After Henry VIll. established himself as head of the Church there followed a prolonged and fierce struggle between Anglicanism and Roman Catholi- cism for supremacy. During the reign of Edward VI. Protestantism was the State religion and Roman- ism was suppressed, whilst during Mary's reign Roman Catholicism enjoyed a short spell of power and the fires of Smithfield were lit. Under Elizabeth, Protestantism once more regained the upper hand and Roman Catholicism was proscribed. But throughout the protracted conflict between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism religious and political motives were strangely intermixed. The ultimate triumph of Protestantism was largely due to the fact that it was identical with patriotism, wliilst Catholicism was associated with a conti- nental Power's attempt to conquer England. Dur- ing the Stuart period the conflict became a ' three- cornered tight — for Protestantism was divided into two hostile camps, viz. Episcopal ianism and Presbyterianism ; but when the struggle was at its height, Roman Catholicism was out of it.
Protestantism in its struggle with Roman Catholicism allied itself with the patriotic senti- ment of the nation. Episcopalianism in its conflict with Presbj'terianism advocated the absoluteness of the throne, and its right to control the life of its subjects, civil and religious, whilst Presbyterianism, which had embraced the Genevan ideal of a theo- cratic State (see below), allied itself with a demo- cratic movement in favour of parliamentary or constitutional government. It was not a struggle for religious freedom or for liberty of conscience, for there was nothing to choose in the matter of tolerance between Presbyterianism and Episco- palianism, and both parties would willingly, and perhaps conscientiously, have resorted to the use of force, in the form of legislation, to secure the pre- valence of their own creed and mode of worship. It was Cromwell alone who prevented the estab- lishment of Presbyterianism as the State Church.
The restoration of the monarchy carried with it the restitution of Episcopalianism, and there ensued
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PERSECUTION
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a series of laws, perhaps witliont a parallel in any land in point of severity, with a view to the extir- pation of reli^'ious liissidence ; hut towards tlie close of the century the Act of Toleration granted freedom of worship to the ditierent Dissenting bodies, although many of the civil disabilities which were imposed upon Dissent by the repressive legislation of Charlesll. remained and still remain. It was during this period — the second lialf of the 17th cent. — that manj'able advocates of toleration mapped out the respective spheres and functions of the State and the Church, as, e.g., Milton and Locke. From the close of the Stuart period the trend of opinion has been towards separatism, the germ of which is seen in Locke's doctrine that the function of the State is to protect the material interests of the citizens, whilst tlie Church is charged with the cure of souls. This doctrine struck the death-knell of persecution by the State on politico- religious grounds.
It is worthy of mention that the old idea of the absoluteness of the State, and therefore of the right of coercion in religious matters, advocated by pagan Rome, and by Episcopali.anism during the reign of Charles II., has been maintained by many rationalist writers, e.g. Hobbes. Plato had found room for religion in his ideal State, and contended that all citizens should believe in the State gods on pain of imprisonment and death. Hobbes in his Lcviathnn developed the doctrine of the absolute power of the sovereign in all departments, civil and religious. Whether religion was true or false was a matter of no great concern ; the main considera- tion was its utility for purposes of government.
We have observed above that tlie Church may be supreme and the State be controlled and governed by the Church. This is the theocratic ideal of government, and it resulted quite logically from the Reformers' emphasis on the supremacy of con- science or the absoluteness of religion. Separa- tism was not the first choice of the Reformers ; that was only the second best.
From the l'2th cent, the Pope was the dominant figure in European politics. In the Interdict he possessed a weapon which brought princes and kings to the dust before his Holiness. He pos- sessed the keys of heaven and hell. He opened and shut to whomsoever he would. But it was among the Reformers — an important section of them — that the idea of a theocratic State pre- vailed. Their central creed was not the freedom, but the supremacy, of conscience. Savonarola attempted to establish a theocracy in Florence — a State built on the teaching of the Bible. His ide.al was a Christocratic kingdom, but according to his teaching such a kingdom presupposed a redeemed democracy.
Calvin's ideal was a theocratic State. He tried in Geneva the experiment which cost Savonarola his life in Florence. It is impossible to over-estimate the service he rendered to the Reformation. He was the tlieologian as well as the statesman of Protestantism, for he gave systematic expression to its theology and he organized its ecclesiastical polity. In both cases, he maintained, he was building on the Word of God. His theology was based on biblical exposition, as his form of Church government was founded on apostolic practice. But the greatest service, perhaps, which Calvin rendered to Protestantism was the new moral direction which he gave to religion. ' The Protestant movement was saved from being sunk in the quicksands of doctrinal dispute chiefly by the new moral direction given to it at Geneva. The religious instinct of Calvin discerned the crying need of human nature for social discipline. . . . The Chris- tianity of the Aliddle Ages had iireached the base and demoralising surrender of the individual — the