a

same consistency between the different parts of conduct which is in some degree found to prevail among the different reasonings and opinions of every man of sound mind. It cannot be denied that the Church had done much to delude him. For they did not content themselves with never controverting, or even confine themselves to calmly preaching the doctrine of non-resistance, which might be justified and perhaps commended, but it was constantly and vehemently inculcated furious preachers treated all who doubted it with the fiercest scurrility, and the most pure and gentle were ready to introduce it harshly and unseasonably;" and they all boasted of it, perhaps with reason, as a peculiar characteristic which distinguished the Church of England from other Christian communities. Nay, if a solemn declaration from an authority second only to the Church, assembled in a national council, could have been a security for their conduct, the judgment of the University of Oxford, in their convocation in 1683, may seem to warrant the utmost expectations of the King. For among other positions condemned by that learned body, one was, "that if lawful governors become tyrants, or govern otherwise than by the laws of God or man they ought to do, they forfeit the right they had unto their government." Now, it is manifest, that, according to this determination, if the King had abolished parliaments, shut the courts of justice, and changed the law according to his pleasure, he would nevertheless retain the same rights as before over all his subjects; that any part of them who resisted him would still contract the full guilt of rebellion; and that the co-operation of the sounder portion to repress the revolt would be a moral duty and a lawful service. How, then, could it be reasonable to withstand him in far less assaults on his subjects, and to turn against him laws which owed their continuance solely to his

South, passim.

C

b Tillotson on the death of Lord Russell.

About a year before the time to which the text alludes, in a visitation sermon preached before Sancroft by Kettlewell, an excellent man, in whom nothing was stern but this principle, this doctrine is inculcated to such an extent as, according to the usual interpretation of the passage in Paul's Epistle to the Romans (xiii. 2.), to prohibit resistance to Nero; "who," says the preacher," inwaded honest men's estates to supply his own profusion, and embrued his hands in the blood of any he had a pique against, without any regard to law or justice.

The homily, or exhortation to obedience, composed under Edward VI., in 1547, by Cranmer, and sanctioned by authority of the Church, asserts it to be "the calling of God's people to render obedience to governors, although they be wicked or wrong-doers, and in no case to resist."

• Oxford Decree, art. 3. Also art. 4. and 9. Collier, Ecc. Hist. ii. 902.

good pleasure.

Whether this last mode of reasoning be proof against all objections, it was at least specious enough to satisfy the King, when it agreed with his passions and supposed interest. Under the influence of these natural delusions, we find him filled with astonishment at the prevalence of the ordinary motives of human conduct over an extravagant dogma, and beyond measure amazed that the Church should oppose the Crown after the King had become the enemy of the Church. "Is this your Church of England loyalty?" he cried to the fellows of Magdalen College. In his confidential conversations he now spoke with the utmost indignation of this inconsistent and mutinous Church. Against them, he told the nuncio, that he had by his declaration struck a blow which would resound through the country.a He ascribed their unexpected resistance to a consciousness that, in a general liberty of conscience, "the Anglican religion would be the first to decline." b Sunderland, in speaking of the Church to the same minister, exclaimed, "Where is now their boasted fidelilty?" c "The declaration," he added, " has mortified those who have resisted the King's pious and benevolent designs: the Anglicans are a ridiculous sect, who affect a sort of moderation in heresy, by a compost and jumble of all other persuasions; and who, notwithstanding the attachment which they boast of having maintained to the monarchy and the royal family, have proved on this occasion the most insolent and contumacious of men.'

" d

с

After the refusal to comply with his designs, on the ground of conscience, by Admiral Herbert, a man of loose life, loaded with the favours of the Crown, and supposed to be as sensible of the obligations of honour as he was negligent of those of religion and morality, James declared to Barillon, that he never could put confidence in any man, however attached to him, who affected the character of a zealous Protestant.

D'Adda, 21 Marzo, 1687; un colpo strepitoso."

b Ibid. "Perche la religione Anglicana sarebbe stata la prima a declinare in questa mutazione.”

Ibid. and 4th April, 1687.

C

Ibid. 18th April, 1687.

e

Barillon, 24ème Mars, 1687.

306

CHAPTER VI.

Attempt to conciliate the Nonconformists.-Review of their Sufferings.--Baxter.Bunyan. Presbyterians.-Independents. - Baptists. - Quakers.-Addresses of Thanks for the Declaration.

