CHAPTER VIII.
It is a curious coincidence that Tillotson, Barrow, and Howe were all born in the year 1630. Tillotson’s father lived at Sowerby, near Halifax; a respectable clothier, a decided Puritan, a zealous Calvinist, yet at that time an Episcopalian in practice, for he had his child baptized in the Church of his native village, and a gentleman, afterwards Rector of Thornhill, stood godfather. When this little boy came to be Archbishop, his Puritan parentage, and the fact of his father being a Baptist, occasioned reproach; it was said that he had never been baptized in any way, and a preacher before the House of Commons, after Tillotson’s elevation to the Primacy, is supposed to have alluded to the rumour, when he declared, with more absurdity than wit, that there were fathers of the Church who never were her sons. The register of Sowerby, however, sets that question at rest, showing that he was baptized in the parish church; and another moot point touching Tillotson’s ecclesiastical life, namely, whether he was ever episcopally ordained, is now also settled; it appears he received ordination from a Scotch Bishop—the Bishop of Galloway.[216]
TILLOTSON.
Educated at Cambridge under the Commonwealth by Puritan tutors, he afterwards became identified with the Latitudinarian school of Divines, but in 1661 we find him amongst the Presbyterians, preaching a morning exercise at Cripplegate. He certainly conformed in 1662, and that fact itself implies his submission to Episcopal ordination. At an early period he attained celebrity as a preacher, although he read his sermons, and never was able to preach without a manuscript. It is related of him that on one occasion he made an attempt to speak extempore upon a plain text, and one upon which he has five discourses in his printed works; yet he found himself so much at a loss, “that after about ten minutes spent with great pain to himself, and no great satisfaction to his audience, he came down with a resolution never to make the like attempt for the future.”[217] He was successively Curate at Cheshunt; Rector of Ketton, or Kedington in the County of Suffolk; preacher at Lincoln’s Inn; Tuesday Lecturer at St. Lawrence, Jewry; and Canon and Dean of Canterbury. After the Revolution he accepted the Deanery of St. Paul’s, and his position in reference to public affairs at that juncture has been noticed already; here it will be sufficient to trace the steps by which he reached the highest position in the Church of England. In some way Tillotson had become a personal favourite with the Prince of Orange, and had been desired to preach before him at St. James’s, soon after his arrival in London. Burnet interested himself zealously on the Dean’s behalf; but, beyond personal grounds, the popularity of this Divine as a preacher, his eminent abilities, his opposition to the policy of the late King, his liberal politics, his desire for Comprehension, his conciliatory temper, and his moderation in ecclesiastical affairs, recommended him to the new Sovereign as fitted to occupy the post vacated by Sancroft. The very day Tillotson kissed hands on his appointment to the Deanery in September, 1689, the King told him, in reply to his thanks for an office which had set him at ease for the rest of his life, that this was no great matter, for his services would soon be needed in the highest office of the Church.[218] In February, 1690, William pressed upon Tillotson the acceptance of the Primacy; of his extreme reluctance to accept it there can be no doubt; his conversation with his Royal Master, his correspondence with Lady Rachel Russell, and his own private memoranda, prove that if ever a man honestly said, Nolo Episcopari, Tillotson did. What he wrote within a year afterwards shows that to him the archiepiscopal throne was a bed, not of roses, but of thorns. The congé d’élire was issued May the 1st, and his consecration followed on Whit-Sunday at St. Mary-le-Bow, when the congregation included some of the principal Whig nobility, and his progress along Cheapside was an ovation amidst crowds who admired both his eloquence and his liberality.
1691.
He took possession of Lambeth Palace in November, 1691, having first repaired the building, altered the windows, wainscoted the rooms, and erected a large apartment for his wife, he being one of the earliest Archbishops living there in lawful wedlock.
SANCROFT.
With congratulations from friends there came insults from foes. Arian, Socinian, Deist, Atheist, were titles bestowed on his Grace; and in allusion to the doubts respecting his baptism, he received the nickname of Undipped John. His manner of bearing such treatment showed his proficiency in the Christian virtues of patience and meekness. One day, when he was conversing with a gentleman, a servant brought in a sealed packet containing a mask. The Archbishop smiled, and said, “This is a gentle rebuke, if compared with some others in black and white,” pointing to papers lying on the table. A bundle of letters, found after his death, exhibited a memorandum in his own handwriting, “These are libels. I pray God forgive them; I do.”[219]
1692.
