discipline and government, but in the general spirit in which the Reformation in the two countries was being conducted.  But an alliance of the kind contemplated would perhaps have been carried out had it not been for the bigotry which insisted upon signature of the Augsburg Confession.  Queen Elizabeth was at one time inclined to join on behalf of England the Smalcaldic League of German Protestants, but the same obstacle intervened.[322] Cromwell is said to have cherished a great project of establishing a permanent Protestant Council, in which all the principal Reformed communities in Europe, and in the East and West Indies, would be represented under the name of provinces, and designs for the promotion of religion advanced and furthered in all parts of the world.[323] Such projects never had any important results.  Statesmen, as well as theologians, often felt the need of strengthening the whole Protestant body by an organised harmony among its several members, something akin to that which gives the Roman Catholic Church so imposing an aspect of general unity.  The idea was perhaps essentially impracticable, as requiring for its accomplishment a closer uniformity of thought and feeling than was either possible or desirable among Churches whose greatest conquest had been a liberty of thinking.  As between England and Germany, one great impediment to a cordial understanding arose out of the differences between Lutheran and Reformed.  So long as the English Church was under the guidance of Cranmer and Ridley, it was not clear to which of these two parties it most nearly approximated.  In the reign of Edward VI. the Calvinistic element gained ground—­a tendency as much resented by the one party abroad as it was welcomed by the other.  The English clergymen who found a refuge in the Swiss and German cities were treated with marked neglect by the Lutherans, but received with great hospitality by the Calvinists.[324] At a later period, when Presbyterianism had for the time gained strong ground in England, the attitude had become somewhat reversed.  The Reformed or Calvinistic section of German Protestants sided chiefly with the Presbyterians; the Lutherans with the English Churchmen.[325] In a word, notwithstanding all professions of more liberal sentiment, the hankering after an impossible uniformity was, on either side of the Channel, too strong to permit of cordial union or substantial unity.  It was often admitted in theory, but not often in practice, that the principles of the Reformation must be left to operate with differences and modifications according to the varying circumstances of the countries in which they were adopted.  Bucer and Peter Martyr, Calvin and Bullinger, made it almost a personal grievance that the English retained much which they themselves had cast aside.[326] Laud exhibited the same spirit in a more oppressive form when he insisted that, in spite of the guarantees given by Elizabeth and James I., no foreign Protestants should remain in England who would not conform to the established liturgy.[327]