The chief outstanding features of that re ligious history are, firstly, the absolutely un reasoning fear of a Catholic reaction, and, secondly, the temporary exaltation of Puri tanism.
These two are by no means synonymous. For whereas the jealous fear of Catholicism was national, pervading the country blindly from end to end, the triumphant emergence of Puri tanism was local, partial, temporary. But if the two are not synonymous they have been alike in their fate. With the inscrutable irony of her passionless lips the Muse of History has consigned them both to the region of human futilities. The further we are drifted from the 17th century by the stream of time the more difficult does it become to us to realize the standpoint of that century on the question of the Catholic reaction. We can see now that whatever form that attempted reaction took, whether it be of the theological discussions which waged in the presence of James I as the divines flocked round his chair, or of Laud's unattainable conception of an unifying Catholicity, or again of Charles II's cynical but more statesmanlike conception of Indulgence, or finally of James II's grossly bigoted intrigue, in one and all of these or any other forms the movement was doomed to failure before its birth. The panic, the absolutely unreasoning fear, the blinded and relentless fury which seized the nation again and again throughout the period and which not only accounted largely for the rebellion of 1642'and the revolution of 1688, but also left their malignant trail on two centuries of our later history, fill us to-day with only a sense of disdainful surprise.
As for Puritanism, the second religious phe nomenon of the century, the judgment of our own day has been more sympathetic, partly be cause it has been the fashion since Carlyle's day to speak of it in terms of respect, and partly because the movement has not yet lost its force in English and American life.. But be it borne in mind, in the 17th century Puritanism in its day of power did not show itself a constructive force either in the domain of dogma or in the domain of ecclesiasticism. The dogmatic wran
gles of the Westminster Assembly — the discus sions as to the method of the imputation of Christ's righteousness and what not else — are utterly meaningless to us. And when Puritan ism was called upon to solve the problem of the erection of a national church it completely failed. In the mere interests of human toler ance Cromwell, himself a Puritan of the Puri tans, was forced to take the problem out of the hands of his co-religionists and thereby to dash to the ground their half-finished and futile structure. And will anyone contend that either in its persecuted birth or in its day of exalta tion, when for a brief span it wielded the wooden sword, or again in its day of adversity when at the Restoration 2,000 of its ministers left the national church to wander in the by ways of Separatist Dissent, that in any one i of these its forms Puritanism was ever a mis sionary movement or a missionary church in the sense in which 18th century Methodism was a missionary movement? Such contention could not be maintained. The basis of Puri tanism was dogmatic and clerical throughout; the fervor of humanity never breathed into it a spark of missionary fire. Its zeal was spent in the dogmatic defense of forms of church government, in the safeguarding of the church membership of each little community. To the nobler issues of life, to the higher conception of toleration, of humanity, or national religion it was, and throughout the succeeding century it remained, cold and dead.
Bibliography.— The original authorities for 17th century English history consist of : 1. Parliamentary records: the 'Lords Jour nal' and 'Commons Journals) which are in print; and much material still in manuscript at the House of Lords, but which is being gradu ally printed by the Historical Manuscripts Com mission. The only full edition of the Acts of Parliament is the (Statutes of the Realm,' but this collection does not contain the Common wealth Acts and Ordinances. These latter can only be obtained from the collections of Hus band and Scobell, and from the separately printed ordinances.