For a time they were partially successful in this work,
especially in simplifying the ritual and in giving a Calvinistic tinge
to the doctrines. In doing this they showed no conscious tendency toward
freedom of thought, but rather a bigotry quite as intense as that which
animated the system against which they were fighting. The most advanced
liberalism of Elizabeth's time was not to be found among the Puritans,
but in the magnificent treatise on "Ecclesiastical Polity" by the
churchman Richard Hooker. But the liberalism of this great writer, like
that of Erasmus a century earlier, was not militant enough to meet the
sterner demands of the time. It could not then ally itself with the
democratic spirit, as Puritanism did. It has been well said that while
Luther was the prophet of the Reformation that has been, Erasmus was the
prophet of the Reformation that is to come, and so it was to some extent
with the Puritans and Hooker. The Puritan fight against the hierarchy
was a political necessity of the time, something without which no real
and thorough reformation could then be effected. In her antipathy to
this democratic movement, Elizabeth vexed and tormented the Puritans
as far as she deemed it prudent; and in the conservative temper of the
people she found enough support to prevent their transforming the church
as they would have liked to do.
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