--which had so melancholy a termination in the
restoration of Charles II., with his puppy-dogs and mistresses--we should
have seen the Church established independent of the State: the latter
acting as its servant, exercising the sword at its bidding and on its
behalf. The Churchmen of that day adopted a lower theory, as appears by
their favourite formulas--"the power of the magistrate in ecclesiastical
matters," and "passive obedience without limitations." In his zeal in
this direction, Archbishop Sancroft actually went so far as to alter the
rubric. If Bishop Cosin may be believed (the story is told by Calamy),
where it was said nothing was to be read in the churches but by the
Bishop's order, Sancroft took on himself to add, "or the King's order."
In short, the theory was then what Sir J. D. Coleridge only the other day
stated it, that "the Church was a political institution." Against this
theory, as dishonouring to God and degrading to religion, the Puritans
sternly protested, and at the peril of their lives. Naturally they fell
back upon such texts as, "My kingdom is not of this world," "Render unto
Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things that are
God's." More and more it became clear to them that the Church was simply
an assembly of believers; that Christ's kingdom was exclusively a
spiritual one; that the greatest service the State could do to religion
was to leave it alone. They argued, and not without some show of
plausibility, that the faith enunciated by the carpenter's son,
disseminated through the world by tent-makers and fishermen; the faith
which had found its way into the hearts of the stubborn Jews; which had
been more than a match for the pride of Rome or philosophy of Greece--for
which the multitude, the grey-haired sire, the high-spirited lad with
life with its golden prospects opening all round him, the tender and
delicate maiden, had gone smilingly to die--the faith immortal with the
immortality of truth, required not the vulgar patronage of worldly men,
or that the State should attempt bribery on its behalf. Of course they
were wrong; for only last session of Parliament the present Archbishop of
Canterbury, in his place in the House of Lords, on the night of an
important debate, denominated a religion thus supported as a spurious
one; and it was only within the memory of living men that Nonconformists
were permitted to be parish constables or town councillors.
Nevertheless