Chap. VIII. The HISTORY of the PURITANS. 397 This year died the reverend and learned Mr. William Perkins, born .Z"en at Marlton in. Warwickfhire in the firft year of queen Elizabeth, and El zabeth educated in Chri/t's College Cambridge, of which he was fellow : He was W J one of the molt famous praâical writers and preachers of his age ; and Death of being a ftriét Calvinift, he publifhed feveral treatifes in favour of thofe Ms.Per- doétrines, which involved him in a controverfy with Arminius then pro- feffor of divinity at Leyden, that continued to his death. He was a pu- ritan non-conformift, and a favourite of the difcipline, for which he was once or twice before the highcommort; but his peaceable behaviour, and great fame in the learned world, procured him a difpenfation from the perfecutions of his brethren. Mr. Perkins was a little man, and wrote with his left hand, being lame of his right. His works which were printed in three vol. fol. Phew him to have been a molt pious, holy, and induflriousdivine, confidering he lived only forty-four years. To fum up the flate of religion throughout this long reign.." It is evi- Summary dent that the parliament, the people, and great numbers of the inferior f fewith clergy, were for carrying the reformation further than the prefent eta- Puritans in blifhment. The firft bithops came into it with this view; they declared this reign. againft the popifh habits and ceremonies, and promifed to ufe all their in- tereft with the queen for their removal; but how foon they forgot them- (elves, when they were warm in their chairs, the foregoing hiftory has difcovered. Molt of the firft reformers were of eraflian principles, look- ing upon the church as a meer creature of thefiate: They gave up every thing to the crown, and yielded to the fupreme magifirate the abfolute diredtion of the confciences, or at leaft of the religious profef3-ion of all his fubjedìs. They acknowledged only two orders of clergy of divine in- ftitution, viz. hifhops or priefts, and deacons. They admitted the ordina- tions of foreign churches by meer prefbyters, till towards the middle of this reign, when their validity began to be difputed and denied. Whit.,- gift was the firft who defended the hierarchy, from the praâice of the third fourth andfifth centuries, when the roman empire became chriftian ; but Bancroft divided off the bifhops from the priefthóod, and advanced them into a fuperior order by divine right, with the foie power of ordi.. nation, and the keys of difcipline; fo that from his time there were rec- koned three orders of clergy in the englilh hierarchy, viz. bhops, priefts, and deacons. Thus the church advanced in her claims, and removed by degrees to a greater diftance from the foreign proteftants. The controverfy with the puritans had only a fmall beginning, viz. the impaling of the popi/h habits and a few indifferent ceremonies; but it opened by degrees into a reformation of difcipline, which all confeffed was wanting; and at 1st the doalrinal articles were debated. The queen and the later bifnops would not part with a pin out of the hie- rarchy,
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