The British Churches Under Cromwell [pp. 629-655]

63(Y TAe Brntish C~urc1tes un~1er Cromwetl. [OCTOBER
two parties whose aims were on the one hand to stop the
reformation where it was, and on the other, to carry it forward
to greater purity. Thus by the arbitrary interference of the
great Queen there was constituted a strife in the bosom of the
Anglican church which has raged there ever since. Throughout her own reign the spirit of difference increased in intensity.
Prelatists, who in the beginning were so few that Parker, the
primate, found some difficulty in obtaining proper persons to
fill the episcopal places, became, in course of time, and under
consistent royal patronage, more numerous and of stronger ~onvictions; while the Puritans maintained their cause by diligent
study of their Bibles, by intercourse with the reformers of the
Continent and of Scotland, and by associations ~mong themselves which the government did not always penetrate. Among
them the Genevan translation of the Bible found special favour.
In the time of James I. the Prelatic party retained the ascendency which it had secured under favour of Elizabeth. But
his weak despotism both intensified and enfeebled it, by promoting its adoption of preposterous claims, while his harsh
treatment of the Puritans prolonged for them the education of
adversity. Then why did they not leave the established
church? Because they loved it, and were not the less its
members in that they desired its greater purity. They held
that the advantage of the other party over them was due only
to royal favour and acts of parliament. It was entirely consistent with their church-membership to agitate for a change in
the laws, which according to their views had biased their church
polity and fettered her spiritual progress. The few who had
separated had thereby only withdrawn their support from the
cause within the church, and brought greater hardships upon
themselves; and what good they were to effect did not yet
appear. The position of Puritanism within the English church
was entirely and nobly consistent with its own aims.
Prelatists, again, as naturally supported the cause of absolute
authority in the princes who sided with them, which tendenc~y,
the short. sighted policy of the Stuarts turned to the service
of their own selfishness, and set aside every guarantee
of English freedom. Were the Puritans who stood manfully
by the constitutional rights of their countrymen to be regarded