could heartily sympathise. The union of England and Scotland was at this time a main object of the new Sovereign; and Bacon, whose theory was that no empire should be "nice in point of naturalisation"1 seconded the King's efforts in a Brief Discourse touching the Happy Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. This treatise, said to have been printed in 1603, embodies one of Bacon's favourite doctrines, viz.: that certain Axioms of what he calls Prima Philosophia, are as applicable to politics as to natural philosophy.

There is a great affinity, he says, between the rules of Nature and the true rules of policy. The Persian magic, in old days, was nothing but an application of the contemplation of Nature to politics; for indeed the celestial bodies and the heavens in their relations with the earth and sea, exhibit the relations between king and subjects. Everything in Nature has a private and a public affection; as, for example, iron has a private amity with the loadstone, but a public and general affection for the earth. In small matters, the private; in large, the public affection must be obeyed. As in Nature, so in kingdoms, there may be "compositio," i.e. union without a new form, or "mistio," i.e. union under a new form. The former is the easier, but the latter, the Roman system of "commistio," is the wiser and happier. The hand of man can in a short time bind the graft to the stock (" compositio "); but it must be left to Time and Nature to convert contiguity into continuity. Another necessary condition is that the lesser must be merged in the greater; else there will be defection, as in the days when the ten tribes of Israel revolted from the King of Judah. The hint as to the need of time may be illustrated by Bacon's letter to the Earl of Northumberland in the April of this year (1603), "He (the King) hasteneth to a mixture of both kingdoms and nations faster perhaps than policy will conveniently bear."

1 Essays, xxix. 151.

2 Spedding, iii. 90.

3 Essays, xxix. 156.

§ 14 BACON'S ADVICE ON CHURCH POLICY

The approaching Hampton Court Conference (deferred to January, 1604,) between the Bishops and Puritans drew from Bacon a treatise on the Pacification and Edification of the Church. It was written after he had received from the King a gracious recognition of his treatise on the Union of the Kingdoms; but the exact date of composition is uncertain. It was, however," presented to the King at his first coming in;" and an early date is almost necessitated by internal evidence. Bacon is here exhibited speaking his own mind freely, and no longer under the pressure of the anti-Puritan influence of Elizabeth. In the Advertisement touching Church Controversies (1589) he had gone as far as he dared in the direction of the Puritans; but now, in ignorance of the attitude that James might take, amid a general anticipation of change, and with a not unnatural expectation that a Scotch King would be free from the prejudices of Anglican Ecclesiasticism, he goes very much further indeed.

He advocates reform in the Church, as a remedy no less necessary in ecclesiastical than in civil matters, and especially seasonable in "the spring of a new reign"; for in Church government, as in civil government, there may be variety according to time, place, and circumstance. A set form of prayer appears to him desirable, but it would be well to discontinue the use of the term " Priest" and the General Absolution.

"Taking the Absolution, it is not unworthy consideration whether it may not be thought unproper and unnecessary; for there are but two sorts of Absolution, both supposing an obligation precedent; the one upon an Excommunication, which is religious and primitive; the other upon Confession and Penance, which is superstitious, or at least positive; and both particular, neither general. Therefore since the one is taken away, and the other hath his proper case, what doth a general Absolution, wherein there is neither Penance nor Excommunication precedent? And surely I may think this at the first was allowed in a kind of spiritual discretion, because the Church thought the people could not be suddenly weaned from their conceit of assoiling, to which they had been so long accustomed."

1 Spedding, Works, iii. 102.

The rite of Confirmation also appears to Bacon to be a mistake, at all events in its present shape:

"For Confirmation, to my understanding, the state of the question is whether it be not a matter mistaken and altered by time; and whether that be not now a subsequent to Baptism, which was indeed an inducement to Communion. For whereas in the primitive Church children were examined in their faith before they were admitted to the Communion, time may seem to have turned it to refer as if it had been to receive a confirmation of their Baptism."

To private Baptism he utterly objects as superstitious and unnecessary; and the use of the ring in the Marriage Service appears to him repellent even to common sense and still more to the feelings of the learned and pious :

"For private baptism by women or lay persons, the best divines do utterly condemn it, and I hear it not generally defended. And I have often marvelled that-when the book, in the Preface to Public Baptism, doth acknowledge that Baptism, in the practice of the primitive Church, was anniversary, and but at set and certain times, which sheweth that the primitive Church did not attribute so much to the ceremony as they would break an outward and general order for it-the book should afterwards allow of private Baptism, as if the ceremony were of that necessity, as the very Institution which committed Baptism only to the Ministers should be broken in regard of the supposed necessity. And therefore this point, of all others, I think was but a concessum propter duritiem cordis.

"For the form of celebrating matrimony, the ring seemeth to many, even of vulgar sense and understanding, a ceremony not grave-specially to be made (as the words make it) the essential part of the action. Besides some other of the words are noted in common speech to be not so decent and fit."

He would retain the use of music in churches, while condemning "the curiosity of division and reports and other figures of music" which have "no affinity with the reasonable service of God, but were added in the more pompous times." The cap and surplice he would give up.