It is interesting to follow Sancroft into his retirement. He left the Metropolis—never to see it again—in August, 1691, for Fresingfield, a village in Suffolk, where his family had been settled for generations, where his ancestors lay buried in the parish church, and where he himself had been born and baptized. He went down at harvest-time, the sweet air and quiet of the place being, as he said, so preferable to the smoke and noise of London. Presently we find him busy in building a new house, reckoning up the time it would take to daub and tile it, to clothe and cover it in, amidst the dews and mists which might be expected to begin by St. Bartholomew’s-day—then at hand. He complains of being weakly, and describes himself as eating bread-and-butter in a morning, and “superbibing a second dish of coffee after it;” waiting to see what that, and time, and native air would do for his health. He gave up pills, and swallowed juniper-berries, and lived upon plain food, and ate with a keener appetite than he had been accustomed to at Lambeth. In the late autumn the new house remained incomplete; there was winter work to do within doors, paving and flooring, daubing and ceiling, plastering, glazing, and wainscoting, making doors and laying hearths; the old tenement, in the meantime, being packed close from end to end with the Bishop, his little household and workmen.[220] The superintendence of building, which appears to have occupied him for a time, presents a strange contrast to previous employments in the Church and the Palace, the Court and the Council-Board; and the simplicity of Sancroft’s rural life appears simpler still when we think of the palatial splendour in which he had previously moved. He wished to shut out the world; he sometimes felt like a dead man out of mind; old friends dropped off, and tales of sorrow aroused his sympathies; yet he seems, on the whole, to have spent a pleasant time down in Suffolk, although those who disliked his nonjuring principles did what they could to plague his peace. He was reported to be engaged with some of his brethren in plots for the restoration of the exiled Monarch; and Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, came under suspicion of the same offence, in consequence of which he was arrested in his orchard at Bromley one day, whilst quietly working out the heads of a sermon.[221] In the end, these charges of conspiracy proved to be abominable fabrications, which Sprat took care fully to expose.[222] Other Nonjurors were suspected of treasonable intrigues, and Dean Hickes fell into great trouble. “If the persons,” it is said in a letter written at the time, “now malignantly fermented, should find him walking abroad, they would certainly take him up and bring him forthwith to the King’s Bench, and be ready with an information against him.” The Dean was advised to abscond for the present, and so he became, “like the tortoise in winter-time, earthed for some days.” Dr. Bryan about the same time heard that a warrant had been issued for his apprehension, on account of his having written “flat treason.” “It was advisable for him to step out of the way.” Ten days later, Bishop Lloyd, to whom we are indebted for these snatches of information, wrote again to the archiepiscopalian recluse, that he found the Dean had removed his quarters, and desired to be very private, and that messengers were searching for Dr. Bryan.[223]
SANCROFT.
Sancroft, who escaped arrest because Sprat, when confronted with his accusers, exposed their falsehoods, seems to have been more annoyed a few months before by a very different accusation. “The spirit of calumny, the persecution of the tongue, dogs me even into this wilderness. Dr. Lake, of Garlick Hill, and others, have (as I am informed) filled your city with a report that I go constantly to this parish church, and pray for I know not whom, nor how, and receive the Holy Sacrament; so that my cousin had something to do to satisfy even my friends that it was quite otherwise.”[224] The fallen Primate’s intense dislike to the Establishment—as bitter as could be manifested by any virulent Dissenter—here bursts out in unmistakable fashion. The feeling remained as a sort of monomania to the day of his death. It kept him from setting foot over the threshold of a parish church, and led him to frame an instrument by which he appointed Lloyd, the deprived Bishop of Norwich, his Vicar in all ecclesiastical matters,[225] and inaugurated a voluntary and schismatical Episcopalian Church.
1693.
