it." + Tindal, quoted by Heylin. See Bramhall's Works, v., 10, notes. Dr. Hessey's Bampton Lectures, 1860. Chap. I. Chap. I. The state kept by the bishops. to be taught by the Puritan writers. They maintained "that to do any servile work on the Lord's Day was as great a sin as to kill a man or commit adultery. That to throw a bowl on the Lord's Day* was as great a sin as to kill a man. That to ring more bells than one on the Lord's Day was as great a sin as to commit a murder."† &c. Doubtless, the publication of these extreme doctrines excited, as is usually the case, a corresponding extravagance on the other side; and the putting forth the Edicts for Sports, &c., upon the great Christian festival, was at any rate an impolitic and dangerous act. There were other points, not strictly theological, on which there was fierce war between the Puritans and the bishops. These were, principally, the administration of law in the bishops' courts and the harsh proceedings often taken there, and the great state and retinue affected by their lordships. With regard to the latter point, we may admit that the Puritanical party had somewhat to cavil at, when we read the account of the state kept by the Archbishop of Canterbury at this period, as related by a favourable biographer: "He kept, for the exercise of military discipline, a good armoury and *Yet John Knox going to visit Calvin at Geneva, on Sunday, found him playing at bowls. + Heylin's Presbyterians, book x., sec. 2. "Puritanic persons deprived the populace of their accustomed festivals and pastimes. on the Sunday afternoons after Divine service; festivals and pastimes are the poor man's inheritance, his unbought enjoyment, the leisure of his servitude, the common solace of the ancient friendships of the village."-Disraeli's Charles I., ii., 19. a fair stable of great horses, insomuch as he was Chap. I. able to arm at all points both horse and foot, and divers times had one hundred foot and fifty horse of his own servants mustered and trained; for which purpose he entertained captains. He had a desire always to keep a great and bountiful house, and so he did. Upon some festival days he was served with great solemnity, sometime upon the knee; as well for upholding the state which belonged unto his place, as for the better education and practice of his gentlemen and attendants in point of service. Every year he entertained the Queen at one of his houses, as long as he was an Archbishop; and sometimes twice or thrice. Every third year he went into Kent, where he was so honourably attended upon by his own train (consisting of two hundred persons), that he did sometimes ride into the City of Canterbury and into other towns with eight hundred or a thousand horse." It must be borne in mind that all this state was accompanied by very liberal and systematic alms-giving, and a hearty encouragement of learned scholars and divines. Yet the notion of a bishop clattering into his cathedral city at the head of a thousand horse, must have been rather a difficult one for the Puritanical mind to acquiesce in.† * Sir G. Paul's Life of Whitgift. Wordsworth, Eccles. Biog., iii., 608. See Howes's Chronicle, 819-822. + Thus, in 1574, Sampson writes to remonstrate with Grindal, Archbishop of York, on "His port, his train of waiting men in the streets, his gentlemen-ushers going before him with bare heads, and his family full of idle serving men, looking very lordly."-Neal's Puritans, i., 263. Chap. I. Adulation used by bishops. We can forgive this to Whitgift, however, far better than we can his condescending to swell the chorus of gross adulation with which the bishops greeted James I., and raised that vain and pedantic monarch to the utmost pinnacle of self-conceit. Doubtless, the thorough partisan spirit, which a Prince coming out of Presbyterian Scotland displayed on their side, must have been very intoxicating to them, but Whitgift, who had so boldly reproved the domineering and unscrupulous Elizabeth, need not have been the one to join with the outrageous sycophancy of Bancroft, in declaring that "undoubtedly his Majesty spake by the special assistance of God's spirit."* This is indeed the most appalling feature of the times. We are led to ask what could have been the Christian sincerity of those men who could address their King in the grossest terms of the most fulsome flattery? The translators of the Bible were the picked divines of England, but even they could agree to prefix to their sacred work a dedication, in which they speak of the coming of James as of "the rising of the sun in his strength;" calling him "that sanctified person whose zeal manifests itself abroad in the furthest parts of Christendom, by writing in defence of the truth (which hath given such a blow to that man of sin as shall not be *Barlow's Sum of Hampton Court Conference. "While hungry writers flattered him out of all measure at home, he was despised by all abroad as a pedant without true judgment, courage, or steadiness."-Burnet's Own Times, p. 8, edition 1838. healed), and every day at home by religious and Chap. I. learned discourse." * Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, was a leading man in the Church and a learned writer. Hear how he addresses a man, who, if history is to be believed, was anything but a paragon of virtue: "You are endued with an admirable genius, an incredible memory, an excellent and most exquisite judgment. I need not dwell upon the nobleness of your royal descent, nor your remarkable facility and readiness of speech. I may pass over your affability, your good temper, your temperance, patience, mildness, mercy, goodness, beneficence, skill, wisdom, and all the other gifts most worthy a Christian Prince, which every one can see plainly in your sacred Majesty. Be it rather my task, as a bishop, to make mention of your sincere profession of piety, your erudite defence of the truth both by word and writings, your anxious care for preserving the peace of the Church ......duties, by the frequent and willing performance of which, you pay a service most pleasing to God, and have acquired an everlasting glory for your name.”† Thus, too, another Bishop of Winchester (Montague): "His Majesty, whom God hath adorned with as many rare perfections of nature and art as He ever did any that we read of," &c. (Preface to King James's Works-a piece of elaborate, and sometimes rather profane, adulation.) And Field, Dean of Gloucester: "A * Dedication to authorized version. + Bilson's Epistle Dedicatory to his Treatise on Church Government, published 1611. (Trans.) |