CHAPTER XIV.
Attempts were not wanting on the part of some of the Bishops to maintain ecclesiastical discipline. There are papers amongst the Tanner MSS. which indicate what went on amidst the throes of the Revolution, in the diocese of Norwich, before the ejectment of Bishop Lloyd. John Gibbs, Rector of Gissing, had been a convert to the Church of Rome; but on the 14th of November, nine days after the landing of the Prince of Orange, when Protestant East Anglicans would be exulting at the advent of the Deliverer, this recusant is referred to as wishing to be reconciled with the Church of his fathers; and a report is given of the sermon which he preached on the occasion.[405] A little while afterwards an instance occurs of clerical immorality, and of that kind of trouble which has often disturbed episcopal peace: a Norwich rector was accused of “lewdness,” amounting to a capital crime.
The case was undoubted. It came to the Bishop’s knowledge. To conceal the fact would have been to connive at the sin, to make it known to endanger the culprit’s life. Indeed, to conceal it was no longer possible, and to stifle the charge was felt to be a scandal to religion. Under these circumstances, Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, asked the Archbishop whether, by a judicial monition, he might not require the offender to abstain from clerical functions till he could purge himself from the terrible accusation brought against him.
The Canon law, he said, did not deal with the offence in question, and he felt himself in much difficulty as to the course of proceeding. As capital punishment might follow conviction, the Bishop feared lest it should prove a causa sanguinis—an affair with which he wished to have nothing to do. The common tactics of defence were adopted by the accused. He appealed to the Archdeacon, with the view of gaining time, and by such means he cunningly slipped entirely out of the hands of the Consistory at Norwich; but the Bishop comforted himself by hoping that the criminal would meet with justice at Doctors’ Commons.
On the 30th of August, 1689, when Lloyd had been himself suspended, he wrote to Sancroft, saying, “It is too late for me now to meddle further in the matter.”[406]
After the Revolution, we meet with a case in which moral discipline was exercised by Patrick, Bishop of Ely. The Incumbent of Great Eversden had, by intemperance, drowned his reason and scandalized his profession. Grieved at what he heard, the Bishop required him to preach two penitential sermons, one in each of the churches where he officiated, from the words, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” He did so, and concluded with the words: “You see, beloved, what a black indictment I have here drawn up against myself, wherein I have not been favourable or partial to my fatal miscarriages, but have dissected and ripped up my many enormous crimes, and exposed them to public view. I beseech you not to be too censorious and uncharitable, since I have passed so severe a censure upon myself.”[407]
WORSHIP.
A passing remark is required touching the manner of worship. Nothing like what is now called Ritualism had then any existence. Things continued much as they were before. No coloured vestments were worn by Anglicans either within or without the Establishment, nor were there any attempts at extraordinary ornamentation of either altars or churches. Æsthetic culture, apart from distinctive ecclesiastical opinions, may powerfully affect psalmody, and other accompaniments of devotion, as well as the structure and adornment of the House of God; but the reign of William was not at all an age in which such culture prevailed. Some religious people have a keen sense of propriety as to outward observances; others have none. It matters not to them, though the adoration of the High and Lofty One be marked by slovenliness of arrangement and irreverence of behaviour. There were many persons of this kind amongst Clergy and laity during the last ten, as there had been during the previous fifty years of the seventeenth century.
The use of the surplice in the pulpit, now a common practice with almost all sections in the Established Church, was within our own recollection very rare, and when first prominently introduced, produced excitement and confusion. It seems to have been a novelty in the reign of William III. “Yesterday,” says the writer of a letter in 1696, “I saw in Low Leighton Church, that which to my remembrance I never did see in a church in England but once, and that is a minister preach in a surplice for Mr. Harrison (whereas other ministers on Fast-days do not so much as wear any surplice), he, by way of supererogation, preached in his. The sight did stir up in me more of pity than anger to see the folly of the man; but if he preach in a fool’s coat we will go and hear him.”[408]
Low Leighton (or Leyton), it will be remembered, was the parish in which John Strype fulfilled his ministry, and therefore it was in the pulpit of that distinguished ecclesiologist, that the writer of the extract beheld the phenomenon which startled him out of his propriety; if the surplice was worn by the Incumbent, or with his sanction, the circumstance would indicate that he regarded the usage as canonical, however it might have fallen into abeyance.
