Chapter III

Queen Elizabeth, an intolerant protestant; her measures—Rise of the puritans; their views and position; persecuted; instances in eastern counties—Account of the “prophesyings;” suppressed by the queen—Continued cruelty—Norfolk and Suffolk petitions—Whitgift’s articles—New commission granted—Aylmer—Puritan clergy summoned to London—William Fleming, rector of Beccles; his connexion with corporation differences; testimony to his worth arising out of them; summoned; deprived of the living—Honourable record of his interment—Justifiableness of his nonconformity.

THE accession of Elizabeth, once more, revived the hearts of the reformers. Her personal character, indeed, afforded no hope of her being favourable to freedom, though her parentage and education led to the reasonable expectation that she would encourage protestantism. Of all that was safe to be believed and fit to be practised, she deemed herself the competent and supreme judge. Regarding the privilege of dissenting from the state religion as part of her prerogative, she exercised that right herself, and then sternly denied it, alike to the learned and the rude, the conscientious and the careless, among her subjects. Her proclamation prohibited all preaching, until consultation should be had by parliament. In that assembly she was no less absolute than elsewhere. The supremacy of the church of England was again vested in the crown, and a statute {54} passed which was designed to establish uniformity in religion, and required all persons, having no lawful or reasonable excuse, to resort to their parish churches, every Sunday, and on all holidays.

Under the authority of the Act of Supremacy, a court was erected, called the court of High Commission, which took cognizance of religious matters, without the aid of a jury. The liturgy was revised, and rendered more palatable to the papists. The clergy were required to comply with all the queen’s injunctions, and at their entrance on their cures, publicly to assent to a declaration of articles of religion, drawn up by the bishops.

Previously to this period, the contest between catholicism and the reformed faith had absorbed all minor differences of opinion. But the frequent changes of the national creed, induced many to consult the Bible for themselves, in order to ascertain its testimony as to faith and discipline. It was impossible the humblest capacity should not perceive that, had it been a part of Christian duty, to conform to the religion patronised and established by the state, that duty had been equally imperative in every successive reign. He whose life had been spared for half a century, must, unless there had been a strange vacillation in his opinions, or, at least, in his professions, have been very fortunate to have escaped the doom of an obstinate heretic.

The _exiles_ of previous reigns had awaked to the perception of the great truth, that no human authority could deprive them of the right, or discharge them from the obligation, of seeking after God and his true worship. Some of them, availing themselves of the liberty they enjoyed upon the continent, had introduced what they deemed a purer, because a more scriptural, form of worship, than had yet been used in England. Returning to their native country on the accession of Elizabeth, they found her little disposed to co-operate with them in carrying on the reformation. A large portion of the clergy desired that the services of religion should be retained as near as possible to the popish form; and those who were favourable to religious liberty, or contended for further purification of the service book from the dregs of superstition, received the contemptuous but honourable name of _puritans_. These questioned not the propriety of a secular establishment of Christianity; but they objected to wearing the popish vestments, and to various ceremonies derived from the same source. {56} They disapproved of some things in the public liturgy, of church festivals, pluralities, non-residence, and lay patrons; they complained of the want of godly discipline, and desired to bring both the faith and polity of the state religion to the test of Scripture. {57} They were eminent for piety and devotedness to the cause of Christ. To say that their views of religious liberty were confused and inconsistent, and that they were themselves intolerant in their temper and conduct, is only to admit that they did not shake off, at the first effort, all the errors of the times in which they lived, and that their course, if it was firm and daring, was not precipitate or impetuous. They were for going fearlessly as far in the path of improvement as they could perceive that the inspired volume invited them: and with a moral magnanimity of which their persecutors dreaded the effect, they bared their souls before God, desiring to receive “ampler communications and superior light.”

Puritanism constituted a sanctuary in which the sacred rights of conscience were preserved and propagated, while the high church party had forgotten and forsaken the ground on which alone a departure from the papal authority could be maintained. The puritans occupy an intermediate position, between the first adherents to protestant popery, and the more enlightened nonconformists of the succeeding century.

They were soon compelled to supply a test of their sincerity in the sacrifices they made. He who omitted _one_ of the most unimportant of the enjoined ceremonies, was deemed “guilty of all.” The most exemplary ministers were silenced; while the profane and the unprincipled were beneficed, upon the sole ground of their unqualified conformity.

