No. XI.—Vol. II., p. 148.
Macaulay, speaking of the disobedience of the London clergy to the Royal order, says:—“Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley, a curate in London, took for his text that day the noble answer of the three Jews to the Chaldean tyrant, ‘Be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.’” The historian quotes as his authority Southey’s Life of Wesley. The story has been repeated again and again. Unfortunately, in reference to Wesley, it cannot be true. He was ordained in deacon’s orders the 17th of August, 1688, about three months after the issuing of the order: and the only foundation for the story seems to be a poem by the younger Wesley, written “upon a clergyman lately deceased,” the Rev. John Berry, the poet’s father-in-law, and published four years before Samuel Wesley’s death.—See The Mother of the Wesleys, by the Rev. John Kirk, p. 58.
No. XII.—Vol. II., chap. xiv.
Anglican Views on the Relations of Church and State.
In the review of Anglican opinions in the 14th chapter I have scarcely entered upon what is understood by the Church and State question. I am not able to supply, from the works of Bull, Pearson, Cosin, Heylyn, Barrow, and others, any satisfactory catena of passages bearing on this point, or to report any definite theory, or any sustained arguments of theirs in relation to it. Their theological writings treat of other themes. Thorndike, indeed, has a good deal to say of the State, as well as of the Church, and speaks, on the one hand, of the State being in subjection to the Church, of the State being bound to protect the Church, and of the State being justified in inflicting penalties for religion when the latter interferes with civil peace. On the other hand, he speaks of kings being justified in reforming the Church, even against the ecclesiastical order. (Reference to these passages will be found in the index to the Oxford Edition of Thorndike.) Yet I can find in Thorndike no precise theory of Church and State relations. Jeremy Taylor treats of ecclesiastical laws and power; he insists on the concurrence in them of the civil authorities, and that kings are bound to keep the Church’s laws; yet he denies that Christian princes can be lawfully excommunicated. (Works, xiii. 583–616.) Bramhall alludes to the Royal nomination and investiture of bishops in England as approved by ancient canons and constitutions (part iv. dis. 6); and Sanderson goes so far as to declare, that the king hath power, if he shall see cause, to suspend any bishop from the execution of his office, and to deprive him utterly of his dignity. (Episcopacy not prejudicial, s. iii. 33.) Morley’s extravagant views of the Royal prerogative have been noticed. On the whole it appears that after the Restoration, High Churchmanship manifested itself more in theological doctrine, than in either ritualism or in ecclesiastical supremacy. Looking at the whole history of the period between the Restoration and the Revolution, we see in the ascendant that which is commonly meant by the word Erastianism. Indications of this are afforded by the manner in which the Act of Uniformity was carried; by the utter inactivity of Convocation after the year 1664,—for it did scarcely more than formally assemble from time to time,—and by the notions of the Royal supremacy so generally maintained, and so plainly expressed, not only by Bishop Morley but by the two Universities.