Amongst the Lambeth archives is a very long letter by Edmund Bowerman, Vicar of Codrington, who gives a curious account of his parish, of the extreme ignorance and irreligion of the people, and of their desecration of the church. They played cards on the communion-table, and when they met to choose churchwardens, sat with their hats on, smoking and drinking—the clerk gravely saying, with a pipe in his mouth, that such had been the practice for the last sixty years. Not ten persons in the place had ever received the Sacrament; one used to take it by himself in brown bread and small beer.[409]
An important change took place in the psalmody of the Church of England. The archaic version of the Psalms, by Sternhold and Hopkins, kept possession in cathedral and parish congregations until the middle of the reign of William III. Attempts had been made at improving the versification. A Century of Select Psalms, in verse, for the use of the Charterhouse, by Dr. Patrick, appeared in 1679. Richard Goodridge followed him by a similar effort in 1682. Dr. Simon Ford, not to mention others, attempted something of the same kind in 1688. But a more successful enterprise was accomplished by Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate, who, in 1695, published a tentative Essay, and in 1696 a Complete New Version, differing from such as they themselves had previously prepared. This version, afterwards so popular, did not escape criticism; but was most determinately opposed by Dr. Beveridge, who preferred the old rhymes of the Reformation to any modern rendering of the Songs of David. His course of argument, if it had any force, would be fatal to any attempt at improving scripture translations of all kinds.[410]
CHARACTER OF THE CLERGY.
The character of the Clergy at that time has been drawn by different hands. Samuel Wesley, in the Athenian Oracle, said, that out of fifty or threescore parishes with which he was acquainted, he could not think of above three or four clergymen who disgraced their office.
The Nonjurors represented their brethren in the Establishment as newsmongers and busy-bodies, guilty of non-residence, faulty in their morals, and negligent of their duties. Some were often seen frequenting ale-houses and taverns, where they behaved disorderly. The communion in the London parish churches, before largely attended, was, according to the same authority, unfrequented; and in cathedral churches things were worse, so that the alms collected did little more than pay for the bread and wine.[411]
Nonjurors looked through a prejudiced medium at those who took the oaths. They regarded most of them as indifferent to a matter of immense importance, and not a few as deliberately dishonest, swearing to that which they did not believe. The amount of false swearing at that period must have been prodigious; and the fact could not fail to produce mischievous results—it demoralized such as indulged in it, and impressed people with an idea of the falseness of their instructors. Men looking at the subject from another point of the compass, also came to an unfavourable conclusion. Whiston declared how well he remembered that by far the greater part of University members and clergymen took the oaths with a doubtful, if not an accusing, conscience. Considering the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance in which they had been educated, he thought it could not be otherwise; and he scarcely knew who were the worst, some who imposed or some who submitted to the new law of allegiance.[412]
As the Nonjurors judged of ministers through the medium of the oath question, so Whiston, who rejected the Athanasian Creed, judged of ministers through the medium of that formulary. No doubt he was prejudiced, and his conclusions were exaggerated; but it is hard to understand how men of latitudinarian views could, with thorough honesty, repeat an intensely orthodox formulary imbued with an intensely exclusive spirit. What Whiston says of a rather later period, may be applied here. Conversing with Lord Chief Justice King, about signing articles not believed, in order to secure preferment, he heard his Lordship observe, “We must not lose our usefulness for scruples.” “In your Courts do they allow of such prevarication?” asked the Presbyter. “Certainly not,” rejoined the lawyer. “Suppose then,” returned Whiston, “God Almighty should be as just in the next world as my Lord Chief Justice is in this, where are we then?”[413] Whiston’s estimate of some of the Clergy is corroborated by Burnet, who mourns over the inconsistency of men described as practically contradicting the oaths they had taken and the prayers they preferred.[414]
CHARACTER OF THE CLERGY.