Among many who were suspended in Norfolk and Suffolk, may be mentioned Mr. Lawrence, an eminent divine, who had been beneficed in the latter county. When Mr. Calthorpe, “a gentleman of quality,” interposed in his behalf, urging the great want the church had of such men as Mr. Lawrence, whose fitness for his work, he said, the chief men of credit in the county would certify, the bishop pleaded that the queen required him to allow of no ministers but such as were perfectly conformable. {59a}

Dr. Crick and Mr. Sanderson, two learned and useful ministers in Norfolk, and many others in the diocese of Norwich, refusing conformity, were prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts. {59b}

Some of the bishops, {59c} however, sanctioned their clergy in setting up religious exercises among themselves, for the promotion of discipline and the dissemination of scriptural knowledge. These were called _prophesyings_, from the apostolic sentiment, “Ye may all prophesy, one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.” {59d} They furnish the original of similar discussions held, at a subsequent period, among the Brownists, and of which some traces are found in the Independent Church at Beccles soon after its formation.

The clergy who attended these meetings spoke in succession upon the interpretation of a given passage of Scripture, and conferred respecting sound doctrine and a good life. Their names were written in a table, and three took part in each exercise. The first opened and closed the meeting with prayer, and gave his explanation of the text. The other two added any further explanation of the subject and stated their objections. At the close of each meeting, the next speaker was appointed and his subject fixed upon. Those who joined in these “prophesyings” signed, on being admitted, a confession, to the effect that they believed the word of God to be a perfect rule of faith and manners; that it ought to be read and known by all; that its authority not only exceeded that of the pope but of the church also; that they condemned, as a tyrannous yoke, such articles of faith and fashions of serving God as men had enjoined without the authority of his word. “And to this word of God (said they) we humbly submit ourselves and all our doings, willing and ready to be judged, reformed, or further instructed thereby in all points of religion.” {60}

The utility of these grave debates early introduced them into the eastern counties, where they were encouraged by Bishop Parkhurst, till he received a reprimand from the queen, who insisted upon their suppression as “no better than seminaries of puritanism.”

Persecution never fails to foster and spread the principles it attempts to exterminate. Instead of ceasing altogether, the conferences of the clergy assumed a more formidable aspect. Not long afterwards there was an assembly at Mr. Knewstub’s church at Cockfield, near Lavenham, in Suffolk, of sixty clergymen of that county, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire. The subjects for consideration were the Book of Common Prayer, and the extent to which submission to the ecclesiastical authorities was allowable. After repeated adjournments they agreed, that although such of the Articles as contained the sum of Christian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments might properly be subscribed, neither the Common Prayer Book, nor the rest of the Articles, ought; “no, though a man should be deprived of his ministry for refusing it.” {62a} They were desirous, however, of introducing a reformation into the church, without separating from it.

Archbishop Grindal and some other prelates endeavoured to regulate the “prophesyings,” by enjoining the observance of strict order, and by confining them to the conforming clergy. {62b} But this renewed the displeasure of the despotic woman in whose hand, by a fundamental and fatal error, had been placed the supremacy of the church of England. “By means of these assemblies,” her Majesty observes, writing to the bishop of London, “great numbers of our people, especially of the _vulgar sort_, meet to be otherwise occupied with some honest labour for their living, are brought to idleness, seduced, and in manners schismatically divided among themselves into a variety of dangerous opinions.” She commanded that these “exercises” should be forthwith put down, adding an order for the imprisonment of such as should refuse compliance, with a threat of severer punishment, and closing her communication by an insolent menace to the bishop himself. {63a}

Meanwhile, continued oppression induced the ministers of Norfolk to present to the privy council a supplication, in which, after many expressions of loyalty to the queen, they add, “Yet we desire that her Majesty will not think us disobedient, seeing we suffer ourselves to be displaced, rather than yield to some things required. Our bodies and goods, and all we have, are in her Majesty’s hands; _only our souls we reserve to our God_, who alone is able to save us or condemn us.” {63b}

Slaves could not have sued for less; but this was far too extensive a reservation to be allowed. The pacific Bishop Parkhurst having been succeeded by Dr. Freke, a man of very different spirit, seven ministers, in or near Norwich, were soon afterwards suspended. {63c}

