selves was the same man who had written to Queen Elizabeth on behalf of Cartwright and Udal. How great was the change may be judged from his answer to their argument that "the observed experience of sundrie yeares under your Ma. and your predecessor Q. Elizabeth doth witnes

that for freeing the Church from the sickenes of Division and Faction, the urging of . . . Conformitie is no receipt of any soveraine vertue"; for James bluntly replies, "The too great toleration of you in quene elizabeths tyme hath made you now to be prikkels in oure sydes," and again, "by the contrarie too muche lenitie maketh you so prowde."

It was in fact just at this point that there lay the fundamental difference between the King's policy and that which the ministers wished to commend to him. As against the Prelates they urge that they themselves "neither hold in opinion nor intertaine in practise any matter either preiudiciall to your royall State, Supremacie and Prerogatives (as our Adversaries doe)," and they speak of the "accursed paritie" [sc. of ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction]"which incountreth the subordination of officers, which we, agreeably to the word of trueth, doe main teine to be of as necessary and worthie use in the body of Christ as in a body naturall." James pronounces the argument to be an "aequivocation upon the worde of paritie," and it is worth while to consider both the limits of their toleration and the con

ception of subordination which is put forward. The petitioners ask that there may be allowed to them "by way of Toleration" three things: "First, the libertie of enioying and practising the holy ordinances enacted and left by the Lord for the perpetual direction and guiding of his Churches. Secondly, an entier exemption from the iurisdiction of the said Prelates and their officers. And lastly, this happines to live under the commaund and charge of any your subordinate civill Magistrats, and so to be for our actions and cariage in the ministerie accomptable unto them." On the first point the King answers, "Ye have that libertie allreaddie, if ye coulde be contentid": in regard to the third he comments, with an unexpected flash of humour, "Cuntry constables goodlie spirituall judges." The ministers elaborate their "Lastly' at considerable length. hold," they say, "that all Officers and Ministers of the Gospel ought to be subiect to your High[ness] and to all and everie your subordinate civill Magistrates. And that the civil Magistrates only ought to be the Overseers of Provinces and Dioceses, and of the severall Churches therein." This elicits a repetition of the former gibe, "And so the constables are properlie bishopis and churche gouvernouris. Again the request that "some of your subalterne civill officers may be appointed by you to demand and receive of each church a dew and just accompt of their proceedings," being fol

"We

lowed by strictures upon synods, is answered, "Shoemakers then are better juges than devynes of eclesiasticall causis & pointis of devinitie." The ministers acknowledge "no other . . . authoritie for the overseeing, ruling and censuring of particular Churches... in the case of their misgovernement, then that which is originally invested in your Royall person, & from it derived to such of your laitie as you shall judge worthie to be deputed to the execution of the same under you." The retort, "Quhy then doe ye not obeye the Kings lawis that are allreaddie maide, quhom ye grawnte to be youre supreme magistrate," was an obvious one, but for all that it might be thought that so frankly Erastian a theory of Church government would surely have commended itself to James. Such an interpretation, however, does scant justice either to the King's perspicacity or the views of the ministers. They left him under no delusion as to their real meaning. A sneer at the alleged derivation of the authority of the Episcopal ministry from Rome (which James describes as 66 a notoriouse & shameles lye") is prefaced by 8 parenthetic reference to their own : "avow and professe that wee have and ought to have our whole spirituall office and power of administration at home and from among our selves." The King would have been dull of wit if he had failed to note, "but not to holde it of the King, for

we

ye are Chrystis immediate vicars"; and he adds significantly on a later page, "Millions of brain-sike popis are more dangerouse then one.”

The crux of the matter lay, as in the last resort it must do, not in the domain of historical investigation but of its present application in practice. The ministers profess their readiness to obey subaltern civil magistrates, yet they object to the

the Prelates that they "would subiect us to the wil and power of man, by pressing us to admit in matters of religion the bare wil and pleasure of man, and to acknowledge in him an absolute power for the ordering of things sometime indifferent (in the number whereof the things in controversie are not), and for an unproportionable distribution of punishments." James queries, "Quhaire is now the King's Supremacie & youre greate obedience to him?" fairly enough from his point of view, and even though we may sympathise with the petitioners, the question still remained, What organised authority would they actually recognise? Dr Liddon is reported, truly or falsely, to have said in the course of a conversation: "We know that bishops are of the esse of the Church, but are we sure, dear friend, that they are always of the bene esse?" Whatever his opinion on the first point, James had no doubt on the second, though as a dialectician he would probably have enjoyed a disputation as to the meaning of the adverb with as keen a zest as he felt in annotating for