THE declaration of indulgence, however, had one important purpose beyond the assertion of prerogative; the advancement of the Catholic religion, or the gratification of anger against the unexpected resistance of the Church. It was intended to divide Protestants, and to obtain the support of the Nonconformists. The same policy had, indeed, failed in the preceding reign; but it was not unreasonably hoped by the Court, that the sufferings of twenty years had irreconcilably inflamed the dissenting sects against the Establishment, and at length taught them to prefer their own personal and religious liberty to vague and speculative opposition to the papacy, the only bond of union between the discordant communities who were called Protestants. It was natural enough to suppose, that they would show no warm interest in universities from which they were excluded, or for prelates who had excited persecution against them; and that they would thankfully accept the blessings of safety and repose, without anxiously examining whether the grant of these advantages was consistent with the principles of a constitution which treated them as unworthy of all trust or employment. The penal law from which the declaration tendered relief, was not such as to dispose them to be very jealous of the mode of its removal. An act in the latter years of Queen Elizabeth a had made refusal to attend the established worship, or presence at that of the Dissenters, punishable by imprisonment, and, unless atoned for by conformity within three months, by perpetual banishment, enforced by death if the offender should return. Within three years after the solemn promise of

* 35 Eliz. c. 1 (1593).

Aosrt of exile, called, in our old law, abjuring the realm, in which the offender was to banish himself.

liberty of conscience from Breda, this barbarous law, which had been supposed to be dormant, was declared by parliament to be in force, in an act which subjected every one attending any worship but that established, where more than five were present, on the third offence, to transportation for seven years to any of the colonies, except New England and Virginia, the only plantations where they might be consoled by their fellow religionists, and where labour in the fields was not fatal to an European; and in case of their return, an event not very probable, after having laboured for seven years as the slaves of their enemies under the sun of Barbadoes, they were doomed to death. Almost every officer, civil or military, was empowered and encouraged to disperse their congregations as unlawful assemblies, and to arrest their ringleaders. A conviction before two magistrates, and in some cases before one, without any right of appeal or publicity of proceeding, was sufficient to expose a helpless or obnoxious Nonconformist to these tremendous consequences. By a refinement in persecution, the gaoler was instigated to disturb the devotions of his prisoners; being subject to a fine if he allowed any one who was at large to join them in their religious worship. The pretext for this statute consisted in some riots and tumults in Ireland and in Yorkshire, which were evidently viewed by the ministers themselves with more scorn than fear. It was, however, only temporary; a permanent law, equally tyrannical, was passed in the next session. Every dissenting clergyman was forbidden from coming within five miles of his former congregation, or of any corporate town or parliamentary borough, under a penalty of forty pounds unless he should take the following oath ::-" I swear that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms against the King, or those commissioned by him, and that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of government in Church or State." In vain did Lord Southampton raise his dying voice against this tyrannical act, though it was almost the last exercise of the ministerial power of his friend and colleague Clarendon; "vehemently" condemning the oath, which, royalist as he was, he declared he could not take, and he believed no honest man could. A faint and transient gleam of

16 Car. II. c. 4 (1664).

Original correspondence in Ralph, ii. 97, etc.

writer,

d

S. 12.

d

"As these plots," says that

were contemptible or formidable, we must acquit or condemn this reign." 17 Car. II. c. 2 (1665). • Locke. Letter from a Person of Quality.

indulgence followed the downfall of Clarendon: but, in the year 1670, another act was passed, reviving that of 1664, with some mitigations of punishment, and amendments in the form of proceeding; but with several provisions of a most unusual nature, which, by their manifest tendency to stimulate the bigotry of magistrates, rendered it a sharper instrument of persecution. Of this nature was the declaration, that the statute was to be construed most favourably for the suppression of conventicles, and for the encouragement of those engaged in it, of which the malignity must be measured by its effect in exciting all public officers, and especially the lowest, to constant vexation and frequent cruelty towards the poorer Nonconformists, who were marked by such language as the objects of the fear and hatred of the legislature. After the defeat of Charles's attempt to relieve all Dissenters by his usurped prerogative, the alarms of the House of Commons began to be confined to the Catholics, and they relented towards their Protestant brethren, and conceived designs of union with the more moderate, as well as of indulgence towards those whose dissent was irreconcilable. But these designs proved abortive. The Court resumed its animosity to the Dissenters, when it became no longer possible to employ them as a shelter for the Catholics: the laws were already sufficient for all practicable purposes of intolerance, and the execution of them was in the hands of bitter enemies, from the Lord Chief Justice to the pettiest constable. The temper of the established clergy was such, that even the more liberal of them gravely reproved the victims of such laws for complaining of persecution. The inferior gentry, who constituted the magistracy, ignorant, intemperate, and tyrannical, treated dissent as rebellion, and in their conduct to Puritans were actuated by no principles but a furious hatred of those whom they thought the enemies of the monarchy. The whole jurisdiction, in cases of nonconformity, was so vested in that body, as to release them in its exercise from the greater part of the restraints of fear and shame. With the sanction of the legislature, and the countenance of the government, what indeed could they fear from a proscribed party, consisting chiefly of the humblest and poorest men? From shame they were effectually secured, since that which is not public cannot be made shameful. The particulars of the con

⚫ 22 Car. II. c. I (1670).

Stillingfleet. Mischief of Separation.