reformation, and so justified their secession from it.
3rd. Those who dissented from the principle of an
Established Church as being opposed to the whole spirit
1 D'Ewes' Journal^ p. 517.
RISE OF INDEPENDENCY 137
as well as the express teacbiug of the New Testament,
and as violating the consti ution and contravening tlie
very nature of Christ's kingdom. All these three classes
were Puritans, but Puritans with a difference, which, as
between the first and the last, was most broadly marked.
The first may be described as Nonconformists inside the
Church, or nonconforming members of the Church of
England ; the second and third as Nonconformists outside
tlie Church, that is, Nonconformists proper. Noncon-
formists in the real and historical sense of the word.
The Brownists belonged to the second class, and the
distinction between them and the " Conforming Puritans,"
i.e. the Puritans belonging to the first class, is very clearly
drawn by Neal : " Most of the Puritans were for keeping
within the pale of the Church, apprehending it to be a true
Church in its doctrines and sacraments, though defective in
discipline and corrupt in ceremonies ; but being a true
Church, they thought it not lawful to separate, though
they could hardly continue in it with a good conscience.
They submitted to suspensions and deprivations ; and
when they were driven out of one diocese, took sanc-
tuary in another, being afraid of incurring the guilt of
schism by forming themselves into separate communions.
Whereas the Brownists maintained that the Church of
England, in its present constitution, was no true Church
of Christ, but a liml) of Antichrist, or, at best, a mere
creature of the State ; that their ministers were not
rightly called or ordained, nor the sacraments duly
administered, or, supposing it to be a true Church, yet,
as it was owned by their adversaries (the conformmg Puri-
tans) to be a very corrupt one, it must be as lawful to
138 PURITANISM
separate from it as for the Church of England to separate
from Eome." ^
The distinction is brought out agahi very clearly by
Knight regarding some ministers who, about the year 1607,
took what he calls a middle course.- These were called
brethren of the second separation, l:)y way of distinction
from those who had preceded them in a more open and
decided dissent, and their principles may be best gathered
from their own words in a published defence of their
conduct, in which they say : " We protest before the
Almighty God that we acknowledge the Churches of
England, as they be established by public authority, to
be true visible Churches of Christ ; that we desire the
continuance of our ministry in them above all earthly
things, as that without which our whole life would be
wearisome and bitter to us ; that we dislike not a set
form of prayer to be used in our churches ; nor do we
write with an evil mind to deprave the Book of Common
Prayer, ordination, or homilies, but to show our reasons
why we cannot subscribe to all things contained in them."
With this accords in the main the more general state-
ment of Fuller.^ He distinguishes between three classes
of Nonconformists, the earlier, the middle and the later;
the earlier were those in King Edward's days, " who
desired only to shake down the leaves of Episcopacy,
misliking only some garments about them," the middle
were those in the end of (Ā»)ueen Elizabeth's and beginning
^ Xeal, vol. i. p. 438.
^ Knight's F id or ial History ofEiKiIand, vol. iii. p. 4G1.; Necal, vol. i.
p. 446.
^ Churrh HUfory, vol. \\. ]>. 72.
EISE OF INDEPENDENCY 139
of James' reign, " wlio struck at the branches thereof,"
etc., and the later were those " who did lay the axe to the
root of the tree, to cut down the function itself as unlawful
and anti-Christian."
Separatism, and what it originally implied. ā It
ought to be remembered that under the peculiar circum-
stances in which dissenters from the estaljlished religion
were then placed, isolation and separate assembly became
really an outward necessity, and did not necessarily
imply anything like inward Congregational convictions on
their part.^ Thus, in Queen Mary's reign, we read of "a con-
gregation of godly men at London," who met together for
religious worship " in the very mouth of danger," and among
them was Scambler, afterwards bishop of Peterljorough,
and Bentham, afterwards bishop of Coventry and Lichfield."
Hooper was no Separatist, and no adviser of Separatism.
Yet, as early as 1553, Hooper wTote from the Fleet
Prison " to certain godly persons, professors and lovers
of the truth, instructing them how they should behave
themselves at the beginning of the change of religion,"
as follows : " There is no better way to be used in this
troublesome time for your consolation than many times
to have assemblies together of such men and women as
be of your religion in Christ, and then to talk and
renew among yourselves the truth of your religion," etc.^
Archdeacon Philpot uses language to the same effect,
but still stronger. " Our God is a jealous God, and
* Dexter's Congregationalism^ p. 632.