At the end of the year 1691 he removed into his new house, and on New Year’s-day at family worship he officiated himself, “in a very cold room where there never was a fire.” He would not employ a Chaplain. The preparation and arrangement of Laud’s MSS. for the press, occupied a good deal of his time, after which, in the month of November, 1693, his end approached. “It touched my spirits extremely,” says Mr. North, who visited him, “to see the low estate of this poor old saint; and with what wonderful regard and humility he treated those who visited him, and particularly myself.” His pious ejaculations were carefully recorded by his friends, and we are glad to find him saying to a visitor, “You and I have gone different ways in these late affairs, but I trust heaven’s gates are wide enough to receive us both. What I have done, I have done in the integrity of my heart.” The approach of mortality expands human charity, yet the ruling passion may be strong in death. Hence, though the dying man felt kindly towards all, he insisted that only Nonjurors should read prayers by his bedside, or officiate at his funeral. He entreated that God would bless and preserve His poor suffering Church, which by the Revolution had been almost destroyed; that he would bless and preserve the King, Queen, and Prince, and in His due time restore to them their undoubted rights.[226]
Sancroft had an active but narrow intellect, a playful but feeble imagination, a careful but perverted judgment. His powers had been cultivated by study, and his productions indicate compass and command of learning. Living in a narrow circle, his prejudices were strong; and bitter memories of Presbyterian oppression at Cambridge followed him to the grave. His nature was not destitute of affection and generosity, and he seems not to have been morose; he was simple in his living, rather than ascetic in his temper. By no means a Ritualist, he decidedly opposed Romanism, though his sentiments were what would be called decidedly High Church. Of his conscientiousness, honesty, and self-denial, the sacrifice of the Primacy is a sufficient proof; and of his obstinacy, the conduct he manifested on leaving Lambeth, and the persistency he showed in nonjuring habits, afford abundant evidence.
TILLOTSON.
Tillotson survived his predecessor little more than twelve months. He did not occupy his See long enough to accomplish much either as Bishop or Primate. In neither capacity has he left any memorials. No injunctions from him appear in the Archiepiscopal Register, and his biographer makes no mention of his visitations. We are told that he convened an assembly of Bishops at Lambeth, when they agreed with him upon certain regulations, which remained at his death unpublished, as he preferred they should appear with Royal as well as Episcopal authority, and he had not time to complete arrangements for that purpose. His biographer furnishes a list of his deeds, which form but a meagre total for a primacy of even two years and a half, when so much needed to be done. Le Neve, who is particular in noting archiepiscopal acts, has next to nothing to say of Tillotson’s archiepiscopal career. The most he can do is to supply extracts from a MS. diary, eulogizing the Primate’s eloquence and charities, and stating that William, after his Grace’s death, never mentioned him without some testimony of esteem. He used to say to Mr. Chadwick—son-in-law of the Archbishop—“I loved your father: I never knew an honester man, and I never had a better friend.”[227]
1694.
From what we know of him, we should judge that the deficiency of results during his episcopate is to be attributed more to the difficulties of the times and the inconvenience of circumstances, than to want of ability or the absence of devotedness.
He was seized, in the Chapel at Whitehall, with paralysis on the 18th of November, 1694; and though the fit crept over him slowly, he would not call for assistance, lest he should disturb Divine worship. His death occurred on the 22nd, at the age of 65.
His character, as compared with Sancroft’s, has been differently viewed by enemies and friends. Nonjurors said that his predecessor devised no project for revolutionizing the Church, implying that Tillotson did; that his predecessor was no Latitudinarian, more than insinuating that Tillotson was; and when they spoke of Sancroft as a true Father, they meant to affirm that his successor was by no means such. “Intruder,” “thief,” “robber,” “ecclesiastical usurper,” were epithets fastened on the Archbishop of the Revolution. Burnet, on the other hand, extols him as a faithful friend, a gentle enemy, with a clear head and a tender heart, without superstition in his religion, and, as a preacher, the best of his age.[228]
In saying so much, Burnet probably went no further than facts warrant. And I would add, that if Sancroft made a sacrifice in renouncing the Archbishopric, Tillotson, according to his private confessions, made scarcely less sacrifice in accepting it.
TILLOTSON.
