2 although it manifested from the first a rancorous hatred of the primate and others of his order, with a determination to reduce all clergymen so as to satisfy democratical views of their inferiority and Puritanical notions of clerical efficiency, yet it evidently was not pervaded for some time with any determination to supersede an episcopal polity by a presbyterian. On the third day of the session was, indeed, appointed a committee of the whole house to take cognisance of religion, which within a month gave birth to a sub-committee "for providing preaching ministers, and removing scandalous ones.' But this proved very much of an engine for the selfish purposes of party politicians. Even among the unhappy clergymen, stigmatised as "scandalous," many were, probably, rather offensive to their enemies by hostility to the tide of revolution than by any fair objections to their personal habits. The bulk, however, of those whom this committee visited with ruin, really could be charged with little solid or important, besides malignancy, a compendious term of reproach which merely meant affection to the monarch and hatred of his oppressors.3 Thus, if the more moderate portion of the House of Commons had seen a reasonable prospect of succeeding, without extraneous aid, in reducing the regal power within satisfactory limits, and the violent encroaching spirits of the house had been likely to secure, by English means alone, sufficient gratifications for their own pride and cupidity, the church might have kept her liturgy, and some sort of bishops. With the former, indeed, it probably would have been rendered allowable to mingle extemporaneous prayers, and the latter, undoubtedly, must have descended to a level endurable by envious insolence, and must have been re-arranged so as to place considerable pecuniary advantages within reach of party leaders. But Charles proved an enemy that often bade fair to baffle the Parliament, and hence its more violent members were unable to escape many hours of uneasiness, if not of despondence. The Scots were, therefore, felt of vital importance to turn the scale, and nothing would satisfy that fanatical 2 "The bare convening of a clergyman before the committee (and this was always in the power of the meanest and most profligate parishioner to do) was sufficient to give him the character of a scandalous minister." Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, Lond. 1714, p. 64. "Few, or none of the loyal clergy escaped the lash." Ibid. abhorrence of episcopacy, which drove them into war, short of English adhesion to their vaunted covenant. 4 § 8. When this was formally imposed upon the nation, in 1643, it became a new instrument for ejecting the clergy from their benefices, and by its means the ruling party involved in ruin such obnoxious members of the clerical body as had hitherto avoided spoliation. A fifth of their livings might, indeed, be reserved for the future subsistence of their wives and families, but loud complaints were made as to evasions of an obligation to pay this pittance. The triumphant party, however, which showed this degree of regard for the maintenance of helpless dependants upon despoiled incumbents, showed none to their religious prepossessions. In 1645, the use of the liturgy was prohibited, even in private houses, under a penalty of five pounds, and thus the church of England was, equally with that of Rome, denied any toleration. Under this prohibition it continued until the Restoration, the army, which insisted upon toleration for Protestant sectarianism, having nothing but hatred for the principles of that religious establishment which recent troubles had subverted. Nevertheless, episcopal clergymen of talent continually came before the public in ways favourable to the ultimate success of their order, though not immediately connected with it. In particular, the London Polyglot appeared under Cromwell, being completed near the end of the year 1657. The Protector allowed paper for it to be imported duty free, and seems to have wished that the work should be dedicated to himself. Yet its editor was that well-known scholar, Brian Walton, eventually bishop of Chester, who had made himself obnoxious to the revolutionary party, and had been stripped of his preferments by it. Cromwell also claims the distinction of a ready attention to Protestant distress, wherever it might occur. Not only did he interpose the irresistible weight of his authority, when the petty court of Turin turned anew the tide of persecution upon its Waldensian subjects, but also the powerful monarchy of France was alive to the imprudence of disregarding him when he remonstrated against oppressions inflicted 28. Fuller, b. xi. p. 230. 5 Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, p. "A similar privilege was conceded to the editors of the Critici Sacri." (Todd's Brian Walton, i. 60.) It has been said that the work was at first actually dedicated to Cromwell, but this does not appear to be the fact. Ibid. 84. upon the unfortunate Huguenots in the south of that kingdom.7 If we might implicitly believe dissenting authorities, the Protectorate, and the years immediately bordering upon it, were likewise the season when England was much more virtuous and religious than at any other time. But some of the virtues, then unusually conspicuous, were of the class closely connected with worldly prudence, and hence fallacious marks of sterling excellence, unless combined with good qualities of a more private and disinterested character in a proportion above the average. This happy excess is necessarily very rare, and it does not seem to have been attained in any remarkable degree by the religious professors of the Commonwealth. Hence their claims to an excellence really above that of other Christian communities have been successfully resisted, and even derided by opponents. As to their outward religious profession, it undoubtedly differed from that of serious men ordinarily by the use of a peculiar phraseology, and by making a great point of certain habits and abstinences. But in such distinctions is nothing absolutely incompatible either with interested