Subsequent years brought no mitigation. Besides other instances of ecclesiastical molestation in the East Anglian counties, Mathew Hammond, a poor plough-wright at Hethersett, was condemned by the bishop as a heretic, had his ears cut off, and after the lapse of a week, was committed, in the castle ditch at Norwich, to the more agonizing torment of the flames. {64a}

Many puritan ministers who had livings in Suffolk were prosecuted for neglect or variations in the performance of the public service. Upon this some of the justices of the peace, and other gentry in that county, made a complaint to the privy council; thus declaring their grievance: “We see, right honourable, by too long and lamentable experience, that the state of the church (_especially in our parts_) groweth every day more sick than other; and they whom it most concerneth have been so careless in providing the means, as the hope of her recovery waxeth almost desperate . . . These towers of Zion, the painful pastors and ministers of the word, by what malice we know not,—they are marshalled with the worst malefactors, presented, indicted, arraigned, and condemned, for matters, as we presume, of very slender moment.” {64b} Valuable testimony, since it was borne by men who, nevertheless, avowed, in the very same document, their detestation of the name and heresy of puritanism.

The translation of Dr. Whitgift to the see of Canterbury, {65a} was the signal for augmented rigour. He was charged by the queen to restore religious uniformity, which she confessed, notwithstanding all her precautions, had “run out of square.” {65b} Canute had rebuked the profanity and folly of those who desired him to attempt the repression of the flowing tide. Elizabeth challenged to herself the right to bind, with the fetters of a statute, the immortal spirit. Losing sight of the true nature of religion, and regarding it only as a piece of state machinery, she sought to bend it to her despotic will, and wondered that it continually escaped from her grasp, and scorned her fury.

His Grace forthwith furnished the bishops of his province with certain articles for the government of their dioceses, by which all preaching, catechising, and praying in private families, where any were present besides the family, were prohibited; and it was required, that all preachers should wear the habits prescribed, and that none should be admitted to preach, or execute any part of the ecclesiastical function, unless they subscribed the three following articles:—

“1. That the queen hath and ought to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within her dominions, of what condition soever they be; and that none other power or potentate hath or ought to have any _power_, _ecclesiastical_ or civil, within her realms or dominions.

“2. That the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordaining bishops, priests, and deacons, _containeth nothing contrary to the word of God_, but may be lawfully used, and that _he himself will use the same_, _and none other_, in public prayer and administration of the sacraments.

“3. That he alloweth the Book of Articles agreed upon in the convocation holden at London in 1562, and set forth by her Majesty’s authority; and he believeth _all the articles_ therein contained _to be agreeable to the word of God_.” {67a}

These were called “Whitgift’s Articles,” as he was their principal author. Subscription to them was required, for many years, without the warrant of any statute, or even of any canon.

On the archbishop’s primary metropolitan visitation, a hundred and twenty-four clergymen in Norfolk and Suffolk were suspended in consequence of the application of this test. {67b} Petitions again flowed in from Norwich and Norfolk, and from other counties. But Whitgift opposed every degree of relaxation, “lest the church should be thought to have maintained an error;” and a new commission was granted for the detection of nonconformity, against which even the privy council remonstrated, as a copy of the Spanish Inquisition. {67c}

A conspicuous agent in this commission was Aylmer, bishop of London. At one visitation in Essex he suspended nearly forty ministers. Those who were brought before him, in his progress through the country, were loaded with invective. {68a}

Others were summoned, from distant parts of the kingdom, to appear at St. Paul’s, or at Lambeth. {68b} The inconvenience and expense of travelling at that period rendered their case particularly grievous. They had to answer, upon oath, a string of interrogatories with which they were previously unacquainted, and which could not fail to convict the puritan clergyman on his own testimony. {68c} Too conscientious to conform in all points, he scorned to avert the sword of persecution by the aid of falsehood. If he would have sacrificed his convictions at the shrine of bigotry, and have signed his name where his reason refused assent, he might have revelled in the emoluments of ecclesiastical preferment, although he were

“a sot, or dunce,
Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once.”

But it was enough to extort from him an admission that he had, in any _one instance_, deviated in the slightest particular from the ceremonies; or that he had said or written, publicly or privately, aught against the Book of Common Prayer, or _any thing_ therein contained, as being unscriptural or _inconvenient_;—and although he had evinced the laborious zeal of Paul, displayed the eloquence of Apollos, and exemplified the holy benevolence of John, still—he was a nonconformist—he was cast out.

