CHAPTER XI.
The Bill received the Royal assent upon the 19th of May. Perhaps the reader will not be wearied with an account of the ceremony, and of the speeches delivered at the time.
His Majesty occupied the throne in Royal magnificence. The Lord Chancellor took his place on the woolsack. On the right side, below the throne, sat the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Durham, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and other prelates, including Reynolds of Norwich, who could scarcely, with comfort, have witnessed the proceedings of that day. Neither Sheldon nor Morley was present. On the left side, at the upper end of the Chamber, were the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, and three Dukes—Buckingham, Richmond, and Albemarle. The Marquis of Winchester sat by Albemarle's side, and below came twenty-six Earls, one Viscount, and thirty-six Barons. The Commons appeared at the bar, with the Speaker of the House, who delivered a highly rhetorical speech.
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The King, after giving his assent, delivered a curious homily upon the extravagant habits of the people, without saying one word about the Act of Uniformity—after which Clarendon pronounced a long oration, in the course of which he observed, "the execution of these sharp laws depends upon the wisdom of the most discerning, generous, and merciful Prince, who, having had more experience of the nature and humour of mankind than any Prince living, can best distinguish between the tenderness of conscience and the pride of conscience, between the real effects of conscience and the wicked pretences to conscience—a Prince of so excellent a nature and tender a conscience himself, that he hath the highest compassion for all errors of that kind, and will never suffer the weak to undergo the punishment ordained for the wicked."[338]
This was an extraordinary speech to an English Parliament. It can bear no construction but that of being a plea for a dispensing power. The Houses having framed a law, Clarendon would have it left to the Royal wisdom to temper its administration, and to distinguish between the tenderness and the pride of conscience,—as if the power of discerning spirits were a gift to kings. What, in the lips of any English senator would be inconsistent, appears doubly so in the present instance, for Clarendon afterwards opposed the exercise of the power which he now claimed on his master's behalf.
It is necessary here to pause, and inquire what change this famous Act made in the Establishment of England. The insisting upon Episcopal ordination, in every case, as essential to the conducting of public service, and to the preaching of the Gospel, certainly cut off the English Church, more completely than before, from fellowship with other reformed Churches;[339] and, in consequence of another provision for a certain period, the pastoral office became dependent on the taking of a political oath, to which some, approving of her doctrine and of her discipline, might conscientiously object. The Church also stood pledged to the maintenance of civil despotism. Under pretence of reprobating the course pursued under the Commonwealth, a dogma was imposed upon the ministers of religion, which, if believed, would effectually prevent any resistance to the designs of an arbitrary monarch, even if he should lend himself to the overthrow of the Church itself. Besides, persons might be found not unfriendly to moderate Episcopacy, who, nevertheless felt it wrong to use respecting the League and Covenant the terms which this Act prescribed.
ACT OF UNIFORMITY.
The Act of Uniformity added the requirement of "unfeigned assent and consent" to everything contained in the Prayer Book. By such alterations the Church of England became increasingly exclusive and Erastian in its principles, and less Protestant and liberal in its spirit.
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In carrying a great measure, responsibility must be divided. It rarely happens that a number of persons combining together to effect any change are influenced by the same views; and in this instance of united action different degrees of responsibility, and different kinds of motives, are discoverable, when we look a little below the surface.
I. Convocation must be held responsible for the changes made in the Prayer Book, its revision being exclusively the work of that assembly; but, at the same time, it should be remembered, that assembly formed only a small body, and represented but in part the sentiments of the clergy. Many of the members felt a strong zeal for order and union; the feeling assumed different aspects in different instances. Some in the Upper House, as Cosin, Sanderson, Hacket, Ward, Morley; some in the Lower, especially Thorndike, sympathized in the sentiments of Cyprian, as expressed in his Liber de Unitate Ecclesiæ, confounding unity with uniformity, and allegiance to Christ with submission to Bishops. They, like him, might suppose that in their zeal for Episcopal order, they were working out an answer to our Lord's intercessory prayer. Such a conception of ecclesiastical oneness had been, by the Nicene and Mediæval Churches, handed down to the Church of the English Reformation; and it must be admitted, that desires for uniformity by means of Episcopal order, were in many cases so interlinked with submission to Christ, as, even in the estimation of those who differ from Anglo-Catholics, to have their errors, in a measure, redeemed by the devoutness of their affections. Desires for uniformity, however, as they wrought in some, both of the superior and inferior clergy, at the period of the Restoration, had nothing whatever of nobleness in them.