"^ See Zurich Letters, and Strype's Memorials, cf. iii, 11. 147.
ā¢' Later IFritings of Llisho}) Hooj^er, Parker Society (1852), p. 589.
140 PURITANISM
caimot be content that we should be of any other body
than of that unspotted Church whereof He is the Head
only, and wherem He hath planted us by baptism."^
Yet Philpot was a loyal son of the Church of England.
It is thus clearly implied that under certain circumstances
separation is not only defensible, but may become the
highest duty. It is then perfectly obvious that the term
Separatist can only he used strictly to describe those
who belonged to the second and third class of Dissenters
from the Established Church. The second class is repre-
sented, as has been pointed out, by Browne and his
followers. It would appear from the six propositions
laid down by Cartwright that his position was similar to
Browne's, but we have his explicit testimony that he dis-
approved of separation. " We are not for an unspotted
Church on earth, therefore though the Church of England
has many faults we would not willingly leave it."
The third class, up to the period of the Commonwealth,
was very sparsely represented, ā represented, it may be
said, by a mere handful of people, the Anabaptists of
Holland and some of the more extreme sectaries.
An American author, Mr. ] )ouglas Campbell, says in
his recently published and elaborate work : - "To the
Puritan and Separatist alike the Church as established
was obnoxious on account of its abuses. But the one
sought its reformation by Act of Parliament, looking
forward to the time when his form of worship and dis-
' Writings of Archdeacon Pliiljwf, Parker Society (1852), ]ā¢]>,
220-223.
- The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, an Introduction
to American History, by Douglas C:!ainpl)en, A.M., LL.B., Member
of tlie American Historical Association, vol. ii. p. 181.
KISE OF INDEPENDENCY 141
cipline should be established for the nation. The other
thought that a reformation would never come, that the
vjhole system of a State Church v:as inherent ly ivrony, and
that the only duty before the new believers was to leave
the Church to its abuses, and set up independent con-
gregations." The words italicised have a meaning which
is somewhat doubtful. If Mr. Campbell means that the
Separatist thought that the whole then existing system of
the Church was inherently wrong, he is quite right : not
so, however, if the statement be taken as referring to the
system of State Churchism broadly and generally. To
that, with the exception of a few Anabaptists, they had
no conscientious objection. Mr. Douglas Campbell seems
to be aware of this, for he says, in a previous part of his
work, " at that time no one, except the members of the
poor despised sect of Dutch Anabaptists, thought of such
a thing as a separation of Church and State." ^
The foregoing classification is sufficiently complete ; but
to make it exhaustive, another class of Dissenters would
need to be included : those who became such through
pressure of circumstances more than through force of
original conviction. An apposite illustration of that class
is furnished in connection with the founding of the colony
of Massachusetts under Winthrop. These were not origin -
1 Vol. ii. p. 9.
Mr. Green's statement ā "The Separatists who were beginning
to withdraw from attendance at public worship, on the ground that
the very existence of a national Church was contrary to the word of God,
grew quickly from a few scattered zealots to twenty thousand souls '"'
(Green's Short History, p. 459) ā is open to the same exception.
The number of those wlio, in that age, objected to the very existence
of a national Church as being contrary to the word of God, must
have heen verv small indeed.
142 PUEITANISM
ally Separatists, like the Pilgrim Fathers at PlymoutlL
" We separate," they said, " not from the Church of Eng-
land, but from its corruptions. We came away from the
Common Prayer and ceremonies in our native land where
we suffered much for Nonconformity. In this place of
liberty we cannot and will not use them." The result
was, they became free Churchmen and zealous Inde-
pendents. Certainly tlie establishment of such a system
as Independency was a great advance upon the idea of
reforming the Church of England ; yet, as a well-known
American writer says, the mere change of surroundmg
conditions made it seem not a revolution in Church
government, but the only natural and possible thing to
do.i
1 Historic Toniis : Boston, by Henry Cabot Lodge, pp. 25, 26.
" How Puritanism glided into a state of separation, and the Non-
conformist in the Churcli became a Dissenter outside its pale, is
curiously illustrated in the records of the Church assembling in
Broadmead, Bristol." See Dr. Stoughton's History of Religion in
England, voh i. (new and revised edition) jjp. 99, 100.
Zbc Corrupt State of tbe Cburcb: tbe
riDartin fIDarprelate Controvcr^^.
