The conflict between Anglicans and puritans over so basic a Reformation assumption as the authority of conscience represents more than a theological disagreement. When Donne cast conscience down from the lofty height where it had been enthroned in the previous century and substituted for it the authority of the hierarchy, he was articulating not so much an ecclesiological position as an approach to the problem of social order – one which seems to have had very little to do with his theology. It was in fact a Catholic approach, and Donne adopted it not because of any identification with the doctrine of his popish foes, but because it happened that Catholics had recognized before protestants the antiauthoritarian possibilities inherent in the exaltation of conscience. It was the similar concern of the Anglican and Catholic hierarchies with social order which prompted them to re-emphasize the primacy of constituted authorities.