THE BISHOP

LANCELOT ANDREWES

"See here a shadow from the setting sun,
Whose glorious course, through this horizon run,
Left the dim face of our dull hemisphere

All one great eye, all drowned in one great tear."

CRASHAW, On the Portrait of Andrewes.

F the parson in the earlier and in the later days of the Reformation succeeded to much of the power and dominating influence of his priestly predecessor, the bishop far surpassed him alike in the scope of his action and in the extent of his authority. Some of the grimmer reformers, who longed for a more thorough and sweeping reconstruction of the national Church, might and did eye him askance, as he wended his way in solemn state through the streets of London, or through the less frequented parts of his diocese. But these over-critical Christians were compelled by a high hand to keep their smouldering dissatisfaction to themselves. Whenever a

petition praying for further reform in the Church was presented to Elizabeth, she was always ready with one invariable answer. She had settled the government of the Church once and for ever, and all who were discontented therewith must endure it as best they could, or be treated as stubborn rebels, who could never receive content for their too tender consciences. If they could not remain peaceably at home they might go to their beloved Geneva, or to churches similarly constructed on the Continent. Nor can the just historical critic, with any degree of fairness, censure her attitude to the Presbyterians-if they may so be called at this period-who were without any well-defined Presbytery. If the whole of the circumstances be impartially weighed, neither she nor her ministers could have pursued another course. The majority of the people was Romanist to the core, while the defenders of the reformed Church, as by law estab

lished, were nothing more than a powerful minority. Hence any party, however learned and pious, nay, however conscientious it might be, which attempted to unsettle the system built up at the cost of great toil and much thought, appeared in the eyes of the Queen and of her councillors to be hostile to the true interests of their country. They could be neither more nor less than foolish purists, who knew not what they wanted, or of positive traitors, whose chief object was to play into the hands of the Papists and the King of Spain.

Furthermore, Elizabeth herself, with a true woman's love of pomp and pageantry in all matters pertaining to her government, was naturally attracted to a moderate episcopacy, which she believed to be alike Scriptural and reasonable. Besides, the bishops were of great use to her, both as administrators and as securities for the good behaviour of her Protestant subjects. They made progresses, or visitations, through their respective dioceses at fixed intervals with little less than royal state; they were a firm bulwark against the struggles of decaying Romanism; they narrowly inquired into the spiritual and temporal welfare of those who were committed to their charge; and there can be no doubt that in spite of occasional lapses into pure tyranny, they generally exercised their episcopal functions with becoming moderation. The theology of the reformed Church might be, as it was, largely Calvinistic; but its government and its ritual bore just so much resemblance to the older Church as was likely to conciliate the wavering affections of the mass of the nation. Nor must it be forgotten, that the Reformation meant re-formation, and not innovation; thus, in spite of the troublous interruption of the Civil War, its ultimate success was assured. It might be almost as far from the primitive model as was Romanism itself; but it was eminently adapted to the needs of its contemporaries. James the First, the wise pupil of Buchanan, who had been reared in the very heart of Presbyterianism, had by no means learned to love the stern system of his northern Church. The despotic control of the ministers, their outspoken reproofs of his royal shortcomings, the absence of pomp in worship, and the sturdy independence of the Scots, had filled him with a not unnatural dislike of the system built up and organised by John Knox. That he was a Calvinist in theology made no difference to his love

of a more elaborate ritual, which captivated his fancy and delighted his eyes and his ears. Furthermore, he had long pined to throw off the control of a government which had not merely proved extremely galling to him, but had humiliated his childish pride in his regal dignity.

When, then, he came to take possession of his southern kingdom, he soon showed himself determined to maintain the existing order of things in matters ecclesiastical. He knew that the bishops had been a strong stay and an unfailing support to his predecessor, and he made up his mind to use their assistance in the maintenance of his authority. When, then, the Hampton Court Conference was summoned on January 15, 1604, the King at once showed the bent of his sympathies; and on the second day of meeting, he uttered his celebrated aphorism of "No bishop, no king."1 That this pithy pronouncement would chill the hearts of the supporters of Presbyterianism cannot be doubted. They would immediately perceive that they had been summoned to argue out their case before a judge who had already made up his mind, and they would recognise that their soundest arguments would be uttered in vain. The Conference, therefore, which had been called together to settle the difficulties of the Church, had only one tangible result-the translation of the Bible, which is still used in the bulk of the churches. However loudly his Puritan subjects might mutter and murmur at ceremonies, and a form of government which they regarded with some reason as Popish, James was resolved to reduce them to an unconditional submission to the ecclesiastical system, as he found it already established. He had not the slightest sympathy with the conscientious scruples of the more extreme reformers, who fondly hoped that he would remodel the English Church after the Genevan pattern. Nothing was farther from his thoughts and his intentions; an episcopacy he would have, and an episcopacy he maintained in the teeth of the widespread opposition of many of the most learned divines of the land.

The King, who loved to have learned men around him, not so much that they might instruct him as that he might show off his own learning to them, chose many of his ministers of state from the bench of bishops, who for the most part showed themselves less open to corruption 1 1 Fuller, Church History (1655), Bk. X. p. 12.