his own edification or that of Bancroft the ministers' arguments on the advantages or disadvantages of conformity with, "But all youre if's and positions are false, ergo;" "Ye take thaire controuersum pro concesso ;" " "Ye alledge & conclude quhat ye liste, but the contraire positions to all these will ever prove true." He was intending, as we have seen, at this time to reintroduce Episcopacy into Scotland, and it is impossible to question that his main object therein was to keep the Kirk in order. The effort to do so had, from his point of view, hitherto been singularly unsuccessful, and it is therefore scarcely surprising that the appeal made in this petition to Scottish parallels failed to command his assent. "The libertie of the Gospell," it is urged, "and the free exercise of every part thereof both for Doctrine and Governement, is observed to be of so harmeles and peaceable a nature and cariage, and 80 farr from wronging any Monarch in his Soveraintie and publike interest, that the very Heathen, the Persian namely and the Turke, give passage and entertainement thereto." "I founde," the King says, perhaps with some bitterness, "the contraire experience in Skotlande." "If

wee should by way of instanse name onely unto your Ma. your Kingdomes of England and Scotland, none knoweth so exactly as your noble selfe the malice conceived by Romanists against the Gospell and the securitie yeelded to your person and Crowne by the free and

sincere exercise thereof." Again James writes: "I ever found the contraire by experience." But perhaps the fullest expression of his feeling in the matter is given when the ministers cite to him a passage from a sermon preached at Lambeth by Dr Downame: "That a Minister having supreme and sole authoritie in the Church and causes ecclesiasticall, or ruling alone without controlement, & not subiected to the authoritie of a Diocesan or Provinciall Bishop, ruleth as a Pope.' The application of this Maxime we humbly leave to your Maiestie." His Majesty's application of it lacked nothing in directness: "And so wolde euerie one of youre parishe popes doe, for if thay waire once setlid thay wolde soone shaike of the poore constables awthoritie by the powaire of the Spirite, experto crede iacobo in Skotlande."

In the face of such experience it was mere waste of time to urge that "the law of unitie and peace in the Churches being of a nobler descent and ranke then that of outward Conformitie in humane Rites and Ceremonies: the Canon for the said Conformitie" ought to yield to it, if need be, however much we may sympathise with the sentiment. "Thaire can be," James writes, "no unitie in the churche if thair be no ordoure nor obedience to superiouris, but that it be lawfull to everie man to followe freelie his owin fancie." We shall be wrong if we regard this merely as the exaggerated language of a man of imperious disposition

unmercifull censure and disgrace?" And again James replies, "An excellent argument for the papiste." There was not an argument which they could adduce that did not lie open logically to the objection which he raises "The papistes and everie sorte of haeretikes maye alleadge the like." Nothing, however, could be further from their desires. "Wee doe humbly beseech your Ma. not to thinke that by our sute for the said Toler

ation wee make an ouverture and way for Toleration unto Papistes, our Sute being of a different nature from theirs, and the inducements thereof such as cannot conclude ought in favour of them, whose head is Antichrist: whose worshippe is Idolatrie, whose doctrine is heresie, and a profession directly contrarie to the lawfull State and Governement of free Countries and Kingdomes, as your Ma. hath truly and iudiciously observed." James "jokit with deeficulty" if his riposte to the ministers' lament that "so many worthy Lights have been removed from shining in the Church," namely-"God make us quyte both of youre lightes & youre lighte humors,' is to be regarded as an example of royal wit; but probably most people who compare this amazing argument with the opening of the appeal will agree that he had more sense of humour than his petitioners. He certainly had more logic.

Frankly, it cannot be contended, on a dispassionate view of the matter, that the

ministers had made out a case for a toleration in their own favour which they were resolute to deny either to Prelates or Papists. And this must be said even while we admit that the new terms of subscription involved in many cases real hardship and injustice. Yet we should probably be mistaken if we regarded their petition solely as the despairing ory of an oppressed minority. It is called, indeed, "An humble Supplication," but James can hardly be blamed if he regarded it also as a manifesto. The ministers do not measure their words, especially as their argument draws to its close, and pari passu the King's comments increase in vigour. They pay a notable if exaggerated tribute to the number and strength, the watchfulness and readiness, of the faction of Romanists in the kingdom; and they urge that "this faction can not but grow so much the more renforced and potent, by how much the Protestant party shalbe infeebled and lessened." What was to be done? Their own conclusion was that "the Protestant party can not but diminish and languish in case the aforesaid course of the Prelats be continued," and they contend, probably rightly, that the attempt to enforce subscription and conformity was bound to fail, for even those of their number who had complied would soon "crye with the Bishops of Asia" in the days of Acacius, "We subscribed not willingly but of necessity, we consented in word but not in