The Bishops shared in the responsibility of the Upper House of Parliament, as well as in the responsibility of the Upper House of Convocation. Sheldon,—to whom must be attributed much influence over the latter, and also much over the former, so far as the Bishops were concerned; and who also, from his prominent position and great activity at the Restoration, could not fail to share in Clarendon's counsels, respecting the Bill,—was not a man of religious zeal, but a man of worldly principles; and it is not uncharitable to regard others on the Bench, and in the Lower House, as closely resembling him in this respect. Reynolds belonged to a class which, when a crisis arrives, will always bend to the force of stronger minds, and be carried along by the current of authority.
ACT OF UNIFORMITY.
Between the Bishops at the Restoration and the Bishops at the Reformation, a considerable difference appears. The theology of the Anglican prelates at the Restoration was not imbued with those elements of thought, which the early Reformers held in common with Puritan Divines; hence, in part, arose the dislike which the Fathers of the re-established Church cherished towards Nonconformists. Sheldon, as will appear when we fully examine his character, differed from the ecclesiastical leaders in Queen Elizabeth's time, such as Parker and Jewel,[340] who had strong religious affections, and were earnestly bent upon building up Protestantism in England as the great bulwark of her prosperity; moreover, the Caroline restorers and revisers of the Prayer Book were utterly deficient in comprehensive policy. The Elizabethan Divines did avoid, as much as possible, giving offence to such of the old Roman Catholic party, just dispossessed of power, as felt at all disposed to join them; but the ecclesiastical leaders of Charles' day, threw every obstacle they could in the path of those Nonconformists who showed any disposition to adopt a modified system of Episcopacy.[341]
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II. In the House of Commons there existed a mad Royalist party, influenced by strong personal resentment, who identified the Church with the Throne, who could not forget what they had suffered under the Commonwealth, and who especially had a keen recollection of estates sequestered, and of fines imposed. They were bent upon punishing their foes, and therefore made the Act as rigid as possible. Its severest provisions are to be ascribed not to any clerical body, nor to the Lords, nor to the Prelates, but to the Commons. The Commons were more intolerant and fierce than any of the Bishops, than any of the clergy. "Every man, according to his passion, thought of adding somewhat" to the Bill which "might make it more grievous to somebody whom he did not love."[342] Liberal amendments in the Upper House were resisted in the Lower; and to the unjust and ungenerous provisions added by the Lords, were others more unjust and ungenerous added by the Commons. The Commons, in comparison with the Lords, appear to have been what the young men, whom Rehoboam consulted and followed, were in comparison with the old men, who stood before Solomon his father; and the scourge of whips became a scourge of scorpions.[343] Bad as was the Bill from the first, it was worse in the end than in the beginning.
III. Clarendon ought to bear a large share of responsibility. His attachment to an Episcopalian establishment has been repeatedly noticed. He regarded it as the bulwark of Protestantism, the main stay of the nation's weal. Burnet reckons him more a friend of the Bishops than of the Church; certainly he showed anxiety to please them, and their good opinion and support were of importance to him in many ways. What induced him to court the Bishops would, in a still stronger degree, induce him to gratify the Commons. Consequently, supposing that his better nature, or his wiser judgment, inclined him—which is probable—towards a more moderate course, other considerations induced him to adopt the severe line of policy which had been chalked out by some, and filled up by others.[344] Clarendon, as leader of the Upper House, does not appear to have used his influence for the purpose of removing from the Bill any of the most rigorous parts of it; to their abatement perhaps he might contribute, although this does not appear. The liberal amendments proposed by certain Peers seem to have been abandoned without a struggle; and for this surrender surely Clarendon is mainly answerable.
ACT OF UNIFORMITY.
IV. Another party concurred in the Act from entirely different motives. The Roman Catholics had been on the increase since the Restoration. Somerset House, the residence of the Queen Mother, was the place of resort for the leaders of the party. There, and at the mansion of the Earl of Bristol, they consulted upon the interests of their own Church. Of course, they had no idea of seeking comprehension in the Establishment: their policy was to procure toleration; with that for the present they would be satisfied, whatever might be their ulterior aims. Nothing promised so much advantage to them as the passing of a stringent measure, which would cast out of the English Church as many Protestants as possible. Whilst they were aware of the terror which they inspired in the minds of Nonconformists, they hoped that fellowship in suffering might soften antipathy, and dispose their enemies, for their own sakes, to advocate some general indulgence: they considered that the fact, of a large number of Protestants suffering from persecuting laws, would at least strengthen the argument in its favour. It was, I apprehend, on this principle, that the Duke of York and the Catholic Peers united in supporting all the provisions for uniformity.
1662.
