bishops, but really governed by the enlightened few who really govern
all churches, Independent, Presbyterian, or Methodist; supported by the
State, yet wielding only spiritual authority; giving its influence to
uphold the crown and the established institutions of the country;
conservative, yet earnestly Protestant. In the sixteenth century it was
the Church of reform, of progress, of advancing and liberalizing
thought. Elizabeth herself was a zealous Protestant, protecting the
cause whenever it was persecuted, encouraging Huguenots, and not
disdaining the Presbyterians of Scotland. She was not as generous to the
Protestants of Holland and Trance as we could have wished, for she was
obliged to husband her resources, and hence she often seemed
parsimonious; but she was the acknowledged head of the reform movement
in Europe. Her hostility to Rome and Roman influence was inexorable. She
may not have carried reforms as far as the Puritans desired, and who
can wonder at that? Their spirit was aggressive, revolutionary, bitter,
and, pushed to its logical sequences, was hostility to the throne
itself, as proved by their whole subsequent history until Cromwell was
dead. And this hostility Burleigh perceived as well as the Queen, which,
doubtless led to severities that our age cannot pretend to justify.

The Queen did dislike and persecute the Puritans, not, I think, so much
because they made war on the surplice, liturgy, and divine right of
bishops, as because they were at heart opposed to all absolute authority
both in State and Church, and when goaded by persecution would hurl even
kings from their thrones. It is to be regretted that Elizabeth was so
severe on those who differed from her; she had no right to insist on
uniformity with her conscience in those matters which are above any
human authority. The Reformation in its severest logical consequences,
in its grandest deductions, affirms the right of private judgment as the
mighty pillar of its support. All parties, Presbyterian as well as