Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/78

58 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 41. With this oration Parliament was prorogued ; and Elizabeth had kept her word to the Queen of Scots. With the Parliament ended also the first Convocation of the English Church of the doings of which some- thing should be said although what Convocation might decide affected little either the stability or the teaching of the institution which it represented. The Church of England had been reproached with teaching no definite doctrine. It was proposed that 'NowelPs Catechism,' ' Edward's Articles/ and 'Jewel's Apology,' lately written at Cecil's instigation, should be bound together and receive authoritative sanction 1 whosoever should speak against the same to be ordered as in cases of hereby.' An effort was made to get rid of vestments and surplices, organs and bells ' the table to stand no more altarwise ; ' the sign of the cross to be abolished in baptism ; and kneeling at the Communion to be left indifferent, or discountenanced as leading to superstition. The more advanced Calvinists demanded the reinvi- goration of that aged iniquity, the Ecclesiastical Courts, with a new code of canon law ; the clergy meanwhile to have power to examine into the spiritual condition of their parishioners ; to admonish them if their state was unsatisfactory; to excommunicate them if admonition failed ; and excommunication to mean the loss of civil rights, imprisonment, fine, and the secular arm. Adul- terers and fornicators were to be put to open shame, flogged at the cart's tail, banished or imprisoned for life ; and moral offences generally were to be dealt with by similar means.