At the head of this Roman Catholic party the King himself is to be placed. When he had reluctantly made up his mind to consent to the measure, it was in accordance with the circuitous policy I have now pointed out. Besides, he was fond of a dispensing power, liking Royal Declarations better than Acts of Parliament; almost any statute would be tolerable to him, if it gave him the prospect of affording relief to his subjects in the form of sovereign concession. Clarendon, who subsequently opposed the exercise of this power, now virtually recognized it, as a prerogative of the King, in the speech just quoted, and plainly pointed to the Royal intention of employing that assumed prerogative for mitigating the severities of the present statute.
Policy and passion were stamped upon the face of the measure. It would be the bitterest of all satires to say that the men principally concerned in it were influenced by religious conviction—that conscientiously and in the sight of God, they performed an act which, though they saw it to be rigorous, they felt to be righteous. Amidst keenly excited feelings on the side of an exclusive policy, perhaps there was no impulse of greater force than the very common one of party feeling.
When we recollect that it was not to the clergy then expressing itself in Convocation, or in any other way, but to Parliament, that the Church of England owed the clauses which required the repudiation of the Covenant, and of the doctrine of non-resistance—clauses which so galled the Puritans—the Act, to a large extent, appears, not so much an ecclesiastical measure, as a work executed by a political faction, bent upon crushing opponents, under pretence of their being unpatriotic and disloyal. Of the bad spirit in which Parliament framed and passed this act there remains not the shadow of a doubt; and it is impossible that any one acquainted with the circumstance, however he may admire the Church so re-established at the Restoration, can think of the mode of its re-establishment without shame and sorrow.
ACT OF UNIFORMITY.
It is very remarkable that the Act omitted to provide for uniformity in certain important particulars; and it has failed to produce the uniformity intended in others.[345] Nothing was done in relation to psalmody; forms of prayer and praise in prose were rigidly set down, but forms of prayer and praise in verse were left to be composed or adopted at the pleasure of any one, subject only to the doubtful authority of the Bishop or Ordinary. The formularies of the Prayer Book relating to baptism have long received from Episcopalians contradictory interpretations; and, of late years, liberty in this respect has been legally conceded, as not inconsistent with the Act of Uniformity. The obscurity of the rubric on the subject of ornaments renders a decision of the controversy by ecclesiastical lawyers a difficult matter, and consequently places Bishops in perplexity as to what is the law, and how they are to proceed. We are struck with the unequal pressure of the Act. It made clerical practice in some respects very strict, and in others very lax: whilst, as to prominent points then in dispute between Episcopalians and Presbyterians, the law is precise; as to other points, far from unimportant, the same law, through intention or neglect, opened, or left open, a wide field for difference and for controversy.
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The experience of a hundred years was thrown away upon the authors of the measure. The first Act of Uniformity under Elizabeth had proved a failure—the subsequent history of her reign had shown, that this contrivance to repress the spirit of religious liberty, produced no more effect than did the green withs which bound Samson. The troubles of James' reign, the overthrow of Laud's policy, together with his sufferings and death, illustrated the mischievous consequences of confounding unity with uniformity, and of seeking the first by means of the second. Grindal and other prelates had been sick at heart, through fruitless endeavours made to secure spiritual obedience by physical force. Lord Bacon had pointed out the difference between unity and uniformity, and had reproved the persecutor, by saying, that the silencing of ministers was a punishment that lighteth upon the people, as well as upon the party;[346] others of humbler name had still more clearly explained, and still more directly enforced, the lessons of toleration. But all in vain; the teaching of a whole century had been wasted on the contrivers and supporters of the second Act of Uniformity.
The Act did not merely eject all Incumbents who scrupled to comply with its requirement, but it silenced throughout the land all the preachers of Christianity who were not Conformists.
ACT OF UNIFORMITY.
All Nonconformist ministers were prohibited from officiating in the pulpits of the Episcopalian Church established by law; few other places of worship were in existence, and the operation of the Act, especially by citing and recognizing the Act of Uniformity under Elizabeth, would be to prevent Nonconformists from preaching anywhere.
Two classes then were affected: Incumbents, whom the Act ejected; and ministers, not Incumbents, whom it silenced. Plausible arguments might be adduced for the uniformity of an establishment; strong reasons might be urged against a coalition of Episcopacy with Presbyterianism. The government of Bishops, and the use of a Liturgy, being adopted in the Church, it may be said that it is only consistent, that there should be the maintenance of order in the ministry, and of regularity in the worship. But the Act went much further, and proceeded upon the theory of one ecclesiastical incorporation of the entire State, without recognizing outside the existence of any religion whatever. To Nonconformists there was an utter denial of any spiritual rights. For them there was to be neither comprehension nor toleration. The germs of the Conventicle and Five Mile Acts were in the bosom of the Uniformity Bill.