Intellectually he was a man of eminence;[229] what Burnet advances cannot be gainsayed; for Tillotson’s writings indicate a rare amount of common sense and of calm judgment, the more remarkable in an age of manifold passions;[230] and he shows eminent precision and force in stating propositions and arguments, at a time when a great deal of loose reasoning passed muster. His sermons are chiefly remarkable in this point of view. Free from Puritan stiffness, and what many would call Puritan enthusiasm, free also from that academical affectation which had so long offended pure taste,—they were couched in the language of common life, and people felt a strange pleasure, which they could not describe, at hearing from the pulpit language such as they heard at their own fireside. He seems to have aimed at that which ought to be the object of every Christian preacher, to translate the truths of the Gospel into such forms of thought and utterance as were suited to the age in which he lived. He spoke upon religion just as men talk upon every-day topics; and thus he brought down Divinity to the level of his congregation. He could be earnest and even vehement in the inculcation of truth and duty; and never would he be more acceptable to a large class of his hearers than when, with tact and warmth, he exposed the errors of Popery—an opportunity for doing which he rarely, if ever, missed. His habit, too, of insisting upon the reasonableness of almost everything he taught would coincide with the current which, in educated circles, had strongly set in against the enforcement of morality and religion on grounds of authority. Preachers not only help to promote, but they reflect the spirit of their own times. Their modes of teaching are fashioned by it. A reaction had arisen against the authority of the Church, of the Fathers, of the Schoolmen, and of the Reformers; consequently, sermons filled with quotations and appeals to great names were no longer in request. Even Scripture came to be less favourably used in the way of exclusive authority, than in the way of addition to the force of reasoning. Texts were with many not so much corner-stones, as pillars and buttresses. Tillotson made a large use of Scripture, but the common key-note with him was the reasonableness of the doctrines he laid down. I should suppose that his appearance, his voice, and his manner in the pulpit—the fact of what he was, as well as the circumstance of what he said, and that indefinable something which contributes so much to a speaker’s popularity—added immensely to the impressiveness of his elocution. There is for modern readers nothing attractive in his style, quite the reverse. I know scarcely any other popular sermons so hard to read. Some are exceedingly dry and uninteresting.[231] From natural temperament he lacked what is signified by the word unction. He has no strokes of pathos, and the spirit of his theology adds to the defect, by depriving his sermons, to some extent, of that light and beauty, that tenderness and power, which proceed from a clear insight into the deepest spiritual wants of humanity, and the supply made for them in the unsearchable riches of Christ.
1694.
Wit was not wanting amongst Tillotson’s gifts. “I hate a fanatic in lawn sleeves,” cried one of his detractors—“I hate a knave in any sleeves,” replied the Prelate. He said South “wrote like a man, but bit like a dog;” and when South replied, “he would rather bite like a dog, than fawn like one,” Tillotson rejoined, “that for his part he would choose to be a spaniel rather than a cur.”[232] Sancroft was a Tory. Tillotson, through the discipline of the Revolution, had cast off the last remnant of the doctrine which he unfortunately inculcated at the time of Russel’s execution. Tillotson had by his Puritan birth, childhood, and education, imbibed feelings which he never completely lost; and his personal sympathies with those who retained a Puritan creed continued to live in his later days, fostered by friendly intercourse with members of nonconforming communions. Yet perhaps he had not a whit more of love for Nonconformity than High Churchmen, whose reputation for charity his own completely eclipsed.
TENISON.
As in our day, so it was in the days of William the III., when a vacancy occurred in the See of Canterbury, different names were suggested for its supply. Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, and Hall, Bishop of Bristol, were both mentioned, and their merits canvassed, but after the lot had been shaken a little in the Royal urn, guided by the Queen, it fell upon Thomas Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln. He had been a distinguished London clergyman, prominent in opposing Popery and King James. A nobleman, wishing to secure the Bishopric of Lincoln for some one else, and to prejudice the Queen against Tenison, told Her Majesty that he had delivered a funeral sermon for Nell Gwyn, and had praised that concubine of Charles II. “I have heard as much,” replied Mary; “this is a sign that that poor unfortunate woman died penitent; for if I can read a man’s heart through his looks, had not she made a truly pious and Christian end, the Doctor could never have been induced to speak well of her.”[233] Tenison’s conduct in the diocese of Lincoln increased the high estimation in which he was held by Mary, and consequently he was nominated to Canterbury on the 8th of December, 1694, and confirmed in his election in the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow on the 16th of January, 1695.
1695.
Between those two dates, his Royal patroness sickened with the small-pox, three days before Christmas, and died three days after. I shall employ a passage in the funeral sermon which he preached on the occasion, not only because it well describes the event, but also because it exhibits the preacher’s style, and occasioned at the time considerable controversy.
