simply and in a manner so well adapted to the English people that subsequent revisers have done no more than correct in details his admirable version. He found every one averse to his project. The Bishop of London (Tunstal) refused to aid him, and afterwards tried to destroy his work. He was driven from England, and even from Cologne, and had to publish his translation at Worms. Even when he was well known, and maintained a controversy with More on at least equal terms, he lived as a fugitive at Antwerp, in constant danger, till, by the machinations of his adversaries, he was arrested, tried, and put to death by burning1. Such a man, suffering under the disfavour of the King, and protesting, as he did, against the Divorce, could have no undue bias in favour of the Royal Prerogative. Yet in his works are scattered the germs of all that is meant by the King's Supremacy. In his book against More he points out the evil of the existing state of religion in that the lay life, the life of commerce and of government, had been neglected and esteemed vile or unclean, while all that had been counted as religious was the building of vast churches, chantries, and monasteries, and the performance of deeds which in derision he called Pope-holy works. In his book entitled 'The Obedience of a Christian Man,' Tyndale points out how the clergy, by

1 Tyndale was born about 1480. His translation of the New Testament appeared in 1526. He suffered in 1536, his last words being, Lord, open the eyes of the King of England.' In 1537, the English Bible, mainly from his translation, was placed by the King's order in the churches. How much of the Old Testament beyond the Pentateuch, which is wholly his, was translated by him is uncertain.

"Parker Society's edition. See especially the remarkable and witty reply to More's jest about Tenderden Steeple and Goodwin Sands, at pp. 77, 78. 3 Published about 1528.

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maintaining a jurisdiction of their own, and by establishing sanctuaries and immunities for all who, by saying a verse of Scripture in Latin, could claim the benefit of clergy, had brought corruption and lawlessness into the state; and he calls upon all princes to remedy these abuses1. The lay law of the realm he identifies with the law of God; the lay power he takes as God's special ordinance. 'See,' he says of the clergy, 'how they divide and separate themselves. If the layman be of the world, so is he not of God. If he believes in Christ, then is he co-heir with Christ, and hath the Spirit in earnest, and is also spiritual' (that is one of the spiritualty). The King,' he adds, 'is in the room of God; and his law is God's law, and nothing but the law of nature and natural equity, which God graved in the heart of man 2? Even in matters of religious knowledge, the special province of the clergy, he would have laymen associated with them. If any question arise about the truth of the Scriptures, then let them judge by the manifest and open Scriptures, not excluding the laymen, for there are many found among the laymen which are as wise as the officers. This is a book,' said Henry, when a copy belonging to Anne Boleyn was brought to him by Wolsey for censure, ‘for me and all Kings to read :' and we cannot doubt that the thoughts contained in it contributed largely to frame the King's policy.

1 Tyndale's' 'Doctrinal Treatises' (Parker Soc. ed.), p. 180.

2 Obedience.

3 Id. 240, 241.

Doctrinal Treatises,' p. 240.

See the curious and instructive story in Demaus' Life of Tyndale,' 212-15, taken from Strype's 'Eccl. Mem.' i. 172.

Yes, the English Reformation was political. This was the true polity which underlay it, the right and just relation of the various powers within the Christian commonwealth towards one other. If any proof were needed that it was a serious work, and that the Royal Supremacy was a religious principle, in the assertion of which earnest men were obeying the Divine Spirit, it would be found in the fact that the political changes, equally with those relating to doctrine and worship, were advocated by the holy zeal of Tyndale and sealed with his blood. The ideal of the saint and martyr was one with that of the politician.

The system which we have thus described, the supremacy of the nation over the organization for public worship and its functionaries, must be examined somewhat more closely and critically. The organization for public worship, it will be seen, is treated under this system, not as forming a separate community inserted into the larger secular community, and enjoying a divine sanction which the larger community does not possess, but as fulfilling one function of the great community which itself, and as a whole, possesses this divine sanction. There has always been a tendency, chiefly, I venture to think, springing from want of clearness and boldness of thought, to mistrust this view, which attributes the sanctity of the Church, or Body of Christ, to the whole community. The clergy especially, most of all when left, as they frequently are, outside the main current of the popular life, are inclined to this mistrust. They look upon the organization which they conduct as so sacred that it must stand

alone and self-governed in the midst of human society. In the Roman communion this has been most fully the case; and it has resulted in varying relations between the organization over which the clergy preside and the general community; sometimes in Concordats between them, sometimes in the repression of the common life under the dominion of the priest, sometimes in open hostility, rebellion or counter-tyranny on the part of the representatives of the general community, especially on the part of the male sex. In our own country this contradiction has been less acutely felt owing to the clear assertion of unity at the Reformation; and the clergy have for the most part acquiesced in the established system, partly from conviction, partly from feeling that under this system they at least enjoyed much quietness,' and a liberty in the exercise of their calling which possibly they might not under any other. But at various times, notably in the time of Laud, and again in our own day, there has been a tendency to the assertion of clerical powers incompatible with the Reformation settlement. In the time of Laud the system was, as it were, turned round. The governing power of the nation, which should have exercised control over the clergy, was made to work their will as a power separate from the nation. The government became clericalist. In later times the acquiescent tone has predominated, until the clericalist movement begun in Oxford fifty years ago but this revival of clericalist claims is now again before the world, and its demands must be discussed with all fairness. The Societies also, whether of the Presbyterian, Independent, or the Wesleyan type,

which are sometimes spoken of as separate churches, but are really societies for worship, teaching, and beneficence operating within the general Christian community or church, have often, through the injustice to which they have been subjected, and which still endures though only in its social form, been inclined to charge their wrongs upon the system of Christian nationalism and to demand its destruction. Thus from different sides, and with different objects, the demand for a separation of the organization for worship from the general life has arisen; some of those who make the demand aiming at a clerical supremacy in all matters termed religious with the support of the general government, some at a complete severance, which is often supposed to be a system of freedom, but which would, at least in a vast Episcopalian community, almost certainly result in the dominion of the clergy. It is necessary, therefore, to consider whether the union of the system of public worship with the general government is so grounded in truth and in Christian principle as to have the promise of vitality.

It is said that, for the sake of the purity of religion, the system of public worship must be held apart from the general life. But experience shows that there is great spiritual danger in such a separation. A society which is mainly clerical, and which is occupied almost exclusively with those parts of life which belong especially to the clergy, is almost sure to be petty and unjust. And it becomes so, just because it is cut off from the common life of men, the sphere in which justice and civilization have free play. But, further,