De Foe acknowledged that there were in England a great many religious persons, both among the gentry and Clergy; but he remarked upon the inconsistency of many in both classes. “The parson preaches a thundering sermon against drunkenness, and the justice of peace sets my poor neighbour in the stocks; and I am like to be much the better for either, when I know, perhaps, that this same parson and this same justice were both drunk together but the night before. A vicious parson that preaches well, but lives ill, may be likened to an unskilful horseman, who opens a gate on the wrong side, and lets other folks through, but shuts himself out.”[415] In judging of the Clergy of those days, we must take into account indirect evidence. The Convocation controversy, degenerating into a contemptible feud between class and class, or into a despicable squabble between clergyman and clergyman, proved the extensive existence of prejudice, obstinacy, and resentment, and must have drawn off the minds of many from the discharge of their proper duties. Neither was the method of conducting controversy on more important points—the doctrine of the Trinity, for example—at all calculated to preserve ministers of religion from injurious habits; for the temper shown in books and tracts on this subject is most irreverent, most conceited, most uncharitable, most unchristian.
It should also be noticed, that after religious freedom to some extent had been legalized by the Toleration Act, a clerical reaction violently set in. Low Churchmen had been the principal advocates for granting liberty of worship to their Nonconforming brethren; but beyond their circle were some who, during appearances of Popery under James II., had looked with sympathy upon fellow Protestants outside their own pale, and had afterwards hailed them with a kindly welcome to the enjoyment of their rights. When the no-Popery tempest subsided, and when political fears, raised by Royal despotism, passed away, some of these persons relapsed into their previous state, and together with those who had been bigoted throughout, looked at Nonconformists with bitterness and hatred.[416] A wide current of intolerant feeling returned, of which the result became visible enough after the accession of Queen Anne.
CONDITION OF THE CLERGY.
Turning from the character of the Clergy to notice their circumstances, we meet with an interesting picture of domestic life in the case of the father of the Wesleys. He was a rector upon £50 a year at South Ormsby, a little village in Lincolnshire, skirting the parks and woodlands of a goodly mansion. We find the same clergyman shortly afterwards established in the same county at the Rectory of Epworth, described, in a survey of the period, as consisting of “five bays built all of timber and plaister, and covered with straw thatch, the whole building being contrived into three stories, and disposed into seven chief rooms, namely—a kitchen, a hall, a parlour, a buttery, and three large upper rooms, besides some others of common use, and also a little garden impaled between the stone wall and the south.”[417] This minute description brings before us a humble, but pleasant parsonage of the end of the seventeenth century; and it is added that to the dwelling stood attached one barn of six bays, likewise built of clay and thatch; also one dovecote of timber and plaister, and one hempkiln. The glebe was stocked. Cows fed in the meadows, and pigs in the stye. A nag and two fillies occupied the stable, and flax and barley waved in the fields. The parishioners were, according to Wesley’s daughter, “unpolished wights,” “dull as asses,” and with heads “impervious as stones.” The clerical dress, the rustic manner, and the lowly employments of the Rector, are portrayed by another member of the gifted family:
“To rub his cassock’s draggled tail,
Or reach his hat from off the nail,
Or seek the key to draw the ale,
When damsel haps to steal it;
To burn his pipe, or mend his clothes,
Or nicely darn his russet hose,
For comfort of his aged toes,
So fine they cannot feel it.”
The outlay upon taking the new living amounted to £50—just one-fourth of the annual income of the living. It was a practice for parish officers to compel people to lighten parochial burdens by taking, as apprentices, the children of paupers; and one of these unfortunates was actually palmed on the Epworth Incumbent, who said he supposed he must teach the boy “to beat rhyme.” These items are worth mentioning as illustrations of the times, and in this case they are interesting in connection with the early life of the founder of Methodism and the master of English psalmody. The two boys played in the rectory garden; and from their parents derived some of the power and peculiarity of their mature life. The parents, it is curious to remember, differed on the Jacobite question; and a story is told to the effect that Wesley, observing that his wife did not pray for William, and hearing her declare she could regard him only as Prince of Orange, told her, in sorrowing words, “If that be the case, you and I must part; for if we have two Kings, we must have two beds.” It is added that he took horse and rode to London; and being “Convocation man” for the diocese of Lincoln, resided in the Metropolis a whole year without corresponding with his family. The anecdote perhaps has in it much of exaggeration, and it has been questioned of late more than once, yet one would think there must be some truth in it, since it rests on the authority of John Wesley.[418] At that time a mean-looking parsonage was the rule, not the exception: and even in the parish of Kensington, though honoured by the presence of Royalty, the vicarage is described as having been of a very humble character, with lattice windows. A large proportion of the livings were very poor, some as low as £14 or £15 per annum.[419] Wesley’s first income was £30 a year from a curacy in London; and if so small a sum was paid in the Metropolis, what must it have been in some of the provinces! The pitiful condition of clergymen under Charles II. could have undergone no great improvement under William III. Of course in places of importance, if clerical incomes happened to reach a large amount, a handsome rectory or vicarage might be found, of which a few, built in Sir Christopher Wren’s time, with more regard to convenience than taste, still remain. Of nearly the same date, deaneries and prebendal houses still linger amongst us—and long may they linger—snugly ensconced amidst pleasant gardens, in those most pleasant of all English precincts—our cathedral closes—so green and quiet, solemn and quaint.
