congregation in the management of [xl] their own affairs, was
extruded from the Church of England, and men like Travers can no
longer appear in her pulpits. Perhaps if a government like that of
Elizabeth, with secular statesmen like the Cecils, and ecclesiastical
statesmen like Whitgift, could have been prolonged, Presbyterianism
might, by a wise mixture of concession and firmness, have been
absorbed in the Establishment. Lord Bolingbroke, on a matter of this
kind a very clear-judging and impartial witness, says, in a work far
too little read, his Remarks on English History:--" The measures
pursued and the temper observed in Queen Elizabeth's time tended to
diminish the religious opposition by a slow, a gentle, and for that
very reason an effectual progression. There was even room to hope
that when the first fire of the Dissenters' zeal was passed,
reasonable terms of union with the Established Church might be
accepted by such of them as were not intoxicated with fanaticism.
These were friends to order, though they disputed about it. If these
friends of Calvin's discipline had been once incorporated with the
Established Church, the remaining sectaries would have been of little
moment, either for numbers or [xli] reputation; and the very means
which were proper to gain these friends, were likewise the most
effectual to hinder the increase of them, and of the other sectaries
in the meantime." The temper and ill judgment of the Stuarts made
shipwreck of all policy of this kind. Yet speaking even of the time
of the Stuarts, but their early time, Clarendon says that if Bishop
Andrewes had succeeded Bancroft at Canterbury, the disaffection of
separatists might have been stayed and healed. This, however, was
not to be; and Presbyterianism, after exercising for some years the
law of the strongest, itself in Charles the Second's reign suffered
under this law, and was finally cast out from the Church of England.