Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 1—The Church of the Civil WarsStoughton, John
History
Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 1—The Church of the Civil Wars
Stoughton, John
Great Britain -- Church history
When Episcopacy strove to maintain itself in England, after the shock
given to ecclesiastical power in the days of Henry VIII. and Edward
VI., Presbyterianism made good its position at Geneva under Calvin, and
at Edinburgh under Knox. The connexion between the two cities and the
two Reformers, and between them both and our own country, everybody
knows. The exiles who had found a home, not only on the shores of the
beautiful Lake Leman, but also on the scarcely less beautiful banks of
the Lake of Zurich, brought with them, when they returned home after
the Marian persecution, strong Presbyterian predilections. Calvin,
also, exercised a direct influence on some of the English Reformers;
and the system of John Knox, in such close neighbourhood as the north
of the Tweed, could not fail to affect those who were studying the
question, "what ought to be the Church of the future?"
[Sidenote: 1567.]
Indications of Presbyterian sentiments in the England of Elizabeth are
very numerous.[124] They wrought within the Episcopal establishment
without producing a severance. Cartwright was a Presbyterian. He
contended for the abolition of archbishops, and archdeacons, and
would retain only bishops or presbyters to preach the word and pray,
and deacons to take care of the poor. Every Church, by which he
meant a "certain flock," was to be governed by its own ministers and
presbyters, and these were not to be created by civil authority, but
chosen by popular election. The directory of government, found in the
study of that eminent Puritan after his death, said to be composed by
Travers, is in perfect harmony with this Presbyterian scheme. Certain
clerical meetings, under the auspices of Cartwright and Travers, took
a decided synodical shape.[125] This element continued in the Church
under the Stuarts, notwithstanding the efforts of bishops to extinguish
it.[126]
[Sidenote: _Presbyterianism._]
Certain Puritans of a Presbyterian turn, formally separated themselves
from the Establishment so early as 1567, and met together for
Nonconformist worship in Plumber's Hall.[127] An organized Presbytery
appears at Wandsworth in 1572,--in the Channel Islands, where the
Government of England could not reach it, the system was fully
established in 1577; and Presbyterian classes may be traced in Cheshire
and Lancashire, Warwick and Northampton, during the last few years
of the Tudor dynasty. Organized Presbyterianism is seen but faintly
in the early part of the seventeenth century, but Presbyterianism,
as a sentiment within the Established Church, is distinctly visible.
Nonconformity of another kind was also on the increase at this period.
Churches of the Independent and Baptist order may be discovered in
Tudor times, but they became more apparent and numerous in the days of
the Stuarts. Their rise and progress will be afterwards described.
[Sidenote: 1640.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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