CONDITION OF THE CLERGY.
As in the reign of Charles II., so in the reign of William III., the office of chaplain in the families of the great was not enviable. The salary was small, the position undignified, the treatment often disrespectful, and the means of usefulness limited and questionable. In the Athenian Oracle, the chaplain of a family not very regular or religious—forced to see Misses drinking and gaming, and afraid to open his mouth on the subject—complains of the miseries of his situation; he inquires what he ought to do, so as neither to betray religion nor give offence. He could not believe that to say grace and read prayers, when his patron was at leisure, constituted his duty, yet he found his brethren thought they had done enough when they had done no more than that.[420] Thomas Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Sodor and Man, certainly took a different view, for when chaplain and tutor to Lord Derby, he, with commendable faithfulness, rebuked his pupil’s extravagance, so as to restore his reputation and relieve his creditors. Once, as the young nobleman was about to sign his name, he felt some melted sealing-wax dropped on his finger by this eccentric mentor, who remarked, that the pain ought to impress him with a resolution never to sign what he had never examined.[421]
Clerical costume is a trifle worth only a passing sentence, and it may be observed that it remained the same after the Revolution as before. But Archbishop Tillotson introduced a novelty. He is the first Prelate represented in a wig. The wig is of moderate dimensions, and not much unlike a head of natural hair. It is curious to find him remarking upon this innovation in one of his sermons. “I can remember, since the wearing the hair below the ears was looked upon as a sin of the first magnitude; and when ministers generally, whatever their text was, did either find or make occasion to reprove the great sin of long hair; and if they saw anyone in the congregation guilty in that kind, they would point him out particularly, and let fly at him with great zeal.”[422]
Partly as the result of causes at work ever since the Restoration—such as the poverty, the imperfect education, and the unexemplary character of many incumbents and curates—the Clergy, as a class, were in low esteem. What has been related of the profession in the reign of Charles II. produced effects which lasted long, and the conduct of a number of Constitutionalists, as well as of Jacobites, contributed to deepen the unpopularity of the order. Good men, lamenting the evils of the age, traced to them this state of feeling, and Robert Nelson speaks of the great contempt of the Clergy, than which he thought nothing could be a greater evidence of the decayed state of religion.[423]
STATE OF SOCIETY.
Whatever may be the relation between social corruption and clerical unpopularity, it is certain the two things co-existed. Nelson deplored a decay of the spirit and life of devotion;[424] Thoresby declared that God seemed angry with the nation, as well He might, and so hid counsel from men, and left them to take such courses as would be neither for their own nor the public good;[425] and Burnet relates, that profane wits were delighted at the circulation of books against the Trinity; that it became a common thing to treat mysteries in religion as priestly contrivances; and that, under cover of popular expressions, the enemies of religion vented their impieties.[426] Patrick lamented the prevalent coldness and carelessness in religion, “scarce an handful of people appearing in many churches at Divine Service, when the playhouses were crowded every day with numerous spectators;”[427] and John Norris referred to the decay of Christian piety and the universal corruption of manners. Christ seemed to him, asleep in the sacred vessel, while the tempest raged, and the waves almost overwhelmed the bark. Students of prophecy, regarding the state of Christianity as anti-christianized, anticipated the outpouring of the vials of wrath, the breaking-up of Christendom, and the replacement of God’s chosen people, the Jews, on the ruins of the Gentile Church.[428]
