troversy; while the sparks struck by the energy of Wickliffe's doctrines were yet alive; and when the art of printing was prepared to aid in the diffusion of knowledge; it was an event of great importance in the history of religious freedom. The grounds on which a temporal prince rested his title to spiritual dominion, were sure to be examined by some superior mind, which would pronounce this authority a usurpation, and contest its claims. This assumption of supremacy was resisted by the clergy; but the royal power bowed them to its will. The refusal to acknowledge this authority, was afterwards a character of the Puritans, as it is now of Dissenters; we perceive, however, that before the rise of the Puritans, the principle of resistance to religious dominion in princes, was avowed by the ministers of the Church.

The supremacy of a layman over all ecclesiastical persons and things, is a gross anomaly in a Church which boasts of its supposed apostolical constitution, and contends that bishops are exclusively the order of men to whom Christ has committed its government! Laymen preside in the ecclesiastical courts as the king's judges; and their authority is not only independent on the bishops and clergy, but it may give sentence in opposition to their interests and their will. In the Church of England, even excommunication is not an act of the clergy. The government of the apostolical Churches, was essentially different from the ecclesiastical policy of England. Of whatever excellence, therefore, the Established Church may boast, she is not entitled to affix the epithet Apostolical to her designation.

Though Henry discarded the authority of the pontiff, he still retained most of the tenets of the Church of Rome; and while he persecuted and burnt Protestants for denying the real presence, he put Papists to death for refusing to acknowledge his supremacy. In 1539, the Bloody Statute of the Six Articles, was enacted, establishing transubstantiation, communion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, vows of chastity, private masses, and auricular confession; and it awarded death as the penalty of their violation. The reading of the Scriptures in the common tongue, which had been conceded, was now prohibited. This haughty monarch was thus trampling, with proud disdain, on the rights of faith and of conscience, when, in 1547, death delivered his subjects from his tyranny.

On the demise of Henry the supremacy was exercised by the Council, into whose hands the Government was committed by the late king's will, during the minority of Edward the Sixth, his son and successor, then in his tenth year, and was used with comparative moderation; yet, in some instances, it was exerted with rigour and cruelty, as in the severities towards Middleton, and in the execution of Joan Bocher, which has affixed an in

delible stain on the name of Cranmer. The Reformation made important progress in this reign. The worst acts of the preceding, were repealed; and the alterations made in theoffices of the Church, the general use of the Scriptures, the compilation of the Homilies, the frequency and freedom of preaching, the return of many worthy men, who had sought an asylum in distant countries from the cruelties of Henry, and who were accompanied by some foreign Protestants, were circumstances highly favourable to the cause of religious liberty.

It was in this reign that the disputes on the clerical vestments originated, which, how unimportant soever they may appear to some persons in the present day, were of great consequence in those times, and in their results have proved beneficial to posterity. The reforming clergy, in general, opposed the use of them, and Latimer, Coverdale, Taylor, Rogers, Bradford, and Philpot, the glory of the Reformation, declaimed against them. The scruples and opinions of such men, it will be allowed, were conscientious. It would have been well if the clerical habits, together with the rites and ceremonies of the Church, had been left indifferent. This was very much the case in Edward's reign with respect to the former; but the circumstances which attended Hooper's nomination to the see of Gloucester, in 1550, furnished a striking exception to the general practice. This preferment he declined because of the impiety of the oath of supremacy, which required him to swear by the Saints; and on account of the Popish garments used in the Church. The king removed the former objection by cancelling the obnoxious words with his own pen: but the other difficulty remained. As he was not allowed to decline the office of bishop, and as no concession was made to his scruples in relation to the habits, his case was very hard, but it was rendered still more grievous by the severities which, at the instigation of Ridley, were employed by the Council to force his assent. He was imprisoned for several months, and if credit be given to a passage in Fox's "Acts and Monuments," his life was in danger. The differences were eventually compromised. Hooper consented occasionally to wear the episcopal robes; and took possession of the see. From this event, Nonconformity to the rites and ceremonies of the Established Church may be dated.

Mary succeeded her brother in 1553. Of a gloomy and sullen temper, bigoted in her attachment to the Church of Rome, directed by her confessor, and ruled by her clergy, she determined on the extirpation of heresy, as Protestantism was now called, and on reducing the Church to the standard of uniformity. The fires of Smithfield blazed, and the bodies of many of the faithful became fuel to their flames. Others of them preserved their lives by rapid flight into foreign countries; and

sought in distant lands that protection for their religion which was denied them at home.

In these circumstances of popish persecution, and protestant suffering, the aversion of the exiles to the usages of the Church of Rome, was not likely to diminish; and their objections to them were further strengthened by intercourse with the Reformed Churches abroad. A large proportion of the English. refugees settled at Frankfort, where they were accommodated with the use of the French church, on condition of not opposing its doctrines and modes of worship. In accordance with this agreement, they prepared a new liturgy, and abolished the use of the surplice. Their harmony, however, was interrupted by the interference of Dr. Cox, who had been tutor to King Edward, and who was a man of high spirit. On his arrival at Frankfort, he interrupted the public service by introducing the responses of the English liturgy; and this conduct occasioned a division, and gave rise to the Puritans, and eventually to a separation from the Established Church, the one party afterwards conforming, and the other persevering in their attempts to obtain the removal of the offensive articles. They could not, with a good conscience, submit to the superstitious inventions and impositions of men in the worship of God;' and employing their zeal, their labours, and their influence, to promote a purer reformation,' they were called Puritans.