143
Memorable Events and Dates
Tlie Spauisk Armada defeated . . . 1588
Publication of Martin Marprelate Tracts . . 1588-1590
Contexts of Chapter YIII
Corrupt state of the Church ā Illiteracy of the Clergy ā Character
of the Bishops ā Notes on Latimer's Sermon of the Plough ā Child's
answer to Canon Dixon ā Arber on corruption of Clergy ā Martin
Marprelate Controversy ā Interest of this Controversy ā Note on
works dealing with ā The Epistle ā Style of ā Assumption of ā Con-
ditions of Peace ā Effect of Epistle ā Restrictions on printing ā The
Epitome ā ā¢ The four Bishops attacked ā On their defence ā Hay
any worke for Cooper ā Press seized ā Martin renounced by Puritans
ā Defended ā Conclusion of Epistle ā Notes on authorship ā Who was
Martin Marprelate ?
IH
CHAPTEE VIII
The Corrupt State of the Church : the Martix
Marprelate Controversy
I
the corrupt state of the church
We have seen how Archbishop Whitgift objected to the
contention of Cartwright, that ministers ought to be
openly and fairly chosen by the people, on the ground
that " in this state of the Church such practice were per-
nicious and hurtful. In the apostles' time all, or most
that were Christians, were virtuous and godly, and such
as did sincerely profess the word, and therefore the
election might be safely committed to them ; now, the
Church is full of hypocrites, dissemblers, drunkards,
and whoremongers, so that if any election were com-
mitted to them, they would be sure to take one like
to themselves. Now, the Church is full of Papists and
atheists."
This description of the then existing condition of the
Church was only too true. Among the clergy there
was ignorance and licentiousness ; among the bishops,
sordid greed, sycophancy, and truckling to power. That
" lying, cheating, theft, perjury, and whoredom were the
146 PUKITAXISM
complaints of the times," ^ is abundantly testified by such
Churchmen as Bucer and Sanday. The picture which the
latter draws of patrons gaping for gain, and hungry
fellows, destitute of all good learning and godly zeal, yea,
scarcely clothed with common honesty, who found ready
entrance to the Church, is surpassed even by Bishop
Jewel : ^ " The poor flock is given over to the wolf ; the
poor children cry out for bread, the bread of life, and
here is no man to break it unto them. . . . View
your universities, view your schools, which have ever
been nurseries to this purpose. Alas ! how many shall
you find in both the universities and in all the schools
throughout England, not only that are already able, but
also that are minded to the ministry ? If they be not
found there, alas ! where think you to have them ? Where
think you they will be found ? Think you they will
spring out of the ground or drop down from the heavens ?
No, no, they be of you, and must be bred and reared
amongst you. ... I speak not of the curates, but of the
parsonages and the vicarages ; that is, of the places which
are the castles and towers of defence for the Lord's
temple. They seldom pass nowadays from a patron, if
he be no better than a gentleman, but either for
the lease or for present money. Such merchants are
broken into the Church of Cod, a great deal more intoler-
able than were they whom Christ chased and whipped
out of the temple. Young men that are toward and
learned see tliis. They see tliat he which feedeth the
^ Collier's Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 294.
^ Hunt's Religious Thought in England, vol. i. p. 77, note. See
Zurich Letters (1588-79) p. ^3, 85.