Profane swearing so far prevailed, that it is said in many circles a man’s discourse was hardly agreeable without it;[429] and it is remarkable that the instances given of John Howe’s courtesy, and the wisdom with which he administered reproof, relates to the frequent utterance of oaths. On one occasion, a gentleman addicted to this practice expatiated at great length on the merits of Charles I. Howe remarked that in his enumeration of the excellencies of the unfortunate Sovereign, he had omitted one—that he was never known to utter an oath in common discourse. On another occasion, he heard two gentlemen in the street damning each other. The Divine, taking off his hat with a polite bow, exclaimed, “I pray God save you both!” Meeting a nobleman in the park, who, in speaking of the Occasional Conformity Bill, burst into a rage and said, “Damn the wretches! for they are mad, and will bring us all into confusion!” Howe replied, “My Lord, it is a great satisfaction to us, who in all affairs of this nature desire to look upwards, that there is a God who governs the world, to whom we can leave the issues and events of things; and we are satisfied, and may thereupon be easy, that He will not fail in due time of making a suitable retribution to all, according to their present carriage. And this great Ruler of the world, my Lord, has among other things also declared, He will make a difference between him that sweareth and him that feareth an oath.” “Sir, I thank you for your freedom,” was the reply; “I understand your meaning: I shall endeavour to make a good use of it.” “My Lord,” added Howe, “I have a great deal more reason to thank your Lordship for saving me the most difficult part of a discourse, which is the application.”[430]
Intemperance, increasing from the time of the Restoration, continued to extend its curses towards the close of the eighteenth century; old public-houses attracted more customers than ever, and many new ones were opened, the money spent in this way by the lower classes reaching an incredible amount.[431] Sober people lamented that their neighbours were, with temperance, losing also that kindliness of temper which had been prevalent amongst Englishmen.
SUPERSTITION.
The shock of an earthquake in September, 1692, alarmed the nation, and made “those who studied apocalyptical matters imagine that the end of the world drew near.” Burnet tells us it brought people “to more of an outward face of virtue and sobriety;” but, in his apprehension, they “became deeply corrupted in principle; a disbelief of revealed religion, and a profane mocking at the Christian faith and the mysteries of it, became avowed and scandalous.” Orders were given to execute the laws against drunkenness, swearing, and the profanation of the Lord’s-day; and, consequently, loud complaints arose of Puritanical regulations, savouring of John Knox’s doctrine and discipline. Blame for this was laid on the Bishop of Salisbury’s shoulders; and to make the whole thing appear ridiculous, a noble commentator on the right reverend historian, relates that hackney-coaches were not allowed to be used on the Sabbath, and constables were directed to take away pies and puddings from anybody who might be carrying them through the streets.[432]
Popular opinion in reference to supernatural agencies requires some notice, and presents signs of both mental stagnation and mental progress. Many were in a state of superstition as immovable as that of their fathers, believing in the reality, and smitten with the terrors, of diabolical possession and infernal witchcraft. Even towards the end of William’s reign, the diocese of Worcester was infected with this kind of faith; and the Bishop, Dr. Lloyd—who succeeded Stillingfleet—urged his Clergy to preach against errors respecting Satanic agency, indicating to them his own views on the subject. He did not doubt the extraordinary power of the Devil over heathen nations in ancient and modern times; but he thought the Gospel had diminished his power; that those who were in the covenant of grace could not be injured by him, either in their persons, their possessions, or their children; nevertheless he admitted that a man, by profligacy, might yield himself to the great enemy, but could not receive from him supernatural help to hurt anybody else.[433]
Lancashire continued the home of such beliefs, and in the middle of King William’s reign, a place in that county called Surrey became powerfully agitated by the case of a lad, who stood upon his head, danced upon his knees, scrambled about on all fours, barked like a dog, talked shreds of Latin, ran into the water, and told things at a distance—all, it was said, the result of selling his soul to the Devil, in hopes of thereby becoming a first-rate dancer. The neighbours treated it as a real possession, and so did certain Presbyterian ministers, who appointed days of fasting and prayer on the youth’s behalf, and continued them weekly for a twelvemonth. Folks from the country flocked in to see and hear the marvels going on, and made themselves merry at the expense of the fruitless intercessors; they, in their turn, laid their want of success at the door of the boy’s family, saying the witches were in league with Satan, and therefore supplication could not avail. The supposed demoniac named three Popish priests as likely to cure him—a circumstance which led the discomfited Presbyterians to say that the Devil had more mind to let the Popish priests have “the credit of casting him out, because his ends would be better served by Popery than by them.”
