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S/ur-cL' : History of the Eng/isli Church 129 that, he has brought together from various sources and printed for the first time a mass of material relating to the constitution of the Presby- terian system, accounts of first-fruits and of tenths, and sales of bishops' lands and of deans' and chapters' lands. In short, while confining him- self to publishing definitely chosen parts of such materials as are never likely to be published in Calendar form or by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, he has made accessible a body of material which, together with a future Calendar of Plundered Ministers' Records, will constitute a complete body of evidence upon the history of the ecclesiastical revolu- tion of the seventeenth century, a body of evidence of value both to the general historian and to the parochial historian. But the best evidence of the value of the material in these appendices is to be seen in the use which the author has made of them, with other sources, in the reconstruction of the history of the period. Since the time of Carlyle we have been inclined to exaggerate the importance of the military history of the time. The author of this book, however, does not make that mistake. Instead, he emphasizes the fact that the history of Puritanism was in the first place the history of thought, of divinity, — perhaps we may say, polemical divinity. In the Stuart period England took the second step in the nationalization of the church. Henry VIII. had cut it off from Rome. Now the people adopted it, and the offices of the church and membership in the church became elective. The ques- tion of the divine right of kings was accordingly of less importance than that of the divine right of bishops and presbyters, and the power of officers of the church a matter of less serious concern than their virtue, albeit the Puritan was duly impressed with the incompatibility of power and virtue. But while Puritanism was first of all doctrinal, and while Puritan doctrine was logical and systematic as long as it remained merely aca- demic as in Elizabethan Presbyterianism, or merely clerical as in Cove- nanting Presbyterianism, it afterwards became popular, and among the people Puritanism meant not only ecclesiastical doctrine but political theory, and popular doctrine and popular theories were not logical or systematic ; they were inspired, perhaps, by hatred of Rome rather than by love of God, they were critical rather than constructive. Men drew up catalogues of sins with ease, but the conversion of England, they dis- covered, was a more difficult matter. Indeed, the people of England would have been content to remain in that wicked Babylon, as some called episcopacy, had not the Scots urged Presbyterianism upon them as the price of their assistance against the victorious king. The first plan of ecclesiastical reform had been Ussher's, a plan of modified episcopacy. This provided for parochial presbyteries, rural deaneries with monthly synods, dioceses with semi-annual synods, and provinces with triennial synods. The Parliamentary plan, however, was for the government of the church by commissions appointed by Parlia- ment as bishops had been appointed by the King, a chief commission to succeed to the archiepiscopal jurisdiction and county commissions to succeed to the episcopal. But the clergy were unwilling to be responsi- VOL. VI. — 9.