* * * * *

Among those who were suspended for nonconformity at Archbishop Whitgift’s first visitation, was WILLIAM FLEMING, rector of Beccles.

The information which has been preserved respecting him leads to the conviction that he was a useful and an exemplary man, to a considerable extent influential and beloved; and respected even by his enemies. He had enemies. They who congratulate themselves on having none, have, frequently, cause to inquire whether they are discharging the duties incumbent upon them as members of society, with that high regard to principle which characterized the puritans, and is as remote from the meanness of indecision as from the rancour of mere party zeal.

During Mr. Fleming’s ministry in Beccles, a warm and long continued dispute, occurred between the first grantees from the crown of the tract of marshes already mentioned, {70a} and some of the inhabitants. The grant had been accompanied by extensive powers, which were employed with little moderation. This was naturally a source of dissatisfaction, and led to animosities which ended in a surrender of the property in question to the queen. {70b} The incorporating of the “portreeve, surveyors, and commonalty of the Fen of Beccles,” was the result; an arrangement which met with considerable opposition, from a person named Harsault and others. The plan, however, was probably approved by the more judicious inhabitants, as calculated, in the _then existing_ state of things, to preclude the evils of either a narrower or a broader system of municipal government. Mr. Fleming appears to have lent his influence in support of the new charter.

A commission was issued to Sir Robert Wingfield and others, to attempt an arrangement of these differences. The commissioners met accordingly, at Beccles, and made a return, in which, after expressing their persuasion that the government of the town was likely to proceed in peace, they add: “And furder, whereas by vertue of the same yor ho: letters we are directed to th’ examynac’on of certeyn trobles and molestac’ons brought upon one Mr. Flemyng, the minister there; we fynde the man to be _of verie good desert bothe concerning life and doctryne_, _and to have p’fited the peple there verie greatly_, yet had he ben much trobled by some sorrie instruments issueing from the same spring as we take it; for having hym and them before us, they alledged no cause of offence, but rather iustified the man, and reconciled themselves to hym, except one Harsault, whome we fownde factious, and a man utterlie unworthye of eny good allowance or regarde emongst his honest neighbors.” {72a}

There was, however, one offence of which Mr. Fleming was found guilty. He did not conform in all points to the prescribed ritual. Urged in extenuation of this, the pains of a doubting or the convictions of a settled judgment, the testimony of a good life and the profession of sound doctrine, the attachment of his flock and the usefulness of his ministry—were, in the estimation of the intolerant ecclesiastics, of no value. He was summoned to London {72b} to undergo the mockery of an examination, and to sustain the costs of his journey, and the ultimate loss of his preferment.

Mr. Fleming refused to subscribe Whitgift’s Articles; and the discipline of the ecclesiastical courts having been employed in vain in his correction, the bishop, on the 23rd of July, 1584, deprived him of his living. {72c} He continued to reside in Beccles, probably exercising privately the most essential branches of a minister’s duty, if not, after a time, officiating in the parish church through the connivance of those who were conscious of his value. {74a} He died in 1613; and his interment, on the 8th of September in that year, is recorded in the parochial register in terms which prove that time had not sullied the reputation which persecution had failed to injure, and that when the grave had closed over his remains, he was remembered as the benefactor of his neighbours, and honoured as the founder of a new order of christian ministers among them. The entry, in the oldest register book now preserved, stands thus:

“Bury: Master William Fleming, our minister and faythfull teacher,
the glory of our towne, & father of ye ministery round about us.”
{74b}

From the terms in which the above entry is couched, it seems that Mr. Fleming was the first clergyman in Beccles who had cordially embraced and advocated the doctrines of the Reformation. {75} He had carried out its great principle to an extent which marks him as the father of the protestant _dissenting_ ministry in that place. What were the precise objections made by him to the archbishop’s Articles, is unknown. But the nonconformity of Beccles will appear to have been justifiable in its _origin_, if it be shown that those Articles embraced any point to which, as an upright man, he could not unhesitatingly assent.

