or of inherent holiness, efficacy, or real necessity), do in this case change the nature and become doctrinal, and in this respect are condemned as being not only beside the warrant, but plainly against the precept of Holy Scripture." 1 The bishop by this argument seems to furnish a ready answer to his opponents, who, no doubt, would hold that the ceremonies to which they objected came under the latter class. § 28. The Primate, however, was not inclined to wait for the results of controversy. He continued to press his subscription test, and many ministers, rather than wait to be ejected forcibly, now resigned their preferments and passed into Holland to join the Brownists, where unnumbered extravagances, wranglings, and mutual excommunications prevailed.2 No doubt, also, many put a strain on their consciences by signing the new test, though not really ex animo, for the better of the Puritans still greatly dreaded the sin of schism; and thus under Bancroft an amount of conformity was reached such as had never been seen at any time under his predecessors. It is possible, indeed, that this result was bought at too dear a price; that it is to Bancroft's action in thus invading the domain of the conscience, and refusing to be satisfied with that outward conformity which had satisfied Whitgift, that the commencement of the unpopularity of the Church with the laity is duethat unpopularity which afterwards made the gentlemen of England appear as allies of a Puritanism which in their hearts they despised. § 29. The apparent success of the Primate's strictness is well attested. "Dr. Bancroft," says Lord Clarendon," that Metropolitan who understood the Church excellently, had almost rescued it out of the hands of the Calvinian party, and very much subdued the unruly spirit of the Nonconformists. If he had lived, he would quickly have extinguished all that fire in England which had been kindled at Geneva." 3 § 30. "By the punishment of some few of the principals," says Heylin, "he struck such terror into the rest, that nonconformity grew out of fashion in a less time than could easily be imagined. Hereupon followed a great alteration in the face of religion: more churches beautified and repaired in the short time of his government than had been in many years before; the liturgy more solemnly officiated by the priests and more religiously attended by the common people; the fasts and festivals more punctually ob 1 Defence of the Three Ceremonies, p. 18, ed. 1619. Morton was an swered by a tract called The Three Nocent Ceremonies, and this was replied to by Dr. Burgess, who had been deprived for nonconformity, but afterwards conformed. Heylin's Presbyterians, p. 379. 3 Clarendon, Hist. Rebellion, p. 36 (ed. 1843). 2 served by both than of later times; copes brought again into the service of the Church; the surplice generally worn without doubt or hesitancy; and all things in a manner reduced to the same state in which they had first been settled under Queen Elizabeth, which, though it much redounded to the honour of the Church of England gave no small trouble to some sticklers for the Puritan faction, expressed in many scandalous libels and seditious railings, in which this reverend prelate suffered both alive and dead."1 1 Heylin's Presbyterians, p. 376. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE MILLENARY PETITION. Church service; that the cross in baptism, interrogatories ministered to infants, con away; baptism not to be ministered by women, and so explained. The cap and surplice not urged. That examination go before the communion; that it be ministered with a sermon. That divers terms of priests, and absolution, and some other used, with the ring in marriage, and other such like in the book, may be corrected; the longsomeness of the service abridged, Church songs and music moderated to better edification. That the Lord's day be not profaned; the rest upon holidays not so strictly urged. That there may be an uniformity of doctrine prescribed; no popish opinion to be any more taught or defended; no ministers charged to teach their people to bow at the name of Jesus. That the Canonical Scriptures only be read in the Church. (2) Concerning Church ministers; that none hereafter be admitted into the ministry but able and sufficient men, and these to preach diligently and specially on the Lord's day. That such as be already entered and cannot preach may either be removed, and some charitable course taken with them for their relief, or else be forced, according to the "Most gracious and dread Sovereign-firmations, as superfluous, may be taken Seeing that it hath pleased the Divine Majesty, to the great comfort of all good Christians, to advance your Highness, according to your just title, to the peaceable government of this Church and commonwealth of England; we, the ministers of the Gospel in this land, neither as factious men affecting a popular parity in the Church, nor as schismatics aiming at the dissolution of the State Ecclesiastical, but