A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS. BY W. CARLOS MARTYN, AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN MILTON," "A HIS- TORY OF THE HUGUENOTS," AND "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARTIN LUTHER." PUBLISHED BY THE AMEKICAN TEACT SOCIETY, 150 NASSAU-STEEET, NEW YORK. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by the American Tract Society, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. This book makes no pretensions. It often falls below what Dryasdust would call "the dignity of history," and is satisfied to be considered simply an accurate daguerreotype of the men and man ners of a heroic past. The English Puritans have always labored un der the disadvantage of which the lion in the fable complained so bitterly. Though they were the con querors, their enemies were the painters. They have come down to us in the distorted lineaments of hostile pencils. If one may borrow the clever illustration of Grainger, the performances of most of their historians remind us of the paintings of Brueghel, who had so accustomed himself to paint witches and imps, that if he tried to paint a man, he was sure to make him like a devil. But it has been well said, that in history the law of optics is reversed : " Our souls much further than our eyes can see." Society now perceives that the Puritans were ear nest, honest, devout men, anxious mainly to inau gurate the regime of vital godliness and of civil lib erty — sub libertate quietem. Their great effort was 4 PREFACE. to purify society. ^ Puritanism was a protest against formalism ; it was an insurrection of the soul against the body. And their pithy theology, their stern devotion to duty, their unfaltering heroism, have combined to crown them as the teachers of their own time and as the apostles of the Christian fu ture. Posterity is concerned to know precisely how such men lived and acted, "at what a forge and what a heat was shaped the anchor of their hope." A volume which shall tell this story, and tell it fairly, which shall "Nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice," is certain to receive a welcome not only from the descendants of the Puritans, but from good men who do not see eye to eye with those uncompro mising heroes. The materials for such a work are vastly more copious than the mere casual observer would imag ine ; they not only fill the highways of English his tory, they choke the bypaths. From the reign of Elizabeth up to the Act of Toleration under William of Orange, there is hardly a private memoir or a diary which does not have something to say about the Puritans. English chroniclers and foreign sa vants alike noted their impressions of them. Puri tanism was not merely of local interest ; it expanded into European importance, and forced men, whether they would or not, to investigate and to judge it. The distinctive name Puritan was not applied PKEFACE. 5 until the reign of Elizabeth, but the spirit existed long before the name was born ; so also did the great struggle which gave rise to it. It is impossi ble to understand Puritanism unless we comprehend what preceded it. Therefore this sketch antedates the nominal rise of the Puritans under the maiden queen. Going back to the introduction of Christian ity into Britain, it has compressed into two or three score pages the ecclesiastical history of twice seven hundred years before the Reformation, and ends the rehearsal at the year 1688, the epoch of definitive -toleration. This is a broad field to traverse, but an honest effort has been made to glean the harvest ; and at the same time that saying of the Grecians has been borne in mind, that " the best books are those whose covers are least far apart." For the authority of this volume, the marginal notes must speak, and an appeal is made to them. With the Puritans every enterprise commenced with God ; it is eminently proper that the benedic tion of heaven should be invoked upon the record of their labors. To His favor this book, a feeble but sincere tribute to the spiritual heroes "who kept the faith so pure of old," is reverently com mended. New Yoke, January, 1867. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The epoch of Christian democracy — Characteristics of the nine teenth century — The distinctive lesson of the Reformation — Puritanism the inevitable outgrowth of the pacification of the sixteenth century— The vilifiers of the Puritans — Puritanism the creator of moral America — Nature of history — Preparatory eras — Birth of English Christianity — The merchant-preach ers — The aborigines of Britain — The Roman civility — Druid- ism — Absence of authentic records of the vicissitudes of this historic period — The Saxon invasion — Introduction of the Tartaric idolatry of the North — Reintroduction of Christian ity — Gregory the Great in the Roman market-place — The Saxon slave-gangs — The clerical punster — Ecclesiastical commission under Augustine — Its success — Character of papal Christian ity — Causes of the corruption of the Roman hierarchy — Church history of the heptarchy — Reign of Alfred — England esteemed the trysting-place of the