THE HISTORY OF NONCONFORMITY IN PLYMOUTH. 45 
subsequently had the grant of the advowson of St. Andrew, they 
must have been regarded as thoroughly loyal. 
All this would seem rather to indicate the spirit of Gallio than 
that of Geneva. Still the Puritanic leaven must have been strongly 
at work, at least in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign. Indeed 
so strongly marked does the Puritanism of Plymouth become that, 
whatever outward conformity to Catholicism there may have been 
under Mary, I believe the principles of the Reformed religion had 
continued to be firmly held, and that it was only in seeming, and 
not in fact, that Plymouth went back to the old faith. 
The early Puritan was not a Nonconformist. He was simply a 
religious reformer within the pale of the Church, who differed from 
it, not in doctrine, but concerning the retention of vestments and 
ceremonials, which seemed to him to savour of Popery. His 
morality was severe, his piety ardent, his principles narrow, and 
in obstinate fidelity to conviction he gave place to no man. 
Puritanism grew more rigid after the accession of Elizabeth. The 
men who fled beyond seas to escape the Marian persecutions had 
become largely imbued with the principles and practice of foreign 
Protestantism. 
A numerous and earnest body rejected the liturgy of King 
Edward, and adopted the Presbyterian scheme. Hence early in 
the reign of Elizabeth the divergence between the two sections of 
the Reformers widened to the inclusion of the question of dis- 
cipline. Both, as Neal* says, agreed that there ought to be 4 'one 
religion, one uniform mode of worship, one form of discipline and 
of church government for the whole nation, with which all should 
comply outwardly, whatever their inward sentiments might be." 
They differed eventually, not only on the form of that religion, 
but upon its legal foundation — its relation to the State. It was 
not until after several years of hot conflict, bitter enmity, and of 
persecution on the side of power, that the Puritans distinctly 
severed themselves from the national church, and established 
separate Presbyterian worship. 'Nov was this decisive step taken 
until the Puritan ministers had been ejected and, so far as could 
be, silenced. And even then the struggle to influence the character 
of the national Church continued. 
We have evidence of markedly Puritan feeling in this diocese. 
* Neal's " History of the Puritans," the leading authority for many of the 
statements in the earlier part of this lecture. 
