As against their theory of a
State-controlled Church, he advocated a Church-controlled State. In
fact, the most arrogant and insolent pretensions of the Papacy were
surpassed by this Presbyterian divine. Of course, all his demands were
based on the authority of Scripture and the ways and customs of the
primitive Christian Church. The rule of bishops he denounced as begotten
of the devil; the absolute rule of presbyters he held to be established
by the word of God. All other forms of Church government were ruthlessly
to be suppressed, and heretics were to be punished by death. For the
ministers of the Church he claimed not only all spiritual power and
jurisdiction, the decreeing of doctrines, the ordering of ceremonies,
and so on, but also the supervision of public morals, under which every
branch of human activities was included. In short, the State, as well as
the individual, was to be placed beneath the heel of the Church. The
power of the prince, the secular power, was tolerated only so that it
might "protect and defend the councils of the clergy, to keep the peace,
to see their decrees executed, and to punish the contemners of them."
Such doctrines aroused no responsive echo in the minds of the English
people. The nation whose revolt against the papal supremacy had made the
Reformation possible, were not disposed to accept Presbyterian supremacy
in its place. The national impatience of ecclesiastical power was not
likely suddenly to be removed by any attempt to re-impose it under a new
name and in a new garb.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41