These floating elements of Puritanism had, however, very little compactness and unity except in the one particular of opposition to the principles and practices which then prevailed in the Church of England. But in the latter years of Henry VIII's reign, Calvin was consolidating a system of doctrine, worship, and ecclesi- astical discipline which was exactly calculated to unite in a wieldy form the individual particles which had previously been comparatively powerless for want of cohesion. Calvin gained some personal influence iii England by means of pertinacious letters addressed to the king, the protect >r Somerset, and archbishop Cran- mer; but the principles of his system were chiefly propagated through the introduction of some of his foreign disciples into positions of influence in the Church of England. Thus an Italian named Pietro Vermigli, who had been an Augustinian friar, was made regius professor of divinity at Oxford, and is known to history as Peter Martyr (q. v.). A similar appoint- ment was made at Cambridge, where the regius pro- fessor of divinity was a German named Martin Bucer (q. v.), who had been a Dominican friar. Paid Biieher, or Fagius, a companion of Bucer, was destined for the professorship of Hebrew at Cambridge, but died in 1549. Bernard Ochinus (q. v.), ex-vicar-general of the Capuchin friars and confessor to pope Paul III, came from Geneva with Peter Martyr, and was made canon of Canterbury, being afterwards banished from place to place on the Continent for his Soeiuianism and his advocacy of polygamy. John a Lasco, the Pole, was an inmate of Lambeth Palace, where he and other foreigners formed a kind of Calvinistic privy council to Cranmer; and John Knox (A.D. 1505-72), the Scotch preacher, was at one time carrying out his duties as chaplain to the young king, and at another going on a roving commission to preach down the Church in Nor- thumberland, Durham, and the other northern counties (Jackson, Works, iii, 273).
It was not to be expected from his character that Henry VIII, though he rescued the kingdom from the papal yoke, would proceed very far in reforming the religion of the country. His successor, however, Ed- ward VI. a young prince of earnest piety, was likely, had his valuable life been spared, to have carried out a real reform, which would have rendered the Church of England more simple in her ritual and more strict ii\ her discipline than she has ever had it in her power to be. But Mary succeeded to the throne, and the an- cient superstitions were restored. Several congrega-
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tions of German Protestants, fleeing from Continental persecution, bad found an asylum in England. One of the principal of these was settled in London under the pastoral care of John a Lasco, a mau of great repute, the friend and patron of Erasmus; while another was placed by the duke of Somerset, the protector during the king's minority,at Glastonbury, upon the lands of the famous monastery then recently dissolved. The influence of the foreigners in matters of religion, bow- ever imperceptible, must have already been such as to excite suspicion, for they were commanded to leave the kingdom without delay. Nor did they retire alone. A furious hurst of persecution drove a\ i « 1 1 them a thou- sand Englishmen, who felt that to remain at home \\a~ to inenr a needless hazard. The Low Countries, the free cities of the Rhine, and Switzerland were now rilled with these wanderers. Frankfort, Basle, Zurich, and Geneva particularly attracted them: for there the doc- trines of the Reformation had taken the strongest hold, ami there its most eminent professors dwelt. Mingled with these were the leaders of the Continental Refor- mation. The English refugees had constant inter- course with Calvin, with Gualter, with Peter Martyr, and John a Lasco. and. above all. with Henry Bullinger.
On the death of Mary, the English exiles returned home, " bringing nothing back with them." says Ful- ler, "but much learning and some experience." It, i.s likely that they were influenced by the manners of the German churches. On their return to England, the contrast between the splendor of the English ceremoni- al and the simplicity of that abroad was the more strik- ing. Their opponents never ceased to attribute much of the discontent that followed to the Genevan exile. "They were tor the most part Zwiii"dian-e;nspellers at their going hence.'' says lleylin, " and became the great promoters of the Puritan faction at their coming home." The Puritans themselves were never unwilling to own their obligations to the German Reformers, still, how- ever, founding their scruples rather upon what they themselves conceived to he the absence of scriptural simplicity than upon the practice of other Christians. The question of the hahits. or. as it has since been termed, the vesliarian controversy (q. v.), most unset- tled them, and it then began to wear an anxious, if not a threatening aspect.
It was urged by the dissatisfied party that the im- position of the vestments was an infringement ofth tr (hri>iian liberty. They were called under the Gospel to worship God in spirit .and in truth: and no outward forms or splendors could contribute in any w assist the devout mind in a service so spiritual and ex- alted, tin the trary. the tendency of these official
garments was to distract the worshipper, and to debase