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of government should be framed, he left the Church at liberty to make its own choice, according to the circumstances of time and place in which it might subsist. Nor is it undeserving of notice, that both parties in in this controversy appealed for support to the heads of the Reformed Churches of the Continent, not one of which had retained what is now called the Apostolical Succession; and that, for reasons distinctly stated, the Continental Reformers decided in favour of the Established Church of England: You ask me,' writes Gualter to Bishop Cox, in August 1573, 'to reply to those nine Articles, by the insisting upon which they (the Puritans) give you so much trouble. But if these are the only matters in dispute between you they are scarcely deserving, in my opinion, that any divine should be occupied in the refutation of them; they savour of nothing but a longing after innovation, and I wish they were not 'sprinkled with something of the bitterness of envy and blind 'emulation.' The name of Bishop, they cannot but know, was in use in the time of the Apostles, and always, too, retained in the Churches in after times; we know, too, that Archbishops existed of old, under the name of Patriarchs. And if, in later times, they have occasioned so much offence, by reason of their tyranny and ambition, that these titles are, 'not without reason, become odious to the godly, I do not yet see what is to hinder but that on the removal of the abuse those persons may still be Bishops, and be called such, who, being placed over a certain number of Churches, have the management of such things as pertain to the purity of religion and doctrine.' The great Continental Reformers were wiser in their generation than either of the antagonistic factions in England. They would have retained the Episcopal order among their own clergy had circumstances permitted, and warned their brethren in England not rashly to abandon it. But they pursued this course, not through any settled conviction that without an Episcopate there could be no true Church, but because they believed that subject to such modifications as the general state of society might suggest, Churches could be better managed, all over the world, by an Episcopate than by any other form of government. They were therefore quite as severe upon the extravagant pretensions and lordly state of the English hierarchy of that day, as they were upon the restless desire of change which moved the Puritan or Low Church party. All this has, we think, been extremely well put by Mr. Marsden, and in the summing up of his case we are disposed heartily to agree:

'There is one consideration which, had it occurred to either party,

would have abated something of its warmth, by placing the subjects of contention in a far less important light; we mean the tendency of all institutions to mould themselves in practice so as to accord with the views and dispositions of those amongst whom they flourish. An exact transcript of the primitive churches of the New Testament, were it possible to be revived in London or New York, would grievously disappoint the expectations of its ardent votaries. Names and offices would remain as they were from the beginning, and probably the likeness would be traced in nothing else. The national character would not fail to act with irregular and unequal force upon the different parts of an ancient and foreign institution; and long before it had begun to perform its work with ease, it would, in fact, have been remodelled.'

Time passed, and the fathers of the Reformation, at home and abroad, passed with it from the scene of their labours. Peter Martyr died first; then Jewel; then Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich; Pilkington, Bishop of Durham; Bullenger, the great apostle of Zurich; and Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. All these finished their course in 1575; and in the year following Bishop Horn died also. Grindal, with one or two more of lesser note, alone remained to steer the ark of the Church through a sea which became more and more troubled from day to day; for the English Reformation had by this time reached its zenith. The Court was grown lukewarm or something more, while among the clergy and the people new men stepped forward to agitate questions, which if not absolutely new in themselves, assumed under their management a new aspect. We have marked the assaults of Cartwright and his friends upon the Episcopal form of Church government, as the second stage in the onward progress of events. We have arrived now at a period when from agitating questions of polity and ceremonial observances, divines were about to address themselves to the angry discussion of points of abstract faith. Cartwright's movement may be regarded more perhaps as political than theological. The controversies which arose, soon after Grindal's accession to the see of Canterbury, embraced, besides this, those great points of Christian doctrine, which afterwards assumed the form of the Calvinistic and Armenian controversy, including the nature of the sacraments, and the method of man's justification. It will be necessary to a right understanding of the results in which they issued, that the student should place himself, so to speak, on a height, whence he may look down upon the entire field over which the combatants are gathering. And as we think that Mr. Marsden has well pointed out the spot whence this bird's-eye view may most successfully be obtained, we will leave him to guide our readers

thither. After stating that in regard to moral and religious culture, the state of England was then deplorable; he says:—

The number of the Romish clergy who had resigned their preferments at the Reformation, appears almost incredibly small. Including bishops, abbots, heads of colleges, and other dignitaries, as well as the beneficed clergy, no writer can muster up two hundred and fifty: bishop Burnet reduces them to one hundred and ninety-nine; and D'Ewes's journal, a still better authority, to one hundred and seventyseven,―a number altogether insignificant when distributed among the ten thousand parishes of England and Wales. It would be something more than charity to suppose that such numbers of the Romish clergy accommodated themselves at once to a change so great and sudden without violence to their consciences; or, which is more probable, without an utter scorn and a contemptuous disregard of all religious principle. From such incumbents the reforming bishops had little to expect. To restrain their Popish sympathies, and to insist upon a few decent observances-such as public prayers in English, and the reading of the Scriptures-was probably all they could attempt; and without a just severity, even this was often more than they could accomplish.

