this magic charm which could awaken the enthusiasm, and even inflame the passions of the multitude to such an extent, that the most powerful statesmen could not afford to put it out of their account? The answer to these questions is not far to seek. The fact is, experience had convinced men, whether rightly or wrongly, that an Established Church which steered its course warily between Popery on the one side, and Puritanism on the other, was absolutely necessary for the welfare of the English nation. The people of England,' wrote a pamphleteer in 1715, 'can never be satisfy'd or think themselves safe if they believe the Church of England to be in danger.' This assertion was not only true at the time when it was written, but it might have been made with equal truth at almost any time during the century. It is not of course pretended that all those who raised the cries, still less all who were excited by them, were swayed by this feeling; but it is none the less true, that but for this feeling the cries could never have been raised; and though the fears aroused were often groundless, and often led to disastrous results, yet the feeling in itself was not a dishonourable nor an unreasonable one. If, then, in dealing with this subject, a Churchman must find much to be ashamed of, he may also find something of which to be proud. The first cry which attracts our attention is, 'The Church in danger.' Indeed, all the rest were but repetitions in another form of this cry. It meets us at the very commencement of the era we are considering. The century was hardly two years old, when we find Atterbury sounding the alarm of the Church's impending danger. 'Dangers,' he writes, 'to the Church are now at a distance, while we have a gracious Queen on the throne, who, so far from doing any harm to the Church, will not in her time suffer any to be done to it. But, as distant as these dangers are, they may one day come.' Atterbury was a High Churchman, and 'The Church in danger' was essentially a High Church cry. Not that it was exclusively so. Both the Tories and the Whigs,' writes Lord Mahon, 'were accustomed to charge each other, 1 ' Atterbury's Charge to the Archdeaconry of Totnes, in 1702. as a ground of unpopularity, with endangering the Church.'' This is, no doubt, correct. The Whigs or Low Churchmen took up the cry of their adversaries, and retorted it not without effect. But in their mouths it had to suffer from all the disadvantages of the 'tu quoque' argument. The Tories or High Churchmen were its originators; and it was not under the form of 'The Church in danger,' that the cry of the Low Churchmen was loudest and most effectual. Nor even in the mouths of High Churchmen had the 'Church in danger' always the same meaning. Sometimes it meant that the political establishment was in danger, sometimes that the spiritual society was, sometimes that both were; sometimes it became a mere stalking-horse for Jacobitism. Atterbury's prophecy of 1702 was soon fulfilled. The High Churchmen were disappointed with the new Queen. They had hoped that the accession of Anne would prove a death-blow to the Low Church influence which had been more or less predominant during the reign of her predecessor. But, whatever her personal inclinations may have been, the Queen was not strong enough to effect a change. 3 Party spirit ran high, but Low Churchism was still in the ascendant. 'The very ladies,' wrote Swift to Stella in 1703, ‘are split asunder into High Church and Low, and out of zeal for religion have hardly time to say their prayers.' The elections of 1705 gave an opportunity for a trial of strength. The vast majority of the clergy threw all the weight of their Lord Mahon's History of England, 1713-1783, i. 16. ... 2 Indeed, in the year 1702 itself, the failure of the bill against Occasional Conformity raised the outcry. The bill,' writes Burnet, 'seemed to favour the interests of the Church, so hot men were for it, and the greater number of the bishops being against it, they were censured, as cold and slack in the concerns of the Church. . . . A great part of this fell on myself, for I bore a large share in the debates, both in the House of Lords and at the free conference. Angry men took occasion, from hence, to charge the bishops as enemies to the Church and betrayers of its interests,' &c.—History of His own Times, vol. iii. bk. vii. p. 433. The angry clergy,' writes Burnet, were dissatisfied with the court, and began now [1704] to talk of the danger the Church was in.'-Hist. of His own Times, bk. vii. vol. iv. p. 40. He also complains of 'the universities, Oxford especially, having been very unhappily successful in corrupting the principles of those who were sent to be bred among them; so that few of them escaped the taint of it, and the generality of the clergy were not only ill-principled, but illtempered they exclaimed against all moderation as endangering the Church.'P. 54. enormous influence into the Tory scale. 'These clergy,' Leslie makes 'Observator' complain, 'do us all the mischief; they preach against us and influence the elections (May 1705). They have got most of the gentry (all but the Whig-rakes) from us; and among the common people, they have the sober and substantial party. But yet our numbers cannot be inconsiderable, while we have the fools and knaves on our side.'1 What Leslie the Tory said ironically, Defoe the Whig said in all seriousness. 'Whence,' he asked, 'proceed the incessant clamours against the Queen, the railings and lampoons upon the government? Come they not from the mouths of the clergy? How is the pulpit daily profaned with invectives instead of sermons. The Queen is railed at as deserting the Church, the bishops as Presbyterians, the Low Church party as pulling down the Church.' But all was in vain. A majority of Whigs was returned, and the favourite measure of the High Churchmen, the Bill for preventing Occasional Conformity, was thrown out. Then the 'Church in danger' storm reached its height. The High Churchmen poured the vials of their wrath, not so much upon the statesmen as upon the Churchmen, whom they held to be traitors within the camp, the 'moderate' men who would betray their Church with a kiss. 2 A Low Churchman,' they said, 'is but The Rehearsals, vol. i. p. 260. 