THE CORRUPT STATE OF THE CHURCH 147
flock hath least part of the milk ; he which goeth a war-
fare hath not half his wages. Therefore they are wearied
and discouraged ; they change their studies ; some become
aprentices, some turn to physic, some to law : all shun and
flee the ministry." " Sad was the state of religion at these
times," says Strype ; " the substantials being lost in con-
tending for externals; the Churchmen heaped benefices
upon themselves, and resided upon none, neglecting their
cures. Many of them alienated their lands, made unreason-
able leases and waste of woods, and granted reversions and
advowsons to their wives and children, or to others, for
their use. Churches ran greatly into dilapidations and
decays, and were kept nasty and filthy and indecent for
God's w^orship. Among the laity there was little devo-
tion, the Lord's day greatly profaned and little observed,
the common prayer not frequented. Some lived without
any service of God at all ; many were heathens and
atheists ; the Queen's own court a harbour for epicures
and atheists, and a kind of lawless place, because it stood
in no parish ; which things made good men fear some
sad judgments impending over the nation." ^
Illiteracy of the Clergy. ā The mass of the clergy
were so illiterate that, even had they been pure of life,
they could have done little to elevate the people, or reflect
honour upon the Church. In 1530, Tyndale declared
that there were 20,000 priests in England who could
not translate the Lord's Prayer into English {Answer
to Sir Thomas More, p. 75); and Bishop Hooper found
scores of the clergy in Gloucestershire who were unable
1 Strype's Parker, p. 395,
148 PURITANISM
to tell who was the author of the Lord's Prayer, or where
it w^as to be read.^ Such a deficiency of Protestant clers^y
had been experienced at the Queen's accession that for
se\eral years it was a common practice to appoint laymen,
usually mechanics, to read the service in vacant churches.^
Eeference has been already made to the statement of
Neal, that there were only twc) thousand preachers to
serve near ten thousand parish churches, so that there
were almost eight thousand parishes without preaching
ministers; also that in 1578, out of one hundred and
forty clergymen in Cornwall, not one was capable of
preaching ; and throughout the kingdom those who could
preach were in the proportion of aljout one to four, ā a
statement that Hallam regards as highly probable, seeing
that " the majority of the clergy were nearly illiterate,
and many of them addicted to drunkenness and low
vices." Bakers, butchers, cooks, and stablemen, men
wdiolly illiterate, and not a few utterly licentious (and
these were the class of which the clergy were to a large
part composed), could not be expected to add dignity to
the ministry or shed lustre upon the Church.-''
^ Rev. R. Demaus, Life of Tyndale, p, '2b.
^ Stiype's Annals, pp. 138, 177.
ā¢"^ " It pierces our hearts with grief to hear the cries of the country
people for the word of God. The bishops either preach not at all
or very seldom. . . . And whereas the Scriptures say that ministers
of the gospel should be such as are able to teach sound doctrine, and
convince gainsayers, yet the bishops have made i:>riests of the basest
of the people, not only for their occupations and trades whence they
have taken them, as shoemakers, barbers, tailors, water-bearers,
shepherds, and horse-keepers, but also for their want of good learning
and honesty." ā Supplication of Puritan Minister.'^ to Parliament in
1586, Neal, vol. i. p. 317.
THK CORRUPT STATE OF THE ClIUECH 149
Character of the Bishops. ā " The Ijisliops of this
reign," says Hallam, " do not appear, with some dis-
tinguished exceptions, to have reflected so much honour
on the Estabhshed Church as those who attach a supersti-
tious reverence to the age of the Eeformation are apt to
conceive. In the phmder that went forward they took
good care of themselves. Charges against them of simony,
corruption, covetousness, and especially destruction of
their Church estates for the benefit of their families
are very common, sometimes, no doubt, unjust, luit too
frequent to be absolutely without foundation." The
peculation of the bishops almost passes belief.^ They
were guilty of the grossest malversation, sold the livings
in their gift in order to enrich themselves, and made
long and dishonest leases of the ecclesiastical lands,
not hesitating even to plunder their own dioceses, cut
down the timber, and dispose of the brick and the lead
which were used in the buildings. Aylmer, Inshop of
London, cut down and sold the timber in his diocese
until prevented by an injunction. When he grew old
and reflected that a large sum of money would be due
from his family for dilapidations of the palace of Fulliam,
etc., he actually proposed to sell his hishopric to Bancroft.-
The Bishop of Lichfield is said to have made seventy
" lewd and unlearned ministers for money " in tlie
course of a single day. Archbishop Parker disposed
of the benefices in his gift according to a fixed tarift',
regulated according to the age and money power of
^ See Strype's AnmUs, vol. iii. pp. 331, 463, 467.
- Strype's Aylmer, p. 169. See Hunt's Religious Thowjht, p. 74, note;
Fronde's History, vol. xii. pp. 4-7 and p. 543.
150 PURITANISM
the applicant. They were disposed of to boys under
fourteen, provided they could raise the necessary sum
of money.^
NOTES
Wlio tliat knoM's anything of Bi.sliop Latimer does not know his
famous Sermon of the Plough, preached in St. Paul's, London, in 1548,
in which he thus attacked his own order : " But this much I dare
say, that since lording and loitering hath come up, preaching hath
come down, contrary to the apostles' times ; for they preached and
l(jrded not, and now they lord and preach not. . . . For eyer since
the prelates were made lords and nobles, the plough standeth ; there
is no work done, the people starye. They lia^yk, they hunt, they
card, they dice ; they pastime in their prelacies with gallant gentle-
men, with their dancing minions, and with their fresh companions,
so that ploughing is set aside ; and by their lording and loitering,
preaching and ploughing is clean gone." It is in this sermon that
the famous passage, which has become classical in pulpit literature,
occurs : " And now I would ask a strange question : Who is the
most diligentest bishop and prelate in all England ? . . . There is one
that passeth all the others, and is the most diligent prelate and
preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is ? I will tell
you. It is the deyil. He is the most diligent preacher of all others ;
he is neyer out of his diocese," etc.
