Hooker , arguing that human reason and common sense were to have their place alongside the Bible and Church authority , poured sanctified oil on troubled waters . there were plenty of cross-currents in those waters and clergy who would solemnly have proclaimed their loyalty to that prayer book found as many ways of interpreting that loyalty as they do to-day . many such men would find they could conscientiously remain in this comprehensive Church . but for some of them the path must end in schism . by that time , however , the Anglican prayer book , suppressed though it would be , would have become indigenous . and would have been the primer of saints - Lancelot Andrewes , George Herbert , Jeremy Taylor , Margaret Godolphin , and so many others . the new century opened with James 1 ascending the throne . he was quite prepared to be tolerant towards Rome though the gunpowder plot spoiled that . the puritans had high hopes , for James had grown up in Presbyterian Scotland , but those hopes were dashed . true , a new prayer book was issued in 1604 but the puritans derived little comfort from it . they objected to the word absolution . so the phrase or the remission of sins was added . but absolution remained . they objected to the word confirmation . so the phrase or the laying on of hands upon children baptized and able to render an account of their faith according to the catechism following were added . but confirmation remained . other changes in the book were equally minor except for the new section on the sacraments added to the catechism . this indicated how ephemeral in the Church had been the mood which produced the black rubric , for it says that the body and blood of Christ , which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord &apos;s supper . it could hardly be more definite . it was at this time , too , that King James made himself immortal by becoming associated with a Bible translation - the authorized version ( which was never actually authorized ! ) . in that year Shakespeare had just turned forty and had written Hamlet two years before . Bacon was at work and Milton was just learning to read . James was followed by Charles , in whose reign came the Scottish prayer book in 1637 . significantly this made a deliberate return to the book of 1549 and became the foster mother of some of the most important prayer books in the Anglican communion . forever associated with Charles is Archbishop Laud , now so much nobler a figure than former historians led us to believe . Laud was enthusiastically hated by Calvinists and puritans , and the sentiment was mutual . but Laud was no Romanizer . one of his first public acts was a hard-hitting battle with the Jesuit , Fisher . but anyone who was friendly with James and Charles , the puritans argued , was necessarily a menace . all Laud &apos;s statements in favour of a Church both catholic and reformed , all the many evidences that Laud fully represented the heart of the English reformation in his beliefs , meant nothing to those who had drunk deep at Calvinistic springs . Laud was called upon to do severe things . what else could an archbishop do when he found that clergy had lost interest in their jobs ? or when he found cock-fighting going on in church ? Laud made a positive approach . he set out to increase a sense of reverence . the prayer book was to be respected and so was the office of a bishop . altars should be altars and not any broken down , transportable table which was handy for the most improbable uses . Laud &apos;s motives were of the highest but his tact did not match them . once convinced he was right , he was willing to go to most lengths to establish the fact . and so he became hated . and executed . and in the same year , 1644 , the prayer book was declared illegal - partly on the ground that it had proved an offence to the reformed Churches abroad . the puritan leaders were plotting ( though they did not use colourful things like gunpowder in interesting places like the Houses of parliament ) . both Church and state were their target . the doctrine of the divine right of kings made the bull &apos;s eyes of these targets almost indistinguishable . no bishop , no king , said James . and no king , no bishop was the obvious implication . Charles went even further and asserted a king could do no wrong . in 1629 he dissolved parliament and announced he would govern by royal prerogative . there was no outlet for the expanding gases of criticism and the explosion grew . for Scotland the introduction of the prayer book had been the signal . in England the puritans &apos; day came in 1640 and the long parliament began . English churches suffered yet another despoliation . and Evelyn the diarist could record another sad day ! the church now in caves and dens of the earth . to secure such an end men like Will Dowsing undertook to smash churches at 8 s 6 d a time . he was disgusted in one place where he had only 3 s 4 d because there were no more than ten superstitious pictures and a cross to be destroyed . finally , in 1649 , Charles was beheaded and a thrill of horror ran through the country . a dead king and a ravaged faith . it was these very excesses which sounded the death knell of the puritans as a ruling force . but we can not leave this chapter with a picture of unrelieved gloom . these were also the days when Lancelot Andrewes was writing his preces privatae as well as being a great bishop . the days , too , of George Herbert , many of whose poems have become much-loved hymns . it was now that John Cosin , one day to be a bishop , was growing up and preparing to make a major liturgical contribution as soon as opportunity offered . contemporary with them was Jeremy Taylor whose holy living and holy dying have helped so many to achieve those titles . and it was the time when Nicholas Ferrar was making his fascinating experiments in Christian community living at Little Gidding . an interesting age ! chapter nine . the seventeenth-century sixties . no Christian can lightly condemn an age and a system of belief which