practices, proud and angry feelings, or such a degree of personal indulgence as is not publicly offensive. Hence dissenting representations of public religion and morality, when the church was overthrown, have fairly been considered as formed upon a very uncertain estimate. To the loud and disputable religious claims of that day have, however, been attributed, with great probability, the infamous facility with which men of fashion rushed into the other extreme so shamelessly and completely when the old system was restored. § 9. In Ireland the church was pretty completely overthrown so early as the autumn of 1641. Then unexpectedly occurred the horrid Irish massacre, from which it was expected Protestantism never would have recovered in that country, and for which, after a few years, Cromwell exacted ample vengeance."9 Cromwell's Memoirs of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, Lond. 1820, p. 622. 8 "It does not admit of reasonable doubt that the strength and prevalence of religion during the period in question was far greater than at any former age." Price's Hist. of Prot. Nonconf. ii. 644. See also Neal, iii. 46. The English government had been rendered uneasy before the close of 1640, by numerous arrivals in Ireland from 315, To what extent Protestant blood was shed in this ferocious. outbreak, and in the rebellious movements consequent upon it, has been disputed. Some accounts make more than three hundred thousand adherents of a scriptural faith to have been slain in the massacre, and within the two succeeding years of trouble. Romish extenuation would fain bring the whole number of sufferers down to eight thousand: but the computations appearing most worthy of reliance, take those who fell during the first slaughter at forty thousand. To this number must however, be added the frightful sacrifice of Protestant life which continued during most of the two following years. The whole period between the Irish massacre and the king's violent death was, indeed, marked by feeble endeavours to uphold the established worship, but really Romanism had gained full possession of the land, and Romish prelates acted as if the church were legally their own. As a preliminary to an entire seizure of the establishment, they held two synods, one provincial at Armagh, another, national, at Kilkenny, which pronounced the series of treacherous and sanguinary atrocities by which the island was polluted and disgraced, a just and lawful war. When the Long Parliament established its powers, papal exertions against episcopal Protestantism were seconded by a prohibition of the Common Prayer, and orders to supersede it by the Directory in all the churches of Dublin.10 The country, probably, was inaccessible to Protestantism in any form. § 10. As the Presbyterians, disgusted by the prevalence of independency, had concurred with the royalists in restoring Charles II., they were at first sanguine as to the success of their cherished plans for remodelling the church. What was called a Comprehension, seemed to them not only a desirable, but also a practicable object. Nor was the king, seemingly, unfavourable to such a plan. His declaration from Breda promising such liberty to tender consciences as was consistent with the public peace', was naturally taken as a pledge of a policy essentially tolerant. He meant, however, toleration to be general, and consequently to include Romanists. But the Presbyterians only thought of themselves, and Charles's appointment of eight eminent divines, with two or three of less note, from their body, among the royal chaplains, appeared an evidence 10 Mant, 585. See the paragraph in Collier, ii. 870. • Neal, iii. 49. of his disposition to befriend the party which had served him so importantly. But of the Presbyterian chaplains, only five ever had the honour of preaching before him, and they not more than once 3: nor were sufficient indications wanting, as soon as the royal authority seemed pretty firmly established, that the ancient religious establishment, with such modifications, perhaps, as recent and present circumstances dictated, would soon regain its former position in the country. The incumbents, however, of benefices, of which the former possessors had died since ejection, were still allowed to retain them, notwithstanding any defects of their ecclesiastical character; and upon the whole, such an appearance of moderation characterized all the king's earlier proceedings, as readily led low-churchmen into confident expectations of some ultimate settlement that coincided with their own interests. Charles himself, probably, regarded with weariness and contempt the speculative opinions of both parties. It is now well known, that such religious opinions as he possessed were favourable to Rome. But as he could not allow even a hint of such predilections to transpire without hazarding the gaiety and splendour which he valued above all things, his mind naturally inclined towards prelacy. It was the system of ecclesiastical polity identified with that of the church to which he was secretly attached; it was dear to most of his own warmest friends, and as a national institution, it was all but coeval with the monarchy itself. Presbyterianism, on the other hand, notwithstanding its recent services to the throne, was identified with all the bitterest mortifications and sufferings of his life, was odious to his firmest adherents, and treated with the fiercest intolerance the only form of religious belief that had taken the least hold upon his affections. In such a case, it was easy to see, that, without some such reaction in the public mind as appeared far from likely during the first months after the Restoration, Presbyterian hopes would quickly be found fallacious. As it was, however, neither decent nor politic to dash them on the ground without an appearance of treating them with due attention, Charles announced, in the October after his return, a design of placing a review of the Common Prayer under consideration of an equal number of divines of the episcopal and the presbyterian parties. This pledge was redeemed in the following spring, 8 Collier, ii. 871. |