A RETROSPECT OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF ENGLAND; OR, THE CHURCH, PURITANISM, AND FREE INQUIRY. BY JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A., MEMBER OF THE HISTORICO-THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LEIPSIC. "Opportunos magnis conatibus transitus rerum."-Tacitus, Hist. I. 21. Second Edition, revised. LONDON: JOHN CHAPMAN, 142, STRAND. MDCCCLIII. PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. THE idea which possessed my mind, when I first sketched out the plan of this volume, was the desirableness of embracing in a common point of view, the phenomena of the different religious parties, whose unintermitted strife and sharp contrast of manners and opinions have given such a deep and varied interest to the spiritual history of England, during the three centuries which have elapsed since the Reformation. In pursuing this idea, I have tried to discover the governing principle and understand the characteristic working of each party; to apprehend their mutual relation; to show how they have occasionally passed off into each other; and out of their joint operation, to trace the evolution of a more comprehensive principle which looks above the narrowness of their respective views, and, allying itself with the essential elements of the Christian faith, may in time perhaps devise some method of reconciling an unlimited freedom and variety of the religious life with the friendliness and mutual recognition of universal brotherhood. Such an idea it is more easy to conceive than to execute. The more I have read, the more I have felt the inadequacy of my materials for fully developing it; and |