produced Richard Baxter and the saints &apos; everlasting rest or John Bunyan and pilgrim &apos;s progress . it was the same age , too , which gave birth to George Fox and the society of friends . all Christendom has surely been enriched by Fox &apos;s striving for direct access to God and his joy when he felt he had attained it and the whole earth had a new smell . political history , too , must surely have been poorer without the particular concept of equality which the quakers were to propagate . even the brand image of the day , Cromwell , must remain memorable for many things other than his warts . dictator though he inevitably became , Cromwell had no burning desire to prescribe religious conformity . true , he would have no truck with bishops or a prayer book . but he burned for the preaching of a pure word , yearned for the reform of morals , and gave England a nearer approach to religious liberty than it had known . I meddle not with any man &apos;s conscience , he said . but there were times when his actions implied he assumed that Romans and Anglicans had no conscience and hence needed his strong treatment . and Irishmen , were , of course , another matter altogether . there was still so very far to go . English people , for example , did not think much of that degree of liberty which forbade them to observe Christmas day . England was merry England when old Christmas brought his sports again , said Sir Walter Scott . and men soon tired of those who hated bear-baiting , not because it gave pain to the bear , but because it gave pleasure to the spectators , as Macaulay expressed it . what &apos;s more , people wanted God &apos;s blessing on their weddings . but only civil marriages were allowed . the twenty years of the commonwealth proved a negative , inhibiting experience . the puritans were obsessed with their own theological gloom and snuffed any tiny candle of pleasure which came within their reach . they went straight to the old testament for a religion designed for doughty desert nomads . the restoration of Church and King in 1660 was as much for basic human reasons as for ideological motives . it was not so much because Richard Cromwell had a weak character as because that for which he stood was , in the truest sense of the word , unnatural . Christianity is for the fullness of man , not for his suppression . and that was why the bells rang out and bonfires blazed as Charles came back . the temporary dalliance with puritanism had shown that salvation , as well as joy , lay elsewhere . how much greater the pity , then , that Charles 2 could not prove more worthy on taking up the crown . how unfortunate that his name must remain associated in the popular mind with Nell Gwynn , oranges and low comedy . and how sad that Charles should have attempted the same sort of rigorous suppression as had disfigured English history for so long . Bunyan and Bedford Gaol were one example . and there were the conventicle act which forbade meetings for worship where the prayer book was not used , the licensing act which imposed a rigid press censorship , the five-mile act which made nonconformist ministers wanderers in the wilderness , and others which made notorious the name of Clarendon and his code . then there was the test act which insisted that all civil or military officers should take the oath of supremacy and allegiance and receive the holy communion according to the Church of England rite . it was such legalistic ham-fistedness which was to make the life of the Church of England such an artificial observance for so many in the following century . and such a situation was imposed by the state , not initiated by the Church . there is so much one could condemn about these sixties of three centuries ago . but there is so much also which one welcomes , not least the 1662 prayer book , born under such strange portents . we no longer look starry-eyed and refer to this incomparable book . time has turned its wheel and prescribed revision as now overdue . but we must revise only in the full awareness of what this book has meant . first of all , however , we look at its immediate background . before Christmas 1660 five editions of the 1604 book had been printed . fifteen years without a prayer book had certainly not made people forget it or lose interest in it . but most people regarded these reprints of the 1604 book as a stopgap . a revision was clearly called for and the object of that revision was clearly expressed by nine bishops who were still alive . the nearer the forms come to the ancient liturgy of the Greek and Latin Churches , the less are they liable to the objections of the common enemy . on October 25 , 1660 , Charles issued a statement calling a conference of all interested parties . on August 15 , 1661 , at the Savoy Hospital , that conference met . to it came twelve bishops ( including John Cosin of Durham , Robert Sanderson of Lincoln , and Gilbert Sheldon of London ) and twelve puritan divines ( including Richard Baxter ) . the Bishop of London presided . as far as the bishops were concerned , it was obvious and natural that the Church &apos;s prayer book should be restored . the onus of argument was therefore placed on the puritans who had plenty to say . practically all of them wanted , for example , the surplice , the sign of the cross in baptism , kneeling to receive the holy communion , the season of Lent , and the use of a ring in marriage to be abolished . they wanted prayer to be extemporary and unfettered . there were actually puritans who took this principle to such an extreme that they described the Lord &apos;s prayer as a Popish invention ! the puritans wanted Sunday to become the Lord &apos;s day and Sabbatarian gloom to prevail . it is easy to condemn all this but we must never forget their very real zeal for righteousness . had the objectors concentrated on one or two points of real doctrinal importance , says Bishop Moorman , they might have made some impression on their opponents , but their absorption in details of little moment was their undoing . 