'The election,' writes Burnet, 'was managed with zeal and industry on both sides; the clergy took great pains to infuse into all people tragical apprehensions of the danger the Church was in ; the universities were inflamed with this, and they took all means to spread it over the nation, with much vehemence; the danger the Church of England was in, grew to be as the word given in an army-men were known as they answered it : none carried this higher than the Jacobites. Books were writ and dispersed over the nation with great industry, to possess all people with the apprehensions that the Church was to be given up, that the bishops were betraying it, and that the court would sell it to the Dissenters.'—Hist. of His own Times, bk. vii. vol. iv. 116. 2 The outcry against 'moderation' and 'moderate men' raged before the eighteenth century began. 'I purposely,' writes Tillotson, when he was yet only a dean, mention his [Barrow's] moderation, and likewise venture to commend him for it, notwithstanding this virtue, so much esteemed by men of all ages, hath been of late declaimed against, as if it were the sum of all vices. I am still of opinion that moderation is a virtue, and one of the peculiar ornaments and advantages of the excellent constitution of our Church, and must at last be the temper of her members, especially her clergy, if we seriously intend the firm establishment of our Church, and will not let in Popery.'-Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 97. coldly and indifferently affected towards the Church, and not much concerned what becomes of her-one that cares for none of these things; a character like to make an admirable son of the Church or anything else. These Low Churchare no Churchmen. St. Paul says, he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; the same I say of a Churchman, that he is not a Churchman that is one outwardly as to profession and conformity; but that he is a Churchman who is one inwardly in his judgment and affection. The Low Churchmen are the very worst enemies the Church has. . . . Finding that the open enemies of the Church are not able to take it by storm, and that the Batteries signifie but little that are made against it from without, they would fain persuade those that are within (who will be the men that will ruin the Church, if ever it be ruin'd), to make a tame and voluntary surrender of it into their hands. And to this purpose a Trumpet is sent to her walls with the Popular and Plausible Plea of Moderation, another fallacious and imposing word. Moderation is found out to be a vertue at last. Well, but is not zeal a vertue too? Yes, yes, a good old Primitive, almost out of fashion vertue: such another as Passive Obedience, fit for times of innocence and simplicity, when men were better Christians than Politicians. . . . Though the Church is founded on Moderation, it is zeal that must defend and maintain it. Zeal is a much more excellent vertue at present than moderation, and, as things stand, much more wanted, and therefore now or never let us shew it. And so, God bless the Church of England, and inspire all her genuine and orthodox sons with the spirit of true zeal and courage, to stand firm by her in this perilous juncture. And may the Almighty preserve and defend her from the adversaries of the right hand and of the left, and from those of the Middle too; that is, in plain English, from the machinations of all Low Churchmen.' A Low Churchman was ‘a man of comprehensive charity, of large thoughts and of the modish Church,-an Anythingarian, who scorns to be confined to any one sect or religion;' 2 he made a shift -Here, as in many other points, Tillotson exactly expresses the sentiments which ultimately prevailed in the eighteenth century. 'The Distinction of High Church and Low Church fairly stated, with some reflections upon the popular plea of moderation,' 1705. 2 The Rehearsals, vol. iv. p. 300. to keep in the communion and bosom of the Church, because it was warm; to enjoy her dignities and preferments and maintain a sort of outward conformity, but had no inward liking for her constitution; was ready upon every occasion to do the Church a mischief.' 1 Of all the speeches, sermons, and pamphlets which came forth in this year of excitement, none made so great a sensation as a tract entitled the 'Memorial of the Church of England.' It was talked of in every coffee-house; it provoked innumerable replies; the Grand Jury of London and Middlesex ordered it to be burnt as a libel; and finally, the Queen issued a proclamation, offering a reward for the discovery of its author. This famous tract set forth very racily and forcibly the chief causes why the High Church party thought the Church in danger. The Church of England,' said the writer, 'is flourishing on the surface, but there is a hectic Feavour lurking in the very bowels of it, which if not timely cured will affect all the humours and at length destroy the very being of it. The sons of sectaries who overturn'd the Church in the last century remain. The sudden death of the king disappointed and alarm'd them; but when they found the Head of the Church inclin'd, not only to forgive but to forget the past, then they began to challenge and provoke the Church as boldly as ever. Moderation was the word, the Passpartout that open'd all the place doors between Lizzard Point and Berwick-on-Tweed. They grew as moderate and indifferent as a usurer at a discourse of charity. They could vote for or against any bill the same Parliament, the same Session, nay, if occasion required it, the same day. But this moderation, which triumph'd so in England, could not be prevail'd on to stir one step over the Tweed. While our men of moderation yielded up every point here, on pretence of tenderness for erroneous consciences, the kirk there pursued her blows.' The writer complains that the Church does not hold the same rank in the esteem and confidence of the Queen that it did.' In reply to the argument of persecution. brought against the Occasional Conformity Bill, he writes, Reply to Low Churchman Vindicated. See also Leslie's Theol. Works, vol. vi. ? Probably Dr. Drake, a physician. |