as the faithful servants of Christ and loyal subjects to your Majesty, desiring and longing for the redress of divers abuses of the Church, could do no less in our obedience to God, service to your Majesty, love to His Church, than acquaint your princely Majesty with our particular griefs; for, as your princely pen writeth, 'the king, as a good physician, must first know what peccant humours his patient naturally is most subject unto, before he can begin his cure;' and although divers of us that sue for reformation have formerly, in respect of the times, subscribed to the booksome upon protestation, some upon exposition given to them, some with condition rather than the Church should have been deprived of their labour and ministry-value of their livings, to maintain preachyet now we, to the number of more than a thousand of your Majesty's subjects and ministers, all groaning as under a common burden of human rites and ceremonies, do with one joint assent humble ourselves at your Majesty's feet to be eased and relieved in this behalf. Our humble suit, then, to your Majesty is that these offences following, some may be removed, some amended, some qualified :-(1) In the ers. That non-residency be not permitted. That King Edward's statute for the lawfulness of ministers' marriages be revived. That ministers be not urged to subscribe, but according to the law, to the articles of religion and the king's supremacy only. (3) For Church living and maintenance; that bishops leave their commendams, some holding parsonages, some prebends some vicarages, with their bishoprics. your Majesty's pleasure for your gracious answer as God shall direct you, we most humbly recommend your Highness to the Divine Majesty, whom we beseech, for Christ's sake, to dispose your royal heart to do herein what shall be to His glory, the good of His Church, and your endless comfort. Your Majesty's most humble subjects, "The ministers of the Gospel that desire not a disorderly innovation, but a due and godly reformation." "Fuller. That double-beneficed men be not suffered | dutiful submission, referring ourselves to to hold, some two, some three, benefices with cure, and some two, three, or four dignities besides. That impropriations annexed to bishoprics and colleges be demised only to the preachers incumbents, for the old rent. That the impropriations of laymen's fees be charged, with a sixth or seventh part of their worth, to the maintenance of the preaching minister. (4) For Church discipline: that the discipline and excommunication may be ministered according to Christ's own institution, or at least that enormities may be redressed, as, namely, that excommunication come not forth under the name of lay persons, chancellors, officials, etc.; that men be not excommunicated for trifles and twelvepenny matters; that none be excommunicated without consent of his pastor. That the officers be not suffered to extort unreasonable fees. That none having jurisdiction or registers' places put process, (B) ALTERATIONS MADE IN THE PRAYER-BOOK AFTER THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE. In the calendar, August 26, Prov. xxx. instead of Bel and the Dragon; October 1 and 2, Exod. vi., Josh. xx. and xxii., instead of Tobit v. vi. viii. Into the title of the Absolution the insertion of the words, or remission of sins. A prayer for the queen, the prince, and royal family, after prayer for the king; a corresponding petition in the Litany. Thanksgivings for rain, fair weather, plenty, peace, and victory, deliverance from plague in two forms, added to occasional prayers, and styled an enlargement of thanksgiving for divers benefits, by way of explanation. In Gospels for 2d Sunday after Easter, and 20th Sunday after Trinity, the words "unto his disciples" omitted, and Christ said and Jesus said to be printed in letters differing from the text. In heading of Private Baptism, instead of them that be baptized in private houses in time of necessity, of them that are to be baptized in private houses in time of necessity by the minister of the parish or any other lawful minister that can be procured. In the second Rubrick, instead of "they baptize not their children," they procure not their children to be baptized. In the third Rubrick similar insertion of the words the lawful minister. In the inquiry as to baptism, the words, and because some things essential to this sacrament may happen to be omitted through fear or haste in such times of extremity, therefore I demand further, to be inserted; confirmation explained by adding, or laying on of hands on children baptized and able to render an account of their faith according to the Catechism following. The concluding portion on the sacraments was added to the Catechism, being the work of Dean Overal, prolocutor of Convocation, afterwards bishop.-Procter's Hist. of Prayer-book. CHAPTER XXIII. COLLISIONS BETWEEN THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND LAY AUTHORITIESREVISION OF THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE BIBLE-BISHOPS FOR SCOTLAND. 