strained to breaking-point the professed unanimity of the Protestant Princes. Theology, however, was one thing, Church-polity another; and for all the Genevan rigours Frederick was not yet prepared. But to Heidelberg for a doctor's degree came an English Puritan, George Withers, and he stirred up strife there by urging the necessity of a discipline exercised by pastor and elders (June, 1568). Erastus answered him by declaring that excommunication has no warrant in the Word of God; and further that, when the Prince is a Christian, there is no need for a corrective jurisdiction which is not that of the State, but that of the Church. This sowed dissension between Zurich and Geneva: between Bullinger, the friend of the English Bishops, and Beza, the oracle of the Puritans. Controversy in England began to nibble at the Royal Supremacy; and in Scotland the relation between the State (which until 1567 had a papistical head) and the Knoxian Church, was of necessity highly indeterminate. Knox had written sentences which, in our rough British use of the term, were Erastian enough; and a great deal of history might have been changed, had he found in Scotland a pious prince or even a pious princess, a Josiah or even a Deborah. As it fell out, the Scottish Church aspired to, and at times attained, a truly medieval independence. Andrew MelvilTs strain of language has been compared with that of Gregory VII; so has Thomas Cartwright's; but the Scottish Church had an opportunity of resuming ancient claims which was denied to the English. In 1572 an oath was imposed in Scotland; the model was English; but important words were changed. The King of Scots is " Supreme Governor of this realm as well in things temporal as in the conservation and purgation of religion." The Queen of England is " Supreme Governor of this realm as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal." The greater continuity of ecclesiastical history is not wholly on one side of the border. The charge of popery was soon retorted against the Puritans by the Elizabethan divines and their Helvetian advisers:— Your new presbyter in his lust for an usurped dominion is but too like old priest.
In controversy with the Puritans the Elizabethan religion gradually assumed an air of moderation which had hardly belonged to it from the first; it looked like a compromise between an old faith and a new. It is true that from the beginning of her reign Elizabeth distrusted Calvin; and when she swore that she never read his books she may have sworn the truth. That blast of the trumpet had repelled her. Not only had "the regiment of women" been attacked, but Knox and Goodman had advocated a divine right of rebellion against idolatrous Princes. Calvin might protest his innocence; but still this dangerous stuff came from his Geneva. Afterwards, however, he took an opportunity of being serviceable to the Queen in the matter of a book which spoke ill of her father and mother. Then a pretty message went to him and he was bidden to
