صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

clergy were not backward in seizing the power laid before them, nor can it be doubted that their intemperance and haughtiness increased an opposition that would have rapidly melted away under a liberal policy. The religion of the church of England was not the religion of the people, but it had, to a great extent, become identified with loyalty; and the friends of the king would, in his cause, have rapidly ranged themselves under any standard that did not demand too great a sacrifice of conscience. But the dissenters were ill disposed to give their adhesion to a church that asked not for a friendly union, but magisterially ordered unqualified obedience; they could not fraternize with those by whom their name, their ceremonies, their belief were viewed with a derision not often concealed. The puritans of the days of Cromwell, and the dissenters even afterwards, might frequently, by an overstrained piety, uncouth phraseology, and the ungainly gesticulations of their enthusiasm, have afforded good subject of ridicule to the witty or thoughtless, but generally speaking, they were sincere in their faith, and unspotted in their conduct. An advancing state of literature and civilization was rapidly wearing away their asperities, and was leaving them as men and citizens, the ornaments of society, and strength of a kingdom. It was impolicy in a court and its minions, it was tyranny in the church, to alienate such men by mockery, or merciless imposition of multifarious articles of faith, indistinctly expressed, and of doubtful importance to intelligent churchmen. The memoirs of honest Pepys are filled with proofs of the unpopularity of the church party, and its indifference as to conciliating favour:

“August 4th.-To church again," writes he," and, after supper, to talk about publique matters, wherein Roger Pepys told me how basely things have been carried on in Parliament, by the young men that did labour to oppose all things that were moved by serious men. That they are the most prophane swearing fellows that ever he heard in his life, which makes him think that they will spoil all and bring things into a war again if they can." Pepy's Diary, vol. i. 113, 40.

"31st. At court things are in a very ill condition, there being so much emulacion, poverty, and the vices of drinking, swearing, and loose amours, that I know not what will be the end of it but confusion. And the clergy so high that all people that I meet with do protest against their practice." p. 115.

"I confess, I do not think that the bishops will never be able to carry it so high as they do." p. 149.

"Indeed the bishops are so high that very few do love them." p. 98. "Oct. 4.--I and Lieut. Lambert to Westminster Abbey. Here I saw the bishops of Winchester, Bangor, &c. all in their habits in King Henry Seventh's Chapel. But, Lord! at their going out how people

did most of them look upon them as strange creatures, and few with any kind of love or respect.

[ocr errors]

It must be admitted, also, that the doctrines of the church of England, were, at that time, extremely vague, and in the hands of many clergymen had a smack of the church of Rome not very acceptable to a nation lately and decidedly Presbyterian. Miracles were related from the pulpit, and many of the religious observances avoided with the same facility with which the Catholics had so often been reproached. Thus we read in the author just cited, this statement.

"Dec. 27th.-To St. Paul's church: and there did I hear Dr. Gunning preach a good sermon upon the day, (being St. John's day,) and did hear him tell a story, which he did persuade us to believe to be true, that St. John and the Virgin Mary did appear to Gregory, a bishop, at his prayer to be confirmed in the faith, which I did wonder to hear from him." Pepys' Diary, vol. i. p. 126.

We may add to this, the following extract from Lyson's Environs of London.

[ocr errors]

"Among the minutes of the Vestry is entered a licence, bearing date 1661, given by William Grant, Vicar of Isleworth, to Richard Downton, Esq. and Thomasin his wife, to eat flesh in Lent, for the recovery of their health, they being enforced by age, notorious sickness and weakness, to abstain from fish.' After the restoration, the keeping of Lent, which had been neglected by the Puritans, who entirely exploded the observing of seasons, was enforced by a proclamation from the King; and an office for granting licences to eat flesh in any part of England, was set up in St. Paul's church yard, and advertised in the public papers, anno 1663. The strictness of abstaining from flesh diet seems, however, to have been much relaxed at this period, if we may judge from a curious licence under Archbishop Juxon's hand and seal, dated 1663; by which he grants permission to Sir Nathaniel Powell, Bart. his sons and daughters and six guests, whom he shall, at any time, invite to his table, to eat flesh in Lent, provided they eat soberly and frugally, with due grace said, and privately to avoid scandal; the said Sir Nathaniel giving the sum of 13s. 4d. to the poor of the parish." vol. iii. p. 119.

To prove their hatred to Puritanism, and their devoted loyalty, the fashionable world not only made themselves merry with mocking what was called the cant of the commonwealth, but swore and drank ostentatiously-thinking truly that they could not be suspected of favouring a particular religion, when their conduct was a practical insult to all religions.

The high-church party were not, however, contented with being re-established, and with having a monopoly of wealth and VOL. VII.---NO. 13.