“Some few days before the feast of our Lord’s nativity, she found herself indisposed. I will not say that of this affliction she had any formal presage, but yet there was something that looked like an immediate preparation for it. I mean her choosing to hear read more than once a little before it, the last sermon of a good and learned man (now with God) upon this subject: ‘What, shall we receive good from the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?’ This indisposition speedily grew up into a dangerous distemper; as soon as this was understood, the earliest care of this charitable mistress was for the removing of such immediate servants, as might by distance, be preserved in health. Soon after this she fixed the times of prayers in that chamber to which her sickness had confined her.
TENISON.
“On that very day she showed how sensible she was of death, and how little she feared it. She required him who officiated there to add that collect in the Communion of the Sick, in which are these words, ‘That whensoever the soul shall depart from the body, it may be, without spot, presented unto Thee.’ ‘I will,’ said she, ‘have this collect read twice every day. All have need to be put in mind of death, and Princes as much as anybody else.’
“On Monday the flattering disease occasioned some hopes, though they were but faint ones. On the next day, the festival of Christ’s birth, those hopes were raised into a kind of assurance, and there was joy, a great joy seen in the countenances of all good people. That joy endured but for a day, and that day was closed with a very dismal night. The disease showed itself in various forms, and small hopes of life were now left. Then it was that he who performed the holy offices, believed himself obliged to acquaint the good Queen of the small hopes all had of any likelihood of her recovery. She received the tidings with a courage agreeable to the strength of her faith. Loath she was to terrify those about her; but for herself, she seemed neither to fear death, nor to covet life. It was, you may imagine, high satisfaction to hear her say a great many most Christian things, and this among them: ‘I believe I shall now soon die, and I thank God I have, from my youth, learned a true doctrine, that repentance is not to be put off to a death-bed.’ That day she called for prayers a third time, fearing she had slept a little, when they were the second time read; for she thought a duty was not performed if it was not minded.
1695.
“On Thursday she prepared herself for the blessed communion, to which she had been no stranger from the 15th year of her age. She was much concerned that she found herself in so dozing a condition, so she expressed it. To that, she added, ‘Others had need pray for me, seeing I am so little able to pray for myself.’ However, she stirred up her attention, and prayed to God for His assistance, and God heard her, for from thenceforth to the end of the office, she had the perfect command of her understanding, and was intent upon the great work she was going about; and so intent, that when a second draught was offered her, she refused it, saying, ‘I have but a little time to live, and I would spend it a better way.’
“The holy elements being ready, and several Bishops coming to be communicants, she repeated piously and distinctly, but with a low voice (for such her weakness had then made it) all the parts of the holy office which were proper for her, and received, with all the signs of a strong faith and fervent devotion, the blessed pledges of God’s favour, and thanked Him with a joyful heart that she was not deprived of the opportunity. She owned also, that God had been good to her, beyond her expectation, though in a circumstance of smaller importance, she having, without any indecency or difficulty, taken down that bread, when it had not been so easy for her, for some time, to swallow any other.
“That afternoon she called for prayers somewhat earlier than the appointed time, because she feared (that was her reason) that she should not long be so well composed. And so it came to pass; for every minute after this ’twas plain that death made nearer and nearer approaches. However, this true Christian kept her mind as fixed, as possible she could, upon the best things; and there were read, by her directions, several psalms of David, and also a chapter of a pious book concerning trust in God. Toward the latter end of it, her apprehension began to fail, yet not so much but that she could say a devout Amen to that prayer in which her pious soul was recommended to that God who gave it.
TENISON.
“During all this time there appeared nothing of impatience, nothing of frowardness, nothing of anger; there was heard nothing of murmuring, nothing of impertinence, nothing of ill-sound, and scarce a number of disjointed words.
“In all these afflictions the King was greatly afflicted; how sensibly, and yet how becomingly, many saw, but few have skill enough to describe; I am sure I have not. At last, the helps of art and prayers and tears not prevailing, a quarter before one on Friday morning, after two or three small strugglings of nature, and without such agonies as in such cases are common, she fell asleep.”[234]
I have thought it best to give this extract without any abridgment, as certain omissions in the account of the Queen’s last hours became the subject of much controversy.