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The terrors of the National Church, in which popery now triumphed, were insufficient to deter many Protestants from assembling together in different parts of the country, who conducted their worship according to the form prescribed by King Edward's liturgy. A considerable congregation of them met at Stoke, in Suffolk, and were so fortunate as to escape the vigilance of their persecutors. But the leaders of other societies of this description fell a sacrifice to the relentless cruelty of Bonner, bishop of London; and many of their members either perished in prison, or were burned at the stake. These societies, adhering to the ritual appointed in Edward's reign, in opposition to the authority of the reigning prince, afforded a precedent to those Protestants, who could not comply with the requisitions of the state, in subsequent periods, and who, in Elizabeth's time, formed themselves into congregations distinct from the National Church. The former can be justified only on the same principles which are asserted in vindication of the latter. The inglorious and bloody reign of Mary terminated, together with her life, in 1558.

The accession of Elizabeth diffused through the Protestant part of the nation, and among the English exiles, that joy, which the hope of sharing in the blessings of a protestant government was calculated to excite. But the love of Elizabeth for an osten

tatious religion, and her imperious spirit, were soon displayed; and the first acts of her government in relation to the Church, dissipated the hopes which the friends of enlarged protestantism had cherished.

The Act of Uniformity' prescribed an exclusive form of worship, and was so far from giving any relief to the scruples of tender minds, that the observance of the disputed points was rigorously ordained. Through the whole of this reign, the provisions of this act were enforced with unsparing severity.

The Act of Supremacy' invested Elizabeth with uncontrolled authority in religion, and contained a clause, empowering the Queen, and her successors, as often as they shall think 'meet, and for as long time as they shall please, to exercise under her, and them, all manner of spiritual, or ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to visit, reform, redress, order, correct, and amend all 'errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, contempts, and enormities whatsoever.'

On this was founded the authority of the Court of High Commission--the most terrible and iniquitous of all institutions ever established in this kingdom. Its methods of inquisition, and of administering oaths,' says Hume, were contrary to all 'the most simple ideas of justice and equity.' Into this court many of the best of men were cited, and the commissioners sported themselves in all the insolence of office, and with the most wanton acts of oppression and tyranny. Mr. Brook's volumes supply ample details of the shocking oppressions of this inhuman inquisition.

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The persecution of the Puritans, at length compelled their separation from the National Church. In 1566, many of the Puritans held a consultation, in which they resolved, That since they could not have the word of God preached, nor the sa'craments administered in the National Church, without the impo'sition of offensive articles; and since there had been a separate congregation in Queen Mary's time, it was their duty to break "off from the public churches, and to assemble as they had oppor'tunity, in private houses, or elsewhere, to worship God, in a 'manner that might not offend their consciences.' This is the date of Separation.

The Puritans proceeded farther. On the 20th of November 1572, several of the leading men among them, assembled at Wandsworth, on the banks of the Thames, and formed themselves into a distinct society, on the presbyterian model. After repeated attempts to obtain relief from the impositions under which they suffered, they resolved, in one of their assemblies, in 1586, to introduce a reformation in the best manner they could, independently on the ruling powers; and to this resolution upwards of five hundred Divines subscribed.

The principle of separation was carried much farther by the

Brownists, who received that appellation from their founder, Robert Brown, in 1581. They denied the Church of England to be a true Church, and separated themselves entirely from her communion. They maintained, that each congregation was a Church, and competent in all respects to choose its ministers, and to manage its own affairs; and were, in this respect, the precursors of the Independents.

Many of the Brownists were great sufferers for nonconformity, and some of their ministers were put to death. The cases of Greenwood, Barrow, and Perry, which are detailed by Mr. Brook in the former part of his second volume, are very interesting and affecting; and their execution affixed an indelible disgrace on the Queen, Archbishop Whitgift, and the High Commission. Greenwood and Barrow, gave such testimonies, at the place of execution, of their unfeigned piety towards God, and of their loyalty to the Queen, and prayed so earnestly for her prosperity, that on their behaviour being reported to her by Dr. Raynolds, she expressed concern at having consented to their execution. When she inquired of the Earl of Cumberland, what kind of end they made, he replied, A very godly end, and prayed for your Majesty.' It was the detestable practice of Whitgift, and his associates in persecution, to attribute disaffection to the state to such as opposed only ecclesiastical assumptions; a practice which is not yet wholly discarded. But the Brownists were criminals only as they were Nonconformists.

The Brownists entertained more correct notions of religious liberty, than any of the early Nonconformists. They insisted that religion, in all its principles and practice, was completely independent on civil authority. Though these sentiments are the only ones which can be supported, they were so novel at this time, as to offend the great hody of the Puritans, who employed the pens of their leading men to write against them. Through the whole of Elizabeth's reign, the cause of liberty made great progress. The impediments which were raised against it, by the despotic authority of the Queen, and by the cruelties of her ecclesiastics, only encouraged and imboldened its supporters; and in the voluntary association of religious persons, to worship God according to their consciences, in opposition to human power, it attained a glorious triumph.

In 1603, the pedantic James succeeded Elizabeth; and as the degrading opinions which he had expressed of the English Church were well known, the Puritans flattered themselves with such alterations as would admit of their comprehension. With this expectation they presented a petition to him, signed by upwards of a thousand Ministers who sought the reformation of the Church. But the Hampton Court Conference soon