The story of English Congregationalism Author:Thomas Hooper Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE III CONGREGATIONALISM ITS STRUGGLES AND GROWTH DURING THE STUART AND COMMONWEALTH PERIODS. I. James I. became King iof England in 1603. Before h... more »e was proclaimed King the Puritans and Separatists hoped great things from him. For in 1590, in the midst of the General Assembly at Edinburgh, standing with his bonnet off and lifting his eyes to heaven, " he praised God that he was born in the time of the light of the Gospel, and in such a place as to be King of such a Church, the sincerest kirk in the world." Said he : "I charge you my good ministers, doctors, elders, nobles, gentlemen and barons to stand to your purity and to exhort the people to do the same : and I forsooth as long as I brook my life shall maintain the same." Truth-loving men expected him to keep his word, but they soon found out that his word could not be relied on. He was a strange mixture. Green says : " His gabble, his rhodomontade, his want of personal dignity, his buffoonery, his coarseness of speech, his pedantry, his contemptible cowardice . . . made him ridiculous." Bishop Burnet says : " James I. was the scorn of his age, a mere pedant, without true judgment, courage or steadiness, his reign was a continued course of mean practices." Sully very well called him " the wisest foolin Christendom." He continually boasted ot what he called " kingcraft," and was constantly telling his Parliament that they held their privileges merely during his pleasure, and that they had no more business to inquire what he might lawfully do than what the Deity might lawfully do. Although a liar and a drunkard, he was devout and delighted in theological discussion, and firmly believed that God had given him a divine right to be king. 2. From the day of his accession to the English throne James I. proved himself ...« less