1605-1610. § 1. The Judges begin to issue Prohibitions. § 2. Bancroft exhibits Articles of Complaint against them to the Council. § 3. The answer of the Judges. § 4. Contest between the two authorities. § 5. Bishops and Judges before the King. § 6. Parliament jealous of ecclesiastical claims. § 7. Dr. Cowell's Interpreter. § 8. Demands made by Parliament as to Church abuses. § 9. Bancroft's letter to his Suffragans. § 10. Bitter spirit evoked in Parliament and the country. § 11. The policy of employing the Church against the Romanists. § 12. Divines drawn into controversy with Rome. § 13. The revision of the translation of the Bible determined on. §14. Preparations for it. §15. Arrangements for carrying on the work. § 16. Character of the work. § 17. Restoration of the Episcopate to Scotland. § 18. Death of Bancroft, estimate of his work. § 1. THE vigorous working of the ex-animo subscription test, and the high claims made for Church authority by Archbishop Bancroft soon awakened the jealousy of the judges. The power of prohibitions issued by the temporal courts had been learned in the last days of Queen Elizabeth, and the need of them seemed now to be still more apparent. These prohibitions had the effect of bringing many of the matters, cited before the ecclesiastical courts, to be tried by the common law of the land. This was extremely distasteful to the archbishop, § 2. In Michaelmas term 1605, Bancroft exhibited to the Privy Council twenty-five articles of complaint on the part of the clergy against the judges. This document states that 570 prohibitions had been granted, since the late queen's reign, to the Court of Arches alone. It pleads that as both the ecclesiastical and temporal jurisdictions are now united in his Majesty, it is absurd to allow one to impede the other, as though the jurisdictions were separate and distinct. It brings together all the arguments in favour of the free action of the Church courts, and calls upon the Council to remedy the grievance. § 3. The Council referred the matter to the judges, who, in Easter term 1606, replied in a paper agreed upon unanimously. "2 They had on a former occasion committed themselves to a complete approval of the powers of the High Commission Court. Soon, however, they had shown themselves of a different mind. Within five months after giving that opinion they had issued a prohibition to stay a suit, because the accused had not received a copy of the articles charged against him. They had delivered, by writs of habeas corpus, two persons committed to prison by the Commission Court, and when persons were arrested under the writ of de excommunicato capiendo, the judges had ordered the sheriffs to bring them into their courts and then had discharged them.1 This decided action against the ecclesiastical jurisdiction the judges now undertook to justify. "To each of the articles of complaint they made separate answers, in a rough, and some might say, in a rude style, but pointed, and very much to the purpose.' They accuse the bishops of "strange presumption," and of utter ignorance of law. They say that so bad is the character of the ecclesiastical courts for justice, that a temporal man will prefer to have a claim for tithes tried against him in the King's Courts, though there, if cast, he will have to pay treble value, rather than in the spiritual courts, which are not allowed to award more than double value. They accuse the clergy of vexing their parishioners with claims for tithes which they never had, and to which they have no right. One minister had demanded seventeen different sorts of tithes, but on a prohibition, eight or nine of these were at once struck off. It was a common practice when suing for tithes to put in seven or eight additional claims, though without reason. As to the point that the king being the source of all jurisdiction could appoint what each of the courts was to concern itself with, the judges answer that nothing less than an Act of Parliament could alter the course of justice established by law.3 § 4. The rough answer of the judges only incited the archbishop to go all lengths in upholding what he regarded to be the privileges and rights of the Church. A strife commenced between the two jurisdictions not salutary for either of them. Thomas Ladd, a merchant at Great Yarmouth, and Richard Munsell, a preacher, were committed to prison by the Court of High Commission, but on the application of Nicholas Fuller, a bencher of Gray's Inn, writs of habeas corpus were granted by the Court of King's Bench, and they were discharged. Upon this Mr. Fuller himself was arrested by the High Commission Court. He applied 1 Bancroft's Articuli cleri, printed in Cardwell, Doc. Annals, ii. 82-105. 2 Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 318. 3 Coke's Institute, p. ii. Collier well points out that this ruling of the judges being in their own cause, could not be held as determining the law. -Ch. Hist. vii. 324. |