Mary was buried in Westminster Abbey, with all the pomp of a purple and gold coffin, banners, and escutcheons, Lords in scarlet and ermine, and Commons in black mantles; far more interesting than all that is the following incident, carefully recorded: “A robin redbreast, which had taken refuge in the Abbey, was seen constantly on her hearse, and was looked upon with tender affection for its seeming love to the lamented Queen.”[235]
Loyalty to William, and sympathy with him in his great loss, were expressed in numerous addresses. A large collection of elegiac poems were published at Cambridge, entitled, Lacrymæ Cantabrigienses, &c., by a list of Dons, some of whom became Bishops; and the London Clergy vied with each other in their eulogiums—to use the words of a contemporary letter-writer, playing “the fool in their hyperbolical commendation of the Queen, that looks like fulsome flattery, and some expressions bordering upon blasphemy.”[236] The Presbyterians, headed by Dr. Bates, presented an address of condolence to His Majesty.
1695.
The nonjuring Clergy were much excited by the publication of Tenison’s sermon, since it represented the Queen as eminently religious and devout, but said not a word of any repentance for having assumed her father’s crown, and for the filial impiety considered to be involved in such conduct. A letter to this effect, published in the month of March, 1695, created an intense sensation, being attributed to Bishop Ken. It is printed as his composition in the Memoirs of Tenison; but the Layman who wrote Ken’s life pronounces it “a tissue of bitter obloquy against the Queen and the Archbishop, wholly inconsistent with the meek spirit of the author of the Practice of Divine Love.”[237] Upon internal grounds he rejects its genuineness. I feel disposed to do the same. Tenison also, it appears, doubted it, but I find no notice of Ken’s having disavowed the authorship; and we must not forget how possible it is for an amiable and pious man, under the influence of what he regards as duty, to say things which run counter to the generally calm and quiet current of his life.
LICENSING OF THE PRESS.
Tenison’s sermon was zealously defended by an anonymous pamphleteer, who included within his defence funeral discourses delivered by other dignitaries; and whilst the press was occupied by this controversy, the friends and agents of James were rejoicing in the death of Mary as endangering the position of William. The Church of England, it was now thought, would be weaned from his cause, by the outburst of his Presbyterian predilections, even to the overthrow of Episcopacy. The ruin of its interests seemed at hand, unless the Revolution could be revolutionized. Ten thousand men, the Jacobite plotters surmised, would suffice for the reconquest of the kingdom, since the Church of England party, who had been for William only on Mary’s account, were, it was thought, now entirely alienated from him. The confusion occasioned by her removal was relied upon as a proof of the inclination of the people to see their Stuart King back at St. James.[238]
1695.
In noticing the deaths of Sancroft, Tillotson, and Mary, we have passed over a period marked by one of those silent changes which often elude the notice of historians. The change referred to is connected very closely with religious freedom. We have had frequent occasion to notice restrictions on the liberty of the press. It is not necessary to go back further than 1662, when Lord Clarendon’s Act for licensing books was passed. The Act proscribed the printing and selling of heretical, schismatical, blasphemous, seditious, and treasonable publications. Nothing was to appear contrary to the Christian faith, or the doctrines or discipline of the Church of England. Books on law required a license from the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Chief Justices; books of history, a license from the Secretaries of State; books of divinity and philosophy, a license from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The folly of such restrictions—proved by their futility when evaded, and by their mischievousness when carried into effect—needs no comment. The Act now noticed was made to be in force for two years. It was then continued. In 1685 it was re-enacted for seven years. It continued through the Revolution; and in 1692 was renewed under the Tories for two years more. At four different times, from 1694 to 1698, attempts were made in Parliament to prepare new Bills for licensing printing presses, and the Whigs on one occasion seemed on the point of following the example of their political rivals. Movement in the old direction went so far once, that a restrictive Bill passed the Lords and was read in the Commons—to be thrown out on a second reading. Church and State thus narrowly missed being shackled again in the exercise of rights ever precious to enlightened humanity; and the year 1694, though unmarked in history, is illustrious in fact through the melting away for ever of a long-continued and mischievous licensing law. Not, however, as we shall presently see, that all legislative interference with the publishers of opinions then terminated; but a great obstacle vanished out of the path to that wide intellectual liberty which as a nation we now enjoy.