have answered very well; human nature likes to eat its cake and have it
too; but this time was anything but ordinary. The reaction from old to new
ways of thinking, and the unforgotten persecutions of Mary, had made men
very fond of their opinions, and preternaturally unwilling to enter into
bargains with their consciences. At the same time loyalty to the Crown was
still a fetich in England, as indeed it always has been, except at and
about the time when Oliver Cromwell and others cut off the head of the
First Charles. Consequently when Elizabeth and Whitgift, her Archbishop of
Canterbury, set about putting their house in order in earnest, they were
met with a mixture of humble loyalty and immovable resistance which would
have perplexed any potentates less single-minded. But Elizabeth and
Whitgift were not of the sort that sets its hand to the plow and then
turns back; they went earnestly on with their banishments and executions,
paying particular attention to the Separatists, but keeping plenty in hand
for the Puritans also.--The Separatists, it may be observed, were so
called because their aim was to dispart themselves entirely from the
orthodox communion; the Puritans were willing to remain in the fold, but
had it in mind to purify it, by degrees, from the defilement which they
held it to have contracted. The former would not in the least particular
make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, or condone the sins of
the Scarlet Woman, or of anybody else; they would not inhale foul air,
with a view to sending it forth again disinfected by the fragrance of
their own lungs. They took their stand unequivocally upon the plain letter
of Scripture, and did away with all that leaned toward conciliating the
lighter sentiments and emotions; they would have no genuflexions, no
altars, no forms and ceremonies, no priestly vestments, no Apostolic
Succession, no priests, no confessions, no intermediation of any kind
between the individual and his Creator. The people themselves should make
and unmake their own "ministers," and in all ways live as close to the
bone as they could. The Puritans were not opposed to any of these beliefs;