middle of churches, at tables which the Papists irreverently
termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel pronounced the clerical garb
to be a stage dress, a fool's coat, a relique of the Amorites,
and promised that he would spare no labour to extirpate such
degrading absurdities. Archbishop Grindal long hesitated about
accepting a mitre from dislike of what he regarded as the mummery
of consecration. Bishop Parkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that
the Church of England would propose to herself the Church of
Zurich as the absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop
Ponet was of opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to
the Papists, and that the chief officers of the purified church
should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that none
of these prelates belonged to the extreme section of the
Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general sense
of that party had been followed. the work of reform would have
been carried on as unsparingly in England as in Scotland.

But, as the government needed the support of the protestants, so
the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much was
therefore given up on both sides: an union was effected; and the
fruit of that union was the Church of England.

To the peculiarities of this great institution, and to the strong
passions which it has called forth in the minds both of friends
and of enemies, are to be attributed many of the most important
events which have, since the Reformation, taken place in our
country; nor can the secular history of England be at all
understood by us, unless we study it in constant connection with
the history of her ecclesiastical polity.