dead — Wretched condition of the island — Alfred's testimony — The hero-king founds schools — Establishment of Oxford university — Continental scholars in vited into England — Learning the avant courrier of reform 25 CHAPTER II. State of England after the death of Alfred — St. Dunstan — His career — The struggle which Dunstan inaugurates marks one age and moulds the succeeding — The Norman conquest — Influ ence of the Conqueror — Lanfranc's primacy — His innovations — The scheme of Hildebrand — How it was momentarily thwarted in England — Rome bides her time, and intrigues — Early British literature — Burke's complaint— Progress of the Roman usurpa tions — The papacy, speaking through the lips of Becket, claims the immunity of ecclesiastics from the secular jurisdiction — Disastrous close of the consequent controversy — King John alienates the sovereignty of England, and pays tribute to the pope — A phase of resistance to the papal arrogance — Grostete, Bradwardine, Edward III., Wickliffe— Wickliffe the progenitor CONTENTS. of the Puritans — His birth — Broad scholarship — He "searches the Scriptures" — He becomes convinced of the corruption of Eome, and commences to proclaim the tenets of the primitive faith — Four phases of Wickliffe's public life — Wickliffe as a politician — Insolent claims of pope Urban V. — Resistance of Edward III. — Parliament convened — The statutes of Provisors and Praemunire — Puller's witticism — Wickliffe's share in the controversy — His ministry — The Oxford professor and the Lutterworth pastor — Wickliffe translates the Bible into Eng lish — Consequent sensation — A papist's protest — Wickliffe as a theologian — He proclaims the essential doctrines of Protestant ism — Effect of his brave preaching — Persecution — The Re former's death — Hampden and Milton join hands with Wick liffe and hail him as their father 38 CHAPTEK III. Four ascending steps of English Protestantism— Effect of Wick liffe's doctrines — The agitation spreads through Europe — The papacy lets slip her dogs, and hounds down " heresy" — Politi cal changes — A cunning priest — "The pelting of the pitiless storm" — Violation of Wickliffe's sepulchre — The wars of the "Roses" — The first of the Tudors — "Retribution has a foot of velvet, but a hand of steel" — Henry VIII. — A leaf from Boling- broke — The two tides — Seed-time of the Reformation — English apostles — Old Hugh Latimer — "The most diligentest bishop in England" — The distinctive principle of the English Re formers — Animus of the government — Cardinal Wolsey — Status of the king — The ill-omened marriage — Anne Boleyn — The divorce struggle — The mission to Rome — Wolsey's urgency — Papal chicanery — The king loses patience — The result — Down fall of Wolsey - 49 CHAPTEE IV. Fuller's summary — Progress of the Reformation — Marriage of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn — Action of parliament — Popery barred out of England by statute — The convocation — An epi sode which illustrates the benefit of an acquaintance with musty statutes — How the convocation was reduced to obedience — Act of Supremacy — Visitation of the monasteries — The "Bible era " of the Reformation — Activity of the court of Rome — The papal bull — Reflections on the origin of the English Reforma tion — The rationale of Romanism — Subtlety and flexibility — The grace of God the only adequate weapon of assault 62 CONTENTS. 9 CHAPTER V. Character of the age of Henry VIII. — The religious Babel — First reformed convocation — It confirms Henry's divorce from Anne Boleyn— Some facts — The elaboration of a creed — Latimer's text — The debate — The "twilight religion" — What it settled, and what it did not settle — Unpopularity of the new ritual — Severity of the government — Emeutes broaden into rebellion — Action of a committee — The " Six Articles" — The surrender to Home — The royal "power and profit" reformer— Cranmer and Cromwell protest — Lambert's auto da ft — The victims of "home-bred popery" — England exchanges popes — Fall of Lord Cromwell — Death of Henry VIII. — The verdict of history- - 72 CHAPTEE VI. "The king is dead ; long live the king!" — Edward VI. — The mar vellous character of the baby king — Constitution of the new government — Cranmer becomes the leader of the Reforma tion — Repeal of the "Six Articles" — The "open sesame" of the new regime — Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer in England — The ecclesiastical system of Henry VIII. is remodelled — Pro gramme of procedure — The royal visitation — Cranmer's "hom ilies" — Conformity enforced — Imprisonment of Gardiner and Bonner — Unsettled condition of religious faith in England — The expediency and justice of toleration — Plan to secure relig ious unity — Servility of the old English Parliaments — The "iconoclastic Parliament" — Its glorious achievements — Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England — The Liturgy — Enforcement of the Service-book by hltrsh legislation — Ani madversions — The victims — Joan of Kent — Cranmer's course — Burnet censures him — The princess Mary — Popular tumults — Birth of Non-conformity - 81 CHAPTER VII.