The christian ministry in Romish countries is not an object of ambition. The priests and friars of Italy are chiefly drawn from the lower ranks of life; and this is still more visible in remoter nations, where the great prizes of their church are fewer, and out of sight. A slavish life, busied with a succession of fretful observances, has no attractions. The wise and good recoil from it. But a low and ignorant ministry had so long prevailed that it gave but little offence; and this is to be borne in mind when we read of the meanness of those from amongst whom the ministry of the church of England was at first replenished. When Archbishop Parker made the primary visitation of his diocese, some of the beneficed clergy were mechanics, others Romish priests disguised. Many churches were closed. A sermon was not to be heard in places within a distance of twenty miles. To read, or at least so to read as to be intelligible and impressive, was a rare accomplishment. A homily was not read for months together in many parishes. Even in London many churches were closed for want of ministers; and in the country it was not easy to provide a minister competent to baptize infants and inter the dead. Bishop Sandys of Worcester, preaching before the Queen, tells Her Majesty (with a solemn intimation that "their blood will be required "at somebody's hands,") that many of her people, especially in the north, were perishing for lack of knowledge. "Many there are," he said, "that hear not a sermon in seven years; I might say in "seventeen." The Bishop of Bangor had but two preachers in all his diocese. In Cornwall there was not a single minister, says Neal, the historian of the Puritans, capable of preaching a sermon. The Universities afforded little assistance. In 1563 the university of Oxford had but three preachers; and these were chief men amongst the Puritans; Humphrey, Kingsmill, and Sampson. There was yet no succession of young men in the Universities who had been piously

brought up in the Protestant faith. This evil had been foreseen by Latimer and the fathers of the Reformation, and was indeed amongst their chief anxieties. The indiscriminate plunder of Church property which still continued in the reign of Edward VI. was one great cause. The rapacity of those who should have been the Church's guardians is frequently denounced in the sermons of the Reformers. Ridley deplored the lack of "yeomen's sons" as candidates for the ministry. But they did not live to carry into effect those measures of redress on which they were earnestly intent, and which might have prevented the dishonour of the Reformation, and the calamities of a future generation. Thus, the want of endowments hindered many; the terms of subscription, and the rigid conformity enforced with needless severity, was a still greater obstacle to many more who might have adorned the ministerial office.

Not only schoolmasters and law clerks, but others of a much inferior class, serving men, traders, and mechanics, scarcely possessing the first rudiments of learning, were admitted into holy orders. They wanted the only qualifications which can render such a ministry useful, or even tolerable; fervent piety and self-denying zeal. They merely debased the ministry without extending its efficiency.'

However unsatisfactory, according to our ideas, such a state of things must have been, to Elizabeth it was by no means displeasing. She looked upon preaching as a spiritual luxury, in which the people ought rarely to be indulged. In the first year of her reign it had been prohibited altogether; and the unsettled condition of men's minds, as well as the boldness with which affairs of state were often handled from the pulpit, may in some sort be accepted as a justification of the arrangement. But it was evidently one to which the Christian Church could not long submit. Preaching is an ordinance of the Divine Author of Christianity; the neglect of which furnished the champions of the Reformation with one of the most efficient weapons wherewith to assail the Church of Rome. And in proportion as the people became more generally earnest in the concerns of their souls, the anxiety to be instructed by competent preachers increased. Unfortunately the Queen was unable to dissociate the ideas of preaching and the growth of fanaticism. was no Latimer or Ridley at hand to set her right on that subject; and Parker, and his friends, had been too much occupied in repressing irregularities arising out of the abuse of that ordinance, to look with any favour upon the ordinance itself. His successor, it is true, laboured under no such prejudice. He had sat at the feet of those who by preaching brought in the Reformation, and he was ready himself to preach again, even though by doing so he might push the Reformation further. But Grindal was constitutionally timid. He shrank from exposing

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himself to personal collision with the Court, and distrusted his powers to overcome a prejudice, of the violence of which he was Let homilies,' he was told, be read, and the young catechised; the people require no more. One or two preachers -safe men-may be licensed in a diocese. But to open our pulpits to a crowd of ignorant mess Johns, will set the 'nation by the ears, and bring down the Church and the throne ' with it.'

It was at a moment so unpropitious that the Puritan clergy, in order, as they expressed it, to give full proof of their 'sincerity,' entered among themselves into an arrangement for the setting up of prophecyings.' The measure was bold, and perhaps, all things considered, injudicious; but it was neither hostile to the established order of things, nor so ridiculous, as a certain class of writers represent. The term 'prophecying' was accepted by the members of these associations in the sense which St. Paul applies to it. They understood it to signify preaching, that is to say, the public exposition of the Word of God; and they drew up for their own guidance rules which were meant to render such exhortations conducive to the moral and religious edification of all concerned. The rules in question were divided into two sections, of which one bore upon the general tenor of each member's professional life, the other settled the order of their public meetings. It was ordained by the former that organs should not be admitted into churches, that choral singing should cease,-that Calvin's Catechism should be used in the instruction of the young,-and a lecture, of an hour's length, be delivered after each exercise. Sunday was to be observed with great strictness, prayers for the dead were repressed,—no knell was to be tolled at the death of any person, nor bell rung before the corpse in carrying it to the grave. All these were decided innovations, in spirit if not universally in letter; and beside them, there were others, which being of a more private arrangement, scarcely deserve to be spoken of here. They required, for example, that the communion should be administered in every church, at least once a quarter. They enjoined the minister and churchwardens to go from house to house, to take down the names of communicants, and remonstrate with such as absented themselves. They engaged that after each communion a sermon should be preached, and that on other Sundays when there was no communion there should be a sermon in one at least of the churches in each town. They set up the communion table in the body of the church, and objected to a kneeling posture in receiving the elements. They were, in short, rigid in imposing upon themselves, and ready to enforce upon others, a