system; then Hooker, with still more massive learning, fortified it against the attacks of the Puritans, and indicated the limits of possible concession.
The onslaught of Calvinism gradually died away before the appeal to Christian antiquity and the history of the Christian Church. Whitgift, as Archbishop, could exercise stronger discipline over the clergy than Parker had ventured on. Yet Whitgift was content with demanding an acknowledgment that the Prayer-book was unobjectionable. He asked only for outward uniformity and obedience to the law. It was unfortunate that the last demand was so convenient in its form; for it suggested a mass of enlightened opinion, which was not convinced by argument or by reference to strictly ecclesiastical principles, but was suppressed by a system imposed from motives of public policy. However, the influence of Calvinism as a system of Church government and discipline gradually waned. When it assumed a merely doctrinal aspect Whitgift was willing to make large concessions. It was for wiser heads than his to see that the theology of Calvin had already exercised its due influence on the English Church, and that further definition on the dubious points contained in the Lambeth articles was not desirable. The Hampton Court Conference emphasised the fact that Calvinism was not to change the system of the Church; that the Prayer-book stood the test of Scripture interpreted by primitive usage; and that this interpretation was not to be set aside in favour of the private judgment of the most eminent theologians of the sixteenth century.
