absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop Ponet was of opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to the Papist, and that the chief officers of the purified church should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that none of these prelates belonged to the extreme section of the Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general sense of that party had been followed, the work of reform would have been carried on as unsparingly in England as in Scotland. But, as the government needed the support of the Protestants, so the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much was therefore given up on both sides: an union was effected; and the fruit of that union was the Church of England." _Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 1._ "The Reformation in England was, singular amongst the great religious movements of the sixteenth century. It was the least heroic of them all--the least swayed by religious passion, or moulded and governed by spiritual and theological necessities. From a general point of view, it looks at first little more than a great political change. The exigencies of royal passion, and the dubious impulses of statecraft, seem its moving and really powerful springs. But, regarded more closely, we recognise a significant train both of religious and critical forces at work. The lust and avarice of Henry, the policy of Cromwell, and the vacillations of the leading clergy, attract prominent notice; but there may be traced beneath the surface a wide-spread evangelical fervour amongst the people, and, above all, a genuine spiritual earnestness and excitement of thought at the universities. {830} These higher influences preside at the first birth of the movement. They are seen in active operation long before the reforming task was taken up by the Court and the bishops." _J. Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the 17th Century, volume 1, chapter 2._