10

[ocr errors]

honors. No sooner did they find that they had a predominance in parliament, than forgetful of their own recent humiliation, they enacted a number of laws which effectually took away all liberty of conscience. The gaols were filled with non-conformists, whose property was as little respected as their persons; "it has been asserted that eight thousand of them perished in the reign of Charles II, merely for dissenting from the church.” "This persecution," says Charles Butler, "was attended by one 'singular circumstance. In every other instance, where one 'denomination of Christians has persecuted another, it has been 'on the ground, that the errors, which they professed to punish, 'were impious, and led the maintainers of them to eternal per" 'dition; and therefore rendered these wholesome severities, as 'the persecutors termed them, salutary to the sufferers. But 'when the protestant of the church of England acted in the 'manner which has been mentioned, against the protestant 'non-conformist, he persecuted a Christian, who agreed with 'him in all substantial articles of faith, and differed from him only in rites and ceremonies, which he himself allowed to be 'indifferent." Among other important matters, the church held that it was indispensable to the true faith, that the sacrament should be taken kneeling, not standing, opining that a straight leg was utterly heterodox. Is not this like the mighty question debated in Lilliput, at which end true believers should crack their eggs? In enforcing these merciless acts, and particularly what was called the Conventicle Act, many of the inferior clergy, as well as high dignitaries of the church, bestirred themselves most zealously, declaring from the pulpit that more danger was to be apprehended from the fanatics, as they pleased to call all other protestants, than from the papists. So much for the toleration by the established church, till the death of Charles. History cannot present a more edifying example of the blessed effects of the union of church and state, than the reign of that unprincipled and debauched monarch. The witty and graphic Memoirs of Grammont, in which that glorious assemblage of black legs and prostitutes, yclept the court, "glows beyond e'en nature warm," might pass for a bawdy romance, were they not fortified, beyond doubt, by the grave testimony of Pepys and Evelyn. We will finish the reign of Charles II., with two extracts from the last mentioned author, which presents a most lovely portrait of the head of the church in those days.

Hist. Mem. of English Cath. 3d, 21. 3d ed.

66

'January 25, (1685.)--Dr. Dove preached before the King. I saw this evening, such a scene of profuse gaming, and the king in the midst of his three concubines, as I had never before seen. Luxurious dallying and prophanenesse." vol. i. p. 578.

"I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and prophanenesse, gaming, and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulnesse of God (it being Sunday evening,) which this day se'nnight I was witnesse of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine, &c. a French boy singing love songs, in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the greate courtiers, and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large table, a bank of at least 2000 in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with me, made reflexions with astonishment. Six days after was all in the dust!" vol. i. p. 586. 4to.

De Foe was engaged in business as a hose factor, during the whole reign of James II., or from about 1685 to 1695, but he was too much alive to public matters, and too honest to let his pen lie idle. In the first speech of the new monarch to parliament, he greatly lauded the marvellous loyalty and virtues of the church of England, and the church grateful for all additional power and favour, repaid his sacred majesty with interest; offering, as we may say, in the language of our Declaration of Independence, to lose "their lives, fortunes, and sacred honour," in his service. The pulpit rang with the doctrine of passive obedience to the king,

"As he was there by right divine
What lawyers call jure divino,

Meaning, a right to yours and mine
And every body's goods and rhino."

"It was for many years together," De Foe tells us, "and I am witness to it, that the pulpit sounded nothing but the duty of absolute submission, obedience without reserve, subjection to princes as God's vicegerents, accountable to none, to be withstood in nothing, and by no person. I have heard it publicly preached that if the king commanded my head, and sent his messengers to fetch it, I was bound to submit, and stand still while it was cut off."

Many very orthodox sermons in that reign, fully bear out De Foe's assertions, of which the following very meek and asinine specimen from a right reverend father, Cartwright, will suffice.

"Though the king should not please or humour us, though he rend off the mantle from our bodies, as Saul did from Samuel, nay, though he should sentence us to death, of which, blessed be God and the King, there is no danger; yet if we are living members of the church of England, we must neither open our mouths, or lift up our hands against

him, but honour him before the elders and people of Israel; nor must we ask our prince, why he governs us otherwise than we please to be governed ourselves; we must neither call him to account for his religion, nor question his policy in civil matters, for he is made our king by God's law, of which the law of the land is only declarative!"*

These were the high-church doctrines in the plenitude of her glory. Of course the persecution of the non-conformists was considered as perfectly legitimate, and the power and justice of the king as indisputable. But the tone was quite changed, when the established clergy saw that their flocks might soon be sheared by other hands. The king now openly professed catholicism, and the popish party were rapidly gaining ground. Hitherto, the church of England had treated the dissenters with a contempt that had alienated their friendship, but now, feeling her imminent danger, she breathed towards them words as bland and conciliatory as they had been before austere and revolting. "She turns about," says De Foe, "to the dissenters, talks of * peace and union, forbearance and love: infinite sermons flow 'from the pulpit on the healing subject of peace: she treats the dissenters with terms of brotherhood, friendship, charity, and christian love; talks to them of some few differences, some 'doubtful and indifferent matters in which they may differ, and 'yet maintain charity as christians, and peace as Englishmen." This is quite refreshing. "Once upon a time," says one of Lessing's fables, "as the lion was going forth to the chase, accompanied by an ass, a crow cried out, from a tree, to the king of animals, 'Are you not ashamed to show yourself with 'such a companion?' When I need him, answered the lion, I 'am very glad to have even a jackass with me."

[ocr errors]

King James, after feeling his ground, thought he might take measures firmly, for re-establishing popery. The declaration of indulgence, issued in the early part of his reign, he had renewed, and by an order in council the bishops were commanded to cause the declaration to be read in the churches. The result is well known; that the bishops refused to obey the royal mandate; that they were imprisoned; acquitted by a jury, and hailed by the plaudits of the multitude as the valiant champions of liberty. No wonder, that after receiving so many orthodox professions of the doctrine of divine right, King James exclaimed, "Is this your Church of England Royalty!" During the imprisonment of the bishops, the dissenters condoled with them, and exhorted them to stand up manfully in the good cause. At length, tired with the bigotry, weakness and tyranny of James,

* Somers Tracts, cited by Mr. Wilson. i. 119.

« السابقةمتابعة »