of self-reliance and decision of purpose. But with Puritanism the range of inquiry is shut up within the limits of the written Word; it does not venture to sally forth beyond them, and survey the Scripture under a broader aspect, from some point of view external to it. Where, as in the case of Baxter and some others of a later period-the principle of rigid Scripturalism was less firmly grasped, they approached the confines of the Latitudinarian system, and ceased, to that extent, to be proper Puritans.

In truth, absolute freedom of inquiry can, in the present condition of society, be exercised by only a few minds. It belongs to individuals, but not to the multitude-and is one of the latest results of advanced intellectual culture. The mass of men will long continue to recognise a practical rule of faith and conduct somewhere or other out of themselves. Puritanism which from its origin was rather a product and expression of popular feeling, than the impulse of a speculative intellect -casting off by a spasmodic effort the constraint and oppression of the old sacerdotal yoke, threw itself with implicit trust on Scripture, as a substituted authority, and opposed the claims of God and Christ to those of uninspired and erring men. The idea was grand and animating; and though it involved assumptions, and drew after it difficulties, not very distinctly apprehended in the first

outbreak of reforming zeal-it contained enough of undoubted and most valuable truth, to apply a powerful lever to the public mind in its resistance to the domination of the hierarchy.

Thus the sufficiency of Scripture is the fundamental postulate of Puritanism; the authority of the Church, the ground practically taken by the Anglican hierarchy: and these incompatible assumptions have been the cause of the unintermitted strife between them, through the last four or five centuries of our history. Scripture-the record and depository of the free and popular spirit of the primitive Gospel-the Magna Charta of religious liberty-is a standing witness and protest against the pretensions of spiritual despotism. In the spirit which it breathes, we find a reason of the ardent attachment to it ever manifested by those, who at different periods have struggled against episcopal tyranny and called aloud for ecclesiastical reform-from the African sectaries who resisted Cyprian and were persecuted by Augustine, down to the Waldenses, the Hussites and the Lollards of the Middle Ages; and in the same spirit we detect a motive for the efforts of the priesthood to keep the dispensation of the Word of life in their own hands, and prevent its free circulation among the laity. The conflict pervades the whole of Christian history, and goes back to the first ages of the Church. If mere

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antiquity could decide the question at issue-Puritanism, through its authentic representatives from the earliest times, might at least make out as venerable a pedigree, and establish as clear a line of apostolical descent, as Episcopacy. Taking the word Puritanism in the large sense which has been explained in a former chapter, we may trace the identity of the principle, in all its most striking manifestations, through every period of its history, whether oppressed by a Catholic, or in collision with a Protestant, hierarchy. Under all outward changes, we shall find, that Scripturalism, a severe morality, popular sympathies and warm attachment to civil freedom, have constituted the sign and peculiar distinction of Puritanism.

SECT. II.

SPIRIT AND AFFINITIES OF LOLLARDISM.

Many points of coincidence at once present themselves between Lollardism and the later Puritanism, especially in its more extreme forms of Independency, Anabaptism, and even Quakerism. In the antagonism of minds, as in the collision of bodies, action and reaction are equal. Intolerable tyranny or shameless corruption call forth in resistance to themselves, an overstrained spirituality

of devotion and extravagant asceticism. Where the pressure is relaxed, the opposition becomes less intense. It was under an establishment itself reformed, still working with the leaven of recent change, and believed by numbers to be destined to further purification-that Puritanism, in the days of Edward VI. and the first years of Elizabeth's reign, put on a respectful and conciliatory demeanor towards the hierarchy, and aimed at renewal and perfection, rather than destruction. On the other hand, it was in open defiance of the unbroken strength of the Romish priesthood, and in full view of its undisguised avarice and immoralities, that the followers of Wycliffe took their measure of ecclesiastical reform,-and, pursued with implacable malignity by the clergy through the whole course of the fifteenth century-imprisoned, faggotted and burnt-planted deep those principles of religious democracy, which were never afterwards eradicated from the mind of the English commonalty, but, after the lapse of a century, shot up again with new vigour, when the power of the bishops once more became oppressive. The Independents, and not the Presbyterians, derive their origin from the Lollards.

In entire consistency with their fundamental principle, the Lollards admitted nothing into their faith, worship, or practice, which had not the sanction of Scripture. They did not acknow

ledge the authority of General Councils; and Wycliffe is said to have treated all ecclesiastical writers, since the thousandth year of Christ, as heretics. Their doctrinal system was nearly identical with Calvinism-a form of belief which has always prevailed among the Puritans. They held, that the true Church of Christ consists of predestinated persons, and none else; and with this notion they combined the allied doctrines of election by grace, remission of sins through the satisfaction of the cross, justification by faith, sanctification by the spirit—and, in a modified sense, without owning the obligation to apply it to the actual relations of society-the obscure and suspicious tenet of "dominion founded on grace." a (1) It was probably only another mode of stating the doctrine, that spiritual must finally prevail over temporal, interests in the affairs of men; and that no power can permanently endure, which is opposed to the will of God. It is a literal application of Paul's words, that "the saints shall judge the world." The rigorous and consequential intellect of Wycliffe had firmly grasped the doctrine of philosophical necessity, and saw all things under the control of the irresistible decrees of God.

All these views-extreme as some of them may

Vaughan's Life of Wycliffe. Lingard's Hist. of England, Vol. IV. 8vo.