It will be recollected that by them he was required solemnly to acknowledge the queen’s _ecclesiastical_ supremacy; and to declare that the authorized ritual contained NOTHING contrary to the word of God; that he would use it _and none other_ in the public service; and that he believed ALL the Thirty-nine Articles to be agreeable to the word of God. There was no room for evasion, no saving or qualifying clause. However trivial or indifferent the ceremony respecting which conscience paused, still, as nothing is trivial when truth and conscience are concerned, he could not with propriety subscribe. His apparent worldly interest and his desire for usefulness would naturally give him a bias towards conformity, and he would lament that matters so unimportant should be imposed as essential terms of preferment; but to have yielded, would have been to have climbed into the fold of Christ over the barrier of truth, to have held his living by the tenure of a solemn and deliberate falsehood.

It is probable that he did not altogether deny the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the queen; though cruelty was already leading many to the conviction that human authority had no proper place in the administration of the kingdom of Christ. But, like the puritans in general, he was, no doubt, deeply impressed with the unscriptural character of popery, and with the mischievous tendency of cherishing any remnant of its idolatrous abominations. The arguments employed against the ceremonies which had been abolished, applied, with equal force, to some which had been retained. The sign of the cross in baptism, the use of the surplice, bowing to the east, and kneeling before the table of the Lord, were as devoid of warrant in the Bible, as the ceremony of following the cross in procession, the use of holy water, ashes, and palms, or the worship of the sacramental wafer. The bishops in the earlier part of Elizabeth’s reign, had looked upon the catholic rites, which had been allowed to creep into the protestant church, as having been only tolerated for a time, and as a blot upon the Reformation, to be wiped off as soon as circumstances would admit. {77a} On the contrary, they were now held up as, each and all of them, essential to the uniformity of religion, and indispensable to the authorized performance of her public services. If Mr. Fleming deemed any one of them contrary to Scripture, as not being conducive to edification, but rather causing offence, {77b} he could not honestly put his signature to the archbishop’s Articles.

Turning over, with anxiety and thoughtfulness, the pages of the Book of Common Prayer, to which he was called upon to give so uncompromising an approval, he may be supposed to have noticed such particulars as the following.

The Creed attributed to Athanasius in effect declared it essential to salvation, not only that the mysterious doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ should be believed, but that the _explanation_ therein attempted of those doctrines should be embraced as “the right faith;” and it denounced the sentence of eternal condemnation against those who did not “thus think,” with a peremptoriness and reiteration amounting to a virtual claim of infallibility. But if he could not discover in the Sacred Records any such explanation of the doctrines in question, nor, consequently, any such conditions of salvation, he might hesitate to declare his belief that those harsh clauses were not at variance with the word of God.

In the Baptism of Infants he would perceive that the priest was required to declare the baptized child to be _regenerated_, and to return thanks to God for so great a blessing. And he might think the doctrine obviously implied in that form, and plainly expressed in the catechism which follows it, “contrary to the word of God,” which treats of regeneration as a change of heart, such as no outward ceremony could confer. {79a}

In the Catechism also, the Common Prayer Book taught that there were two sacraments “generally _necessary_ to salvation,” whereas he might conceive that it was “contrary to the word of God” to make such an assertion respecting either of them, in any instance. {79b}

In the Order for the Visitation of the Sick, the priest was directed to assume authority to “absolve” the penitent sinner: but while he was required to subscribe, as perfectly scriptural, the volume containing that formulary, conscience might be demanding, who can forgive sins but God alone? {80a}

Perhaps Mr. Fleming might apprehend that it was “contrary to the word of God,” which enjoins faithfulness in ministers, and sincerity in all, {80b} to adopt indiscriminately, with reference to all who were not unbaptized, excommunicated, or suicides, the form for the Burial of the Dead. He would gladly have availed himself, it may be, always of some portions, and frequently, of the whole of that beautiful and impressive service, if he might have been excused from expressing alike over the saint and the reviler of holiness—over him who had embraced and him who had denied the creed which all were required to receive as expounded by the church on pain of eternal death—over him who had calmly died in the well-grounded hope of acceptance at the bar of God, and him who had been hurried to that bar from scenes of intemperance or brawling—the same “_sure and certain_ hope” of the resurrection of the deceased to eternal life; and if he had not been called upon, however depraved and hopeless the character of the departed, or however irreparable the breach in society occasioned by his removal, to give Almighty God thanks for taking him to Himself—thanks which the lip must profess to be “hearty,” but to which the heart, in the utmost stretch of charity in the one case, or of self-denial in the other, could not respond.

