Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649; Great Britain -- History -- Charles I, 1625-1649
There was another source of hostility to Laud. There was a large part
of the people of England who were against the Church of England
altogether. They did not like a system in which all power and
influence came, as it were, from above downward. The king made the
noblemen, the noblemen made the bishops, the bishops made the clergy,
and the clergy ruled their flocks; the flocks themselves having
nothing to say or do but to submit. It is very different with
Episcopacy in this country. The people here choose the clergy, and the
clergy choose the bishops, so that power in the Church, as in every
thing else here, goes from below upward. The two systems, when at
rest, look very similar in the two countries; but when in action, the
current of life flows in contrary directions, making the two
diametrically opposite to each other in spirit and power. In England,
Episcopacy is an engine by which the people are ecclesiastically
governed. Here, it is the machinery by which they govern. Thus, though
the forms appear similar, the action is very diverse.
Now in England there was a large and increasing party that hated and
opposed the whole Episcopal system. Laud, to counteract this tendency,
attempted to define, and enlarge, and extend that system as far as
possible. He made the most of all the ceremonies of worship, and
introduced others, which were, indeed, not exactly new, but rather
ancient ones revived. He did this conscientiously, no doubt, thinking
that these forms of devotion were adapted to impress the soul of the
worshiper, and lead him to feel, in his heart, the reverence which his
outward action expressed. Many of the people, however, bitterly
opposed these things. They considered it a return to popery. The more
that Laud, and those who acted with him, attempted to magnify the
rites and the powers of the Church, the more these persons began to
abhor every thing of the kind. They wanted Christianity itself, _in
its purity_, uncontaminated, as they said, by these popish and
idolatrous forms. They were called _Puritans_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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