The order which Latimer thus so trenchantly assailed were the
Protestant bishops of King Edward yi.'s reign.
In the Appendix to his work on Church and State under the Tudors,
Mr. Child has introduced a somewhat lengthy note on the alleged
corruiJtion of the clergy in the sixteenth century. Canon Dixon, in his
History of the Church of England, yol. i. p. 23, had alleged that " no
general charge of corruption has eyer been made good against the
English clergy." Mr. Child subjects this statement to a searching
examination, and reaches the conclusion that "to say, as Canon
Dixon does, that no proof of deep corruption has been made good
against the English clergy, is simply to fly in the face of the e\i-
dence, not only of satirists and lampooners, but of annalists and
historians, of records and law reports." It is true that the evidence
^ Froude's Hisfonj, yol. xi. }<. 82.
THE COERUPT STATE OF THE CHURCH 151
he adduces is mainly directed to prove the deep corruf)tioii of the
" late pre-Eeformation clergy,^' l3ut he indicates very plainly how it
was not confined to the Catholic clergy, but extended to their Pro-
testant successors.
"Three times in mock^rn English history have the bulk of the
clergy, as a class, been corrupt and rotten. In Henry viii.'s reign,
when the remedy came by the Reformation and the dissolution of
the monasteries. In Whitgift's i)rimacy, Avhen it came through the
rise of the Puritans. In Queen Anne's reign, when it came through
the lay-Reformers, the moral teachers Defoe, Steele, and Addison,
in their penny folio half sheets, the Bevieiv, the Ihtler, the Spectator,
the Guardian" etc. ..." In 1588 a small minority of the clergj',
for the most part at work in towns, were intensely earnest, thoroughly
pious, spiritually-minded men, but with a narrowness of view, and
no great learning, and consef^uently with little general culture.
At this time the bishops were thrusting hundreds of men into the
ministry of the Church who were utterly unfit for their Avork." ā
Introduction to the Epistle, by E. Arber, p. viii.
152 PURITANISM
II
THE MAETIN MARPRELATE CONTROVERSY, 1588-1590.
" I am called Martin Marprelat. There be many that greatly
dislike of my doinges. I may haue my wants, I know. For I
am a man. But my course I knowe to be ordinary and lawfull.
I sawe the cause of Christs gouernment, and of the Bishops
Antichristian dealing to be hidden. The most part of men
could not be gotten to read any thing, written in the defence of
the on[e] and against the other. I bethought mee therefore,
of a way whereby men might be drawne to do both, perceiuing
the humors of men in these times (especialy of those that are
in any place) to be giuen to mirth. I tooke that course. I
might lawfully do it. I [aye] for iesting is lawful by circum-
stances, euen in the greatest matters. The circumstances of
time, place and persons vrged me thereunto. I neuer profaned
the word in any iest. Other mirth I used as a couert, wherein
I would bring the truth into light. The Lord being the authour
both of mirth and grauitie, is it not lawfull in it selfe, for the
trueth to vse eyther of these wayes, when the circumstances do
make it lawful "?
" My purpose was and is to do good. I know I haue don no
harme, howsoeuer som may iudg Martin to mar al. They are
very weake on[e]s that so think. In that which I have written
I know vndoubtedly, that I haue done the Lord and the state
of this kingdom great seruice. Because I haue in som sort
discouered the greatest enemies thereof. And by so much the
most pestilent enemies, because they wound Gods relligion, and
corrupt the state with Atheism and loosnes, and so cal for Gods
vengance vppon vs all, euen vnder the coulor of relligion. I
affirm them to be the greatest enemies that now our state hath,
for if it were not for them, the trueth should haue more free
passage herein, then now it hath. All [ejstates thereby would
THE IMAETIN ^FAEPrtELATE CONTROVERSY 153
be amended : and so we should not be snbiect vnto Gods dis-
pleasure, as now we are by reason of them." ā Hay any Worh',
etc.
No account of English ruritanisni and the desperate