hands of the state. They outlined a system of church doctrine and
discipline from which no variation was legally
permitted. Notwithstanding the enforced outward conformity, the Bible
was left open to the masses to study, and private discussion and
polemic writing were unrestrained. The main principles of the
Reformation were accepted, even while Elizabeth resisted the sweeping
reforms which the strong Calvinistic faction of the Puritan party
would have made in the ceremonial of the English church. This she did
notwithstanding the fact that about the time Thomas Cartwright,
through the influence of the ritualists under Whitgift, had been
driven from Cambridge, Parliament had refused to bind the clergy to
the Three Articles on Supremacy, on the form of Church government, and
on the power of the Church to ordain rites and ceremonies. Parliament
had even suggested a reform of the liturgy by omitting from it those
ceremonies most obnoxious to the Puritan party.[l] That representative
assembly had but reflected the desire of all moderate statesmen, as
well as of the Puritans. But, in the twelve years between Cartwright's
dismissal from Cambridge and Browne's preaching there without a
license, a great change took place, altering the sentiment of the
nation. All but extremists drew back when Cartwright pushed his
Presbyterian notions to the point of asserting that the only power
which the state rightfully held over religion was to see that the
decrees of the churches were executed and their contemners punished,
or when this reformer still further asserted that the power and
authority of the church was derived from the Gospel and consequently
was above Queen or Parliament. Cartwright claimed for his church an
infallibility and control of its members far above the claims of Rome,
and, tired of waiting for a purification of existing conditions by
legislative acts, he had, as has been said, boldly organized, in
accordance with his system, the clergy of Warwickshire and