The same Parliament passed the “Act of Uniformity,” which threatened all non-conformists with fines and imprisonment, and their ministers with deposition and banishment. When the provisions of the act began to be enforced, a number of the non-conformist ministers who demanded a greater purity of the church (hence the name Puritan), a simple, spiritual form of worship, a strict church discipline, and a Presbyterian form of government, organized separate congregations in connection with presbyteries, “and a considerable portion of the clergy and laity of the Established Church sympathized with them. The rupture was widened in 1592 by an act of Parliament that all who obstinately refused to attend public worship, or led others to do so, should be imprisoned and submit, or after three months be banished, and again in 1595 when the Presbyterians applied the Mosaic Sabbath laws to the Lord’s day, and when Calvin’s doctrines of predestination excited animated disputes.” In our study of the Reformation we have found that the pretentions of Roman Catholic infallibility were replaced by a not less uncompromising and intolerant dogmatism, availing itself, like the other, of the secular power, and arrogating to itself, like the other, the assistance of the Spirit of God. The mischief from this early abandonment of the right of free inquiry is as evident as its inconsistency with the principles upon which the reformers had acted for themselves. Hence under the Protestant banner there arose sectarian churches, professing to take the Bible alone as their rule of faith and practice, when assailing the claims of Rome, and yet binding by creeds, unknown to the Bible, all embraced within their folds; till Protestantism becomes as creed-bound as Romanism. Taking into view the larger results of this inconsistency, they bring under notice the Lutheran Church, the State churches of England and Scotland, as well as non-conformist churches which have arisen from them. Bible interpretation by the dogmatic and mystic methods even before the death of Luther, but more intensely afterward, made the Lutheran churches a very Babeldom. Then came “Forms of Concord,” made obligatory, each one resulting in further discord. Lutherans acknowledge the head of the State as the supreme visible ruler of the Church. The supreme direction of ecclesiastical affairs is vested in the councils or boards, generally appointed by the sovereign termed “consistories,” consisting of both laymen and ministers. The Lutheran established churches are so interwoven with the State as to be usually dependent on it. They are almost destitute of discipline, and, in some places, exclude dissent. Dr. Schaff says: