The penal laws against Nonconformity, severe before, were made still more severe by the Conventicle Act of 1593, which provided that all persons above 16 years of age being present at unlawful conventicler, should, on conviction, be committed to prison, there to re main without bail or mainprise until they made open submission and declaration of conformity at some church or chapel, or usual place of common prayer. The offender who refused to make such public submission within three months of conviction should be compelled "to abjure this realm of England, and all other the Queen's Majesty's dominions forever?' This sternly repressive Act explains why during the 10 years previous to the accession of James I so many Nonconformists languished in prison, while many were banished and many more went into voluntary exile.
From the Accession of James I to the Revolution of 1688.— With the death of Eliza beth and the accession of James I the hopes of the Puritan party once more revived. For the king had been brought up among Presby terians, had been the pupil of George Buchanan, and a frequent hearer of the disciples of John Knox; and had even invited Thomas Cart wright, the leader of the English Presbyterians, to a professorship in Scotland. Regarding him, therefore, as at least not unfavorable to Puritan ideas, they met turn on his way to London in 1603 and presented the Millenary Petition, so called, as representing the views of a thousand of the clergy. But again their hopes were destined to disappointment. At the Hampton Court Con ference, held the following January, the king spoke contemptuously of Presbyterianism and declared he would either make these church re formers conform themselves or he would harry them out of the land. The Conference was fol lowed by the Canons of Convocation which were so constructed as to make it impossible for any man who disagreed with the constitution and articles of the Church, as set forth in them, to remain honestly among its clergy. The im mediate result was that some 300 ministers were ejected from their livings. The Noncon formists who had fled to Holland in search of liberty of worship after the Conventicle Act of 1593 were reinforced from time to time by the arrival of others of like mind. Especially mem orable among these were the members of the little church at Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, who, under the leadership of William Brewster and John Robinson, fled to Amsterdam in 1608, and subsequently settled in Leyden. This was
the church from which, in 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers of New England crossed the Atlantic as the founders of Plymouth Colony, the start ing-point of the United States.
The Separatists who remained in England were subjected to perpetual hardships and' per secution on account of their faith. .James I was succeeded by Charles I, the new king corn ing completely under the influence of Arch bishop Laud, who proceeded to great lengths in enforcing conformity to Prayer Book, articles and canons. While the two opposing forces of Catholic tradition and Puritan earnestness were thus contending within the arena of church life, the two opposing forces of absolutism and the desire for popular government were at the same time at war within the political sphere. The men who contended for the divine right of bishops maintained also the theory of absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings. The leaders of the Church made the serious mistake of allying its interests with the side hostile to the constitutional liberties of the nation. With a high-spirited people such g course could only have one issue — that of disaster and over throw. The attempt to base the Church on the subversion of freedom ended in civil war and the temporary overthrow of the very institu tions the advocates of absolute government sought to maintain.
After Charles and Laud came the Long Par liament and Cromwell. Two main ideas seem to have guided Cromwell's ecclesiastical policy — first, that there should be an established non episcopal Church, on a broad basis of evangeli cal comprehension, to be endowed and con trolled by the State; and next, that outside that Church there should be an ample toleration of Dissent, which therefore provided for the existence of separate congregations. The Church, as established, recognized no one form of ecclesiastical organization; it had no church courts, no church laws or ordinances. Nothing was said about rites and ceremonies, nothing even about sacraments. These were left as open questions to be determined by each congregation for itself. All that the commissioner., for each county dealt with was the personal piety and intellectual fitness of the minister presented by the patron to the living; and the church build ings were regarded as the property of the sev eral parishes.