The Episcopal Clergy in the neighbourhood stood aloof from this stupid credulity. That the boy had been given to tricks from his early days was shown by witnesses; and collusions with his sister in pretended intercourse with the spirit-world were also proved. Foolish and wretched creatures now began to trade upon what had been a genuine belief, and their conduct, whilst it showed that sincerity was parting company with superstition, helped to undermine faith in all such things.
SUPERSTITION.
In London, similar but still more disgusting exhibitions were made by people pretending to be possessed; and in one case a miserable woman, through an accusation for witchcraft, had her hair torn off her head, and after being kicked and trampled on, was thrown into a horse-pond. A new result followed: instead of the supposed witch being punished, the pretended victim was. All sorts of pretences were shown up, and pretenders suffered the punishment they deserved, whilst poor old crones, bent double with age, escaped the river, the gallows, and the stake. Between 1640 and 1680, many unhappy creatures were punished for witchcraft. Between 1680 and 1691, three were hanged at Exeter, the last instance of capital punishment inflicted in England for this offence; three were imprisoned in Somersetshire; and several in other counties were ducked in horse-ponds.
An accused widow, really insane, died in Beccles Gaol; another, represented as having black and white imps, which turned out to be a white lock of wool in a basket, throwing a deep shadow, was acquitted. Afterwards, acquittals became common; indeed, I find no more convictions in England during the reign of William III.; on the other hand, I notice cases of people put in the pillory for pretending to be possessed.[434] Very much of this change must be ascribed to the course pursued by Lord Chief Justice Holt. The wise and humane Sir Matthew Hale had retained through life a belief in the black act. His wisdom and humanity did not prove sufficient to penetrate to the delusion which from boyhood lay all around him; but Sir John Holt came into the world at a later period, and when he reached manhood, old prejudices had less power, the atmosphere of superstition was less dense; his shrewdness led him to see the falsehood of the theory, and to him belongs the honour of having swept the dust and dirt of the whole business clean out of English courts for ever.
The merit of Sir John Holt is all the greater in that a belief in bewitchment kept ground in many religious minds; and it was still common in other lands to punish people accused of the offence. One of the last books Baxter wrote contained notices of diabolical agencies, which he pressed upon atheists, sadducees, and infidels, with a view to their conversion. Many of the stories were communicated by such men as the Duke of Lauderdale, Lord Broghill, Dr. Daniel Williams, and the Rev. Thomas Evelyn, of Dublin, the last two being by no means persons of a superstitious turn. Making allowance for incorrect information, clever imposture, and the operation of natural causes, we find mentioned some things which must be referred to the operation of occult influences, never yet explained. The idea that there are no mysteries, evil as well as good, in the universe, is quite as much a prejudice, as the idea current in the days of Baxter; and the words which Shakespeare puts into the lips of Hamlet are profoundly wise—
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our[435] philosophy.”
Yet to make use of such stories as Baxter tells for religious purposes is vain. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” His book no doubt proved to be labour lost, but he had plenty of people still to keep him in countenance. Samuel Wesley wrote in defence of the doctrine,[436] and in Scotland witch finding went on with vigour. In 1697 no less than twenty-eight people were accused, and seven of them were executed.[437] Nineteen were hanged within sixteen months (1692–3) in New England; eight more were condemned; one hundred and fifty were imprisoned; above two hundred were accused, of whom many fled the country to save their lives.[438]
SUPERSTITION.
One piece of superstition maintained by English Sovereigns received a vigorous check, but not a death-blow. I have described the ceremony of touching for the “king’s evil,” so ostentatiously revived by Charles II. His brother perpetuated the practice. The pecuniary benefit of submitting to the operation, no doubt, made it very popular, since it cost £10,000 a year for silver coins to be hung round the necks of patients. When, at the close of Lent, crowds besieged his doors, William exclaimed, “It is a silly superstition; give the poor creatures some money, and send them away.” Once only could he be prevailed upon to touch a suppliant, when he added, “God give you better health, and more sense.” There were not wanting some to reproach the King as cruel and impious, for refusing to exercise a Divine gift; but the Jacobites turned his conduct to account by saying, he did not dare to pretend to a power which only belonged to the Lord’s anointed.