The version of the Psalms incorporated with the Book of Common Prayer, differed in many respects from that in the authorized version of the Bible, and in one instance directly contradicted it. {81} He, therefore, who acknowledged the more recent version as the word of God, and had noticed the discrepancy, could not, with strict truth, profess his conviction that the Prayer Book contained _nothing_ contrary to the word of God.

Again: one of the Thirty-nine Articles expressly affirmed that “Christ went down into hell.” If Mr. Fleming was not at liberty to assign to this language a meaning such as the words, in the plain literal sense, do not express, and such as the compilers did not intend to convey, he might naturally feel some difficulty in admitting the statement to be “agreeable to the word of God.”

Another of the Articles asserted that Christ rose from death, “and took again his body with _flesh_, _bones_, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature; wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth _until_ he return _to judge_ all men at the last day.” But a contemplative mind, accustomed to bring all its speculations to the test of holy writ, might be ready to assent to the proposition that there is a sense in which the glorified body of Christ is identical with that in which he tabernacled on earth, and yet might venture to doubt whether the language of that Article was altogether “agreeable to the word of God,” in which the distinction is so clearly marked between the “natural” and the “spiritual” body; between that which is sown in corruption, dishonour, and weakness, and that which is raised in incorruption, glory, and power; and in which it is expressly asserted that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” {83} Nor could the concluding words of this Article be regarded as having the warrant of Scripture, by any who were looking for the millennial reign of Christ upon earth.

It is possible that the “penance,” prescribed by another of the Articles as requisite to the restoration of an excommunicated person, would appear to some, to be more consonant with the genius of popery, but less “agreeable to the word of God,” than that _penitence_, without which the garb or the posture of humiliation could avail nothing.

Or, (not to multiply instances further,) perhaps Mr. Fleming was an admirer of instrumental music in public worship, and believed it to have the warrant of Scripture. But by the thirty-fifth Article it is declared that the homilies contained “a godly and wholesome doctrine,” although one branch of the doctrine comprised therein was, that “chaunting and playing upon organs displeased God sore, and filthily defiled his holy house.” {84}

In the above statement, no account has been taken of the invasion of Christ’s authority and of his people’s freedom, implied in the requirement of subscription to _any_ human formulary. Nor is it intended to rest the argument upon the most formidable objections to the Common Prayer Book of the English church in particular. Some of those objections relate to doctrines so momentous, sanctioned under circumstances so peculiarly solemn, as to relieve the dissentient altogether from the suspicion of captious trifling.

But it is submitted to the consideration of the candid reader, whether any hesitancy existing in the mind of a minister of the gospel, on any one of these, or any similar point, would not be enough to justify his declining, at whatever apparent sacrifice of usefulness or emolument, to give his deliberate assent to the propositions contained in Whitgift’s Articles. The law of sincerity binds not to a partial but to a universal obedience. A deep reverence for truth, and a peculiarly tender conscience, are obviously just the qualities most likely to have insured a refusal. Cruel and mischievous indeed must have been the policy which thus demanded an unqualified acquiescence in so heterogeneous a mass of propositions, holding out a premium to the temporizing and careless to fritter away the eternal boundaries of right and wrong. {85}

If the separation which took place among the professed Christians of Beccles at this early period may be designated a schism, the charge does not attach to Mr. Fleming, and those who, probably, seceded with him, but to the parties by whom they were rejected. “Schism is a thing bad in itself, bad in its very nature; separation may be bad or good according to circumstances.” Separation is not necessarily schism; “for while it may be occasioned by crime, it may be occasioned by virtue; it may result in those who depart from intolerance attempted, or intolerance sustained, from the pride of faction, or the predominance of principle, attachment to party, or attachment to truth. A schismatic, in short, _must_ be a sinner, on whichever side he stands; a separatist _may_ be more sinned against than sinning.” {86}

Mr. Fleming was a separatist, he was so by compulsion; but he was not a schismatic: and protestant dissent in Beccles was pure in its source; for it must in justice be traced not to a factious disobedience to the higher powers, but to an act of moral heroism, elicited by the despotism of Queen Elizabeth and the severity of a protestant archbishop.