"For the cap and surplice-since they be things in their nature indifferent and yet held by some superstitious, so that the question is between science and conscience-it seems to fall within the compass of the Apostle's rule, which is that the stronger do descend and yield to the weaker. Only the difference is, that it will be materially said, that that rule holds between private man and private man, but not between the conscience of a private

man and the order of a Church. But, since the question, at this time, is of a toleration, not by connivance which may encourage disobedience, but of a law which may give a liberty, it is good again to be advised whether it fall not within the equity of the former rule; the rather because the silencing of Ministers by this occasion is (in this scarcity of good preachers) a punishment that lights upon the people, as well as upon the party."

The discontinued exercise of "prophesying," i.e., expounding the Scriptures, at meetings of the clergy, should be revived. Ministers should be more deliberately and regularly ordained; excommunications should be issued only for weighty offences and then not from the deputies, but from the Bishops themselves assisted by assessors. As the number of benefices exceeds the number of suitable Ministers, pluralities must be allowed, or else preachers must be allowed to serve, by turn, parishes that are without Ministers. Impropriations ought to be, but cannot be, restored to the Church; and therefore, as the State took away the tithes from the Church it is bound to do somewhat for the support of Ministers.1

This treatise completely disposes of the notion that Bacon was a sound Anglican and an approver of Whitgift's attitude toward the Puritans. All the reforms he advocates, the abolition of private baptism by laymen, the discontinuance of the rite of confirmation, of the ring in the marriage service, of the cap and surplice, and of ornate church music, were demanded in the petition presented to James, on his progress to London in 1603 by Puritan Ministers, and commonly called the Millenary Petition. As far as regards religious ceremonial, Bacon was himself at this time (1604) a Puritan in his personal inclinations, though not a Puritan in the sensible, statesmanlike breadth of mind with which he regarded the bitter controversies of the extreme parties concerning matters in themselves petty. Of all the papers composed by Bacon on ecclesiastical subjects, this is by far the most important, because here, and here alone, he is speaking his own mind, freed from external pressure.2

1 In July 1603 James informed the Universities that he intended to devote to the maintenance of preaching Ministers such impropriate tithes as he was able to set aside for that purpose. But Whitgift immediately remonstrated, and the matter was dropped.-Gardiner, History, i. 151.

* Yet Dean Church-who merely alludes to this treatise in three or four words as a moderating paper on the Pacification of the Church (Bacon, p. 69)—gives

"

In the Advice to Queen Elizabeth (1584) he dares not express his opinion that the expulsion of the Puritan preachers by the Bishops is a very evil and unadvised course," without "first protesting to God Almighty" that he is not "given over, nor so much as addicted, to their preciseness;" in the treatise On the Controversies of the Church (1589), although he condemns principally the injuries that come from "them that have the upper hand," he does not venture to suggest any changes in the Prayer Book, and arbitrates so impartially between the two parties that he himself does not expect " to be grateful to either part." In a letter about the same date (1589-90)-apparently modified at the suggestion of Whitgift,' and then re-written by Bacon-in which he defends the Queen's treatment of the Puritans, he still further does violence to his own feelings and has nothing but condemnation for the Nonconformist party three or four pages to the discussion of the paper on Controversies in the Church, and adds, "Certainly, in the remarkable paper on Controversies in the Church (1589) Bacon had ceased to feel or to speak as a Puritan" (ib. 12). Possibly Bacon was too broad-minded, too much centered in philosophy, and too much detached from formal theology, ever to "feel or speak as a Puritan." But it is certain that he advocated changes in the direction of Puritanism far more strongly in 1603 than in 1589.

1 Spedding, i. 96, 97. It is perhaps in reference to this letter that Dean Church says (Bacon, p. 12), "He was proud to sign himself the pupil of Whitgift and to write for him.'

Bacon was always "proud" to write for those in authority and far too willing to make himself the "pen" for expressing opinions which he afterwards disavowed. But, apart from this general disposition of his, I do not know any evidence that he was specially "proud" to perform this rather insincere service. The letter was not written in his own name, but in the name of Walsingham, addressed to an official in France: and, though Bacon did not decline to do the work nor to "frame the alterations" dictated by the Master of his old college, there is no indication at all that he was "proud" of his work, or satisfied with the alterations. Here is his note to Whitgift to speak for itself :—

"IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GRACE,

"TO MY LORD OF CANTERBURY.

"I HAVE Considered the objections, perused the statutes, and framed the alterations, which I send; still keeping myself within the brevity of a letter and form of narration, not entering into a form of argument or disputation. For, in my poor conceit, it is somewhat against the majesty of princes' actions to make too curious and striving apologies; but rather to set them forth plainly, and so as there may appear an harmony and constancy in them, so that one part upholdeth another. And so I wish your Grace all prosperity. "From my poor lodging this, etc.,

Your Grace's most dutiful

PUPIL AND SERVANT."

Mr. Spedding remarks on the paper in question: "It is to be remembered indeed that it was not written in his own name, and that his was not the last judgment which was to be satisfied. Whitgift, as well as Walsingham, had a strong personal interest in the matter, nor did he want either authority or opportunity to correct his old pupil's exercise. If the original manuscript should ever be discovered I think traces will be found where the style and logic halt a little, of the Primate's hand."